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Tag(s): Conservative Republican; Conservative Right; Failure; Greed; HightowerJim; Progressive Values; Progressive Values Stories
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September 9, 2008 at 01:30:41

Failed Conservatives Values: Jim Hightower on Grasping Greed

by Edwin Rutsch Page 1 of 3 page(s)

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Every morning I can't get out of bed until I've heard Jim Hightower on my local NPR radio station. It's my inspiration to face another day. So, it was a real treat to meet him at the Netroots Nation Conference in his home town of Austin, Texas. I asked Jim about the failure of conservative values. He said the failure is the ethic of greed and the alternative to this are the progressive values of fairness, social justice and equal opportunity for all people.

Jim Hightower

Failed Conservatives Values: Jim Hightower on Greed

Edwin: Have conservative values failed?

Jim: Yeah, because conservative values are essentially being expressed as an ethic of greed. I got mine, you get yours. You want education , go to a private school. You want health care – buy it. You want retirement – you make enough money during your life and retire in the South of France, or something. What’s wrong with you.

Rather than recognize that there will be no America if we don’t all share in the advantages that America does offer. And I’m not talking about people on the dole, people trying to ride the coattails of successful people. Folks are out there working their butts off. They’ve been productive. They have created wealth. Enormous wealth.

In just these last eight years, the Bushites, for example. But over the last 30, 40 years, we have been the ones creating the wealth, but we have not been the ones benefiting from that. For example, most people’s income has gone down in real terms over that period. Democratic Administrations as well as Republicans.

So that’s why there’s such a rebellion in the countryside these days. Not just political, but in all aspects of life. People are demanding change, and they are making change.

Edwin: Are they are fed up with greed?

Jim: Oh, of course. They don’t benefit from greed, and nobody really benefits, even those who are profiting from it. Henry Travis, the hostile takeover king in New York City, who makes his money by buying corporations with borrowed money from rich people to buy other people’s corporations, then selling off the assets of those corporations, firing thousands of people from jobs in that corporation – and then he pockets the money. And he was making $51,000 an hour in 2006.

So the people who are fired didn’t benefit from that. The people who founded the corporation didn’t benefit from that. The people who maybe enjoyed the products of that corporation didn’t benefit from that. That’s just raw greed, and it’s not serving America’s interests at all.

Failed Conservative Values Metaphor: Jim Hightower - Grasping Hands

Edwin: If you made a metaphor for conservative values, what would it be like? For example, a piece of land, a machine, just anything. What are conservative values like?

Jim: Well, it’s a grasping.

There are conservative values that I share. There are conservative values of conservation of your resources, conservation of your personal wealth, old-time conservative values. Conservation of our democratic principles. The Declaration of Independence and our Constitution. Those actually mean things. That’s a conservatism that I share. But that’s not the corporate conservatism that we have today, which is I got mine, you get yours.

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3 comments

my Bio here
http://humanityquest.com/Projects/Bios/EdwinRutsch/
Edwin Rutschmy Bio here
http://humanityquest.com/Projects/Bios/EdwinRutsch/

this poll goes with this post.

see the poll here

Is Jim Hightower correct that grasping greed is a failed conservative value?

( ) yes

( ) no

by Edwin Rutsch (64 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 155 comments) on Tuesday, September 9, 2008 at 1:59:34 AM

Stanimal is ???

I hear cries for freedom elsewhere, while the US becomes less so. I hear support for free markets, then demanding a bailout due to incompetence.
I roll my eyes at those that accuse others being oppressed while the US has and still continues to the same and much worse. Laughing at pinheads who purchase and profit from those they curse.

Every time I return to visit I see a country I no longer recognize. A shredded Constitution, a spineless Congress ...

to see more of bio, click on member name
StanimalStanimal is ???

I hear cries for freedom elsewhere, while the US becomes less so. I hear support for free markets, then demanding a bailout due to incompetence.
I roll my eyes at those that accuse others being oppressed while the US has and still continues to the same and much worse. Laughing at pinheads who purchase and profit from those they curse.

Every time I return to visit I see a country I no longer recognize. A shredded Constitution, a spineless Congress ...

to see more of bio, click on member name

In the 80's it was Junk Bonds,

and S & L loans guaranteed by the Fed, receiving kickbacks like Neil Bu$h at Silverado. Some of these astute businessmen after they left jail even taught business ethics at major university's. They are even referred to as philanthropist's in the MSM.

Neil himself after divorcing his wife who he claimed all his assets were in her name, is now peddling COW's "Curriculum on Wheels" that cost a fortune. Being largely financed by federal grants that specify these programs at public schools.

Now the recent scam was sub-prime mortgages sold to folks that shouldn't have received a loan and these have been turned into DCO's that foolish investment companies bought by the billions, and has left the economy in shambles.

With the republicans saddling the country with ever increasing debt in a large part by the farce War Of Terror and the immoral profiteering by the MIC Bu$h & Co. associates, reaming the taxpayer with ever more bailouts by these financial wizards.

by Stanimal (0 articles, 4 quicklinks, 23 diaries, 668 comments) on Tuesday, September 9, 2008 at 6:07:43 AM

Jeff Rock is an economist of thirty-two years. He has spent his entire career in the building industry working in a capacity that allows him to witness daily the inner workings of the so-called 'free' market. Jeff studied at US and French universties earning his Economics degree in 1976. He is bi-lingual. He supports and promotes green building and tries to incorporate green principles in every project on which he is assigned. He has built high rises in the US and Africa. He is a committed...

to see more of bio, click on member name
jeff rockJeff Rock is an economist of thirty-two years. He has spent his entire career in the building industry working in a capacity that allows him to witness daily the inner workings of the so-called 'free' market. Jeff studied at US and French universties earning his Economics degree in 1976. He is bi-lingual. He supports and promotes green building and tries to incorporate green principles in every project on which he is assigned. He has built high rises in the US and Africa. He is a committed...

to see more of bio, click on member name

NPR - Real or Phony

Did you ask him why NPR airs interviews with 'military specialists' about the Iraq War without providing the other side's POV, or allowing any other interviewee to dispute the propaganda? NPR has caved to the oligarchs years ago and only broadcasts enough left wing jargon to con those who still think it's a open viewpoint. Missing from NPR are ALL the major stories, such as Sibel Edmonds, Justice Department corruption, the real Iraq War stories and so on. It's just another bought-and-paid-for cog of the neo-conartist media scam. We need to uncover these corrupt oligarchs and stop supporting them and lending them legitimacy.

by jeff rock (5 articles, 1 quicklinks, 5 diaries, 92 comments) on Tuesday, September 9, 2008 at 11:30:47 AM