Revised, and with a New Introduction by the Author "I am an agitator, and an agitator is the center post in a washing machine that gets the dirt out." --Jim Hightower Hightower is mad as hell and he's not going to take it anymore! He's also funny as hell, and in this book he focuses his sharp Texas wit, populist passion, and native smarts on America's political, economic, scientific, and media establishments. In There's Nothing in the Middle of the Road But Yellow Stripes and Dead Armadillos, Hightower shows not only what's wrong, but also how to fix it, offering specific solutions and calling for a new political movement of working families and the poor to "take America back from the bankers and bosses, the big shots and bastards." "If you don't read another book about what's wrong with this country for the rest of your life, read this one. I think it's the best and most important book about out public life I've read in years." --Molly Ivins, author of Molly Ivins Can't Say That, Can She? "When do we get to vote for Jim Hightower for president? Will somebody please tell me? When do we get to vote for Jim Hightower for president?." --Michael Moore, author of Downsize This! "Listen to Jim Hightower. His is a two-fisted, rambunctious voice unafraid to speak truth to power, eloquently and clearly...He's one of the best." --Studs Terkel Revised, and with a New Introduction by the Author "I am an agitator, and an agitator is the center post in a washing machine that gets the dirt out." --Jim Hightower Hightower is mad as hell and he's not going to take it anymore! He's also funny as hell, and in this book he focuses his sharp Texas wit, populist passion, and native smarts on America's political, economic, scientific, and media establishments. In There's Nothing in the Middle of the Road But Yellow Stripes and Dead Armadillos, Hightower shows not only what's wrong, but also how to fix it, offering specific solutions and calling for a new political movement of working families and the poor to "take America back from the bankers and bosses, the big shots and bastards." "If you don't read another book about what's wrong with this country for the rest of your life, read this one. I think it's the best and most important book about out public life I've read in years." --Molly Ivins, author of Molly Ivins Can't Say That, Can She? "When do we get to vote for Jim Hightower for president? Will somebody please tell me? When do we get to vote for Jim Hightower for president?." --Michael Moore, author of Downsize This! "Listen to Jim Hightower. His is a two-fisted, rambunctious voice unafraid to speak truth to power, eloquently and clearly...He's one of the best." --Studs Terkel Jim Hightower is a political spark plug who has spent 25 years battling Washington and Wall Street on behalf of working families, consumers, environmentalists, small businesses and just plain folk. He confesses that he has been a practicing politician, serving two terms as Texas' elected agriculture commisioner. In addition to his popular radio broadcasts, his speechifying and all-around agitating, he publishes the biweekly political newsletter The Hightower Lowdown . His previous bestseller was There's Nothing in the Middle of the Road but Yellow Stripes and Dead Armadillos. There's Nothing in the Middle of the Road But Yellow Stripes and Dead Armadillos A Work of Political Subversion By Hightower, Jim Perennial Copyright © 2004 Jim Hightower All right reserved. ISBN: 0060929499 Logos Galore They tell me advice books sell, so here goes: *Don't ever buy a pit bull from a one-armed man. *Never sign nothin' by neon. *Always drink upstream from the herd. Oh, and one more: Never, ever believe the "conventional wisdom," which is to wisdom what "near beer" is to beer. Only not as close. This is especially true when it comes to our interlocked political and economic systems, in which the game is about power, and conventional wisdom is a trick play designed to keep you in your place. Today's powers-that-be, for example, loudly broadcast that there is no such thing as "class war" in our society, that the major media outlets deliver the "news" to us, that environmentalism is an extraneous concern fomented by liberal "elites," and that we Americans are overwhelmingly a middle-of-the-road, "conservative" people. These purveyors of conventional wisdom are putting out more baloney than Oscar Mayer, hoping to keep America's political debate from focusing on an insidious new "ism" that has crept into our lives: corporatism. Few politicians, pundits, economists, or other officially sanctioned mouthpieces for what passes as public debate in our country want to touch the topic, but--as ordinary folks have learned from daily encounters--the corporation has gotten way too big for its britches, intruding into every aspect of our lives and altering by private fiat how we live. Less than a decade ago, for example, your medical nee