DOCSLIB.ORG

They're Stealing Our Country, and It's Time to Take It Back

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text

Load more

04-179 (36a) Ch 36 6/17/04 6:51 AM Page 411 • 36 • Thieves in High Places: They’re Stealing Our Country, and It’s Time to Take It Back Jim Hightower A bout a year ago, I saw a bumper sticker on a pickup truck in Austin, Texas,that said: “Where are we going, and what am I doing in this handbasket?” Most people in the country, I find, have a strong sense that something funda- mental is happening here, something that is bad for them and bad for our country. I think we’re in another of those “when in the course of human events” moments that Jefferson wrote about, a moment in which it’s not King George III in England, it’s not royalty, but global corporate power that is usurping our democracy and usurp- ing decision-making over every aspect of our lives. The founding ethic of the common good is the idea that we’re all in this to- gether. But the conservatives are supplanting the ethic with a new ethic of greed that says: I’ve got mine; you get yours; never give a sucker an even break; caveat emptor; I’m rich and you’re not; adios, chump. That’s pretty much what it comes down to. They’re separating the good fortune of the few from the needed fortune of the many. We see it in plutocratic actions that they take: There is the tax giveaway, more than a trillion dollars now to the top one percent of wealth-earners in our country, at the same time they provide zero to the twelve million children of working fami- lies who do indeed pay income tax. Meanwhile, while they’re shoveling money up to the very top, there was a net loss of more than two million jobs from 2001 to the end of 2003. Ten million people are presently unemployed, and there was a 184 percent increase in long-term unemployment from 2001 to the end of 2003. I mean, imag- ine what they would have been doing if they had actually won the 2000 election. Then of course there is the growing autocracy: The Homeland Security Act, Patriot I, and now Patriot II. It’s not a very pretty sight at all. We see it in a lot of other ways: The new imperial presidency,the executive au- thority that’s being asserted and, I’m ashamed to say,that the Congress is going along with, allowing it to happen. Those are the edicts and directives that are coming out 411 04-179 (36a) Ch 36 6/17/04 6:51 AM Page 412 412 Jim Hightower of the White House, many of them late in the evening on Friday, when the media doesn’t get a hold of them and there’s no chance for other people to react. In my book Thieves in High Places, I wrote a little section in which I took the sum of the environmental edicts that occurred from March of 2001 when they came into office to March 2003, just a two-year period of time. It’s not the individual items that are significant here. It’s the impact of the whole volume of this. The edicts com- ing out of the White House are fundamentally changing the rules of the game, which are being bent more and more in favor of the plunderers and the spoilers and the speculators out there. THE WOBBLYCRATS AND AUNT EULAH The rich need representation too, so they have it in the White House. But where’s my party? Where’s the Democratic Party? I was elected to two terms in the state of Texas on the Democratic ticket, much to the amusement of the people down there, but nonetheless there I was, and proud to have been so, and proud to be a Democrat in the old Democratic tradition. But now it’s become the Wobblycrat Party, too willing to go along with the corporate interests. I’ll tell you a personal story. My old Aunt Eulah used to farm up in northeast Texas in Bonham,on the Red River. The congressional districts of Carl Albert, Sam Rayburn, and Wright Patman were adjacent there, back in the old pop- ulist days, right along that river. So we do have a history that we can look back at with some pride. My Aunt Eulah’s husband, Ernest, died early, about fifty years of age, and Eulah had to leave the farm. She moved in with her daughter, Velma, down at Maude, Texas, and worked as a waitress in the Maude Cafe there. Well suddenly, much to our amaze- ment, Eulah disappeared. She just up and poof, she was gone. We didn’t know what had happened. But we finally learned that a Mr. Green (we never did learn his first name), a traveling salesman and an apparently dazzling figure, came through to the Maude Cafe, swept Eulah right off her feet, and just hauled off with her. We finally got a postcard from Cheyenne, Wyoming. Mr. Green had taken Eu- lah to the Cheyenne Rodeo and Eulah was just giddy beyond belief. She had never seen such a thing, and she was just filled with romance and said that they were next going to Oregon. Just a few days later we got a mournful telephone call from Eulah, late at night. In Oregon, Mr. Green had come to understand that Eulah did not in- herit any money from husband Ernest and the farm. They were tenant farmers. So Mr. Green took off and we had to send bus money to bring Eulah home with us. I think of my Democratic Party in terms of Eulah and Mr. Green. Mr. Green has run off with the Democratic Party and I’m wondering, if we sent bus money would they come home? They have been swept off by lobbyists and corporate 04-179 (36a) Ch 36 6/17/04 6:51 AM Page 413 Thieves in High Places 413 money, the same money that the Republicans take. And they’ve taken off their old Sears Roebuck work boots and strapped on the same Guccis and Puccis that the Re- publicans are strutting around in. LET’S BLOW THE FOAM OFF THAT BEER Not too long ago, Tom Daschle was asked on one of the Sunday morning yackety- yak shows why the Democrats didn’t offer some sort of bold alternative to President Bush’s latest tax cut for the wealthy, and Daschle said: “Well, you have to take one step at a time.” And you think: Really? I mean, is this an AA program? In recent years, the White House didn’t take one step at a time. It took great kangaroo leaps out there, changing our country. If the meek ever inherit the Earth, Daschle and gang are going to be land barons. Then we heard from the Democratic Leadership Council types: Oh well, Bush was so strong, we couldn’t fight him; we had to be more like him, in fact. He had all the money. He had the popularity. The media were behind him. He was the War President. And he had a mandate. All right, he didn’t win the presidency actually in 2000, but in 2002, with the congressional off-year elections, he got a mandate. He won both houses of Congress. Well, let’s blow the foam off that beer about that 2002 “mandate.” This is really important. I’m not big on numbers, but follow this briefly with me. These are num- bers that Curtis Gans assembled in his great electoral research on the congressional elections of 2002. Some 33 percent of eligible voters voted in congressional elections in 2002—33 percent. Of those, 17 percent of the eligible voters chose Republican can- didates, 15 percent chose Democrats, and 1 percent chose “other.” So there’s the Re- publican mandate. That’s it—17 percent of the eligible voters in America represent the Republican mandate, with which they now are trying to undo our democracy. That is not a political juggernaut, 17 percent of the eligible voters. They can’t get any more than that. In fact, that’s the same 17 percent that the Republicans got in 1982, in the first off-year election under Reagan. Newt got a little better than that. He got 19 percent of eligible voters in 1994, when he swept to power and imploded under the force of his own ego. And that’s as much as they’re going to get, because they have a policy that Americans do not agree with. They’re not going to increase their total above 19 percent of eligible voters. Yet they won in 2002 essentially because the Democrats didn’t run. George Washington Plunkett, a Tammany Hall boss at the turn of the last century,said:“The Democratic Party of the nation ain’t dead, though it has been giving a lifelike imi- tation of a corpse for several years.” That’s where I think we are right now. What was the bumper sticker for Democratic congressional candidates in 2002? It was: “Well, we support the tax cut for the rich too; and, yeah, we’re behind the 04-179 (36a) Ch 36 6/17/04 6:51 AM Page 414 414 Jim Hightower homeland-security thing; and by the way, we’re for the Iraq war, too, but we’re not quite as enthusiastic as the White House is about it all. So vote for us.” That didn’t work.
Recommended publications
  • Awards & Honors

    Awards & Honors

    MAGAZINE AWARDS & HONORS 2013 National Magazine Awards Winner, Fiction “Batman and Robin Have an Altercation” by Stephen King (September 2012) Finalist, Fiction “Train” by Alice Munro (April 2012) Finalist, Reporting “All Politics Is Local: Election Night in Peru’s Largest Prison” by Daniel Alarcón (February 2012) Finalist, Feature Photography “The Water of My Land” by Samuel James (September 2012) Overseas Press Club Award “The Water of My Land” by Samuel James (September 2012) Deadline Club Awards Finalist, Feature Reporting “Starving Your Way to Vigor” by Steve Hendricks (March 2012) Finalist, Environmental Reporting “Broken Heartland” by Wil S Hylton (July 2012) Best American Science and Nature “The Last Distinction” by Benjamin Hale (August 2012) Best American Essays “Breeds of America” by William Melvin Kelley (August 2012) 2012 National Magazine Awards Winner, News and Documentary Photography “Juvenile Injustice” by Richard Ross (October, 2011) Finalist, News and Documentary Photography “Uncertain Exodus” by Ed Ou (July, 2011) Finalist, Public Interest “Tiny Little Laws” by Kathy Dobie (February, 2011) Pen Center Literary Awards Winner, Journalism “Drip, Jordan” by Ben Ehrenreich (December, 2011) Deadline Club Awards Winner, Minority Focus “Tiny Little Laws” by Kathy Dobie (February, 2011) Finalist, Business Feature “Pennies from Heaven” by Chris Lehmann (October, 2011) Finalist, Opinion Writing “Easy Chair” Column by Thomas Frank Finalist, Feature Photo “Juvenile Injustice” by Richard Ross (October, 2011) Best American Short Stories
  • Cancer Memoirs As Narrative Strategy: Are Our Stories As Valuable As Our Breasts? by Natshwa Khan

    Cancer Memoirs As Narrative Strategy: Are Our Stories As Valuable As Our Breasts? by Natshwa Khan

    _________________________________________________________________________ ACADEMIC | FALL 2016 Cancer Memoirs as Narrative Strategy: Are Our Stories as Valuable as Our Breasts? By Natshwa Khan Introduction Gender is widely accepted as socially constructed, however as a society with certain prevalent public attitudes, no individual lives in a vacuum. As a result, gendered identities intersect with how people experience illness. The very gendered connotations of breast cancer are immersed in dominant discourse of pinkwashing of the illness. The harmful nature of homogenizing experiences of breast cancer is exposed through examining the intersection of identity and illness. The way women experience breast cancer is shaped by the social and political environment which constructs the meaning of the illness for women beyond the biomedical diagnosis. This paper will explore female identity at the intersection of cancer. This is not to exclude gender nonconforming individuals or men, nor is it to paint the experience of breast cancer as identical for all women as experiences of race, class, education and ability also impact identity. However, women who experience breast cancer face a very particular form of subjugation that forces them to perform illness narratives in a specific way when diagnosed with breast cancer. Janet Lee (1997) highlighted this writing “...women do experience gender in an embodied way: they live in and through their bodies that are marked and framed through discourses and practices of society.” The hypersexuality of women’s breasts is foundational to understanding the universal toll breast cancer plays on women and their respective identities (Sheppard & Ely, 2008). This paper will firstly outline how breast cancer can be debilitating to a female identity, and how breast cancer and its gendered nature forces women to feel stripped of womanhood; and then will examine narrative and counter-storytelling as a reclamation strategy, and highlight the proliferation of varied breast cancer memoirs and their importance.
  • English 11 Honors Summer Reading 2020

    English 11 Honors Summer Reading 2020

    English 11 Honors Summer Reading 2020 Note to Parents At Pittsgrove, we believe that reading is a cornerstone to academic success; it expands the imagination, enhances vocabulary, and introduces students to new and exciting ideas. One of our district’s primary goals is to develop lifelong readers and learners. Summer reading is an opportunity for students to practice the comprehension, analytical, and note-taking skills learned throughout the year while reading thought-provoking and enjoyable books. Summer Reading Directions Over the summer, students who will take 11th grade Honors English during the 2020-2021 school year must read at least TWO texts: one required text for their grade level (under “Required Reading #1”) and one text from the “Required Reading #2” list for their grade level. Please note that students registered for CP or AP level English must complete the summer reading assignment for the specific course. While reading and taking notes, students should keep the 11th grade theme of the American Dream and the guiding questions in mind (refer to the “Note-Taking Directions” chart for additional details). Students will be expected to write and speak about both texts in September or February. Regardless of the semester class is held, all English 11 Honors summer assignments are to be uploaded to Google Classroom by September 1, 2020, by 11:59 PM. REQUIRED READING #1: Students must read the following core text: Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America by Barbara Ehrenreich: Millions of Americans work full time, year round, for poverty-level wages. In 1998, Barbara Ehrenreich decided to join them.
  • Government? Experimental Evidence Demonstrates That Americans Want Workplace Democracy*

    Government? Experimental Evidence Demonstrates That Americans Want Workplace Democracy*

    What Do Americans Want From (Private) Government? Experimental Evidence Demonstrates that Americans Want Workplace Democracy* Soumyajit Mazumder† Alan Yan ‡ Date last updated: August 19, 2020 Much of the American labor force spends time in “private governments” over which they have little say during and beyond the work day. Do Americans prefer to work for businesses that look more like democracies or autocracies? We study this question using conjoint experimental techniques on a nationally representative sample of Americans. This design allows us to vary a large number of features of the workplace–especially their governance structures and the degree to which these structures allow for meaningful democratic decision-making. We hypothesize that workers should have a preference for democratic corporate governance structures such as employee ownership, co-determination, and the direct election of management. We find strong support that Americans have a preference for workplace democratization and that the magni- tude is economically significant. Overall, this article marshals new data and analyses to better understand public preferences over “corporate regime type.” *Any views expressed are those of the authors and not those of the authors’ employers. We would like to thank Alex Hertel-Fernandez for helpful comments and discussions on early stages of the project. We also thank Eric Schickler, Paul Frymer, Jane Gingrich, Chris Havasy, Jaclyn Kaslovsky and participants of the summer workshop in American Political Economy for helpful advice and feedback. We also would like to thank John Ray and YouGov for assistance in fielding this study. We would like to thank the Harvard Digital Laboratory for Social Sciences for fielding a pilot study.
  • Low Turnout in American Elections David Hill Bridgewater State College

    Low Turnout in American Elections David Hill Bridgewater State College

    Bridgewater Review Volume 20 | Issue 1 Article 5 Jun-2001 Low Turnout in American Elections David Hill Bridgewater State College Recommended Citation Hill, David (2001). Low Turnout in American Elections. Bridgewater Review, 20(1), 3-7. Available at: http://vc.bridgew.edu/br_rev/vol20/iss1/5 This item is available as part of Virtual Commons, the open-access institutional repository of Bridgewater State University, Bridgewater, Massachusetts. One aspect of the election, however, was remarkably simi­ lar to past elections. As with every presidential election since 1972 only about half of the eligible citizens actually cast a ballot. While final vote totals have yet to be confirmed by the Federal Election Commission, most estimates indicate turnout nationwide was somewhere between 50 and 52%, which is a modest increase over the 49% rate in 1996 (the lowest since 1924). While turnout indeed increased, this by no means suggests American democracy is on the mend. 2000 is simply another in a long line of low turnout elections since 1972. Given the closeness of the election, the low turnout is surprising. With so much in the balance and the intense focus of the media on the closeness of the election one would expect citizens to show up and participate in order to make a difference. Once again, however, students Low TURNOUT of political participation are left asking, why is turnout in American elections so low? In order to understand participation rates in the United IN AMERICAN States one must compare our turnout with that of other comparable democracies (See Figure 1) . Between 1960 and ELECTIONS 1995 turnout in 24 democracies without mandatory voting averaged 80% .
  • Rebel Cities: from the Right to the City to the Urban Revolution

    Rebel Cities: from the Right to the City to the Urban Revolution

    REBEL CITIES REBEL CITIES From the Right to the City to the Urban Revolution David Harvey VERSO London • New York First published by Verso 20 12 © David Harvey All rights reserved 'Ihe moral rights of the author have been asserted 13579108642 Verso UK: 6 Meard Street, London WI F OEG US: 20 Jay Street, Suite 1010, Brooklyn, NY 1120 I www.versobooks.com Verso is the imprint of New Left Books eiSBN-13: 978-1-84467-904-1 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Harvey, David, 1935- Rebel cities : from the right to the city to the urban revolution I David Harvey. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-84467-882-2 (alk. paper) -- ISBN 978-1-84467-904-1 I. Anti-globalization movement--Case studies. 2. Social justice--Case studies. 3. Capitalism--Case studies. I. Title. HN17.5.H355 2012 303.3'72--dc23 2011047924 Typeset in Minion by MJ Gavan, Cornwall Printed in the US by Maple Vail For Delfina and all other graduating students everywhere Contents Preface: Henri Lefebvre's Vision ix Section 1: The Right to the City The Right to the City 3 2 The Urban Roots of Capitalist Crises 27 3 The Creation of the Urban Commons 67 4 The Art of Rent 89 Section II: Rebel Cities 5 Reclaiming the City for Anti-Capitalist Struggle 115 6 London 201 1: Feral Capitalism Hits the Streets 155 7 #OWS: The Party of Wall Street Meets Its Nemesis 159 Acknowledgments 165 Notes 167 Index 181 PREFACE Henri Lefebvre's Vision ometime in the mid 1970s in Paris I came across a poster put out by S the Ecologistes, a radical neighborhood action movement dedicated to creating a more ecologically sensitive mode of city living, depicting an alternative vision for the city.
  • Working to Survive: Surviving to Work

    Working to Survive: Surviving to Work

    Working to Survive: Surviving to Work The books in this study offer a variety of perspective concerning individuals and their work. A combination of realistic fiction and nonfiction, from various historical and cultural contexts offer discussion groups an opportunity to consider not only the economic and societal value of work (especially when it is lost), but more importantly, why we work to begin with. The first three books to be read portray employed characters and their struggles. These people want to work, but find that meaningful employment comes within contexts of extraordinary complications, especially affecting race and class. The first three books, in particular, suggest the outsider trying to gain acceptability and sustainability within the American workforce. These books show how closely work and culture are connected. The study begins with a classic novel, The Jungle, which represents the anxiety of 19th century European immigrants entering the American workforce, and society as a whole. In the second and third books, readers will see that a century later, issues of race and class are still alive. Injustices, some not necessarily maliciously intended, are readily prevalent in all three readings. Each of these first three works demonstrate characters eager to engage in work, though in less than ideal situations. The “Working to Survive: Surviving to Work” theme then shifts to a more existential/psychological reflection with the reading of Bartleby the Scrivener and The Cliff Walk. Though the existential and psychological issues of self-identity and human purpose are certainly implied in the first three readings of the series, they become pronounced in the final two selections.
  • April 2010 Quarterly Program Topic Report

    April 2010 Quarterly Program Topic Report

    April 2010 Quarterly Program Topic Report Category: Aging NOLA: SMIT 000000 Series Title: Smitten Length: 30 minutes Airdate: 4/19/2010 1:30:00 AM Service: PBS Format: Other Segment Length: 00:26:46 Meet Rene: at age 85, this unusual art collector continues to search for the work of northern California artists, hoping to make his next great discovery. SMITTEN follows Rene as he opens his private collection to the public, displaying the work without wall labels, so that people are empowered to interact with the art in a direct, personal, and more democratic way. Category: Agriculture NOLA: NOVA 003603 Series Title: NOVA Episode Title: Rat Attack Length: 60 minutes Airdate: 4/4/2010 12:00:00 PM Service: PBS Format: Documentary Segment Length: 00:56:46 Every 48 years, the inhabitants of the remote Indian state of Mizoram suffer a horrendous ordeal known locally as mautam. An indigenous species of bamboo, blanketing 30 percent of Mizoram's 8,100 square miles, blooms once every half-century, spurring an explosion in the rat population which feeds off the bamboo's fruit. The rats run amok, destroying crops and precipitating a crippling famine throughout Mizoram. NOVA follows this gripping tale of nature's capacity to engender human suffering, and investigates the botanical mystery of why the bamboo flowers and why the rats attack with clockwork precision every half-century. Category: Agriculture NOLA: AMDO 002301 Series Title: POV Episode Title: Food, Inc. Length: 120 minutes Airdate: 4/21/2010 8:00:00 PM Service: PBS Format: Documentary Segment Length: 01:56:46 In Food, Inc., filmmaker Robert Kenner lifts the veil on our nation's food industry, exposing the highly mechanized underbelly that's been hidden from the American consumer with the consent of our government's regulatory agencies, USDA and FDA.
  • Honorable Lobbyists” Would Run Mccain’S White House

    Honorable Lobbyists” Would Run Mccain’S White House

    *0808Lowdown_final.qxd 7/25/08 5:43 PM Page 1 The “I don’t know if I would want him for vice-president. He and I have the same strengths. But to serve in other capacities? Hell, yeah.” —— JOHN MCCAIN, when asked if he’d consider DICK CHENEY for a position LOWDOWN in a McCain administration Edited by Jim Hightower and Phillip Frazer Vol.10 No.8 August 2008 Even though a few of them have been dumped from the campaign Heartless Phil and “honorable lobbyists” would run McCain’s White House HE POLITICAL MEDIA ESTABLISHMENT is enraptured by John McCain. Mainline media sparklies, as well as the blatherers on the Fox channel, routinely buff up his image as a straight-talking, maverick foe of Washington’s special interests. “The press loves McCain. We’re his base,” gushes MSNBC’s Chris Matthews. But if the senator really is the feared reformer of business-as-usual government, why does This presidential campaign look like the back alley of K Street? Many a president has had certain supporters behind him whom lobbyists, executives, and fund-raisers who are shaping his policies… he should have moved out in front in order to keep an eye on them. and expecting to walk right into the White House with him. McCain, however, isn’t even bothering to keep his self-interested There was a hilarious dustup in May when two of the campaign’s backers in the shadows—he has literally put them in charge of his cam- key operatives were publicly fingered as lobbyists for the totalitarian paign.
  • CANCERLAND a Mammogram Leads to a Cult of Pink Kitsch by Barbara Ehrenreich

    CANCERLAND a Mammogram Leads to a Cult of Pink Kitsch by Barbara Ehrenreich

    R E P O R T WELCOME TO CANCERLAND A mammogram leads to a cult of pink kitsch By Barbara Ehrenreich I was thinking of it as one of those drive-by doesn’t work, and I get squished into position to mammograms, one stop in a series of mundane no purpose at all. More often, the X ray is suc- missions including post office, supermarket, and cessful but apparently alarming to the invisible ra- gym, but I began to lose my nerve in the chang- diologist, off in some remote office, who calls the ing room, and not only because of the kinky ne- shots and never has the courtesy to show her face cessity of baring my breasts and affixing tiny X- with an apology or an explanation. I try pleading ray opaque stars to the tip of each nipple. I had with the technician: I have no known risk factors, been in this place only four months earlier, but no breast cancer in the family, had my babies rel- that visit was just part of the routine cancer sur- atively young and nursed them both. I eat right, veillance all good citizens of HMOs or health drink sparingly, work out, and doesn’t that count plans are expected to submit to once they reach for something? But she just gets this tight little pro- the age of fifty, and I hadn’t really been paying at- fessional smile on her face, either out of guilt for tention then. The results of that earlier session the torture she’s inflicting or because she already had aroused some “concern” on the part of the ra- knows something that I am going to be sorry to diologist and her confederate, the gynecologist, find out for myself.
  • Modern Nonfiction Reading Selection by Barbara Ehrenreich Family

    Modern Nonfiction Reading Selection by Barbara Ehrenreich Family

    Untitled Document Mr. Claro -- Modern Nonfiction Reading Selection by Barbara Ehrenreich Family Values The writer, feminist, and Socialist Party leader Barbara Ehrenreich (b. 1941) wrote some of her first articles and books on the inefficiency and inhumanity of the American health care system. In Complaints and Disorders: The Sexual Politics of Sickness (coauthored with Deirdre English, 1973) she critiques the unjust and unequal treatment women receive in the medical system. She has written over a dozen books, among them The Hearts of Men: American Dreams and the Flight from Commitment (1983), The Worst Years of Our Lives: Irreverent Notes from a Decade of Greed (1990), from which "Family Values" is taken, and Kipper's Game (1993). Ehrenreich is a contributing editor at the Progressive and the Nation, and her essays also appear regularly in magazines as varied as Radical America, Time, Vogue, and the New York Times Magazine. Her most recent books are The Snarling Citizen: Essays (1995), Blood Rites: Origins and History of the Passions of War (1997), and Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America (2001). Asked whether she writes in a different voice for the alternative and the mainstream press, Ehrenreich replied, "I don't think it's really a different voice.... Obviously I assume more political sympathy for my views if I'm writing for Z or the Guardian in England or the Nation than Time, but it might be the exact basic argument." She added, "An essay is like a little story, a short story, and I will obsess about what is the real point, what are the real connections, a long time before I ever put finger to keyboard." Sometime in the eighties, Americans had a new set of "traditional values" installed.
  • Putting “Progress” Back in Progressive the Route to Social Justice, Fair Food and a Sustainable Environment

    Putting “Progress” Back in Progressive the Route to Social Justice, Fair Food and a Sustainable Environment

    Putting “Progress” Back In Progressive The route to social justice, fair food and a sustainable environment By Jim Hightower Bridge to an Organic Future The 27th National Pesticide Forum April 2009, Carrboro, NC Jim Hightower is a national radio commentator, writer, public Opportunity for change speaker, and author, Swim Against The Current: Even A Dead Fish What we have won in 2008 is not merely the White House. It is Can Go With The Flow The following article is transcribed from the opportunity for change. That is what we achieved, last year. Jim Hightower’s keynote talk at Bridge to an Organic Future, the Not the change itself, but the chance to make change. I know that 27th National Pesticide Forum. The conference was sponsored you know that this is not easily done. The powers-that-be on Wall by Beyond Pesticides, Toxic Free North Carolina and numerous Street and in Washington is kind of redundant these days, isn’t it? local, state and regional organizations. To watch video footage of They get to think that they are the top dogs and we are a bunch this talk, as well as other Forum presentations from 2006 to the of fire hydrants out here in the countryside. That is why I am so present, visit www.beyondpesticides.org/forum/video. pleased to come over here to the Triangle area to be with those of you who are genuine change agents, those of you who have been hank you for allowing a scruffy Texas populist to come on the front lines of democracy all these years, challenging the here and be a part of your deliberations.