About Jim Hightower
National radio commentator, writer, public speaker, and author of the forthcoming book, Swim Against The Current: Even A Dead Fish Can Go With The Flow, Jim Hightower has spent three decades battling the Powers That Be on behalf of the Powers That Ought To Be - consumers, working families, environmentalists, small businesses, and just-plainfolks.
Twice elected Texas Agriculture Commissioner, Hightower believes that the true political spectrum is not right to left but top to bottom, and he has become a leading national voice for the 80 percent of the public who no longer find themselves within shouting distance of the Washington and Wall Street powers at the top.
Hightower is a modern-day Johnny Appleseed, spreading the message of progressive populism all across the American grassroots.
He broadcasts daily radio commentaries that are carried in more than 150 commercial and public stations, on the web, on Armed Forces Radio, and on Radio for Peace International. He also does a weekly video blog that is carried on many popular websites.
Each month, he publishes a populist political newsletter, "The Hightower Lowdown," which now has more than 135,000 subscribers and is the fastest growing political publication in America. The hardhitting Lowdown has received both the Alternative Press Award and the Independent Press Association Award for best national newsletter.
A popular public speaker who is fiery and funny, he is a populist road warrior who delivers more than 100 speeches a year to all kinds of groups.
His newspaper column is distributed nationally by Creators Syndicate.
Hightower's latest book, Swim Against The Current: Even A Dead Fish Can Go With The Flow, will be published March 10, and pre-publication reviews on Amazon.com have already rated it 4 stars (out of 5). He is a New York Times best-selling author, and has written seven books including, Thieves In High Places: They've Stolen Our Country And It's Time To Take It Back; If the Gods Had Meant Us To Vote They Would Have Given Us Candidates; and There's Nothing In the Middle Of the Road But Yellow Stripes and Dead Armadillos.
Hightower frequently appears on television and radio programs, bringing a hard-hitting populist viewpoint that rarely gets into the mass media. In addition, he works closely with the alternative media, and in all of his work he keeps his ever-ready Texas humor up front, practicing the credo of an old Yugoslavian proverb: "You can fight the gods and still have fun."
Hightower was raised in Denison, Texas, in a family of small business people, tenant farmers, and working folks. A graduate of the University of North Texas, he worked in Washington as legislative aide to Sen. Ralph Yarborough of Texas; he then co-founded the Agribusiness Accountability Project, a public interest project that focused on corporate power in the food economy; and he was national coordinator of the 1976 "Fred Harris for President" campaign. Hightower then returned to his home state, where he became editor of the feisty biweekly, The Texas Observer. He served as director of the Texas Consumer Association before running for statewide office and being elected to two terms as Texas Agriculture Commissioner (1983-1991).
During the 90's, Hightower became known as "America's most popular populist," developing his radio commentaries, hosting two radio talk shows, writing books, launching his newsletter, giving fiery speeches coast to coast, and otherwise speaking out for the American majority that's being locked out economically and politically by the elites.
As political columnist Molly Ivins said, "If Will Rogers and Mother Jones had a baby, Jim Hightower would be that rambunctious child -- mad as hell, with a sense of humor."
About Amy Goodman
Amy Goodman is an author and the host and executive producer of Democracy Now!, a national, daily, independent, award-winning news program airing on 650 radio and television stations in North America. Time Magazine named Democracy Now! In its "Pick of the Podcasts."
Goodman and her brother, journalist David Goodman, co-authored the NY Times bestseller Static: Government Liars, Media Cheerleaders, and the People Who Fight Back, and the New York Times bestseller The Exception to the Rulers: Exposing Oily Politicians, War Profiteers, and the Media That Love Them. Their forthcoming book, Standing Up to the Madness: Ordinary Heroes in Extraordinary Times, will be published in April, 2008. She writes a weekly column (also produced as an audio podcast) syndicated by King Features, for which she was recognized in 2007 with the James Aronson Award for Social Justice Reporting.
Goodman's reporting on East Timor and Nigeria has won numerous awards, including the George Polk Award, Robert F. Kennedy Prize for International Reporting, and the Alfred I. DuPont-Columbia Award. She has also received awards from the Associated Press, United Press International, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and Project Censored.
Pioneering the largest public media collaboration in the U.S., Democracy Now! is broadcast on Pacifica, NPR stations, low power FM, College and Community Radio stations as well as Public Access TV and PBS stations, and on both TV satellite networks -- DISH Network channel 9415 Free Speech TV, 9410 Link TV, and on Direct TV channel 375. Democracy Now! is also available at democracynow.org.