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Hightower Lowdown
"You can't have a mass movement without the masses."--Fred Harris, senator from Oklahoma
In This Issue
But the real issues weren't ever on the table
Election 2000 already decided! big money's guy wins it!
Also in this issue:
- Aol-time warner: more synergy, less democracy
- Battle in seattle: round two
- F.a.r.m. fights hog factories
- F.a.r.m. fights hog factories
- Judicial justice for sale
- Dining out organically
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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F.a.r.m. fights hog factories
Illinois prides itself as "The Land of Lincoln," but it's fast becoming "The Land of Stinkin"
The stink is coming from gigantic hog factories located throughout the countryside[--]factories housing some 80,000 hogs each and generating more waste than a city of 300,000 people. Yet while cities must treat human waste, the corporate owners of these hog factories are allowed to simply funnel the raw hog excrement into huge ponds, which they delicately refer to as "lagoons."
The stink from a hog lagoon is simply unimaginable. It drifts for miles, and you can't hide from it. And with the stink comes disease. That's why Kdren Hudson, an Illinois grain farmer, has joined with others to create F.A.R.M. Families Against Rural Messes. F.A.R.M. is a grassroots group that opposes hog factories and wants the legislature to stop the corporate owners from foisting their stink and disease causing sewage on everyone else.
For daring to stand up to these profiteering polluters, Karen and others have received death threats, and she has experienced the joy of having hog waste dumped on her front porch. But Karen and company are not backing down, despite the thuggish tactics of her corporate enemies.
To learn more about this great grassroots effort contact F.A.R.M. at 309- 742- 8895.