Jim Hightower Biography
Jim Hightower (James Allen Hightower) is an American syndicated columnist, progressive political activist, and author. From 1983 to 1991 he served as the elected commissioner of the Texas Department of Agriculture. Hightower, born in Denison in Grayson County in north Texas, comes from a background of the working class. As assistant general manager of the Denton Chamber of Commerce, he worked his way through college and subsequently landed a place for the State Department as a management trainee.
He was awarded a Bachelor of Arts in Government from Denton’s North Texas University, where he served as president of the student body. He later graduated in international affairs from Columbia University in New York City.
He worked as a legislative assistant to the U.S. in Washington, D.C. in the early 1960s. Ralph Yarborough, Senator. In 1970, Hightower co-founded and worked at the Washington, D.C. Agribusiness Accountability Project, resulting in two of his early books. After handling former Senator Fred R. Harris of Oklahoma’s presidential campaign in 1976, he moved to Texas to become the publisher of the magazine.
His first effort at public office was an unsuccessful bid for the Texas Railroad Commission’s Democratic nomination, which controls the oil and gas sectors, rather than the railroads that the commission’s name appears to imply. Hightower was appointed Commissioner for Agriculture in 1982, having unseated fellow Democrat Reagan V. Brown, who ordered a quarantine of fruit co-operatives.
He served as a commissioner for agriculture until the Democrat-turned-Republican Rick Perry, later Texas Governor, unseated him in 1990. His tenure was observed for promoting organic production, alternative crops, direct marketing by small farmers, and laws for powerful gross materials.
He also became a major domestic Democratic spokesperson during that moment and in 1988 supported Jesse Jackson as president. Three of Hightower’s aides to the Agriculture Commission, Mike Moeller, Pete McRae, and Billie Quicksall, were convicted of corruption allegations in connection with obtaining donations from plant dealers who were subject to the department’s supervision to the reelection campaign of Hightower.
Jim Hightower Age
He was born on January 11, 1943, Denison, TX. He is currently 76 years. He stays in Austin, TX.
Jim Hightower Net worth
He is a radio commentator, speaker, author and to-the-bone populist Jim Hightower battles the Powers That Be on behalf of the Powers That Ought To Be. His net worth is under review.
Jim Hightower Early Life / Education
Jim Hightower has spent four decades battling the Powers That Be on behalf of the Powers That Ought To Be consumers, working families, environmentalists, small businesses, and just plain folks.
Twice elected Texas Agriculture Commissioner, Hightower believes that America’s true political spectrum is not right-to-left but top-to-bottom, and he is a powerful voice for the 80 percent of the public who no longer find themselves within shouting distance of the Washington and Wall Street powers at the top. Through it all, he keeps his ever-ready Texas humor up front, practicing the credo of an old Yugoslavian proverb: “You can fight the gods and still have fun.”
Hightower is a modern-day Johnny Appleseed, spreading the message of progressive populism all across the American grassroots. He broadcasts daily radio commentaries that are carried in more than 150 commercial and public stations, on the web, on Armed Forces Radio, and on Radio for Peace International.
His populist newsletter, “The Hightower Lowdown,” reaches more than 100,000 subscribers every month. The hard-hitting and humorous Lowdown has received both the Alternative Press Award and the Independent Press Association Award for the best national newsletter.
A speaker who is both fiery and funny, Hightower delivers more than 100 speeches a year to all kinds of groups. His newspaper column is distributed nationally by Creators Syndicate. He is a New York Times best-selling author, and has written seven books including, Thieves In High Places; If the Gods Had Meant Us To Vote They Would Have Given Us Candidates; There’s Nothing In the Middle Of the Road But Yellow Stripes and Dead Armadillos; and Swim Against The Current: Even A Dead Fish Can Go With The Flow.
Hightower was raised in Denison, Texas, in a family of small business people, tenant farmers, and working folks. A graduate of the University of North Texas, he worked in Washington as a legislative aide to Sen. Ralph Yarborough of Texas. He then co-founded the Agribusiness Accountability Project, a public interest project that focused on corporate power in the food economy. In 1976 he was national coordinator of the “Fred Harris for President” campaign. Hightower then returned to his home state, where he became editor of the feisty biweekly, The Texas Observer.
He served as director of the Texas Consumer Association before running for statewide office and being elected to two terms as Texas Agriculture Commissioner (1983-1991). As political columnist Molly Ivins said, “If Will Rogers and Mother Jones had a baby, Jim Hightower would be that rambunctious child mad as hell, with a sense of humor.”
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Jim Hightower career
He endorsed U.S. candidacy during the presidential election in 1992. Senator Iowa’s Tom Harkin. After Harkin left the race, Hightower supported Jerry Brown and cast his superdelegate vote for Governor Bill Clinton at the 1992 Democratic National Convention. Soon after the election of Clinton, Hightower became the president’s critic. He criticized Clinton for accepting soft-minded business.
He joined Phil Donahue‘s talk show host and actress Susan Sarandon in 2000 to co-chair Ralph Nader’s presidential campaign. He also appeared at the “super-rallies” of Nader and stumped for him throughout the nation. Hightower expressed the view after the controversial result of the 2000 election that it was Vice President Al Gore himself who lost his home state of Tennessee, not Ralph Nader, who caused Gore’s defeat at the hands of Governor George W. Bush of Texas.
Although during the 2004 presidential primaries he gave no endorsement of any candidate, he spoke and wrote approvingly about the U.S. since defeated. Representative Dennis Kucinich of Ohio, calling him a “straightforward populist with a long history of unambiguous advocacy of populist principles.” Once the nomination was won by Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, Hightower supported him and encouraged his colleagues to make strides.
He was also campaigning in support of the U.S. during this election. Doris “Granny D” Haddock’s Senate offer, a friend and fellow activist who ran as a Democrat against New Hampshire’s incumbent Republican Senator Judd Gregg. Hightower has been producing Hightower Radio since 1993, a two-minute daily commentary conducted by more than 130 affiliates. He also hosted an American Broad talk show on the weekend.
In 2016, Hightower endorsed Bernie Sanders as president, actively campaigning for the Democratic candidate. In the summer of 2016, after Hillary Clinton won the nomination of the party, Sanders supporters formed the progressive group Our Revolution, and Hightower joined the board of directors. Despite the Democratic Party’s loss of each house of power in the United States.
Hightower spoke of his optimism towards a more progressive revolution after meeting with Sanders. In front, Hightower quotes the big amount of progressive projects adopted to combat the concept that Donald Trump and far-right rhetoric surpass progressive ideals. In relation to being on the domestic board of Our Revolution, Hightower worked with Our Revolution Texas. Hightower spoke of his optimism towards a more progressive revolution.
Jim Hightower Books
- Hard Tomatoes, Hard Times: A Report of the Agribusiness Accountability Project on the
- Failure of America’s Land Grant College Complex Eat Your Heart Out: Food Profiteering in America
- There’s Nothing in the Middle of the Road but Yellow Stripes and Dead Armadillos
- If the Gods Had Meant Us to Vote, They’d Have Given Us Candidates
- Thieves in High Places: They’ve Stolen Our Country—And It’s Time to Take It Back
- Let’s Stop Beating Around the Bush
- Swim against the Current: Even a Dead Fish Can Go With the Flow