Reclaim Democracy: An evening with Jim Hightower

[Sewall] crowd that we have here tonight, isn't it? [applause] Lots of good energy, wow. My name is Marilyn [?Sewall?], and I'm Senior Minister of the First Unitarian Church here in Portland. Welcome to an evening of, [smattering of applause] thank you. Welcome to an evening of, [feedback] oh, uh, of feedback. Welcome to an evening of high humor and serious purpose. This wonderful event could never have taken place without the work of dozens of volunteers to get airtime because i wanted to make a difference in the way we view politics in oregon i want to begin with some thank you is we would like to thank the organizations that have sponsored this is an alliance for the month alliance for democracy for you only for you

jerry lives political accountability ah especially like you know i don't no one will know that we embrace the portland state university and especially president mara johnston and the many years now and libyan assets north the audio visual wrote and the center's staff holidays around it the pain the un is saying because of one simple word one simple

concept and that concept is just this year of all seen the statistics on the division of wealth in this country so but let me just one figure one year they just flabbergasted at its us government ta nea and nineties writing by oliver well that we generated at a table that wave generated as a people went into the pockets of the wealthiest among us the end of the top one percent went out sixty one point six percent the bottom eighty percent of the population and at one point two percent then there's satellite and you translate this into shopping these numbers reveal why one won an unlikely does not work at all he goes into neiman marcus and pay five thousand dollars or a little beside a day while at the same time

so this is something more the pay now remember this is why he was arrested in a prison now here we are i think there is deny deny

governments we have the provisional government of the people in the press and then we just all cargo on average and how this guy doesn't ask her why free expression among citizens so long as nothing interferes with the real man interesting to me this system of their own accord. We must lead, and they will follow. [applause, etc.] [applause continues] So let's start a [?] the way we have here tonight. Let's start right here in Oregon, where 50 percent of the money contributed to primary races in 1998

was received from 1 percent of contributors, giving those 105 contributors a huge sphere of influence in our state. And you can imagine how controlling that might be to the vision of our legislators, to be accountable to such a small number of people. It's time for the people who generate the wealth, the working people, to be heard, to be represented in our halls of justice. As I said earlier, that's what we're here for tonight. We're hear to see that justice becomes reality, and not just rhetoric. We are here to see that the voices of the people are heard. Now, Jim Hightower. [applause] Wow! Jim and I were talking, uh, before the event tonight, and I told him that I'm from a little town in north Louisiana called Homer, and, uh, apparently some of his relatives are from there. So

yeah yeah a state [laughter], whenever, whenever folks from Louisiana saw a Texas license plate on a car, we would hold up 2 fingers to remind Texans that they were number 2. [laughter] I loved Jim Hightower's first book, "There's Nothing in the Middle of the Road but Yellow Stripes and Dead Armadillos." Great. I, I haven't finished his second book yet, but I'm into it, and the title is so apt:

"If the Gods Had Meant Us to Vote, They Would Have Given Us Candidates." [laughter and applause] I borrow his stories for my sermons and speeches because I find in his words an amazing combination of truth, and wit, and emotional power. Of course, being from Texas, he does have good material. [laughter] Everything, I think, is bigger and crazier in Texas. Anyway, Hightower is that rarity: he's a true visionary, but he has his feet planted firmly on the ground with the working people of this country. He's the voice for all of us who feel disenfranchised, powerless among the powers that be. He's a leader who calls us to wake up! and acknowledge that we have been taken to the cleaners, and then to do something about it. Not only is Hightower an author, but he is also, of course, a radio commentator, hosting the coast-to-coast "Hightower Chat and Chew" live radio show. He is a public speaker par excellence, of course, and we have to say a real political spark plug, hard to ignore. Jim Hightower has spent over 2 decades battling Washington and battling Wall Street on behalf of consumers,

working families, environmentalists, small businesses, and, and just folks, folks who want something very simple: a voice in the government that is supposed to care about their needs and represent them in the halls of power. We are so fortunate to have him with us tonight. Please give a warm Texas-sized welcome to Jim Hightower! [enthusiastic applause, whistles, etc.] [Hightower] Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. That's enough. Thank you very, very much. Well, I am, I am the one who should have been, be applauding you, uh, this great turn-out here tonight and the great, the organizing that is taking place in this city and in this area to take this country back! [applause, etc.] Thanks very much to Reverend Marilyn

Sewell. You know, we've got a saying in Texas that the, roo, rooster crows, but the hen delivers the goods. [laughter] And I think Reverend Sewell has been doing that, uh, right here, uh, through her church work and organizing work among uh, the folks of this, uh, great coalition represented in this room, the great organizations that are at the back of the room. It's a absolute pluperfect joy for me to join all of you here, this rowdy and raucous room full of Portland advocates for a new progressive politics, agitators for a renewed American democracy. That's what we're really after and why we're gathered. [applause, etc.; continues periodically throughout this introduction] Thanks, as always, to the great folks at KBOO too, your great community radio radio station for carrying this discourse tonight. And I want to thank, uh, Laughing Horse Books for organizing the book signing that's going to happen a little bit later. But mostly I want to thank the Alliance for Democracy and this impressive coalition of, uh, sponsoring groups, uh, here tonight,

not merely for getting us together this one evening, but for the essential community organizing that's gotta take place, 'cause you don't take America back from a national level. You take it back at a precinct level, at a block level, at a neighborhood level, at a community level, at a city level, then at a county level, at a state level, and then we build up to the national level. It is an ongoing progress, uh, process, uh, that we're a part of here tonight, and I thank you for letting a scrawny Texan like myself come in here, uh, to share your spirit and your cause a little bit, uh, tonight. In fact, it's just about as much fun as you can have with your clothes on, Reverend Sewell, and who knows before the night's over what might happen. We'll turn it all loose. Well, in the book that Marilyn mentioned, uh, the armadillo book, I've got a, uh, a quote, you're allowed a quote in a publication to express your entire theology and philosophy in just a few words. Several trees died to make this possible, but it's certainly, uh, worthwhile in my case. I chose a, uh, an old cowbody saying out of west Texas that said Speak the truth, but ride a fast horse. [more laughter]

And I've come here tonight to speak a little truth with you about something that I find alarming, something that I find critical taking place in our society, something that I find dangerous. And that is the hijack of your and my democracy. The democracy that I'm talking about is our right to be a self-governing people, of our right to be in charge of the public policy decisions in this great land. This right is being taken from us. You know, Cicero about 2,000 years ago said "Freedom is participation in power." That's a quote worth making note of: it's participation in power. Freedom is not the right to vote. We can vote today. Freedom is being able to participate in power. And that's what's being taken away from us without a peep of protest from either the Democratic or Republican parties, with practically no coverage by the establishment media. We the People, being largely stripped of any real participation in power,

in a cabal of ignorance and arrogance between Washington and Wall Street--you can make your own choice of which is ignorant and which is arrogant. The political and monied elites in this country--excuse the redundancy--have steadily and stealthily usurped our People's democracy. Establishment forces deny this, of course, but it's kind of like trying to ignore an elephant in an outhouse. People know the truth about what's going on. I'm sure you talk to folks all the time, just as we saw in the great [?Granny D?] video there. You can check with any poll, you can go to any chat and chew cafe in America, or just visit around where you work, where you go to church, around in your neighborhood, and ask people, Do people in power care about what people like you think? Does Congress act in the public's interest, or does Congress do what the lobbyists and their campaign contributors want done? Does your voice really matter? And depending on which poll you look at, 75 to 85 percent of America's people have answered "no" to those questions.

No. Why do they think like this? Because it's true, demonstrable in their daily lives. That's what we are dealing with in this year 2000, or 220-something, uh, year of our democratic experiment. I mentioned earlier, I called you agitators. That's become a perjorative in our society. The powers that be try to say, Oh, those outside agitators. Our workers were perfectly happy in this plant until those steelworkers came in and started to organize. Those people know we're up against a toxic waste dump. They didn't complain until the outside agitators came. Well, hogwash and horse hockey to that all that. Agitation is what America's all about. [applause, etc.] [applause, etc. continues] If it were not for agitators, we'd all be sitting here tonight wearing white powdered wigs, singing singing God Hail the [?Crewman?]. Agitation built America. I don't mean just the Founders. I mean ordinary people like you and me in the intervening 220-something

years, who have fought, bled, died to democratize our democratic documents, of the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights, the Constitution itself. I'm talking about Thomas Paine, and Daniel Shays, Sojourner Truth, and Frederick Douglass. The populists and the Wobblies, the abolitionists and the suffragists. It's the Martin Luther King Jrs. and the Cesar Chavezes. And now down to us, down to you and me. Our time to be agitators again, not against the Royalists of King George the Third in 1776, but in the year 2000, against the new economic Royalists, the global corporate power that's trying to enthrone itself as our sovereigns. It is never easy, of course, to make this fight, but it is a fight that we have to make. And it's a good fight. "Agitator" is a badge of pride, is seems to me. After all, the agitator is the center post in the washing machine that gets the dirt out. There's nothing wrong with that, is it? We could use a lot more of it, more agitation. Well, call it an agitator: getting into this fight for democracy can be pretty

messy, can even be unpopular. Get to feeling like that guy that B.B. King sings about, that song where he says, "Nobody likes you but your mamma, and she might be jivin' you, too." You ever been there? But it is an age-old fight, it is an essential fight, a fight for nothing less than our own democracy. George Bernard Shaw about 100 years ago said Progress doesn't come by merely stand on guard, but by attacking, and getting well-hammered yourself. And the fact that I used to be 6 foot 5 will give you some of the, idea of some of the fights that I've been in. But I want to say another thing, at the top here, and that is: don't let anybody trivialize what we're involved in. Whether you're fighting as these steelworkers are against Oregon Steel, whether-- [applause] yes indeed; whether your particular favorite issue is racism, whether it is about a living wage, whether it is

against sweatshops, whether it's for environmental sanity, whether it's against the insane drug war. Whatever aspect of the fight that you've carved out for your own, bear in mind that we're all in the same fight, and the fight is not for a particular issue, or for another dollar an hour, or another program or regulation. Rather, our fight is for the fundamental values of our society, the founding values that created this country. What are those? Well it seems to me they come down to at least 3 things. i don't agree is the social justice these various justice and opportunity there's just an this is really say more than the only

using what justice it is that i was watching the polls are always in america today is partially your calls this is america mr ali as well ira

and says this and he's nigerian i was a millionaire money doesn't say that room only passes through our society usually you over the holiday season only president in there but he says

in tennessee oh yeah and this year's el nino and their history is america's house in america any real wages are really nice retailers chances

it's true thank you were you the pain so the sale he says

washington dc between the two parties over the years there are well mrs so this is very very interesting now where were we and for

disease use you lose your emmys he is as it seems maina will revolve the fdic is he uses less radiation this nomination

you're a huge loses billions more violent installing pollution show regulations say that this became the pain not in history possibly an attack and they are alien to the most fundamental asset value of all those issues later farm workers human rights discrimination

or order their own essentially the fundamental questions in the nineties and then across the country is this it's really originally you know we still plenty of money making money it was all making bonds among environmentalists now this is nowhere near a real world in which we'll be able lay yes turns and loads

more not because people carry me express people there was again in the political process and the people are yearning for a new project that reaches that and end all the city's boroughs these are women you know in their own communities you know he's right i said no

so curious buses cross purposes i don't think so andrea for one more women started to good writers of the office that is a change trading partners ross says there's no political parties

promoters they say here is is this just a given is that student loan analysis joins elon musk neil as mr the piece not only are you do you worry as house in sausalito is it

it is this is big oil prices you know it was no accident and horses orders

ornstein says the millions of dollars us who won twenty percent of the americans for many reasons it was prestigious committee you know this is not a virus abbas this is a political

process is curious is that you know he has obviously rose and it just says really census african americans bean says his company actually what we're

doing that this is as a process in process and it says no no he says reviews finance

results is that came across an israeli hundred billion dollars for as one for all oh yes oh geez where there is a cultural force

or is it georgia has been we did have a moment also gender and me in both was the president says that that people are so this is hello

he was eighty nine as was a minimum wage workers and it was this big analysts are the vast majority that's one thousand dollars for

the first time where's my heart and as it is now this ah portland again john c you don't says john torres is only will say is that the us

for years those series of oh i believe in human toll now is among those who think it's in the chest two hour and then gives three million ounces of waltzes when a molasses in horses and on tracy's onto them across the floor our newsletter that report is that the us is fighting the president running at the time lamb says all citizens

and also businesses so no one in the white house and this presidency go fly with leslie about that there is a future for the majority of the ideas that both jobs and the soul i appreciate that but mo and say we know as we all like software

engineering or so get us visas in recent years of the various dances we're being told rusty or i'll go where they are say more power of your viewers a concentration releases higher price for you and me ms phillips squeezing out and concentration as they are in the us illegally that's right as president and as

an artist colombia with your money, the wrong side on the civil war we're intervening in. When were you consulted about that? Why is there no discussion about the WTO, and NAFTA, and the soverignty-destroying acronyms of globaloney that they're shoving down our throats? The reason is of, course, George W. Bush and Al Gore both have agreed to the corporate and investor elite agenda on all of those issues. So issues that affect ordinary people at a kitchen table level are not even being discussed in this election. Manuel Gonzalez manages a fruit and vegetable business in the Bronx. Manuel Gonzalez says, I won't vote. Doesn't count anyway. The politicians do what they like. It's not a peoples' country, it's a money country. Well, tragically for America, Manuel is right. I think he's wrong not to vote. I think we shouldn't ever allow anybody to drive us out of the voting booth. There's going to be somebody to vote for on there. If you don't like Gore or Bush, you've got third party choices running for President. You've got other people [obscured by applause and enthusiastic shouts]

[applause continues] But here's certainly no denying the angry truth of Manuel Gonzalez's statement. The politicians do what they like. It's a money country. What kind of an election is it that doesn't address, much less treat needs and the aspirations of the millions and millions of Manuels who, after all, are America. This is the vast majority of the people that we're talking about. Well thankfully, we've got Dan Quayle to explain this to us [laughter]. Dan Quayle said, A low voter turnout is an indication of fewer people going to the polls [laughter]. They say, if you stand real close to Dan, you can hear the ocean [laughter].

A low voter turnout, of course, is a sign that the system sucks and it is not working, and that it's got to be remade, it's got to be remade at a grassroots level by you and me. [applause] It is, after all, our country. We are the sovereigns: it's written in the Declaration, it's written in the Constitution, it's written in the Bill of Rights. We are the sovereigns, not the global corporate masters, not the political elites. We are the ones, and we've got to take that power back. In the last section of this book, I've got a chapter called "This Land IS Your Land," playing off of the old Woody Guthrie anthem that's been reduced by the powers that be to sort of a sweet singalong that they teach elementary kids. But you know, Woodie Guthrie has another verse to that song, a verse that's not printed for

military is and how they are all there to trust me are you really a lot of people in the seventies and eighties is earlier cc

well this note august listeners who lead you to anyone and the answer's yes under reported polls

years ago is the pain in the past and i'm sixty now we're this is interesting is there's a real rules you know you know right all over exactly what it is

real reform is not realistic the pain america five thousand people mr aronson says our stories and they

already totally under the very own power and there is nothing as she read on it's still as andre was a resident shia anyway it appears use vinegar in this is in an hour but essentially joyless and that region independence that's really because of the walls and they don't want us to the united nations says that when a horse is

and it is indeed the responsibility of We the People, who are the sovereigns, to rise up and cast out that government ms bee where we are today in terms of the American Revolution and the democracy ideal that was established in 1776. And we've got to continue to fight for that. And the way to do that, the first step that's got to be taken is in getting this private money out, to have public financing of our elections. Because public financing--by the way, we can do this for less than 5 dollars a person. Less than 5 dollars a person! It means that we finance our own elections. We get the fat cats and the corporate lobbyists out of the process. But more importantly, it means that just a regular person can run for office again.

It means that a schoolteacher [applause] It means that a schoolteacher, or, or a plumber, or a farmer, or a hardware store owner, just an ordinary person who's got ideas and got gumption, and, and wants to put that forward, a different policy vision forward in our country, would have the opportunity to do that. Could be forward, and we have, would be in a competitive, uh, equality again in politics. It would change our elections enormously. In essence, we would get our democracy back. Can we do this? Well yeah, we can do it! [applause; one audience member has been yelling "Ralph Nader" periodically throughout] We can do it! Sure, the big shots have got all the money and the clout, but remember this: no building's too tall for even a small dog to lift its leg on [laughter and applause]. And indeed, people already are taking power back, including getting the money out. Massachusetts, Maine, Vermont, and the State of Arizona have already done this.

You've got it on your ballot: Measure 6. [applause and cheers] You've got it. And the people of Missouri have it on their ballot as well. It's coming It's coming because it has to come. Politics cannot accept this massive vacuum that has been created by the 2-party duopoly that has gone to work for the money interests and has ignored and treated as outcasts the majority of the people themselves. Democratic change always comes from the ground up. We can't wait for somebody to come riding in and saying, I'm your answer. That, they won't do it for us, they'll do it to us, as we've known through history. We've got to build it ourselves at the grassroots level. Democracy is not something that happened in 1776; and in fact, in the democracy that was created then, very few people were actually a part of the democracy.

If you were a woman, you couldn't vote: you were considered chattel. If you were African American, you couldn't vote: you were a slave. If you were Native American, you were considered heathen. If you didn't own property, you couldn't vote: you were riff-raff. 4 percent of the people were eligible to vote in the first Presidential election. Only 4 percent. That's not what we celebrate. What we celebrate are the abolitionists. What we celebrate are the suffragists. What we celebrate are the populists and the Wobblies. People like you and me who democratized those documents, who put ourselves on the line and did the extraordinary thing: to go out there and extend that democratic possibility that is written into the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. The movement is always tough. I've been in fights. I've had a friend of mine talk to me about one thing we were getting involved in, he said, Well Hightower, the odds are against us. I said, Hell, the evens are against us. [laughter] And sometimes it's kind of hard to get our side working together, you know, kind of like loading frogs in a wheelbarrow. [laughter] But when we do get together, we can't be defeated. We will roll down the road together with an enormous power and an enormous force that is the force of the people, the sovereigns of this country. And that's what you've got started here

around Measure 6, but around larger issues: the WTO, the democracy issue generally. Keep building. Unite those steelworkers back there with the environmental movement, uh, that, that some, some of you might be involved in. Bring the minority community in by supporting their issues, not asking them to support your issues. Support their issues! [applause and cheers] [applause, etc. continues] It's always been tough. People say, well, jeez, yeah, I know, but they can [?come?], it's, it's so, they just, it's overwhelming. The money that's against us, the media's against us, uh, uh, the political powers are against us, uh, et cetera, et cetera. Well it's always been like this. It's always been difficult. Imagine the Civil Rights Movement. You know, it didn't happen in 1963, when Martin Luther King gave his "I Have a Dream" speech at the Washington, uh, out on the Mall in Washington. Indeed, it was decades of people--unheard of, unremembered names--who put themselves

forward in the most dangerous ways for them and their families and their whole community, in backwater town after backwater Southern town, and built that movement so that finally, in the late 1950s, they could sustain a leader with the vision of Martin Luther King and then put him in the Lincoln Memorial, and bring home some results out of that. A movement doesn't happen in a day, and that's the other thing that we've got to remember: quit thinking in terms of elections cycles. The most important day of this election, even with Ralph Nader's candidacy, is not going to be November the seventh, it's going to be November the eighth, because we're going to be stronger on the eighth than we were on the seventh. [applause and cheers have started before this point and continue to grow] And we've got to keep building with [?Ralph Nader?]. [applause continues]. And I'll leave you with this thought: just remember that the Great American Majority wants exactly what you want. You are the Great American Majority. There's no need to have to create a Progressive Movement in America.

It's right here in this room. And as I travel the country and talk to people on the radio, I find that every place that's got a zip code has got something going on. Somebody's challenging, some group is challenging, some coalition is challenging, some organization has come together to challenge this corporate and political exclusion that's knocking us down. We don't have to create the Progressive Movement, we've got to unite it, bring it together, give it focus, and provide the drive behind it. There's a moving company in Austin, Texas, where I live, that has an advertising slogan. It's, uh, in fact, they have this slogan, uh, in the Yellow Pages, in their ad there, and I've stolen this. This moving company says, "If we can get it loose, we can move it." [laughter] That's what I'm talking about, folks. Get it loose at the grass roots movement and people will move it for themselves. Thank you very much for what you're doing! [applause and cheers] [applause and cheers continuing] I'm proud to be associated with you! [applause and cheers continuing] [Kelly Weibel] Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Hightower, for those inspiring words. And before we move on to the next phase of the evening, I just want to, um, introduce myself. My name is Kelly [?Weibel?] and I'm a volunteer with the Yes on 6 campaign to make campaign finance reform happen here in the State of Oregon. [applause] And I'm also the, uh, co-director

for the Rural Organizing Project, so I bring you greetings from Oregonians all around the state that are working on campaign finance reform. Just want to mention a few things. Um, like Mr. Hightower mentioned, on your chairs tonight there were, um, complementary copies of the "Hightower Lowdown," and, uh, you're invited to subscribe to this monthly publication, uh, about the political scene in the country. So, um, check that out. And if you haven't had a chance yet, uh, there's also a petish, a petition circulating, uh, for our local radio stations to carry Jim Hightower's, uh, daily commentaries, and I'm sure you'll agree that his voice is needed in Portland. There is also, um, additional petitions available at the Alliance for Democracy table. If you want to help gather more signatures, it would be great. So now, if you'd like to join us, there's some refreshments in the back of the room, and there's more information about Ballot Measure 6, as well as a lot of other important issues and candidates on this November's ballot. Um, this is also your opportunity

to ask, uh, Jim Hightower to sign a copy of his latest book, "If the Gods Had Meant Us to Vote, He Would Have Given Us Candidates." Uh, Mr. Hightower will be signing books for about a half an hour at the table, and is willing to answer 1 question, so think carefully--I'm sure you have many--um, but please be respectful of others waiting in line. Um, you should know that tonight's, uh, uh, tonight's event is going to be on, uh, KBOO, and KBOO will be selling tapes of the, uh, speech tonight, so you can stop at their table, which is also in the back of the room. So thanks again for coming, and don't forget to stop by the various tables and get involved. Thank you. [there has been periodic applause throughout; now there is crowd noise from people milling around, visiting tables, etc. Music starts as part of this] [music and crowd noise continues]

[music and crowd noise continues, then is cut off, as if the recorder were turned off or the tape edited] [Marilyn Sewall] And now, with no further ado, let's have the Granny D video! [applause] [applause continues] I hadn't seen that video before, and I tell you how I felt about it, I had to ask myself, How am I walking my walk? Right? Right? There are lots of ways to walk your walk, and we all need to ask ourselves that. And also, the whole thing of just one person deciding, I'm going to do this. I'm going to step out there and I'm going to say what I know is true, and I'm going to say it over and over and over again. And I think she calls on us to do that. She's, she's just, just great, so I'm looking forward to seeing her here in Oregon. [long silence; is this again the tape recorder turned off, or the tape spliced?] Now

to that end, we have Jim HIghtower, one of our leading figures for reform. He is here, and he'll be speaking to us a bit later. I know you're looking forward to that as much as I am. We were planning to have Doris "Granny D" Haddock with us this evening also, but she could not be here. She is walking 280 miles across portions of Missouri, which has a campaign finance reform initiative similar to our own Measure 6 [applause]. Granny D--this is the good news--Granny D will be here in Oregon for the whole week leading up to our election, and she'll be walking across portions of Oregon. Now we will, we are not sure of the exact dates, we're not sure of the exact, um, the exact when and where. But we'll be passing around a signup sheet and so we will let you know where she will be and when she'll be there. Now we have tonight a Granny D video to show to you, which I hope will give you a real flavor of what her cross-country

walk has been like, and all the energy and excitement that has, has been generated by that. Granny D left Los Angeles on January first, 1999 on foot, and walked 10 miles a day, arriving at the Capitol Building in Washington D.C. on February 29th in the year 2000. When she arrived there, 2,200 people were walking with her. As one walks, others will walk, and so on, and so forth. Now, on July 10th, she led a group outs, inside the Capitol, and she began reading the Bill of Rights. She and 6 people with her were arrested and sent to jail. Now, an, an account of that is on the back of your program, and I hope that you will, you will read that. The events of her appearance in court defending her actions, and the judge's response, are printed