27 Jim Hightower Quotes

Jim Hightower quotes

1. There's nothing in the middle of the road but a yellow stripe and dead armadillos.

2. The corporations don't have to lobby the government anymore. They are the government.

3. If you do not speak up when it matters, when would it matter that you speak? The opposite of courage is conformity. Even a dead fish can go with the flow.

   Attribution disputed; shown as originally published.

4. The opposite for courage is not cowardice, it is conformity. Even a dead fish can go with the flow.

5. Even the smallest dog can lift its leg on the tallest building.

6. The issue isn't just jobs. Even slaves had jobs. The issue is wages.

7. Oh good. Now he'll be bi-ignorant. -On Texas Governor Bill Clements learning Spanish.

8. If it's dangerous to talk to yourself, it's probably even dicier to listen.

9. If ignorance ever goes to $40 a barrel, I want drillin' rights on that man's head. - On George W. Bush

1. It's hard to believe President George Bush gave a speech in New Orleans about disaster recovery and failed to mention the word 'farm' or the word 'rural.'

2. Do something. If it doesn't work, do something else. No idea is too crazy.

3. Some people say we need a third party. I wish we had a second one.

4. Populism is not a style, it's a people's rebellion against the iron grip that big corporations have on our country - including our economy, government, media, and environment.

5. Even a dead fish can go with the flow.

6. There's enormous progressive activism and, more often than not, success at the grassroots level - everything from living wage campaigns to efforts to finance our elections are having terrific success.

7. You have to learn to read between the lies.

8. Liberals want to manage the damage with government programs to take care of those who have fallen between the cracks. Populists want to fix the cracks so that people don't fall in the first place.

9. Populists have always been out to challenge the orthodoxy of the corporate order and to empower workaday Americans so they can control their own economic and political destinies. This approach distinguishes the movement from classic liberalism, which seeks to live in harmony with concentrated corporate power by trying to regulate excesses.

10. The middle of the road is for yellow lines and dead armadillos.

11. Part of the failure of the corporate media is that they don't dig out stories anymore. They are looking down from the top floors. Media work used to be something that was down on the ground level. Now they are looking out of the windows in the top suites, and they don't know what's going on out there. And then there are the corporate owners who don't want this stuff reported because if one town learns that the next town has defeated Wal-Mart or stopped sweatshop goods, then other towns are going to want to do the same thing.

12. Politics ought to be fun. It shouldn't be just boring meetings.

13. Good wages are pro business, since they reduce turnover, increase morale, produce better-skilled employees, and improve productivity.

14. Banks don't commit crimes. Bankers do. And they won't ever stop if they don't have to pay for their crimes.

15. Becoming a politician is the only step down I could take from being a journalist.

16. When I entered politics, I took the only downward turn you could take from journalism.

17. When Rick Perry says I can do for America what I've done for Texas, pay attention. That's no idle threat.

18. The only difference between a pigeon and the American farmer today is that a pigeon can still make a deposit on a John Deere.