Carl,
I thought of you immediately, when I read Hightower's article.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Carl Jarvis
Sent: Saturday, May 06, 2017 10:12 AM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: Hightower: What Populism Really Is-And It Is Not
Mobs, Rants or Opinion Polls
Ah, a breath of fresh air. Jim Hightower has that magical eyesight that can
see clearly right through the heavy Fog being spewed by our Elite Ruling Class.
Carl Jarvis
On 5/4/17, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Alternet
Published on Alternet (http://www.alternet.org)
Home > Hightower: What Populism Really Is-And It Is Not Mobs, Rants or
Opinion Polls
Hightower: What Populism Really Is-And It Is Not Mobs, Rants or
Opinion Polls
By Jim Hightower [1] / AlterNet [2]
May 3, 2017
If a political pollster asked whether I consider myself a conservative
or a liberal, I'd answer, "No."
Not to be cute -- I have a bit of both in me -- but because, like most
Americans, my beliefs can't be squeezed into either of the tidy little
boxes that the establishment provides.
I've observed that the true political spectrum in our society does not
range from right to left, but from top to bottom. This is how
America's economic and political systems really shake out, with each
of us located somewhere high or low that spectrum. Right to left is
political theory; top to bottom is the reality we actually experience
in our lives every day -- and the vast majority of Americans know that
they're not even within shouting distance of the moneyed powers that
rule from the top of both systems, whether those elites call
themselves conservatives or liberals.
For me, the "ism" that best encompasses and addresses this reality is
populism. What is it? Essentially, it's the continuation of America's
democratic revolution. It encompasses and extends the creation of a
government that is us. Instead of a "trickle down" approach to public
policy, populism is solidly grounded in a "percolate up" philosophy
that springs directly from America's founding principle of the Common Good.
Few people today call themselves populists, but I think most are. I'm
not talking about the recent political outbursts by confused, used and
abused Trumpian ranters who've been organized by corporate front
groups to spread a hatred of government. Rather, I mean the millions
of ordinary Americans in every state who're battling the real power
that's running roughshod over
us:
out-of-control corporations. With their oceans of money and their
hired armies of lobbyists, lawyers, economists, consultants and PR
agents, these self-serving, autocratic entities operate from faraway
executive suites and Washington backrooms to rig the economic and
governmental rules so that they capture more and more of America's
money and power.
You can shout yourself red-faced at Congress critters you don't like
and demand a government so small it'd fit in the back room of Billy
Bob's Bait Shop, but you won't be touching the corporate and financial
powers behind the throne. In fact, weak government is the political
wet dream of corporate chieftains, which is why they're so ecstatic to
have Trump out front for them. But the real issue isn't small
government; it's good government.
This is where populists come in. You wouldn't know it from the
corporate media, but in just about every town or city in our land you
can find some groups or coalitions that, instead of merely shouting at
politicians, have come together to find their way around, over or
through the blockage that big money has put in the way of their
democratic aspirations. Also, in the process of organizing,
strategizing and mobilizing, these groups are building relationships and
creating something positive from a negative.
This is the historic, truly democratic, grassroots populism of
workaday folks who strive to empower themselves to take charge
economically as well as politically.
With the rebellious spirit and sense of hope that has defined America
from the start, these populists are directly challenging the
plutocratic order that reigns over us. This populism is unabashedly a
class movement -- one that seeks not merely to break the iron grip
that centralized corporate power has on our country, but also to build
cooperative democratic structures so that ordinary people -- not
moneyed interests -- define and control our country's economic and political
possibilities.
It's necessary to restate the solid principles of populism and
reassert its true spirit because both are now being subverted and
severely perverted by corporate manipulators and a careless media
establishment. These debasers of the language misapply the populist
label to anyone who claims to be a maverick and tends to bark a lot.
Although the targets they're usually barking at are poor people,
teachers, minorities, unions, liberals, protestors, environmentalists,
immigrants, LGBTQ or other demonized groups that generally reside far
outside the center of the power structure -- the barkers are
indiscriminately tagged as populist voices -- even when their populist
pose is funded by and operates as a front for one or another corporate
interest. That's not populism; it's rank hucksterism, disguising
plutocrats as champions of the people. And it is important that we
call them out on it.
Jim Hightower [3] is a national radio commentator, writer, public
speaker and author of the book Swim Against the Current: Even a Dead
Fish Can Go With the Flow [4] (Wiley, March 2008). He publishes the
monthly Hightower Lowdown [5], co-edited by Phillip Frazer.
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i-gove
rnment-rants-or-opinion-polls
Links:
[1] http://www.alternet.org/authors/jim-hightower
[2] http://alternet.org
[3] http://www.jimhightower.com/
[4] http://jimhightower.com/store/swim_against_the_current
[5] http://www.hightowerlowdown.org/
[6] mailto:corrections@xxxxxxxxxxxx?Subject=Typo on Hightower: What ;
Populism Really Is-And It Is Not Mobs, Rants or Opinion Polls [7]
http://www.alternet.org/ [8] http://www.alternet.org/%2Bnew_src%2B
