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Hightower Lowdown
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three left turns do. -- Jim Hightower
In This Issue
A lod of Bush baloney enacted since 9/11
Looting the treasury
Also in this issue:
- congressional grab bag
- resurrecting cointelpro
- mr. schwab’s ducky deal
- please, bill, go away
- assembly-line surgery
Do Something!
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!"
[read more]
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mr. schwab’s ducky deal
Charles Schwab is one lucky duck. Not only is he a billionaire stockbroker, heading the Wall Street firm that bears his family name, but he also owns a private duck-hunting club on 1,500 acres of wetlands in picturesque Northern California. He calls it Casa de Patos — Spanish for “House of Ducks.”
In order to attract more feathered friends within gunshot range of his duck-loving pals, Schwab has had much of Casa de Patos planted in rice.
Now, Charlie didn’t get to be a billionaire by spending his money foolishly. Instead, he spends your money foolishly. His legal beagles figured out that as a rice grower, Schwab was eligible for federal farm-program subsidies from us taxpayers — lots of subsidies. Mr. and Ms. Joe Schmoe Taxpayer fork over some $500,000 a year in federal crop-support funds so Schwab can be sure that guests at his exclusive club have plenty of ducks to kill.
This program was meant to help struggling small farmers — not a pleasure-seeking Wall Streeter with a net worth of some $4 billion. With program perverters like Schwab, we taxpayers are sitting ducks.
To help return the farm program to real farmers, call Farm Aid: 617-354-2922.