Salon.com > Jim Hightower

Progressive victories you may have missed in 2012

Fri, 28 Dec 2012 17:49:00 +0000

This being the season of giving, it's worth looking back at some special gifts from November's election that received little acknowledgement at the time.

These victories came in campaigns that had no candidates — no Democrats, Republicans or other party designations. Rather, they were ballot initiatives — policy ideas put to a vote of people themselves. This is an exercise in direct democracy that was first proposed by the historic Populist movement of the 1870s. It's presently available to citizens in 26 states and hundreds of cities — and in this past year, it produced some serious progressive wins.

Unfortunately, corporations and super-wealthy individuals have now glommed onto this democratic innovation with deep-pocket vengeance, using their silos of money and expertise in PR deceit to pass some awful proposals and kill some great ones. Still, though, progressives are making good use of the initiative alternative to build winning coalitions around many big issues that the power structure refuses to address. They achieved several important public policy victories in November, even in red and purple states, showing again that populist issues can open minds, shove aside right-wing orthodoxy and overcome corporate money.

Hey Monsanto, don’t mess with my tomatoes’ genes

Mon, 16 Jul 2012 15:50:00 +0000

Some people are too smart for your own good.
Food geneticists, for example. These technicians have the smarts to tinker with the inner workings of Momma Nature's own good foods -- but not the smarts to leave well enough alone.

In fairness, much of their scientific tinkering has been beneficial. But during the past half-century, too much of their work devolved from tinkering into outright tampering with our food. This is mostly the result of money flowing to both private and public research centers from big agribusiness corporations that want nature's design altered in ways that fatten their bottom lines. Never mind that the alterations created by these smart people are frequently not good for you and me.

Take the tomato, truly a natural wonder. Agribusiness profiteers, however, wanted it to do unnatural things, so -- voila! -- the genetic tamperers in the 1960s and '70s dutifully produced the Amazing Industrial Tomato. It's a techno-marvel made to endure long-distance shipping, be harvested while green and then artificially ripened to appear tomato-y red and last an ungodly amount of time without rotting.

What’s really in your steak?

Fri, 08 Jun 2012 13:17:00 +0000

Attention foodies: Let's chow down!

Forget organic, locavore, omega3, umami, artisanal and all the other signposts of the healthy, ethical and refined "good food" movement, there are important advances in CuisineWorld that are going 180 degrees in the opposite direction -- advances that literally are reshaping what we eat (while also reshaping us).

Let's start with red meat. Perhaps you're one who enjoys a steak dinner now and again. If so, let me ask this question: Do you prefer it with a nice Bernaise sauce, a side of garlicky spinach -- or maybe some transglutaminase?

Trans-what-did-he-say?

Transglutaminase is an enzyme made by the fermentation of bacteria and added to meat pieces to make them stick together. Yes, "meat glue" -- it's what's for dinner!
This is yet another dandy product from industrialized food purveyors that keep inventing new ways to mess with our dinner for their own fun and profit. Right about now, you're probably asking yourself, "Why do they need to glue meat together?"

Happy days are here again!

Fri, 29 Oct 2004 18:40:00 +0000

Hey, come on progressives, buck up! There's been too much doom and gloom -- especially among inside-the-Beltway progressives -- about Kerry's chances on Nov. 2. Maybe they inherited an extra dour gene, or maybe they're spending too much time listening to pollsters and pundits. Of course there's the occasional discouraging campaign news, but don't wallow in it, for there's also greatly encouraging news.

Yes, I know that some polls have shown Bush running even with Kerry or ahead -- but the pollsters are vastly undercounting anti-Bush votes.

Yes, I know that Kerry's charisma quotient ranks somewhere between that of Al Gore and Michael Dukakis -- but John's been perking up lately, showing a bit of populist passion and striking some solid blows.

Yes, I know that the Bushites are creepy-scary thugs who've shown that they'll lie, cheat and steal to win, but they've been doing such things so often that their color-coded bag of tricks has lost credibility with the general public -- the curtain has been pulled back and the wizard has been revealed to be just a spoiled, insecure, petulant little son of a Bush.

Prediction: I believe George W. is a one-term president, just like his daddy was.

How Florida Democrats torpedoed Gore

Tue, 28 Nov 2000 00:18:00 +0000

Not all computer errors involve vote counts in Florida. Writing in Funny Times, Richard Lederer tells about a computer glitch that forced the publisher of an economics report to issue an apology to subscribers. "Instead of the figures on the sales of soybeans to foreign countries," the sheepish publisher explained, the computer printed out "the chest measurements of the Female Wrestlers Association."

Hazard your own guess as to why the soybean statistician had FWA chest measurements programmed into the computer, but the lesson here is that it's not only important to get your statistics right, but also to get the right statistics. In the aftermath of this election, the media and political pros have zeroed in on one set of election figures, while totally ignoring another set that may be even more revealing about the presidential race. The national focus, of course, has been on the few-hundred-vote difference between Gore and Bush -- a thin divide that was breathlessly termed a "crisis" for our democracy by assorted pipe-smoking pundits. Yet these same pundits didn't give a puff about a far wider electoral divide that I think poses an actual crisis for our democracy: the more than 100 million votes that went astray on Election Day.