Hightower Lowdown

As most of us know by now, the Republicrat two party duopoly is squeezing the life out of our democratic system. The majority no longer has a political home, and the choices are so dismal that there are more people in America today who bowl than vote in presidential elections.

Both national parties now exist as wholly owned subsidiaries of corporate America, selling two brands of the same corporate agenda: Bud Light-Miller Lite/George Bush- Al Gore, take your choice. Mighty small beer. But wait, this is America! We don't have to take what the Powers That Be give to us. We can create a new politics, just as others before us have had to do: the revolutionaries of 1776, the abolitionists, the suffragists, the populists, the A.F.L, the Wobblies, the C.I.O., the civil rights movement, the antiwar protesters . . . and, today, the democracy agitators who are in rebellion against global corporate rule. In every case, ordinary citizens have had to do the extraordinary, going right into the face of entrenched political and economic power, clobbering the system, getting clobbered in return, yet persevering, pushing . . . and eventually widening the possibilities of democratic participation. And, in every case, these democratizing movements have had to create their own political channels. [ read more ]