Jim Hightower brought his down-home Populism, Texas-style to Olympia's Capital Theater Friday night, December 7th, where he emphasized a theme of unity and coalition-building.

Citizens Band opened the program with a few rabble-rousing songs including one celebrating the successful struggle of the residents of Olympia's Candlewood Manor mobile home park, against Wal-Mart Corporation, which wanted the property for another one of their mega-stores. Many of the residents of Candlewood are elderly and low-income, and can't easily pack up and move elsewhere. Seventy percent of the employees of Wal-Mart, the speaker noted later, are paid so miserably that they qualify for public assistance.

The program was presented by the Washington State chapter of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER).

Hightower thanked PEER for working to make "Power to the People" more than just a slogan.

Hightower takes pride in his reputation as an agitator. Although the corporate media snidely uses the term "agitators" to denigrate people working to straighten this country out, "The agitator is that part of a washing machine that gets the dirt out. Truth is, we need agitators today more than ever."

In the wake of the tragedies of September 11th, the powers-that-be are wrapping themselves in the flag, posing as patriots, and brazenly seizing the opportunity to ram through tax cuts for a handful of corporations, open up the sensitive Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling, and concocting other schemes to enrich themselves. Tax refunds for the wealthy, while working people are given no meaningful tax relief.

Some politicians, under the influence of military-industrial corporate lobbyists, have gone so far as calling it treason to be against corporate welfare programs like Cheney & Bush's Strategic Missile Defense System. Hightower pointed out the absurdity of thinking that "Star Wars" can possibly defend us against box-cutter-wielding hijackers.

Hightower says that corporate and congressional greed-heads wrapping themselves in the flag is like putting earrings on a hog. It might fool some people for a while, but it's not difficult to see through the facade.

The operable ethic in this country used to be "For the Common Good". Today, through corporate influence over the media, that ethic has been replaced by "I got mine, who needs you?!"

The corporate media's been talking about the "good times" we're having in this country. President Clinton used to boast about all the jobs that he helped create to try to compensate for all the jobs lost through the Free Trade Agreements. Hightower suggests that we "Ask the waitress in the restaurant, she'll tell you all about these minimum-wage jobs - quite likely, she's putting in 60 hours a week working two or three of those jobs, trying to make ends meet."

Indeed, fantastic wealth is being created in this country. The wealthy are getting most of it; while the rest of us have our medical benefits cut back, get laid off, or get screwed in other ways. In actual buying power, eighty percent of Americans are making the same or less than they were 20 years ago.

Michael Eisner, CEO of Disney Corp, which bought out the American Broadcasting Company (ABC), makes $287 thousand dollars per hour, while cutting back on the benefits of his workers that are out there working the crowds in their Mickey and Goofy costumes, or in a Haitian sweatshop assembling Disneyland souvenirs.

We are witnessing a devolution of American society into an economically polarized society. Reflecting on how wealth is becoming increasingly concentrated into the hands of a few "haves" that live behind the walls of gated communities with their own security police, and the growing misery of the majority, Hightower says that "Money is like manure. When you leave too much in one pile, it starts to stink. You need to spread it around for it to do any good."

The response of the corporate-financed politicians' is to pass laws (under the tutelage of lobbyists) that further enrich their sponsors. Economists have a technical term for what Wall Street is doing to us. It's called "stealing". And it's not just the "bean-sprout" eaters that are aware of this. Hightower says that the "snuff-dippers" are starting to wake up too.

Jim's Aunt Beulah used to tell him that "If you want to clean up the water, you've got to get the hogs out of the creek". In this case, the hogs are multinational corporations that are not only fouling our air and water; but also fouling our electoral process and democratic way of life.

The important thing to remember about hogs is that they don't respond to polite language. Asking them to "please get out of the water" just doesn't work. The only way you can get them out of the creek is by getting people to work together to push and pull them out of there. That's hard work, but it's the only thing that works.

Hightower pointed to the state of Maine as an example of what can be done by limiting corporate donations to political campaigns. Since passing legislation authorizing the public financing of election campaigns - and the limitation of corporate funding - the people of Maine have elected over one-third of its legislators with clean money, who then went on to pass such progressive legislation as a universal, single-payer health care system. That's one example of "getting the hogs out of the creek."

There are plenty of hard-working, progressive grassroots groups scattered across America working to restore citizen power against corporate domination. We don't need to start any new ones at this point. Hightower spoke of the need to build coalitions of existing groups and bring these people together. When groups work together, a synergy occurs that exceeds the effectiveness of these people working alone. We need to communicate across geographic, racial, and ideological boundaries. People need to start talking with people on the other side of town. We may not agree with everything. That's OK. Don't demand that coalition members agree on everything. Instead, let's build on common, economic issues, and not allow disagreement on other issues to act as wedge issues that split allies from each other, and render our efforts ineffective.

Hightower is planning a "Rolling Thunder Down-Home Democracy Tour", to bring activists together, promote coordination, and have some fun while we're at it, with music, beer, jugglers, and clowns for the kids. Loosen up a little, dance, and rub elbows while strategizing.

Hightower also spoke about the need to rally our nation for an all-out campaign to free us from dependency on Middle Eastern oil. Currently, we are spending $56 billion a year to buy imported oil, and another $25 billion to prop up a rogue's gallery of dictators and pampered monarchies who rule countries like Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. These "oilionaires" are the primary source of funding for terrorist networks like Osama bin Laden's.

If we want to stop the bin Ladens of the future, we need to cut off their financing. We do not need to sacrifice the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. What America needs to do is go on a crash program to break through the remaining barriers to solar, wind, hydrogen fuel cells and other sources of clean energy, and build mass transportation networks including high-speed rail. This is an approach that could excite and unify our people, including our best scientists, engineers, and planners, and create hundreds of thousands of good-paying union jobs. It would move this country toward a brighter future and would be attainable within a decade, spending no more than we do now to finance the oiligarchy on their corrupt, corporate-funded thrones.

In the Q & A period, somebody asked Hightower where Free Enterprise fits into his ideas for a better America. He said that the "Free" in "Free Enterprise" should be a verb, not an adjective - we need to free enterprise, which is now imprisoned within the corporate structure.

Because of its focus on short-term profit maximization, the very corporate structure promotes tunnel vision and social and environmental irresponsibility. If you or I, as small business people, pollute a stream, we have to either clean it up, or pay for it. When a wealthy corporation pollutes, they might pay a fine so small relative to their wealth that they don't even feel any pain. It becomes just another operating expense. Hardly a deterrent.

To truly "free" enterprise, we need to build worker-owned businesses and cooperatives. The CEOs and major stockholders of a multinational corporation may live, quite likely in gated communities, thousands of miles away from their properties. The owner-operators of cooperatives, on the other hand, tend to be anchored in the communities where their business operates.

With down-home, colorful language, Hightower frames progressive concepts in a way that makes these ideas accessible to everyday people.

Jim Hightower's daily radio commentary airs on KAOS, 89.3 FM, every week day morning at 8:25 AM.

His books include "There's Nothing in the Middle of the Road but Yellow Stripes", "Dead Armadillos", and "If the Gods had Wanted Us to Vote, They would have Given Us Candidates".

His web site is: www.jimhightower.com

Jim Hightower has a regular column in The Progressive Populist, a bi-monthly publication. Subscriptions are $30 per year. Their mailing address is P.O. box 487, Storm Lake, Iowa 50588. Their web site is: www.populist.com