Rating: 
Summary: I guess I just don't get it
Review: Loved the title, and some of the pithy statements Mr. Hightower uses to introduce each chapter. That is about it. The rest rails on about paranoid schemes the government has to control everybody and everything. Not that I mind hearing about that, but I expected much more humor.
Rating:
Summary: I guess I just don't get it
Review: Loved the title, and some of the pithy statements Mr. Hightower uses to introduce each chapter. That is about it. The rest rails on about paranoid schemes the government has to control everybody and everything. Not that I mind hearing about that, but I expected much more humor.
Rating: 
Summary: Good grief! Don't let morality interfere with profiteering!
Review: Nobody is safe from the sharpened teeth and wit of this political watchdog, but we wouldn't have it any other way.
Though "Armadillos" is an older book, published in 1997, it is still valid today. And those of you who think he's swinging too hard at Pres. Bush will enjoy watching his energy focused on Clinton, who was Pres then.
This is what I mean when I say Jim Hightower is not necessarily anti-Bush; he is anti corporateering and pro working-citizens. He will aim his sights at anyone, regardless of partisan politics, and expose their greedy, pork-filled underbellies.
"Armadillos" is divided into five basic sections; Class War, The Media, Pollution, and Politics.
In Corporateworld, Hightower exposes such big-money deceptions as Corporatized Medicine. While we sit back and debate whether or not socialized medicine is a worthwhile route, the HMO's and Corporations have taken over our health care to line their own pockets and serve no one but themselves. Also note his timeline comparisons to the old Robber Barons, and the similarities of today's working place. And watch out NAFTA, Hightower is on to you!
In Class War, Hightower emphasizes the growing chasm between the filthy rich and the working-class right here in America. Fortunately, anything this top heavy must eventually topple over, especially when their supporting base becomes unstable. (translate to unhappy and no longer willing to hold them up) Of particular note in this chapter is Hightower's revisiting the origins of our holiday, Labor Day; by itself this makes the chapter Class War shine.
In The Media, Hightower exposes the media bias long before "Out-foxed" was ever made. Anyone remember the 1994 "Telecommunications Deregulation" bill that was supposed to create more competition in the telephone and cable choices we everyday citizens have? How many choices do you have now? If you are like me, there is One Mega-Monster provider that services your area and that is that. I still have no choice and I'm paying 10 times what I used to.
Pollution is the best chapter in the book. Here, Hightower charges in, no holes barred, and shows up the corporate greed, incompetent government agencies, and fat-belly back scratchings that are keeping this country polluted and compromising our health everyday. From meat-packing to organochlorines, no polluter is safe. I have recently read a very disturbing book called "Slaughterhouse" by Gail Eisnitz, and here in "Armadillos" Hightower proves that what Ms. Eisnitz exposed has been going on for a very long time.
Taking a huge risk here, Hightower even stands up against the "feel good" events such as the National Breast Cancer Awareness Month. How dare he attack such a noble and gentle association? Because the sole funding source of BCAM is Zeneca Group, a huge multibillion-dollar corporation named in a 1990 lawsuit for dumping DDT and PCB's into Los Angeles and Long Beach harbors. What, you say? Zeneca produces cancer causing, chlorine based pesticides, most of which are dumped into our environment, then has the nerve to tell us women that its our "fatty diets" or our "lifestyles" causing our illnesses. To put icing on top of this putrescent cake, Zeneca also owns a pharmaceutical company that produces a treatment drug for breast cancer. Give it to `em, then charge `em to try and cure it.
During the next BCAM campaign, watch to see if any mention is made to organochlorines and their links to cancer. You won't find any.
The last chapter, Politics, sounds more volatile but is actually a gentle sliding out of the book. Making more and more sense, Hightower warns us that instead of being so partisan, we need to question the ethics of each and every candidate, especially where their monetary interests are.
"Armadillos" is still in tune with the problems of this country, and what I really like about him is that he points out ways for the reader to fight back, so you are not left all riled up with no comb in your hand.
His humor is both sharp and refreshing, and he infuses it heavily into his written works, making palatable even the most horrible of subjects. One of my favorite ideas of his is the Candidate Stickers; just like racecar drivers wear patches and stickers showing their sponsors, so should our politicians. Hightower paints a very funny picture of a debate with sticker-covered candidates, the only part that is not so funny is that while we argue party against party, the candidates are wearing the same corporate logos on their 1K suits.
Hightower uses extensive reference to real occurances here, naming bills and corporations, providing dates, and showcasing the organizations that are making a difference. This is a great book for those just becoming politically aware, and for old veterans of the partisan wars alike. Hightower's witty prose and down-home humor actually make politics a fun read. Enjoy!
Rating:
Summary: Entertaining and terrifying at the same time
Review: One of the most eye-opening books I've ever read. Gives you the low-down on everything from mass-produced meats to the media and everything in between. A rare mix of education and entertainment.
Rating:
Summary: In Praise of "...Dead Armadillos"
Review: The following article will appear in the April, 1998, edition of the Ashland, Ore., Lithiagraph:
(c) 1998 by Fred Flaxman (used by permission of the author) I just finished a book called "There's Nothing in the Middle of the Road but Yellow Stripes and Dead Armadillos" by someone who ought to know -- Texan Jim Hightower. I agree 100% with another Texan, Molly Ivins, who said: "If you don't read another book about what's wrong with this country for the rest of your life, read this one. I think it's the best and most important book about our public life I've read in years." Hightower served two terms as Texas's elected agriculture commissioner. He has a weekday nationally syndicated radio program called "Hightower Radio: Live from the Chat & Chew" which, unfortunately, I've never heard since it isn't broadcast in my area. He also gives many speeches which have frequently been televised by C-SPAN, which I've never seen, unfortunately, because I don't have cable or satellite TV. And he publishes a biweekly political newsletter, "The Hightower Lowdown" which I've never read, unfortunately, because I spent my entire budget for reading materials to buy his $23 hardcover book. One of the amazing things about Hightower's book, considering its deadly serious subject matter, is how outright funny it can be. It is an easy read, as well as an important one. Hightower has a folksy, breezy style. He knows how to be as entertaining as he is informative. For example, Hightower discusses how the megacorporations have been taking over every aspect of our lives in the last few decades, from the media to the food supply, education, the politicians and the government. By comparison, one of the least critical areas is that of college and professional sports. It is certainly least critical to me. I'm so uninterested in the Superbowl and baseball and every other kind of bowl and ball, that I'll be a prime suspect for investigation by the House Committee on Un-American Americans, whenever the far right completes its take-over. Yet Hightower kept me riveted to the text and laughing my head off, even in the section on sports, with paragraphs like this: "A group of pro-football executives have had discussions with various corporations and CBS Television about creating a new football league that would have twelve teams -- each one representing not a city, but a corporation. Among those named as possible owners are Anheuser-Busch, PepsiCo, and Federal Express. I think this is a terrific idea if for no other reason than it presents the opportunity for some absolutely great team names! Instead of "Bears," "Panthers," and other ferocious animals, why not some more-descriptive monikers that truly reflect the fearsome power of the team owners: the Exxon Oil Spillers, for example, is a natural; the FedEx Unionbusters rings true; the McDonald's Minimum Wagers says it all; millions would turn out to boo the Prudential Policy Cancelers; maybe the GM Job Punters could play in Flint, Michigan; the Monsanto Cancer Causers would strike terror coast to coast; the Lockheed-Martin Cost Overrunners is a winner; and what could be more fitting than the Archer-Daniels-Midland Price Fixers?" There's one other quote from the book I would like to share with you. This one isn't so funny and it isn't by Jim Hightower. Can you guess who said this?: "I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. As a result of the war, corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign... until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands, and the Republic is destroyed. I feel at this moment more anxiety for the safety of my country than ever before, even in the midst of the war." That is from a letter written in 1864 by a chap you may have heard of -- the very first Republican president of the United States, Abraham Lincoln. He may have been just a few wars and 134 years ahead of his time. The Hightower book is a well-researched, fascinating summary of how far and how fast we've come to the verge of a corporate dictatorship. With both major parties beholden to the major corporations, with laws made by the rich and for the rich, what are the rest of us to do? "Some say we need a third party," Hightower quips. "I say we need a second one." I agree. I, too, have been totally turned off by the Republicans and the Democrats, which seem, more and more, like two branches of the Corporate Party. A lifelong Democrat, I have just reregistered as a Pacific Party supporter. I've also joined the New Party and the Alliance for Democracy, all of which seem to have so much in common that I wish we could all get together in one national organization, pooling our limited funds and our unlimited intellectual resources, energy and spirit. I'm not going to make any effort to summarize Hightower's 292-page book here for two reasons: (1) I couldn't do it justice, and (2) I wouldn't want you to think that reading this is any substitute for reading the book. I want you to read the book because I hope that the more people who do, the more recruits we'll have for the struggle against the corporate take-over and all that this means to our freedom, our health, our environment, our quality of life, and our future. And I think that it is just as important for people around the world to read this book as it is for Americans. We are dealing with multinational corporations here. They cause as much or more damage in other countries than they do in the U.S. They have gotten so powerful they have governments all over the world doing their bidding. Awareness of the dangers posed is the first step toward doing something about them. On this score Hightower seems optimistic. He points out that big corporations seemed to be taking over the country a hundred years ago, too, in the age of the "robber barons." "Muckraking" journalists exposed their excesses then, some of which, like bad meat and sweat-shops, are becoming all too familiar once again. Once alerted, the people demanded reform and they got it, and it included a series of antitrust laws which seem all but forgotten nowadays. But can history repeat itself when the media are now controlled by a handful of media barons who run some of the very corporations which need to be reformed and controlled? Corporations which charge candidates for public office unconscionable sums of money for a few seconds of airtime on what were supposed to be the public airwaves? Corporations which are prime contributors to the pollution of our air and water, not to mention our minds? It may already be too late for the people of America and the world to stop the high-speed corporatization of the known universe. The dictatorship of the bottom line has already taken over most of our country, and other nations will be quick to follow, despite the wishes and needs of the vast majority of their populations. Nevertheless I think the tide can be turned or I wouldn't be writing this. And it all starts with being informed as to what's been happening, what is happening, and what is going to happen if we don't wake up very soon and support a peaceful, populist uprising. "We don't own the networks," a good friend of mine points out, "so we have to network." Read Hightower and you'll want to join the opposition to corporate control. The megacorporations will certainly not be easy to beat. Look how long it took to begin to get at the cigarette industry! But that very example gives me hope that good will eventually triumph over evil -- as long as there are enough dedicated, hard-working, idealistic people around to fight for what is right.
Rating:
Summary: In Praise of "...Dead Armadillos"
Review: The following article will appear in the April, 1998, edition of the Ashland, Ore., Lithiagraph:
(c) 1998 by Fred Flaxman (used by permission of the author) I just finished a book called "There's Nothing in the Middle of the Road but Yellow Stripes and Dead Armadillos" by someone who ought to know -- Texan Jim Hightower. I agree 100% with another Texan, Molly Ivins, who said: "If you don't read another book about what's wrong with this country for the rest of your life, read this one. I think it's the best and most important book about our public life I've read in years." Hightower served two terms as Texas's elected agriculture commissioner. He has a weekday nationally syndicated radio program called "Hightower Radio: Live from the Chat & Chew" which, unfortunately, I've never heard since it isn't broadcast in my area. He also gives many speeches which have frequently been televised by C-SPAN, which I've never seen, unfortunately, because I don't have cable or satellite TV. And he publishes a biweekly political newsletter, "The Hightower Lowdown" which I've never read, unfortunately, because I spent my entire budget for reading materials to buy his $23 hardcover book. One of the amazing things about Hightower's book, considering its deadly serious subject matter, is how outright funny it can be. It is an easy read, as well as an important one. Hightower has a folksy, breezy style. He knows how to be as entertaining as he is informative. For example, Hightower discusses how the megacorporations have been taking over every aspect of our lives in the last few decades, from the media to the food supply, education, the politicians and the government. By comparison, one of the least critical areas is that of college and professional sports. It is certainly least critical to me. I'm so uninterested in the Superbowl and baseball and every other kind of bowl and ball, that I'll be a prime suspect for investigation by the House Committee on Un-American Americans, whenever the far right completes its take-over. Yet Hightower kept me riveted to the text and laughing my head off, even in the section on sports, with paragraphs like this: "A group of pro-football executives have had discussions with various corporations and CBS Television about creating a new football league that would have twelve teams -- each one representing not a city, but a corporation. Among those named as possible owners are Anheuser-Busch, PepsiCo, and Federal Express. I think this is a terrific idea if for no other reason than it presents the opportunity for some absolutely great team names! Instead of "Bears," "Panthers," and other ferocious animals, why not some more-descriptive monikers that truly reflect the fearsome power of the team owners: the Exxon Oil Spillers, for example, is a natural; the FedEx Unionbusters rings true; the McDonald's Minimum Wagers says it all; millions would turn out to boo the Prudential Policy Cancelers; maybe the GM Job Punters could play in Flint, Michigan; the Monsanto Cancer Causers would strike terror coast to coast; the Lockheed-Martin Cost Overrunners is a winner; and what could be more fitting than the Archer-Daniels-Midland Price Fixers?" There's one other quote from the book I would like to share with you. This one isn't so funny and it isn't by Jim Hightower. Can you guess who said this?: "I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. As a result of the war, corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign... until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands, and the Republic is destroyed. I feel at this moment more anxiety for the safety of my country than ever before, even in the midst of the war." That is from a letter written in 1864 by a chap you may have heard of -- the very first Republican president of the United States, Abraham Lincoln. He may have been just a few wars and 134 years ahead of his time. The Hightower book is a well-researched, fascinating summary of how far and how fast we've come to the verge of a corporate dictatorship. With both major parties beholden to the major corporations, with laws made by the rich and for the rich, what are the rest of us to do? "Some say we need a third party," Hightower quips. "I say we need a second one." I agree. I, too, have been totally turned off by the Republicans and the Democrats, which seem, more and more, like two branches of the Corporate Party. A lifelong Democrat, I have just reregistered as a Pacific Party supporter. I've also joined the New Party and the Alliance for Democracy, all of which seem to have so much in common that I wish we could all get together in one national organization, pooling our limited funds and our unlimited intellectual resources, energy and spirit. I'm not going to make any effort to summarize Hightower's 292-page book here for two reasons: (1) I couldn't do it justice, and (2) I wouldn't want you to think that reading this is any substitute for reading the book. I want you to read the book because I hope that the more people who do, the more recruits we'll have for the struggle against the corporate take-over and all that this means to our freedom, our health, our environment, our quality of life, and our future. And I think that it is just as important for people around the world to read this book as it is for Americans. We are dealing with multinational corporations here. They cause as much or more damage in other countries than they do in the U.S. They have gotten so powerful they have governments all over the world doing their bidding. Awareness of the dangers posed is the first step toward doing something about them. On this score Hightower seems optimistic. He points out that big corporations seemed to be taking over the country a hundred years ago, too, in the age of the "robber barons." "Muckraking" journalists exposed their excesses then, some of which, like bad meat and sweat-shops, are becoming all too familiar once again. Once alerted, the people demanded reform and they got it, and it included a series of antitrust laws which seem all but forgotten nowadays. But can history repeat itself when the media are now controlled by a handful of media barons who run some of the very corporations which need to be reformed and controlled? Corporations which charge candidates for public office unconscionable sums of money for a few seconds of airtime on what were supposed to be the public airwaves? Corporations which are prime contributors to the pollution of our air and water, not to mention our minds? It may already be too late for the people of America and the world to stop the high-speed corporatization of the known universe. The dictatorship of the bottom line has already taken over most of our country, and other nations will be quick to follow, despite the wishes and needs of the vast majority of their populations. Nevertheless I think the tide can be turned or I wouldn't be writing this. And it all starts with being informed as to what's been happening, what is happening, and what is going to happen if we don't wake up very soon and support a peaceful, populist uprising. "We don't own the networks," a good friend of mine points out, "so we have to network." Read Hightower and you'll want to join the opposition to corporate control. The megacorporations will certainly not be easy to beat. Look how long it took to begin to get at the cigarette industry! But that very example gives me hope that good will eventually triumph over evil -- as long as there are enough dedicated, hard-working, idealistic people around to fight for what is right.
Rating:
Summary: A Must Read for every citizen
Review: THe insights that Hightower has are not only informative, but also alarming. Our nation has been sold to the rich and its time for all of us to take it back
Rating:
Summary: Yee-haw!
Review: The media systematically distorts rural populism, trying to show it as a right-wing, conservative phenomenon, which the high-clawss thinkers will reject with a genteel shudder. It wants us to forget the left-wing roots of rural populism in the pre-WWI Industrial Workers of the World (the Wobblies) and in William Jenning's Bryan's crusade against America's entry into WWI, which is forgotten while his senile buffoonery at the Scopes "monkey trial" is remembered. It wants rural people to blame abortion and evolution for very real problems, among them stunning levels of poverty and unemployment which contrast the good times in the big cities. Rural people are no fools and they know that their interests are being ignored. Along comes Jim and says what's on their minds...far better than Pat Buchanan. Jim served as a Texas agriculture commissioner, and you may never eat another hamburger if you read his book. In a clear style Jim shows us how in the interests of profit, beef producers force the cows into the unnatural act of cannibalism. Part of the reason for the human prohibition of cannibalism as an "unnatural act" may be actual experience of the consequences which include transmission of disease, notably Mad Cow disease. Jim shows how we are being lulled by the public relations of the beef boys into thinking we are being protected from Mad Cow disease but we aren't. To this day, armadillos and roadkill become cowfeed thanks to rendering so that our meat, while tasteless and unhealthy, is cheap. Jim shows how you can be an environmentalist and a farmer or rancher at the same time, for the methods agribusiness uses manage to be both environmentally hazardous and against the interests of both small farmers and ranchers and their hired hands, who have to work while being sprayed with concoctions over which they have no control. As a philosophical city boy who is currently living in the valley of the Snake River in Idaho, I reject the sort of disunity created by the media, in which I get to be the sort of dude who rejects the country boys as a bunch of ignoramuses. These sort of oppositions are the problem. I look less to the fact that I don't want to hunt and far more to the fact that I share with the good old boys a love for the land. The only place where Jim goes off the rails is as regards the H1-B visa program. This is a program which allows computer programmers and other high tech workers into the States. Jim agrees with older American programmers that their skills are going unused. As a software developer of thirty years standing, I completely disagree. My own personal experience is that except in recessions, there is no age discrimination in my industry IF the employee is willing to keep up. There is a lot of racism in high tech, however. There is also a lot of sex discrimination against older women of my generation who (motivated by 1960s feminism of high quality) decided to go against the grain and become programmers and engineers, because younger men in high tech seem to be threatened by someone who looks like their hippie Mom and can write code. But older white males in my experience for the most part need to unlearn Cobol and learn Visual Basic and Java. In general, computer programmers are part of the working class to whom Jim speaks. But they should realize that their work is not the same as sheepherding or factory labor. It's part of the overall structure of control that keeps working people in their place, since in part the computer is a public relations device that (by the clarity of the printouts and the screens) justifies unfairness. It's also intrinsically mathematical and intrinsically difficult. American programmers as working people are justifiably angry but unfortunately they express this anger in an inappropriate anti-intellectualism which suspects even good ideas if they come from on high. Unfortunately, it's a fact of life that precisely because the upper classes have the leisure, good ideas do, for the most part, come from on high. Because of a different tradition of better respect for thought, Indian and Russian programmers tend to be better at their jobs in my own experience. I've spent thirty years chasing down idiotic bugs, many of which result from sheer anti-intellectualism ("this will never happen, and it's stupid to think deeply about it, because thinking is such hard work.") I welcome foreign programmers. I'd like H1-B to be replaced by fully open borders such as the world had before WWI, where I can work wherever I want. This is a minor issue which I write about as a professional concern. What American farm workers, programmers, and autoworkers need is not a futile effort to close our borders and become a tinpot paradise with the likes of Pat Buchanan bawling from the roof of the White House. The name for this kind of society is Fascism, and it produces war. What America needs is more guys like Jimbo. To me, he is a representative of "civil society": intelligent and good men and women who are one level below the Beltway crowd and the slobs like Rush at the apex of the media: the sort of men who attend mainstream churches and attend to their families: the sort of guys who don't stab you in the back. In other countries their ilk is represented by Ms. Aun Soon Yi of Burma/Myanmar, and orchestra leader Kurt Masur of Germany, who stepped up in 1989 when Erich Honecker looked to shoot down demonstrators. I will look for Jimbo's radio program and read his next book.
Rating: 
Summary: Fast, funny, nearly new
Review: There's nothing like dead-on muck-raking told with elegance, wit and style. Jim Hightower has all of these in abundance. None of his commentaries should be missed. Still, to those looking for fresh iconoclasm, there is little new soil here. He works much the same ground as Bartlett and Steele, but with far fewer statistics and far more humor. The rich get richer, the poor poorer, and the middle-class barely hangs on even as everybody punches a time-clock. Do the Democrats spell relief for the oppressed masses. Yes, says the author, but only if we get off our tails and scratch the corporate logo off the name. Hightower's villians are corporate America ( so unpopular with most everyone, they'll have to find a new dodge), not the capitalist class. A true populist, he sees nothing wrong with small business since it doesn't occupy the top three floors of fortress high-rise. With expert strokes he stokes the prairiefire he hopes will bring them down. On second thought, maybe you can't tell the same important story too many times. Hightower's version is vintage Americana.
Rating:
Summary: A great introductory book
Review: This book for me, was more of a review than anything else. I have to agree with the last reviewers comments "a definite must for disillusioned democrats." Hightower briefly dicusses all the issues, this is a good gateway book to some of the harder stuff by Gore Vidal, Noam Chomsky, and Michael Parenti.
|
