Texas progressive populist writer, public speaker, humorist, radio commentator, and political gadfly Jim Hightower is Thorne Dreyer’s guest on Rag Radio. Hightower was twice elected Texas Agriculture Commissioner and is a former editor of the Texas Observer. He is the New York Times best-selling author of seven books including “Swim Against The Current: Even A Dead Fish Can Go With The Flow”; “Thieves In High Places: They’ve Stolen Our Country And It’s Time To Take It Back”; “If the Gods Had Meant Us To Vote They Would Have Given Us Candidates”; and “There’s Nothing In the Middle Of the Road But Yellow Stripes and Dead Armadillos.”

Jim Hightower broadcasts daily radio commentaries that are carried on more than 150 commercial and public stations, on the web, and on Radio for Peace International. He publishes a populist political newsletter, The Hightower Lowdown, which now has more than 135,000 subscribers, is the fastest growing political publication in America, and has received both the Alternative Press Award and the Independent Press Association Award for best national newsletter. His newspaper column is distributed nationally by Creators Syndicate.

Also listen to our April 6, 2012, Rag Radio interview with Jim Hightower here.

Host and Producer of Rag Radio: Thorne Dreyer; Engineer and Co-Producer: Tracey Schulz. Rag Radio (koop.org/ragradio) is produced in the studios of KOOP 91.7-FM, an all-volunteer, cooperatively-run community radio station in Austin, Texas, in association with The Rag Blog (theragblog.blogspot.com) and the New Journalism Project, a Texas 501(c)(3) nonprofit. The show is broadcast (and streamed) live Fridays, 2-3 p.m. (Central) on KOOP, and is rebroadcast and streamed on WFTE-FM in Mt. Cobb and Scranton, PA., Sundays at 10 a.m. (Eastern time) and on Houston Pacifica’s KPFT HD-3 90.1 on Wednesdays at 1 p.m. (Central). Contact: ragradio@koop.org. Running time: 44:44.