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- A Heartening Visit to Texas, Home of the Original
Bush Whoppers
- By Bernard Weiner, The Crisis Papers
-
- There's something happening here
- What it is ain't exactly clear
- There's a man with a gun over there
- Telling me I got to beware
- I think it's time we stop, children, what's that
sound
- Everybody look what's going down.
- (from "For What It's Worth," by Stephen
Stills, 1966)
-
- HOUSTON -- Those lines from the '60s anthem, as
popularized by the band
- Buffalo Springfield, have been running around my
brain ever since I got to Texas on this abbreviated speaking tour.
Something indeed is happening here in this country, and this city is a
good example.
-
- I'm here to give an address to ROADwomen (River Oaks
Area Democratic Women), the prestigious organization of Democratic
activists that provides a moral compass for many progressive voters in
the Lone Star State. The day before, William Rivers Pitt, that
sterling writer/editor from Truthout (and author of "The Greatest
Sedition is Silence," recently released, and "The War on
Iraq," with Scott Ritter), was in town speaking at another event.
The day before that, Dennis Kucinich was in Houston, running from
meeting to meeting to stir up support for his progressive campaign.
-
- Pitt, Kucinich -- two of my heroes in the struggle --
and me, representing
- The Crisis Papers, all in the same Texas city at the
same time. (The New York Times' Paul Krugman, perhaps America's most
important columnist, is due shortly.) Something's going on here, and
though it's still not clear what, the haze is lifting more and more
each day.
-
- Texas isn't exactly Democrat country. It's easy being
liberal or progressive
- in San Francisco, where I live. Not in Texas, except
maybe in Austin and parts of Houston. This is Bush-family country (one
flies into George Bush
- Intercontinental Airport), and Democrats are the
despised, humiliated enemy in most of the state.
-
- No wonder Tom Delay and Karl Rove are trying to crush
them, destroy even
- their limited effectiveness. Looks bad to have
Democrats standing up to the Bush machine in the family's home state.
So the Republican plan to railroad an illegal pro-GOP redistricting
plan through the Texas legislature is moving ahead full-speed, even
though the Democratic Senators carried on a daring campaign to stop
the move, by twice fleeing the state in order to deny the GOP a quorum
to pass it. (The issue then will move back into the courts, to settle
the legality of the Republican takeover; similar things are happening
in California with regard to the recall.)
-
- The Democrats I met here on my brief, three-day stay
are quite aware of the
- forces they're up against. They realize things have
changed muchly since the
- heady days when Democrat Ann Richards -- she of the
brilliant fresh mouth -- was governor. The Democrats now definitely
are in the minority, and are treated roughly by their Republican
opponents.
-
- But the glorious thing is that the Dems, including
those I ran into, are
- still kicking and fighting -- with fellow Texans
Molly Ivins and Jim Hightower as wonderful role models -- even though
it's often a losing battle. They're
- battling on issues ranging from the Iraq war to
school textbooks (denuded of
- references to geologic evolution: "millions of
years ago" becomes "many years ago"), from
redistricting proposals to pollution-control. I stand in admiration
and awe for their courage and tenacity.
-
- I got to meet such ROAD activists as Dalia Stokes and
Charlcye Sells -- and
- fellow troublemakers Charlotte Coffelt, Muffie
Moroney, Bobbie Bayless, James Sells, Stan Merriman, and a host of
others -- and they are bright, determined beacons of light in the dark
Republican wilderness that is contemporary Texas politics.
- *******
-
- There's battle lines being drawn
- Nobody's right if everybody's wrong
- Young people speaking their minds
- Getting so much resistance from behind
- I think it's time we stop, hey, what's that sound
- Everybody look what's going down
- What a field-day for the heat
- A thousand people in the street
- Singing songs and carrying signs
- Mostly say, hooray for our side
- It's time we stop, hey, what's that sound
- Everybody look what's going down
-
- William Rivers Pitt and I bumped into each other in
the lobby of KPFT, the
- admirable Pacifica radio station in Houston. The two
of us had communicated via email for a long time, and finally got to
put faces to the name. Pitt was
- being interviewed prior to his presentation that
evening at an activists'
- gathering at a local restaurant; I was being
interviewed in another studio, by Pokey Anderson, a political-savvy
woman with a wealth of vital information at her fingertips.
-
- That evening, I got to see Pitt in action. The place
was packed with mainly
- young activist types. Pitt, dressed in black, swigged
beers and smoked
- cigarettes onstage as he lit into the Bush
Administration for its many crimes and misdemeanors. His approach was
a cross between tough political discourse, prosecutorial anger, and
stand-up comedy. This guy was GOOD!
- And he dealt felicitously with the shouted-out
comments from the boisterous crowd.
-
- At one point, he asked the audience how many were
aware of PNAC, the Project for the New American Century. Nearly every
hand in the place was raised. I was overjoyed to see that these
Houstonites were hip to this too-little-known dirty secret in the
Republican Party, and how they reacted quickly to Pitt's generalized
comments about the organization of extreme neoconservatives. But I
also was wondering how my speech would be received the following
evening, since PNAC was the main topic I was talking about and I
didn't want to bore folks with information with which they already
were familiar.
-
- But I had no need to worry. Though a good many in the
packed ROADwomen audience had heard of the neo-conservative movement
and PNAC, many had not -- and, besides, I was filling in a lot of the
blanks by quoting directly from PNAC documents. [To read the full
speech, click here: Speech
to ROADwomen
-
- The audience seemed to be truly interested in the
heavy material I was laying
- on them -- as well as in the final, more hopeful part
of my talk, about the
- things we all could do to ensure Bush's defeat in
2004 -- and the Q&A session that followed was filled with
intelligent queries and commentary. I left
- heartened by the possibility that even in Texas, Bush
was vulnerable. (At dinner later, I was told about the Republican
couple at a recent precinct polling place who announced out of the
blue as they were exiting that they had voted for the GOP presidential
candidate for the past 21 years but would not be voting for Bush in
2004.)
- *****
-
- Which reminded me of the recent letter from a Kansas
reader to The Crisis
- Papers, and to recent letters to the editor of the
Idaho Statesman. These are two conservative-leaning states from the
GOP side of the ledger, but the anger toward and suspicion of Bush are
palpable and, one can hope, indicative of his vulnerability in those
states as well.
-
- Here's the Kansas letter:
- "Here in conservative Wichita, the local ABC
affiliate today polled its
- viewers as to whether Bush was on the right track in
his handling of Iraq, or was leading us in the wrong direction. The
results:
-
- "Based on last night's speech, do you believe
President Bush is on track with
- his policy toward Iraq? Yes 39.7 % No 60.3 %
-
- "It isn't scientific, but results like that in
Kansas are significant."
- (Jerry Policoff)
- --------------------
-
- And here are excerpts from a sampling of Idaho
Statesman
- letters-to-the-editor from September 11, 2003:
-
- "For two years, the Bush Administration has
exploited the attacks of
- September 11, 2001, to further its political agenda.
-
- "Just six weeks after Sept. 11, Bush described
the war on terrorism as 'very
- long struggle against evil,' then declared: 'Now,
there's another front on the
- war, as well, and that's our economy.' He then
advanced a proposal to cut
- taxes for the wealthiest Americans...Regime change
should begin at home."
- (Donald Kern, Boise)
- ----------------
-
- "...I felt bitter to read that Bush opened
several airports in those
- post-crash days to allow wealthy Saudis -- including
the relatives of Osama bin Laden
-
- -- to fly out of the country. Some people spent the
aftermath of 9/11 at
- Ground Zero, comforting victims, looking for bodies,
trying to restore order amid the chaos and carnage.
-
- "They must feel bitter to read that, several
days after the crash, the Bush
- administration gave false assurances about the air
quality at the crash site.
- According to a recent Environmental Protection Agency
report, the agency did not have enough information to determine
whether conditions at Ground Zero posed a health risk. Bush told the
EPA to report it was safe to breathe the air, even though the EPA had
no basis for saying so.
-
- "After 9/11, many people sought reasssurance and
wanted a hero. Some made Bush that hero. But the real heroes risked
their life at Ground Zero. Bush betrayed those heroes by putting their
lives at risk with false information." (Peggy Jenkins, Deary)
- __________
-
- "The legislation euphemistically referred to the
'the Patriot Act' would be
- better dubbed 'Operation Eroding Freedom.'...That
Ashcroft chose not to allow 'the people' to attend his speaking tour
suggests a misguided ego (or
- insecurity) not seen since Joseph McCarthy....I call
upon all citizens of Idaho to reject this thinly disguised
over-reaching of power." (Deanna C. Davis, Nampa)
- -----------
-
- "The Boise City Council will hold a public
meeting on a resolution to
- "choose" not to implement certain powers
granted by the unquestionably fascist Patriot Act...Tell them you want
your constitutional rights back. Reject fascism in America."
(Robert Blurton, Boise)
- ********
-
- In sum, all across the country, people are speaking
their minds, and what
- they have to say, more and more, does not offer
support for the extremist
- policies of Bush&Co. It's time to take the
country back in 2004. That means
- educating ourselves and then taking action. Everybody
look what's going down, and then organize, Organize, ORGANIZE!#
-
- Paranoia strikes deep
- Into your life it will creep
- It starts when you're always afraid
- You step out of line, the man come and take you away
- We better stop, hey, what's that sound
- Everybody look what's going down
- Stop, hey, what's that sound
- Everybody look what's going down
- Stop, now, what's that sound
- Everybody look what's going down
- Stop, children, what's that sound
- Everybody look what's going down. #
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
- --------------------------
- Bernard Weiner, Ph.D., has taught American government
& international
- relations at Western Washington University and San
Diego State University. A former writer-editor with the San Francisco
Chronicle for nearly 20 years, he currently is co-editor of the
progressive website The Crisis Papers
- (www.crisispapers.org) .
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