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Hightower Lowdown
"The water won't clear up 'til we get the hogs out of the creek." -- Jim Hightower
In This Issue
Gore-Bush is a battle of platitudinous dittos
Let's builld a politics that gives us a real chance
Also in this issue:
July's Lowdown
Big biz wants to own the information superhighway while We the People bump along the backroads
In the 1970s, Lily Tomlin developed an iconic comic character she named Ernestine--a telephone clerk who took perverse pleasure from hectoring customers. Her character was a perfect portrayal of the arrogance of AT&T, the monopolistic telephone giant of that day. In one skit on on the TV show, Laugh-In, Tomlin had Ernestine delivering a TV pitch for the corporation:
"A gracious hello," she cheerfully began, speaking directly into the camera. "Here at the Phone Company, we handle 84 billion calls a year. So, we realize that every so often, you can't get an operator, or for no apparent reason your phone goes out of order, or perhaps you get charged for a call you didn't make. We don't care!"
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Clean your money for cleaner politics
Would you be willing to spend $5 to have your voice and your vote count in politics again?
This is not a come-on, but a leg mate way for We the People to reclaim our democracy at a cost of no more than five bucks each per election year. It's called the "Clean Money Option," and the people of Mzona, Maine, Massachussets, and Vermont have already voted it into effect for their state elections.
This year, Missouri and Oregon have Clean Money initiatives on their ballots, put there by ordinary citizens who want their candidates to win on the basis of ideas and qualifications, not the size of their campaign contributions.
These initiatives provide public financing of state elections for candidates who agree not to take private funds. In Oregon, Measure 6 provides $25,000 in a primary election for qualifying candidates and $50,000 each for the general election.
Wait a minute, you say—why the hell should we give our tax dollars to politicians? Hello? We already give all our tax dollars to politicians to allocate each year, billions of which then go to favors for their big campaign contributors. We'll save these billions by eliminating those special-interest contributors.
The Clean Money fund also means that a regular person can run for office-a school teacher, carpenter, or shop owner has the same access to funding that the incumbent does.