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Hightower Lowdown
"You can spend your time agonizing or organizing." -- Dorothy Day
January's Lowdown
Yes we can manage this country without the corporate priesthood--the cooperative movement shows us how
We're being told by today's High Priests of Conventional Wisdom that everyone and everything in our economic cosmos necessarily revolves around one dazzling star: the corporation. This heavenly institution, the HPCW explain, has such financial and political mass that it is the optimal force for organizing and directing our society's economic affairs, including the terms of employment and production.
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In This Issue
The "Re-defeat Bush" movement is one thing...but
We'll have to build the people's John Kerry
Also in this issue:
- Trumping trump
- Fantasies of corporate shills
- The costs of privatized war
- The run for the money
- Send an "abe" to arizona
- Corporate tax evaders
- Let's put the corruption on tv
- Whose town is it?
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The run for the money
Time for another report from the Wide, Wide, Wide, WILD World of Sports. This year's thoroughbred horse-racing season was a thriller! I'm not talking about strong-hearted Smarty Jones' run at being the first horse to win the Triple Crown in 26 years. No, I'm talking about the thrilling breakthrough made by jockeys this Triple Crown year. A group of them filed and won a federal lawsuit allowing them to advance the cause of horse-racing by—prepare to be thrilled—wearing corporate advertising on their racing pants! .
Is this a great country, or what? .
The stars of NASCAR and the PGA can plaster their outfits with ads, so why not jockeys? It's a First Amendment issue, they told the court. Besides, corporate ads could pay them $30,000 apiece. .
The good news? Not all standards of tastefulness have been trampled by this ruling. For one, jockey pants at the Derby cannot promote gambling, which strikes me as a bit odd, since gambling is to horse-racing as bread is to butter. Also, a jockey's corporate ad cannot conflict with the track's own sponsors—no Chevy logos, for example, at Ford's Derby (again, a bit odd, since the case was said to be about free speech). Finally, the ads cannot be "inappropriate," which is a bit vague, but I guess this rules out promos for glue or horsehide furniture