Jim Hightower's Common-Sense Commentaries

MIGHTY MONSANTO GIVES UP

sitehelp AT jimhightower DOT com (Jim Hightower) — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Every now and then, reason, outrage, determination, and citizen activism combine to defeat the forces of avarice and arrogance. This is one of those times – children, organic farmers, and cows have just triumphed over mighty Monsanto and its political handmaidens.

For years, this biotech behemoth has thrown its ample weight around in Washington, in courthouses, in the media, and in state governments, trying to force Americans to swallow Posilac. You wouldn’t know the name of this artificial growth hormone, because Monsanto spent millions trying to hide it from consumers – an odd strategy for a corporation marketing a product.

But Posilac is not a product that people wanted. It’s essentially a bioengineered sex hormone that’s injected into dairy cows to force their bodies to produce more milk. It’s not at all healthy for the cows, it provides no health benefits (and possibly causes serious harm) for humans, and mothers never warmed up to the idea of pouring a daily dose of sex-hormone milk for their children.

Thus, the corporation weaseled its way into government, getting a ruling that Posilac milk did not have to be labeled as such. That was not enough though, since farmers, dairy processors, and retailers began labeling their products as free of the artificial hormone. So, Monsanto tried suing them and tried to get the feds and state officials to outlaw the hormone-free labels.

But people fought back, and even such giants as Wal-Mart responded to consumer rejection of Posilac by selling undoctored milk in its stores. So, Monsanto has now thrown in the towel, announcing that it is quitting its Posilac business.

This is Jim Hightower saying …This is a major victory for ordinary folks who simply said “no,’ refusing to be bullied or hornswaggled by the flexing of corporate muscle. For more information, call the Center for Food Safety: 202-547-9359.

BIG OIL’S NEW DARLING

sitehelp AT jimhightower DOT com (Jim Hightower) — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0700

John McCain built his maverick image in part by being a Republican senator who’s willing to go against Big Oil. As recently as June 13, he had this to say about the petro giants: “I am very angry, frankly, at the oil companies, not only because of the obscene profits they’ve made, but at their failure to invest in alternate energy to help us eliminate our dependence on foreign oil.”

Good stuff! McCain has long stood up to oil corporations on such big issues as their demand that we open all of America’s shorelines to their drilling rigs. But, suddenly, that John McCain has disappeared. On June 16 – only three days after his “angry” speech – he made another talk in which he reversed his position. “My friends, we have to drill offshore,” he now says. “We have to do it.”

Really? Why? Because, he explains, “The oil executives” told him it would be a good thing.

Wait… I thought he was angry at those thieves. Not any more. You see, right after his June 16th flip-flop speech, he flew off to Texas for a round of fundraisers with – guess who? – oil executives! On June 17th, for example, he had a closed-door luncheon with energy honchos at the San Antonio Country Club – and walked out with a love offering of $1.3 million for his presidential campaign.

A McCain spokesman rushed out to assert that it is “completely absurd” for anyone to suggest that the senator’s switch on drilling had anything to do with oil money. Well, maybe he’s confused by the “position=money” relationship of politics, but the oil barons definitely are not. Prior to McCain’s miraculous conversion, they had not been big backers of the senator, but once they heard his new position, the money spigots opened.

As one advisor to oil companies said of McCain’s switch: “I think the industry was very appreciative.”

THE MESSAGE OF DOHA

sitehelp AT jimhightower DOT com (Jim Hightower) — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Most Americans never heard of the Doha Round, and if they did catch the name they might assume that it’s some sort of donut.

Unfortunately, it’s nothing so sweet. Instead, this was another round of global trade negotiations by corporate and governmental elites, intended to hang more NAFTA and WTO around our necks. But something unexpected happened at these closed door talks, named for the city in Qatar where the negotiations were held. The talks failed.

The collapse was not due, as most of the media reported, to a squabble over farm subsidies and agricultural markets. The reason was bigger (and simpler): such emerging economic powers as China, India and Brazil are no longer cowed by America’s high-strutting corporate might, no longer willing to succumb to rules rigged to benefit Wall Street and Wal-Mart, no longer willing to sacrifice their people and their values on the alter of voracious predatory capital.

This remarkable balking at the old corporate order is coming not out of anger, but from a position of strength, which the designers of the Western-style trading regimen never anticipated. Latin America, for example, is no longer a patsy – many of its economies are burgeoning and its leaders forward-looking. Then there’s China, a rising giant in every economic segment, no longer relegated to the assembly of low-cost export products.

Leaders of these nations now pointedly reject lectures from U.S. bankers and government officials about how they should organize their economies. After all, from unregulated mortgage speculators to Washington’s massive bailouts of bankers, the corporate model of unfettered greed is now being exposed for what it is.

For America to regain its moral authority abroad, we must re-establish it at home, returning to our historic values of economic fairness, social justice, and equal opportunity for all.

FOR REPUBLICAN LEADER, PRINCIPAL TRUMPS PRINCIPLE

sitehelp AT jimhightower DOT com (Jim Hightower) — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Time for another Gooberhead Award, presented periodically to people in the news who have their tongues running 100-miles per hour… but forgot to put their brains in gear.

Today’s Goober is John Boehner, the Republican leader of the U.S. House. He’s been on a political rampage, demanding that Congress pass a bill allowing oil corporations to drill in America’s public parks and protected coastal waters.

But he hasn’t gotten his way, and when Congress adjourned for an August recess, Boehner called for his Party’s members to stay on the House floor in protest. “We must continue to make a stand,” he proclaimed, insisting that Republicans would remain on the floor “every day” during the vacation period, making speeches and demanding action from the Democratic leaders of the House. "Every day," Boehner reiterated for emphasis.

It turns out, though, that “every day” did not include the Gooberhead himself. After telling colleagues that “we” must make a stand, he promptly flew off for an extended golfing vacation. Known as “Suntan Johnny” because of the year-around brown glow he has as a result of frequent golf outings with lobbyists, Boehner was even posting his August golf scores online while his fellow members were back in Washington.

Asked about the contradiction (if not outright hypocrisy) of asking others to stand in protest while the leader went golfing, a spokesman explained that one of Boehner’s golf events was not just a casual round – it was a fundraiser for his political action committee. “Canceling it,” he said in horror, “would have cost tens of thousands of dollars.”

So there you have it. Standing on principle (even a screwy one) is essential… unless a fundraiser calls you away. In that case, the principal of capital trumps any principled stand taking place at the capitol. It’s a matter of what’s important to you.

STRUCTURALLY DEFICIENT BRIDGES… AND POLITICIANS

sitehelp AT jimhightower DOT com (Jim Hightower) — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0700

As we Texans have learned from experience, it doesn’t take an IQ much higher than room temperature to be governor of the Lone Star State. But surely someone was fooling with the incumbent’s thermostat when he responded to a recent report about the state of our state’s bridges.

Last year, 20 heavily-traveled spans in Texas were found to be “structurally deficient.” Yet, a year later, only one has been fixed and no work at all has been done on 17 of them. Hey, not to worry, declared Governor Rick Perry, because “structurally deficient” is nothing but “a bureaucratic term.”

Maybe he could try explaining this semantic insight to the families of the 13 people killed last year when the I-35 bridge in Minneapolis collapsed. It, too, was categorized as structurally deficient, a term used by highway engineers to designate bridges that are so deteriorated they must be closely monitored or repaired.

How’s that monitoring going, you ask? After the Minneapolis crash, federal officials mandated an emergency inspection of all similar steel deck truss bridges in America. The National Bridge Inventory, compiled from state records, listed 756 of these—but it turns out that 280 of them were not steel deck trusses. Indeed, 16 of the listed bridges didn’t exist, 13 were wooden, one was for pedestrians, and one Maryland bridge actually was in Pennsylvania.

“The data is not as good as we thought,” explained a top federal highway official. Apparently not, which leads to the more urgent question of how many bridges are misclassified as another type when they’re actually steel deck trusses? The feds don’t know.

This is Jim Hightower saying… A few things we do know is that our bridges are old and deteriorating, and politicians of both parties have cravenly refused to fund essential maintenance, leaving us $140 billion short of the money needed just to repair our nation’s bridges.

THE PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY SCAM

sitehelp AT jimhightower DOT com (Jim Hightower) — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Acting like a four-year-old, George W has squeezed his eyes tight and put his fingers in his ears, claiming that he has no idea who is chipping in the big bucks for his half-a-billion-dollar presidential library to be erected in Dallas. He says he doesn’t want his staff to tell him the names of these special-interest donors while he’s still in office, as if his temporary ignorance can cleanse the stench of such secret fundraising by a sitting president.

But – whoops – one of the solicitors for Bush’s ego temple inadvertently outed himself. Stephen Payne, a Houston businessman and sometime political arranger for Bush, got caught on video in July offering White House favors to foreign interests in exchange for a suggested donation of $200,000 to the library fund.

It is, of course, silly to think that George and his Oval Office handlers don’t know who is funding his legacy library, but it is outrageous that they want to hide this knowledge from you and me. After all, we pay millions of tax dollars each year to maintain these things. Yet, last year, at the behest of the White House, Sen. Ted Stevens killed a bill to require disclosure of such donors.

Not that this is a partisan cover up. Bill Clinton raised $165 million for his presidential palace, and he continues to keep his donor list tucked away in his vest pocket, safe from public scrutiny.

Let me ask a childlike question: What are they hiding? If no favors are being exchanged for these high-dollar donations, why not disclose them? Indeed, if the contributors are simply altruistic individuals with no self-agenda, wouldn’t they want their names emblazoned on the walls of a presidential library?

This is Jim Hightower saying… By the way, there’s no requirement that every ex-president has to have one of these monuments – and very few deserve them.

STOP CLOWNING AROUND WITH OUR ECONOMY

sitehelp AT jimhightower DOT com (Jim Hightower) — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Here’s my no-cost economic reform plan for America: all politicians and economists who keep blathering that things are really in good shape, if only people would get over their “mental recession,” must henceforth wear clown suits and sit on a whoopee cushion when they speak. This will put their insights in proper perspective and at least contribute to the national good by giving us a chuckle.

I’m talking about the clowns who deadpan that, technically, America is not in a recession. Then, led by clown-in-chief George W, they bowl us over with a slapstick routine claiming that all of America’s economic fundamentals are “sound.” What a scream they are!

Sound? They tell us that even with that little housing hiccup, the unemployment rate is only 5.7 percent, so be happy, go shopping. I hate to burst a clown’s balloons, but that’s nearly 9 million of our people who can’t find jobs—no laughing matter.

Sound? Hidden in their happy numbers is a painful economic reality that’s straining millions of working-class families who do have jobs. These are folks who’ve had their full-time positions chopped to part-time, meaning that their incomes drop precipitously. Also, part-time status generally means no health care, no chance for overtime work, and a desperate reliance on credit cards just to make ends meet. This involuntary reduction in hours is the stealth thief in today’s economy, and there’s nothing sound about it. More than 3.7 million Americans have now had their full-time hours slashed—the largest number since the government began tracking such data a half century ago.

This is Jim Hightower saying… Instead of economic tricksters pulling numbers out of a hat, America needs real leaders who’ll produce a sound jobs policy based on restoring middle-class wages. Doing anything else is just clowning around.

BUSH’S FAREWELL GIFT TO CHEMICAL BOSSES

sitehelp AT jimhightower DOT com (Jim Hightower) — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0700

For nearly eight years, George W’s labor department has been a do-nothing agency, viewing the safety needs of America’s workers with benign neglect. Thank goodness for small favors.

In the 11th hour of the Bushites’ reign, this comatose agency has suddenly jumped from benign neglect to malevolent aggressiveness. At issue is the protection of laborers from exposure to deadly workplace poisons. With no public warning, no consultation with labor groups, no discussion with key lawmakers, and no compliance with the normal rule-making procedure, the political office of the labor department is engaged in a regulatory sneak attack, quietly issuing a proposal that drastically weakens protections for America’s workforce. In response to industry lobbyists, the new rule undermines the cautious assumption that a worker’s risk of harm must be based on very long, accumulated exposure to the toxins. Corporations complained to the White House that this precautionary principle overstates the workplace dangers posed by asbestos, lead, and other lethal chemicals.

The department’s risk assessment experts were not even shown the proposed change until April. They opposed it—and assumed that it was dead. On July 7th, however, a cryptic, nine-word item on a White House website revealed that the politicos had gone around them and were determined to sneak it through. Exposed, Bush appointees asserted that administration policy prevented them from revealing the details of the proposal, much less explaining who wrote it and why it was being pushed in a rush of secrecy.

This is Jim Hightower saying… Actually, I would let the industry have its weakened exposure limits—as long as the corporate CEOs agreed to have the same dosages of the same toxins placed in all of their executive suites. I'll bet personal danger would enhance their zeal for safety protections.

UBS: A BANK THAT ROBS US

sitehelp AT jimhightower DOT com (Jim Hightower) — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Maybe you had a bad month, but – wow – July was a bummer for UBS! This Swiss- based banking powerhouse is the world’s largest money manager for rich people, but even its billions couldn’t paper over its incompetence and malevolence.

UBS’s month started with its chief lobbyist, Phil Gramm, having to resign as the co-chair of John McCain’s presidential campaign. Responding to ordinary people’s concerns about $4 gasoline, job losses, the housing crash, and other signs of middle-class decline, this multimillionaire lobbyist and former-senator snarled that America has become a “nation of whiners”. Oooo… bad image.

But things cascaded downhill from Phil. In mid-July, a U.S. Senate sub-committee documented that the bank has been engaged in an ongoing scheme to help wealthy Americans cheat on their income taxes. Using fake corporations, offshore tax havens, code names, secret credit cards, diamond smuggling, shredding rooms, and falsified reports to the IRS, the bank has helped 19,000 very rich Americans hide some $18 billion of their loot from being taxed to support our schools, roads, military, and such. Oooo… bad image, again.

But July was unrelenting. At the end of the month, various states sued UBS for consumer fraud involving “auction-rate securities.” The bank had told investors that these funds were safe and easy to cash in. Earlier in the year, however, the market for these securities had collapsed, and a senior UBS honcho called them “a complete loser.” Yet, the bank continued to pitch them as a wise investment. More damning, top UBS executives had sold off their own auction-rate securities, even as they were still selling them to unsuspecting customers. More than 50,000 UBS customers were left holding this empty bag.

This is Jim Hightower saying… As UBS has shown us in one month, not all of the bank robbers come from outside the bank.

WHERE TO DRIVE YOUR BUGOTTI

sitehelp AT jimhightower DOT com (Jim Hightower) — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Time for another peek into the “Lifestyles of the Rich… and Cranky.”

Yes, the rich have more money than you and me, but they also have special problems that we don’t face.

For example, where to drive their Bugotti Veyrons. The Bugotti, has 16 cylinders, 1001 horsepower, and 10 radiators – as well as a sticker price of $1.8 million. Of course they could drive it to the office or the mall, just as you might drive, say, a Chrysler minivan. But I’m talking about really driving it.

You see, the Bugotti is made to roar, not commute. It’ll go from zero to 60 in 2.3 seconds, and it’s geared to top 250 miles an hour. So, where to turn this baby lose?

The Monticello Motor Club in New York is one answer. It’s one of several, members-only, private autobahns that have sprung up around the country to accommodate the super-wealthy who have a Mario Andretti complex and an exotic car. It costs $125,000 just to join, but the average net worth of these Monitcellorians is $20 million, so as one club official notes, “One hundred and twenty five thousand is just not a lot of money to them.”

That’s good, because it also costs a pretty penny to run the Bugotti. Goose it up to top speed, and the gas tank drains in only 12 minutes, while the tires last only 15 minutes. See – you thought your car was a problem.

Meanwhile, for the true fanatics in this big-bucks, supercharged world, the Monticello developers are planning to build upscale condos with views of the main straightaway, where top speeds are reached. This will let the enthusiasts zoom their Bugottis every day, watch others drive and literally live with their cars. “Imagine a 4-to-12-car garage with living space over it,” says a club official.

Yeah, imagine.