JIM HIGHTOWER
The People Are Revolting (in the very best sense of the word!) (Alternative Tentacles)
Reviewed by Rusty Pipes

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This is an incendiary little spoken word CD by one of America's great populists, Jim Hightower. Recorded live mostly in 2001, Jim is espousing political activism in a big way here, something that's sorely needed in these plutocratic times.

If you've never heard of him before, Hightower was once a public official in Texas, a rare progressive in that state. Since then he's become a well-known activist, writing columns, doing radio commentary, writing newsletters like the Hightower Lowdown and books like If The Gods Had Meant Us To Vote, They Would Have Given Us Candidates.

Jim couches his observations on politics in an earthy, downhome style that speaks to core American values like justice and democracy that unify us. At times a history professor, other times almost a preacher, Hightower makes sure we are motivated to clean up corruption whether we are members of the Greens, the Democrats or even the Christian Coalition. No small trick getting a group like that together! "The fight," he says, "is not about a nickel a bushel on wheat, or on a pound of milk, or another dollar an hour on a wage, not another regulation we can get from city council -- it is about fairness, justice and equal opportunity."

The first section of the CD contains an introduction of Hightower at an engagement in Minnesota delivered with gusto by the late Paul Wellstone. Paul was one of the shining lights of progressive populism and his words are passionate; I had never heard him speak before and his contribution here only magnifies the tragedy of his death while campaigning in 2002. The rest of the CD is all vintage Hightower speechifying, plus several short pieces, rather like a greatest hits sampler, from his radio show. Choice quotes include things like "George Bush as governor was an absolute corporate wet dream!" and "A culture in which the bottom line is everything naturally attracts the whatever-it-takes, Type-A, get-outta-my-way, the public-good-be-damned, ideologically narrow, self-aggrandizing Enroner to be in charge of these overbearing private empires."

To counteract the power of money politics, Hightower recommends agitation. Not violence of course, but agitating people to take their government back and giving sage advice on how to do it. The real problem wasn't chads in George W.'s election, he says, it was the fact that there were "120 million missing votes" because people didn't bother to go to the polls.

"An agitator," Hightower says, "is the center post in a washing machine that gets all the dirt out." Putting this on the center post of your CD player might make an agitator out of you too!

© 2003 - Rusty Pipes