Jim Hightower, populist firebrand, nationally syndicated radio commentator, political humorist, and best-selling author, speaks at Town Hall Seattle on September 14th on the issue of building political power for sustainability. (Tix at brownpapertickets.com or 800-838-3006). If anyone can make Washingtonians laugh about our anti-tax, anti-government, land-grab, sprawl-happy politics, Hightower's the one. The event is hosted by the Back to the Roots program of Institute for Washington's Future in collaboration with Washblog and Evergreen Politics, and features a short performance by Seattle Peace Chorus.
Rural dispossession as a foundation of America's Rightward turn
Jim Hightower's 1973 book, Hard Tomatoes Hard Times described in explicit detail how public investment in agricultural research in the US after WWII resulted in technologies and policies that enriched corporate agribusiness and impoverished rural America.
Between the late 1940s and the early 1970s, billions of dollars of US taxpayer money bypassed the farmers, agricultural workers, and rural communities that were its rightful beneficiaries, to fund a big-business technocratic makeover of American agriculture. Hightower characterized the resulting impact on rural America as a "violent revolution".
During this revolution, millions of farms folded, a trend that continues today, thousands of communities were transformed or erased, and cities flooded with displaced rural residents. African Americans and other people of color lost dramatic share in farm ownership. Farmers who stayed in business relinquished considerable control over how to grow, harvest, and market their own crops. A way of life foundational to American culture disappeared. Today's highly centralized, chemical-heavy, biotechnology-oriented factory farming system was born.
From political distraction to new coalitions?
During these momentous events, Congress and the media took little notice of the rural crisis. Millions of displaced rural people struggled individually with their considerable losses and challenges without uniting into a coherent opposition movement. Most urbanites viewed agriculture as a special interest with little relevance to their daily lives. Arguably, the profound nature of what befell us during these decades did not "sink in" culturally. We lived and struggled blindly inside a silent revolution. Today's progressives still tend to dismiss the relevance of agricultural issues - or even to see them as hostile to their own issues, not knowing that farmers played a critical role in the progressive movement of the early 20th century and are helping to fuel new movements through sustainable agriculture on one hand - and the property rights ethos on the other - both of which have significant impact on urbanites.
The agricultural revolution that Hightower described in Hard Tomatoes Hard Times is seen as many to be an instrumental factor in the Rightward turn in American politics after the 1970s. Rural America may seem unalterably conservative to today's progressive activists. But its conservatism can be seen as an outgrowth of the new world order created by corporate agriculture's greater-tightening centralization and efficiency.
In contemplating the impact of this rural dispossession on today's politics, it is worthwhile to pose this question as well: to what extent has this phenomenon fueled religious fundamentalism as a political force in rural America? Clearly, today's anti-environment, anti-tax, anti-government, property rights movement that culminates in such phenomena as Tim Eymanism and I-933, would not have the considerable power to block and undo the work of the environmental, social justice, and economic fairness, and political accountability movements if American agriculture were not so disrupted.
Since the 1970s, the public funding and control over research that Hightower wrote about in Hard Tomatoes Hard Times has diminished relative to the role of corporate agribusiness in this research. Biotechnology has exploded as an industry, leading to what has been termed the "molecularization of American agriculture," a reference to the central place and power of the genetic engineering industries.
While eonomic and political power has increasingly concentrated into the hands of a small group of powerful special interests that have unparalleled global mobility and decreasing commitment to US interests and people, progressive political opposition has been fragmented. Sociologist Frederick H. Buttel, in a 2003 paper entitled Ever since Hightower: The new politics of agricultural research activism in the molecular age, maintains that "Hightowerism" - which protested the social impacts of corporate agribusiness - dissolved as a movement in the late 1980s. According to Buttel, two new movements have emerged, an anti-biotechnology movement and a localism/sustainable agriculture movement. An implication in Buttel's paper may be that the social focus that Hightower represented in Hard Tomatoes has lost power - and the emerging movements have not yet united for political power.
The role of alternative energy and sustainable agriculture
Today, the question of who controls American agriculture has even more urgent relevance. The rise of alternative energy technologies, grounded largely in rural areas, presents potent new opportunities for past mistakes to be transcended - or amplified. We are in the context of critical interlocking environmental challenges including climate change, genetic and chemical pollution, and soil and water depletion. At the same time, tremendous political energy for sustainability - from the smart growth and urban design movements to an evolving environmental movement that is forming new alliances with labor and other issue groups - is emerging. We cannot afford ignore the tremendous political, environmental, and economic power that these developments hold.
The investment and policy decisions we make now in alternative energy and sustainable agriculture will have momentous impact on our political, environmental, economic, and cultural landscape to a degree that rivals or exceeds the impacts that Hightower described in Hard Tomatoes. What we do now will determine how well we meet critical economic and environmental challenges - and whether sustainable agriculture, which is coming into its own now, is strengthened or weakened.
A broad-based movement for sustainability
Half the land in the US is in agricultural ownership. Any broad-based movement to build political power for sustainability must take this reality into consideration. The urban-rural divide in the United States has been a significant feature of our political fragmentation. As urbanites recognize and acknowledge their ownership of alternative energy and sustainable agriculture issues, the potential for coalition building increases. Now is a great time for a broad-based movement to build political power around issues of sustainability that span all regions.
Back to the Roots proposes that a broad movement for sustainability must include structural economic activism, such as attention to campaign finance, election integrity, and the fairness of our tax system, as well as attention to environmental issues. Progress in one area cannot be maintained in isolation from others. An important question in this regard is: to what degree will progressives recognize the tremendous economic and political impact of developments in alternative energy and sustainable agriculture and take political "ownership" of them?
Political and communication tools for democracy
What is the place of progressive political activism in helping to build and support the needed coalitions for sustainability? Part of the answer to this lies in recognizing the need to use and develop the communications tools available to us that are already transforming political activism. If we can imagine that Internet communication technologies were available during the post-war silent agricultural revolution that Hightower described in Hard Tomatoes, how could it have been used to activate and unify the voice of the displaced farmers?
New forms and tools of political activism are emerging from the blogging movement. It has been noted that progressives approach blogging and other forms of electronic activism in an innovative way that combines on-the-ground political organizing, fundraising prowess, investigation, and new ways to engage in the "conversation economy." Progressive blogging culture appears to be developing into a hybrid of electronic communications and on-the-ground activism. Progressive bloggers are omnivorous information gatherers, relying on sources ranging from interviews, printed and electronic written material, participation in political and community gatherings, interviews, and visual media. The increasing sophistication of Internet search engines results in a defacto collaborative "encyclopedia" of on-the-ground political observations and research compiled by bloggers. New approaches that actively seek new participant-stakeholders are developing. Here are a few examples:
- Washblog and Institute for Washington's Future's community conversation series on issues of sustainability and the commons
- Progressive Government's webcast conference call and podcast series that connects activists with leaders they elect to a progressive cabinet
- More Perfect's wiki page that allows the public to collaboratively edit policy documents
- Olympia Time's Netroots Agenda project, hosted by Institute for Washington's Future, that invites policy ideas from the public and posts them on theMore Perfect platform for collaborative editing
- The Seattle-based Podcasting Liberally, a blog and archive of weekly podcasts from Drinking Liberally hosted by David Goldstein.
- Investigative journalist David Neiwert's research into eliminationist and hate politics that combines journalism and blogging (Orcinus.
- An example of political activism carried out in conjunction with blogging is chronicled on Olyblog's Nazi response page.
One area of potential that should be expanded further is interviews with people who may be less likely to participate in Internet communications to bring their perspective into that arena - and to invite further dialog on or off the Internet. This can be particularly effective if combined with reporting on related political issues.
Jim Hightower's appearance in Seattle is hosted by Back to the Roots in order to spark public dialog - and also to invite new perspective and involvement for the development of this program as we contemplate its next steps. More information, including contact information and a signup for program announcements can be found on the program page.
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