SICK YELLOW DOG Pg. 7•

A JOURNAL OF FREE VOICES NOVEMBER 25, 1994 • $1.75

©1992 ALAN POGUE THE DEMOCRATS' WINTER OF DISCONTENT

OBSERVATIONS

Wellfleet, Massachusetts racy and the just community. Slovenly citi- zenship has no excuse, but the misleading, LL, PROGRESSIVES have never manipulation and exploitation of public been more needed. opinion has become a technical art form in The American democracy has reached its which the controlling value is winning the nadir of disorder and confusion. The elec- election. The "political consultants" are in tion of 1994 was a deep and broad disaster fact the new class of facilitative parasites for the people of the United States and the who have scurried to collect the tolls at the future of democracy here and elsewhere. gates of Win and Prison as democratic poli- Illusions, once the stuff of mere slogans, tics has become a game of Monopoly. A JOURNAL OF FREE VOICES We will serve no group or party but will hew hard to the are finally washed away. The bund of the As if that is not enough betrayal of the truth as we find it and the right as we see it. We are ded- large corporations and the very rich governs people, there is also a rupture (is it beyond icated to the whole truth, to human values above all in- terests, to the rights of human-kind as the foundation of now quite openly; nearly all politicians are correcting?) between the owners and con- democracy: we will take orders from none but our own puppets and the state and local governments trollers of the large and mass media and the conscience, and never will we overlook or misrepresent the truth to serve the interests of the powerful or cater are their stages. The Republican and the people, we who own the airways and who to the ignoble in the human spirit. Democratic parties are no longer rivals, but are supposed to benefit from a system of Writers are responsible for their own work, but not for anything they have not themselves written, and in are colleagues in choreography for the corpo- competitive daily newspapers. publishing them we do not necessarily imply that we rations and the rich because the corporations `The free marketplace of ideas," John agree with them, because this is a journal offree voices. and the rich are the sources of the decisive Stuart Mill named the idea of a people sort- SINCE 1954 political money. There is a deep and deepen- ing out the truth by their own lights and val- ing rupture between the people out here and ues. Instead this year political advertising Founding Editor: Ronnie Dugger the corporations and government that rule in provided the TV stations one-third of a bil- Editor: Louis Dubose there. The connection is broken even though lion dollars in gross revenue, an all-time Associate Editor: James Cullen Production: Peter Szymczak this is still in form democracy. The govern- record even though this was an off-year. Copy Editor: Roxanne Bogucka ment is not the people's any more. "Negative ads" is just a shorthand reference Editorial Interns: Todd Basch, Mike Daecher, Ophelia The losers are blaming the people, just as for what has now been imposed upon the Richter, Darvyn Spagnolly. Governor Ann Richards and other leaders of people: a culture of lies and a politics of Contributing Writers: Bill Adler, Barbara Belejack, Betty Brink, Warren Burnett, Brett Campbell, Peter the Democratic Party in Texas, the likes of smokescreens and pumped-up fears. The Cassidy, Jo Clifton, Carol Countryman, Terry Fitz- Slagle, Bentsen and Shipley, blamed "voter TV and radio corporations and the newspa- Patrick, James Harrington, Bill Helmer, Jim Hightower, apathy" when money's marble Bob Krueger per corporations are now the most effective Ellen Hosmer, Molly lvins, Steven Kellman, Michael King, Deborah Lutterbeck, Tom McClellan, Bryce Mil- lost for the U.S. Senate again. From many single sector of the governing bund. ligan, Debbie Nathan. James McCarty Yeager. different kinds of people in despair one Ergo, the prophetic distortions of this his- Editorial Advisory Board: David Anderson, Austin; hears the people blamed and thus implicitly toric election of 1994. Not a single Republi- Frances Barton, Austin; Elroy Bode, El Paso; Chandler Davidson, Houston; Dave Denison, Cambridge, Mass; dismissed as worthy of affection and re- can incumbent governor or U.S. senator or Bob Eckhardt, Austin; Sissy Farenthold, Houston; spect, even though they are the very and the representative lost. Despite the fact that a Ruperto Garcia, Austin; John Kenneth Galbraith, Cam- only basis and source of the hope for democ- poll showed the health issue was the major bridge. Mass.; Lawrence Goodwyn, Durham, N.C.; George Hendrick, Urbana, Ill.; Molly Ivins, Austin; issue in people's minds as they voted, the Larry L. King, Washington, D.C.; Maury Maverick, Jr., its ogeolomIth party which killed even Clinton's save-the- San Antonio; Willie Morris, Jackson, Miss.; Kaye '001 Sea insurance-companies system prospered. Yet Northcott, Fort Worth; James Presley, Texarkana; Harrison Wofford, elected U.S. senator from Susan Reid, Austin; Geoffrey Rips, Austin; A.R. (Babe) 0- Horse Schwartz, Galveston; Fred Schmidt, Fredericksburg. • Pennsylvania in an upset on the strength, in Poetry Consultant: Thomas B. Whitbread • Inn good part, of his advocacy of national health Contributing Photographers: Bill Albrecht, Vic Hin- insurance, was defeated and Democrats lost terlang, Alan Pogue. Kitchcneites Contributing Artists: Michael Alexander, Eric Avery, TV both the House and the Senate. As an AFL- Tom Ballenger, Richard Bartholomew, Jeff Danziger, Beth I l e alcd CIO spokesman said, the voters expressed Epstein, Valerie Fowler, Dan Hubig, Pat Johnson, Kevin their disgust by throwing the rascals in. The bcsitle Gull Hexic() Syr Kreneck, Michael Krone, Carlos Lowry, Gary Oliver, Ben people's confusion is beyond belief because Sargent, Dan Thibodeau, Gail Woods, Matt Wuerker. on Huston:4 [shwa j that is what the corporations want. When i A\ ',Iiiabic 1(11 Pri \ atc Pullic 4111) Business Manager: Cliff Olofson Pak / 0 there is no vision the people perish and there Subscription Manager: Stefan Wanstrom l '// i(///(' /.../ trOPC(/// ( 1/(1/1// 0 is no vision and the people are perishing. Development Consultant: Frances Barton I ;kin/OA/there 0 Unless the two-party system now finally SUBSCRIPTIONS: One year $32, two years $59, three years $84. Full-time f [conoinik:al Spring anti Siiinincr kat,....4 breaks up, and the people's interests find students $18 per year. Back issues $3 prepaid. Airmail, foreign, group, and j bulk rates on request. Microfilm editions available from University Micro- Pets Welcome Pr ways back into government, we are looking films Intl., 300 N. Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, MI 48106. Any current sub- Mr scriber who finds the price a burden should say so at renewal time; no at unrelieved greed-first rule of the United one need forgo reading the Observer simply because of the east. 1423 11th Street 1110 INDEXES: The Texas Observer is indexed in Access: The Supplementary States. Much worse, as the multinationals Index to Periodicals; Texas Index and, for the years 1954 through 1981:The de facto replace governments as the ruling Texas Observer Index. iii0' Port Aransas, TX 78373 1 THE TEXAS OBSERVER (ISSN 0040-4519/USPS 541300), entire contents institutions we are looking at the end of the copyrighted, 1) 1994, is published biweekly except for a three-week interval cLiii (512) 749-5221 between issues in January and July (25 issues per year) by the Texas Democ- democratic system as the world's hope for racy Foundation, 307 West 7th Street, Austin, Texas 78701. Telephone: (512) 477-0746. E-mail: [email protected]. fill' Rcscrva 1 i(ni s Ai just social order. Second-class postage paid at Austin, Texas. Well, it is better to light a candle than to POSTMASTER: Send address changes to THE TEXAS OBSERVER, •...„.._grim 307 West 7th Street, Austin, 'texas 78701. :010...aki% A" , ,...4164 - curse the darkness. Light a candle. Wait for 44. 00 Ir ...... friends to come. —RD

2 • NOVEMBER 25, 1994 bT HE TEXAS EDITORIALS server NOVEMBER 25, 1994 Who Will Tell The Party? VOLUME 86, No. 23 REPUBLICAN POLITICAL consultant nelly in her summary of the Times poll. e Atwater understood that his party At a time when 59 percent of the subjects FEATURES never really owned the Democratic voters of one poll believe the country is still in a The End of the Democrats recession and Jim Hightower's rhetorical who left Jimmy Carter to follow Ronald By James K. Galbraith 5 Reagan in 1980. Those Democrats, Atwater "A Boom for Whom?" is set in large type said, "are always looking for a reason to on the cover of Time magazine, it is evident Sick Yellow Dog come home ... If they could maintain, that, that the mild economic expansion under- By James M. Cullen 7 well, you know, here's a Democrat, not a way since just before Bill Clinton took of- lot of difference between him and Bush, fice has not measurably improved the lives DEPARTMENTS they could say: 'We get to vote Democratic of most working people. ` "That's the way it again.' So we felt like, if we didn't get out is because that's the way they see it," said Observation and draw the differences, we'd lose." Re- University of Texas government professor Democracy and Despair publicans, in other words, had to give Walter Dean Burnham. By Ronnie Dugger 2 Democrats a reason to vote for Republican candidates. CORDING TO BURNHAM, the Editorial During the 1994 midterm election cam- Klection was a "mega-event," and Who Will Tell the Party? paign it was Democrats who couldn't give could represent a permanent partisan re- Molly Ivins Democratic voters a reason to vote for alignment. "At the end of the day," he said, Democratic candidates. Having walked "all the Democrats can do is hope that the Interesting Times; Return away from pocketbook issues like mini- Republicans will screw up by engaging in Power to Whom? 11 mum wage, compromised away its own wretched excess," which is clearly most Jim Hightower economic stimulus package and failed ut- possible in the House. The Democratic Green Profits; Trade in Children 12 terly with health-care reform, the Clinton Party, according to Burnham, "is in deep Administration was left with the enactment trouble, deeper than in McGovern' s or Potomac Observer of NAFTA and deficit reduction as its most Mondale' s times.... When you are in a sit- Newt Gets the Chair notable achievements. Deficit reduction uation where you have to depend on the By James McCarty Yeager '14 didn't measurably improve the lives of other side to make serious mistakes, you middle-class Americans, and working peo- have deep, serious problems." Books and the Culture ple in this country understand that NAFTA Among the factors that brought on the What Now My Love? was not passed for their benefit. Democratic defeat, Burnham cited "Ira Mag- Book review by Steven G. Kellman 1 1 So if 1992 was "the year of the woman," azines Rube Goldberg school of policy for- The Hammon & the Beans 1994 is "the year of the white man"—the mulation." Magaziner was one of the archi- Book review by Severo Perez 18 group of voters that made Newt Gingrich a tects of the bewildering and utterly household name. White males have borne a compromised Clinton Health Plan, also cited Dead Right disproportionate share of the burdens of eco- by pollsters as a stealth issue that turned the Book review by Todd Basch 19 nomic restructuring that has been underway election. A post-election survey by the Har- Afterword in this country since 1980, and on November vard School of Public Health and the Kaiser 8, white men acted in angry self interest, Family Foundation suggested that the "18- Books Suck turning away from the party that had once month-long struggle over the issue was cru- By Dagoberto Gilb 23 fought for their economic well-being. cial in stoking the attitudes at the heart of last Political Intelligence 24 An extensive New York Times exit poll week's election: anger, cynicism and disap- published on the Sunday after the election pointment with the Democrats." tells the story. Across the country, white "Bob Bullock," Burnham said, "seems to those of us on the democratic left. "Newt men, who 10 years ago in a recession had have saved the Democratic Party." It lost Gingrich," predicted government professor voted by a 52-to-48-percent margin for two Congressmen, the governorship, several Bruce Buchanan, "will self-destruct." And Democratic candidates for the House, this statewide offices and a number of very im- continuous gridlock, caused in part by con- year voted by a 62-to-38-percent margin for. portant judicial races, yet the Legislature re- flicts between the Newt Gingrich's House Republican candidates. The message for mained basically intact, unlike what hap- and Bob Dole's Senate "favors a third-party the President (and for Gov. Ann Richards, pened in Illinois, North Carolina or movement." Add to that Burham's assess- who had little more to offer working people Washington State. But trends, said Burn- ment that many of the voters who moved to than her support of NAFTA and an out- ham, who has built his professional reputa- the Republican Party did so because there standing list of appointees) was: It's still tion on the study of electoral trends, indicate was no place else to go. And, polls that find the economy, Stupid! "This year, two- that the Legislature will move toward the 57-to-61-percent of Americans perceive the thirds of the people who viewed their stan- Republicans. - need for a third party. dard of living as better voted for the Demo- "How do these [angry workers] behave?" cratic candidate, while almost as many of ArET SOME of the post-election analysis Burnham asked. "They either don't show the voters who viewed their situation worse ■ offered up by Burnham and a faculty up to vote or they turn rabidly right. There voted Republican," wrote Marjorie Con- colleague should be of particular interest to is uncontested [ideological] hegemony, no

THE TEXAS OBSERVER • 3 organized left in the U.S. So these people, what they want their government to be and moribund. It's not. Better to begin looking turn right.... They're not irrational, given their social contract to be...The American for a third party. Or hope that out of the our state of affairs." Dream has been lost, and we don't have a decay of the Democratic Party, something ABC radio talkshow host—and former conversation about what's really going on. can be built. In the best critique of Ameri- Democratic Agriculture Commissioner— We discuss school prayer..." can government published in the past 10 Jim Hightower also suggested the possibility Jim Mattox, who has represented Dallas years, William Greider's Who Will Tell The of a third party. "They threw out the in the Texas House and U.S. Congress, People, the author contemplates the diffi- Democrats because the Democrats were the served as Texas Attorney General, and lost culty of building a third party: establishment," Hightower said. "So I would two straight primary races—one against predict a progressive, independent effort in Ann Richards and the other against Richard . Someone will have tb invent a genuine 1996..." According to Hightower, one possi- Fisher—is more sanguine about the Demo- political party that takes active responsi- bility is that a group of prominent progres- cratic Party. Mattox argues for a return to bility for its adherents. This is an awe- sives, currently working around the Demo- the people and the constituency groups— somely large project, of course, for it lit- cratic Party because there is no place else to labor, women, minorities—that vitalized the erally means trying to construct piece by work, "will stand up and say 'This is what Democratic Party until the conservative piece, in the fractured modern society, we are going to do. We are going to speak Democratic Leadership Caucus moved the the personal and institutional relation- for it, raise money for it. We will be the party party to the right. "You don't conduct a ships that might draw people back into of the working people, we will run a candi- Democratic political campaign exclusively the process. date in the year 2000 or 2004, and mean- In the end, Greider suggests that the while we will look at any possible races, Demociatic Party might be the best bet. But state Senate seats, House seats, to show not the Democratic Party that just went some electoral success.' You win 10 seats down to a defeat that was long overdue. He and you're a big thing; it's a beginning." selects the Democratic party because "its Asked who would lead a breakaway from advanced state of deterioration makes it the Democratic Party, Hightower said: "It vulnerable to change." could be [Ralph] Nader, Jesse Jackson, Ju- The change he envisions would be total lian Bond, Bill Moyers. Someone, one of and would draw upon the experience of the these names, has got to stand up and say, Texas Industrial Areas Foundation, whose `We've ridden this bus too long.' 13 local policy-oriented groups in the "Who in the Democratic party," High- Southwest now represent the last best hope tower asked, "is representing the interests for participatory democracy in this country. of the working people, environmentalists, "Imagine, for instance," Greider writes, minorities and consumers—who didn't see "that the Democratic party decided to do for any change in their daily lives?" The the people what the IAF organizations have Richards Administration alienated many of already succeeded in doing—that is, talk those very factions, by promoting NAFTA; with the people face-to-face and listen seri- failing to take a stand against Formosa ously listen to that they say about politics." Plastics, a major polluter expanding its op- erations on the Gulf Coast; and by promot- "The political parties spend hundreds ing a waste-based economy in Sierra of millions of dollars on the empty poli- Blanca in West Texas—where an out-of- tics of TV commercials but nothing on state corporation bought a ranch from the authentic conversations. Imagine, for in- RTC to use as a dump for sewage sludge stance, if the Democratic party devoted a from New York and the Low-Level Ra- few million each year to party building dioactive Waste Authority is pressing from the ground up—talking and listen- ahead with plans to permit a waste facility ing to real people in their communities, that will accept nuclear material from at hiring organizers to draw people out of least two Northeastern states. isolation and into permanent relation- Perhaps somewhere among the 60 per- ships with organizations that would cent of voters who sit out the elections is speak for them, that they themselves the beginning of a third party. And Burn- could steer. Imagine if some of the pa- ham suggests that recruits might be found tience—and the respect for ordinary peo- among the working-class Democrats who ple of the IAF's organizations were bor- voted Republican because they had no rowed by the Democrats. other choice except the Democrats, Participants in such a movement would whom they held responsible for their per- GEORGE HIXSON have to delay gratification for longer than sonal economic loss. the two-year electoral cycle. And while Re- A third party, or a multi-party system, on television," Mattox said, and it seems publicans are dismantling the remaining so- suggested Susan Demarco, would at least clear that his presence at the top of the ticket, cial stabilizers of the post-Depression Key- encourage a conversation about public pol- in the place where Richard Fisher was pur- nesian project (and handing out guns at the icy. According to Demarco, an Austin writer ported to be, might have turned out enough same time), such an undertaking would re- and researcher who has worked for the De- voters in the Golden Triangle to save for quire patience. Yet it would begin to address partment of Agriculture and in the Depart- Democrats the seats of U.S. Representative rather than exploit real fears about real is- ment of Commerce during the Richards Ad- Jack Brooks and state Senator Carl Parker. sues—like crime and the disintegration of ministration, "we don't have any But those two additional electoral wins the public school system. And other than be- conversations about what we need in our might have served to convince Democrats ginning anew with a separate party, I don't country, about what people think, about in Texas that their party is anything but think I've heard a better proposal. —L.D.

4 • NOVEMBER 25, 1994 The End of the Democrats

BY JAMES K. GALBRAITH

HE DEMOCRATIC PARTY as we will not return. tated personal attack, creating a caricature knew it came to an end on November It's a brave new Republican world in which was part of what the voters rejected. T 8. A map tells the story. Democrats Congress, and it's likely to stay that way. But it's also true that Clinton was vulner- lost just one House seat in Chicago, one in able. He should have been prepared for the New York City, none in Boston, Philadel- ILL CLINTON WILL now face his- personal attacks, and he wasn't. He should phia, the Bay Area or Los Angeles. But tory as the President who brought the have realized that to elevate the conserva- across the upper South, through the Mid- BDemocrats down. And with ruthless tive "New Democrats" to national leader- west and over the plains, Democratic seats efficiency: Clinton lost both Houses in only ship status would tie them to the Party lib- turned over. These districts, in North Car- two years; Jimmy Carter took four years to erals and doom them along with himself. olina, Georgia, Tennessee, Ohio, Indiana He didn't. and Kansas, had been voting Republican Given his personal history, Clinton's for President for decades. Only the Con- Administration could have saved itself in gressman had stayed Democratic, through only one way: by giving the country some- constituent service, pork and PACs, be- thing to believe in. But this the President cause the Congressman was himself con- did not do. servative and because voters saw good Deficit reduction blocked this course. sense in a link to the majority party. The deficit hawks and the budget rules It became a corrupt system, which many killed the administration's investment Congressmen exploited with skill. To- plans (such as they were), while insiders bacco subsidies, sugar quotas, ethanol, de- drew Clinton into dependence on Alan fense contracts, tax breaks for timber and Greenspan for salvation by low interest oil and much else survived as favors given rates. Deficit reduction passed and or tolerated to retain the loyalty of the mi- Greenspan pulled the plug, leaving Clin- nority within the majority party. In return, ton marked as a tax-raiser with nothing to the conservatives voted to organize the show for it. Deficit cutting thus proved a House, and were sometimes loyal, but sucker's game. It was a policy to restore often not, on national issues. Republican credit, pure and simple, out of Though corrupted, this system could which they will now finance a new round work: Appeals to "save the President" res- of rich man's tax cuts. cued Clinton's 1993 budget by one reluc- And then: health care—a disaster that tant vote. But when it broke down, defec- will stand for decades as a monument to tions were doubly harmful. They could kill hubris. Clinton went into health care re- a President's agenda and yet spare the Re- form with a modest reputation for effec- publicans from blame. Or they could pass it tiveness. As polls now reveal, he emerged under duress, with such sour spirit that it from it with no reputation at all. And would become easy political pickings later rightly so. Health care reform was not re- on. And then too, the conservative ally blocked. It collapsed, of the efforts to Democrats would humiliate the President, pre-compromise every issue, to short-cir- as they did to Carter in 1980, Mondale in cuit the legislative process, of its failure to 1984 and Dukakis in 1988, by running confront costs, and most of all of Clinton's away from their national party leader at own failure to think politically and to election time. communicate with the people. Given that With exceptions notably in East Texas, health care reform was, by choice, Clin- the conservative Democrats are now gone. ton's defining issue, this last failure is es- Their party is also not the majority any pecially galling. longer. The Republicans who replaced them will serve local purposes well, and GEORGE HIXSON RE THE UNITED STATES a will raise even more political money from parliamentary democracy, its all the same special interests. Smart voters WGovernment would fall. Presi- will hang on to their new Republican in- lose only one. It will now take two more dent Clinton would resign. And Newt Gin- cumbents, as they did to their old painful years for the tragedy to play out, grich would be called upon to form a Re- Democrats, and for the same reasons. The and for the Administration to die. The out- publican cabinet. The Republicans, having Democrats who were replaced last week look afterward, from January 21, 1997 on- triumphed, would have the responsibility, ward, is for unified Republican govern- and the accountability that goes with it. James K. Galbraith teaches at the LBJ ment, world without end. In our system, there is no such orderly School of Public Affairs, the University of It is true that Clinton is not solely to transition. Texas at Austin. He will be a regular con- blame. The system was rotten beforehand. The most likely outcome is that the tributor to the Observer. And Clinton suffered a vicious, premedi- shell-shocked President will just let the

THE TEXAS OBSERVER • 5 Republicans rule. Declaring himself election converted many previously bipar- This is Texas today. A state full of newly alert to the joys of bipartisanship, tisan special interest lobbies, notably in Sunbelt boosters, strident anti-union- he can invite Gingrich and Dole to write agriculture and notoriously in tobacco, ists, oil and gas companies, nuclear the agenda. His cave-in on "voluntary" into Republican fiefs. In principle, this weapons and power plants, political school prayer is a sign that this is indeed could free a Democratic President to pro- hucksters, underpaid workers and his instinct. From dissident Democrats, pose a trade-off within the budget rules: toxic wastes, to mention a few. Clinton would and should then face a 1996 say dependent care tax credits for an end primary challenge, which any hopes for to subsidies and tax breaks. Republicans, BUT DO NOT DESPAIR! reelection (fantastic concept!) could not having championed tax relief but tied to survive. the subsidy system, would face acute dis- ram, THE TEXAS A second course, the Truman strategy, comfort, particularly if Clinton demanded would be to rally the Democratic sur- and then used the line-item veto on Re- 1114111P vivors, dominated as never before in both publican pork. Of the ideas floating server houses by the liberals. When they recover, around the Washington ruins these days, TO SUBSCRIBE: the remaining Democrats could prove a this one has the most panache. But the re- feisty group, mostly freed of awkward al- maining center-right Democrats would liances and deserted by the political suffer and the President probably lacks the Name money which no longer has any use for nerve. them. A left program, as yet unwritten, A mid-term election is not the last word. Address could combine a wholesale attack on high After Truman in 1946, both Richard Nixon interest rates with a social security payroll in 1970 and Ronald Reagan in 1982 rein- City tax cut. But Clinton lacks credibility as a vented themselves in the teeth of a hostile left reformer. To gain it, he would have to Congress. But then again, Clinton is neither State Zip reinvent himself, sacking his senior cabi- Truman, Nixon nor Reagan. Right now, he net and closest advisors. But then, who $32 enclosed for a one-year subscription. looks like a beaten man. And if we can't ❑ would he be, and who would join him in have President Gingrich now, perhaps the Bill me for $32. the bunker? next best thing, the closest we can get to the ❑ As a third possibility, Clinton could parliamentary outcome and the best hope 307 West 7th, Austin, TX 78701 adopt what some describe as "in-your- for the Democrats, would be a resignation face moderation." The geography of the and President Gore.

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6 • NOVEMBER 25, 1994 Sick Yellow Dogs

BY JAMES CULLEN

EPORTS OF THE DEATH of the ers than in 1990 and they were almost all proved of the job Richards was doing as Democratic Party in Texas may have from Republican areas. Richards carried governor and 52 percent felt Texas was Rbeen somewhat exaggerated but the Central Texas and South Texas while Bush headed in the right direction. Bush had an Yellow Dog, if not dead, at least is a sick swept other areas of the state. Richards car- advantage over Richards when respondents puppy. Republican businessman George ried six of the 15 most populous counties in were asked who would be better able to W. Bush in the recent general election the state: El Paso, Galveston, Hidalgo, Jef- deal with crime and funding public educa- routed Democratic Governor Ann ferson, Nueces and Travis. Even in Mc- tion. Richards had an advantage over Bush Richards, despite her personal popularity Clennan County, where she was born and in dealing with jobs and the economy. and the generally positive trends The poll by Blum & Welpin in the state, Lieut. Gov. Bob Bul- Associates Inc. of New York lock, Attorney General Dan found that 44 percent called Morales, Comptroller John themselves Republicans or Re- Sharp, Land Commissioner publican-leaning independents; Garry Mauro and Treasurer 34 percent called themselves Martha Whitehead, all Democrats or Democrat-leaning Democrats, managed to win re- independents; and 18 percent election and Democrats main- were independents. tained majorities in the state Richards got substantial sup- House and Senate, albeit with the port from black and Hispanic traditional tilt toward business voters, as exit polls showed 76 interests in both chambers. Still, percent of the Latino vote and 88 Republican victories in races for percent of the African-American agriculture commissioner, two vote went to the Democrat. The railroad commissioners' seats four Lower Rio Grande Valley and five benches on the Texas counties voted 63.1 percent for Supreme Court and Court of Richards but other exit polls in- Criminal Appeals are proof that dicated that almost a quarter of no Democrat can take re-election the Texas voters who supported for granted. Richards in 1990 shifted their Bullock claimed the title of the vote to Bush this year. state's most popular official, While 53 percent of Texas gaining 2,629,497 votes, or 61.5 women who voted supported percent of the total, just ahead of Richards, Bush carried 56 percent Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, a of the men, according to Voter Republican who got 2,601,733 News Service. Southwest Voter votes, or 60.8 percent of the total, Research Institute found 79 per- and Agriculture Commissioner cent of Hispanic women voted for Rick Perry, a Republican who Richards and 74 percent of His- won a second term with 2.5 mil- panic men voted for her. lion votes, or 61.9 percent. Jerry Polinard, a political sci- Critics generally agreed that ence professor at the University Richards botched her re-election of Texas-Pan American in Edin- campaign by allowing Bush to burg, said it was remarkable that define the issues and failing to ALAN POGUE Richards did so well in the Val- present a clear vision of her Ann Richards ley yet lost the election. plans for a second term. The im- "She ran such a poor campaign pact of Bill Clinton upon Texas Democrats raised, Richards finished 464 votes behind you just wonder what in the world was going was harder to gauge. While a poll the week Bush. In Williamson County, north of on while [Bush] ran a textbook perfect cam- before the election found the President's Austin, Richards got 937 more votes than paign," Polinard said. Bush put Richards, the approval rating in Texas at a tepid 38 per- she got in 1990 but Bush got 10,348 more incumbent, on the defensive and he gov- cent, Tex Lezar was unable to hang Clinton than Clayton Williams did, as virtually all erned the pace of the campaign as well as the around Bullock's neck and Greytok was of the relatively well-educated, white, mid- issues. "They almost had no passion in her unable to unseat Mauro despite the fact that dle-income newcomers drawn by high-tech campaign until the last week or so and the the Land Commissioner reportedly had industry in the past four years apparently emphasis on attacking his business record, stretched state ethics rules when he ran Bill voted Republican. although I understand her focus groups Clinton's Texas primary campaign out of A poll conducted for the Dallas Morning showed movement with that, didn't motivate his state office. News and the Houston Chronicle the week people to get out and vote," Polinard said. Texas counted about 450,000 more vot- before the election found 55 percent ap- "It's just unprecedented in my experi-

THE TEXAS OBSERVER • 7 ence to have a candidate with an almost 60 concerned about crime and welfare, but the crime bill or losing his committee chair. percent positive rating, with a moving when it comes to crime I think African Conservative Democratic Representative economy and crime down three years in a Americans look at solutions that are aimed Bill Sarpalius of Amarillo lost to Republi- row, with no personal scandal around and more at prevention and rehabilitation," An- can challenger Mack Thornberry, who got immigration wasn't playing here like it was derson said. While the state has made sub- 55.5 percent of the vote in Panhandle Dis- on the two coasts; it was inexplicable why stantial efforts in those areas during trict 13, as the election left the state's dele- those things could not be reduced to 30-sec- Richards' administration, Anderson said, it gation at 19 Democrats and 11 Republicans. ond sound bites. In fact he clearly seized seemed all Richards was talking about was Progressive Democratic Representative the crime issue away from her, which was the number of prison cells she had built. John Bryant of Dallas, a critic of Demo- little short of miraculous when you've got And neither candidate had much to offer on cratic accommodationist tactics who called the data showing she had paroled one- welfare reform. "When it comes to getting for Speaker Tom Foley to step down two fourth of what her predecessor had paroled. people off welfare, we need to come up years ago, survived with a plurality of 49.8 "... It's fairly true when people say she with jobs and child care and neither candi- percent in the Fifth District, as Republican got caught in the Republican tide but she date was talking about raising the kind of Pete Sessions got 47.6 percent and three helped that by swimming too far out with funds you would need to do that," he said. other candidates split the remaining 2.6 her campaign," Polinard said. State Democratic Chairman Bob Slagle percent. Moderate-to-progressive Demo- Richards' spokesman, Bill Cryer, said the said Texas Democrats actually did well cratic Representative Martin Frost of Dal- voters were in no mood to listen to her ac- when compared with the rest of the coun- las also was pressed before he emerged complishments and many did not believe re- try. In the case of Richards, he said, she had with 52.9 percent in District 24. In other ports that crime was down and jobs and stu- recovered in the polls the'last two weeks of tight races for Democrats, conservative dent test scores were up. the campaign but undecided voters opted Charles Stenholm got 53.7 percent in West Richard Murray, a pollster and professor for Bush in the last few days. Texas District 17; moderate-to-conserva- of political science at the University of The party did a good job of getting out tive Greg Laughlin of West Columbia got Houston, noted that the people who voted the vote in targeted precincts, Slagle said, 55 percent of the vote against Jim Deats in for President George H.W. Bush's re-elec- but ticket splitters spelled trouble for Upper Gulf Coast District 14; and moderate tion in 1992 were much more motivated to Richards and some other Democrats. For Jim Chapman of Sulphur Springs won with come back to the polls this year than those example, in Jefferson County, he said, Bul- 55.3 percent in the Northeast Texas First who in 1992 voted for Clinton or Perot. lock, Sharp, Morales and Mauro and Bul- District Harris County voted about 40 percent for lock all ran 65 percent or better but Ann . Dick Armey of Flower Mound is ex- Bush in 1992 but 48 percent of the county's Richards ran at 55 percent, Parker ran at 57 pected to be elected House Majority Leader voters on November 8 said they had voted percent and Jack Brooks only ran at 52 per- when the 104th Congress convenes in Jan- for Bush and only about 32 percent had cent. "So obviously some of the vote we uary. While Texas loses committee chairs voted for Clinton. turned out was being selective about which in Brooks at Judiciary, Henry B. Gonzalez As in other areas of the state, Harris Democrat they voted for, and swing voters of San Antonio at Banking and Kika de la County turnout was high in white middle- obviously were willing to vote for a lot of Garza of Mission at Agriculture, Republi- class areas, with 65 percent of registered our Democrats and not willing to vote for cans Bill Archer of Houston will head the voters getting to the polls, while working- others," Slagle said. tax-writing Ways and Means Committee class white and minority voters turned out and Tom DeLay of Sugar Land is a leading at 40-45 percent. Congress contender for Majority Whip. Also, Gonza- "I think you can still see Democratic U.S. Representative Jack Brooks of Beau- lez, as the senior Texas Democrat in strength in South Texas while Republicans mont faced the wrath of Southeast Texas Congress, will be responsible for recom- do awfully well in the ring counties around gun owners who were upset that he voted for mending to the White House judicial candi- the big cities," Murray said, "but we still the crime bill, with its ban on assault dates from Texas.- see the confirmation of the pattern that's weapons, as well as the fact that he had been The bright spots for Democrats were been developing over a quarter-century, in Congress 42 years. Steve Stockman, a 37- election of Lloyd Doggett in Austin and where the Republicans have strength with year-old accountant from Friendswood, a Ken Bentsen and Shirley Jackson Lee in white suburban voters and the Democrats Houston suburb, who was making his third Houston. Doggett, the former state senator have strength with the minorities, and the try for the seat, polled 5.1.9 percent of the and Supreme Court justice from Austin, got rural and small-town whites tend to be up vote as Brooks got 45.7 percent and two 56.3 percent against Jo Baylor, who got for grabs. They went Republican in '94." other candidates split 2.5 percent. 39.8 percent, and three other candidates Sanders Anderson, a political science Brooks, 71, narrowly won in his home who split the remaining 4 percent, only to professor at Texas Southern University, base of Jefferson County but lost Cham- find out he had stepped down from his mi- said African-American turnout of approxi- bers, Galveston and southeast Harris coun- nority role on the state's high court to take mately 40 percent in Houston was slightly ties as he fell 9,710 votes short out of a minority role in the U.S. House. more than four years ago and went heavily 156,797 cast. On election night, Brooks Bentsen, an investment banker and for- (approximately 88 percent) toward was quoted warning residents of the 9th mer Harris County Democratic chairman, Richards and the Democrats. Anderson said District, "It's going to be a new world." got 52.3 percent of the vote to outpace the turnout was not greater because Brooks' ouster shocked Congressional Gene Fontenot, a hospital executive who African-American voters did not perceive colleagues. Charlie Wilson, a Lufkin mod- got 45 percent after spending $2.4 million Bush as much of a threat and Democrats erate Democrat who voted against the of his own money on the race while two paid little attention to the black vote until crime bill and won an 1 1 th term with 57 other candidates split 2.7 percent. the last few weeks of the campaign. percent of the vote in neighboring Deep Other Democrats who won relatively When Bush talked about fighting crime, East Texas District 2, said he knew Brooks handily were conservative Ralph Hall of reducing the age at which juveniles could was in trouble, despite the fact that as Judi- Rockwall; moderate-to-conservative Chet be tried as adults and cutting welfare, An- ciary Chairman he had bitterly fought the Edwards of Waco; conservative Pete Geren derson said Richards failed to present her assault weapon ban. In the end, Wilson of Fort Worth; moderate-to-conservative side of the story. "African-Americans are said, Brooks faced the choice of voting for Kika De la Garza of Mission; progressive

8 • NOVEMBER 25, 1994

*.rorkweityop.4.1.41r voiad e.o.^ ■••-• Mr,,,y, •••.4.0•1 04.4,??M1, mn....to.40!1*%** ‘111100e.0` Ron Coleman of El Paso; progressive Henry stand and confront," Wilson said. minority candidates. Bush could veto any Gonzalez; moderate Solomon Ortiz of Cor- Martin Frost, because of his seniority, plan drawn up by the Democrat-dominated pus Christi; moderate Frank Tejeda of San likely will retain his seats on the Rules and Legislature, sending the job to the GOP- Antonio; progressive Gene Green of Hous- Administration committees, although for the friendly federal judges. "We need to win ton; and progressive Eddie Bernice Johnson first time he will be in the minority. that Congressional redistricting lawsuit at of Dallas. He saw signs of Republican confusion the the U.S. Supreme Court," Slagle said. Henry Bonilla, who won a second term first week after the election. Bill Archer, the with 62.5 percent, was the Republican new chair of Ways and Means from Hous- Texas Senate member of Congress who had the closest ton, announced tax cuts without an explana- While Democrats emerged from the elec- call, as Democrat Rolando Rios of San An- tion of how he would pay for them but Frost tion with a 17-14 majority in the Texas Sen- tonio got 37:5 percent in Bor- ate, upsets of two veteran der District 23. Democrats and the Republican Stenholm, who had been capture of an open seat in a mentioned as a potential con- marginally Democratic East servative coalition speaker if Texas district put a decidedly the GOP fell short of a major- more conservative tone on the ity, said the new Republican- chamber. The upset of liberal controlled Congress must live Democratic lion Carl Parker of up to its rhetoric that calls for Port Arthur by a relative un- tax cuts, more defense spending known from suburban Houston and a balanced budget. "That removes the most formidable makes excellent rhetoric to get progressive force in the Senate, elected, but it makes awfully a lawmaker feared for his biting poor math when you start look- wit in floor debates as much as ing at the budget," Stenholm his behind-the-scenes skill in was quoted in the Lubbock fixing bad bills on behalf of or-

Avalanche -Journal as he pre- ganized labor, trial lawyers and dicted that farming programs environmental and consumer will be singled out for cuts. advocates. Parker had served in U.S. Senator Phil Gramm has the Legislature 32 years, includ- said the new farm bill will cost ing the past 18 in the Senate. less and rely more on markets. Republicans came tantaliz- Wilson, the East Texan who ingly close to a Senate majority, has balanced a moderate record which would have threatened on social issues with a strong de- Lieut. Gov. Bob Bullock's pri- fense posture, said there is no macy in the chamber, when way of getting around the fact early returns showed incumbent that the next Congress will be conservative Democrat Bill very conservative. "I don't think Sims trailing Republican former FILE PHOTO there's going to be very much Carl Parker legislator Hugh Shine in the coming out of there that the West Texas 24th District and President will sign; maybe some things like has no doubts that the Republican leader- David Cain, a Dallas Democrat and state GATT and the appropriations bill, some ship will advance many of the initiatives representative, trailed Richard Harvey of things like that," he said. contained in their Contract with America. Tyler in the Northeast Texas Second Dis- He believes the party should return to the "They have great party discipline, unlike the trict. Late reports put both Democrats ahead centrist policies of the Democratic Leadership Democrats. The question is how extreme as Sims finished with 53.4 percent of the Council. "I think it would have been wise if he they become." vote and Cain with 50.6 percent. had never left (center)," Wilson said. "I've al- Democrats need to rethink what they are The immediate past Senate had eight gen- ways been a centrist, or at least tried to be, and about, Frost said, and while some partisans, erally progressive votes and seven generally that's when we've won elections." such as Bryant, believe in a more confronta- moderate votes. The new Senate will have Liberals should forget about trying to tional, progressive approach when the nine progressive votes and five moderate purge conservatives from the party, he ad- House Democrats reorganize December 2, votes, based on past performance. Under vised. "They would certainly like to have 14 Frost believes they should adopt a more past Senate rules, two-thirds, or 21, votes Boll Weevils back, I'll tell you. But if that's centrist orientation. "We're only down 13 are needed to bring up a bill for debate and the way they feel about it, fine. If they don't seats; we can regain the House in the next 11 votes can block legislation. want pro-defense Democrats in the party, election," he said. Michael L. Galloway, a 29-year-old Re- well hell, we'll get out rather than change Other Democrats were enjoying the publican oil-and-gas producer from the our views on something as basic as national prospect of watching Republicans fulfill Woodlands, shocked Parker, who had been security." He added, "I was called last night their campaign promises. "No one is hold- persuaded by Southeast Texas Democrats to by the Republicans and they asked me if I ing Phil Gramm back from finally passing a seek another term after he announced plans would consider changing parties and I said balanced budget," one said. to retire after the past legislative session. no, but I'm sure there are others that are One of the problems that faces Democrats Parker ran an aggressive, issue-oriented cam- thinking about it." is the possibility of having to redraw Con- paign with ads that focused on his leadership Wilson said he would advise Clinton to gressional districts next year if the U.S. on education reform while Galloway's visi- find common ground for agreement on is- Supreme Court lets stand a district court rul- bility in the eastern part of the district was sues such as health care and GATT. "Where ing that districts in Dallas and Houston were limited, according to the Beaumont Enter- his soul is involved of course you have to illegally gerrymandered to allow election of prise. As in the case of Brooks, Parker won

THE TEXAS OBSERVER • 9 Jefferson County as well as Orange County, who lost a Democratic primary race for the Democrats, it looks pretty good but not that both Democratic strongholds, but Galloway Railroad Commission. many of them would you consider progres- carried Montgomery, Chambers and Harris In South Texas District 43, Tracy 0. sive.... The key for us is to organize our 55 counties as the Republican won by 8,124 King, a Uvalde Democrat, beat Pete Nieto, to 60 [progressive] members and attract an- votes out of 149,822 cast. Galloway called a moderate who had switched to the Repub- other 15 to 20 moderates and in some re- for another rewrite of the penal code, decen- lican Party after the 1993 session. In Dis- spect those moderates hold the balance of tralizing education, lawsuit reform and abo- trict 46, Alec Rhodes, D-Dripping Springs, power. One of the things we have never lition of the corporate franchise tax. won the seat given up by moderate Libby done is try to organize and appeal to them. Montgomery County may have cost the Linebarger of Manchaca. In District 50, We've allowed the conservative caucus to elections of both Parker and Curtis Soileau. Dawnna Dukes, D-Austin, won the seat operate with no real organized opposition Parker lost Montgomery County by 14,000 given up by Wilhelmina Delco, a progres- and they are very well organized on the votes, while Soileau lost the suburban sive Austin Democrat. floor with floor leaders and they've got a county by 11,000 votes and lost the district In Central Texas District 57, Barbara newsletter daily putting out their issues. by 7,242 votes to Drew Nixon, a Republican Rusling, China Spring Republican, unseated They're well-prepared when they come up from Carthage who drew notoriety when po- Betty. Denton, a progressive Waco Demo- to speak on legislation and we're not." lice officers released copies of an arrest re- crat. In District 58, Arlene Wohlgemuth of The group is in the process of raising port of Nixon's apprehension in February Burleson unseated Bernard Erickson, a con- money to hire staff. It has raised $40,000 so 1993 on a weapons charge as he allegedly servative who switched to the Democratic far toward a goal of $60,000 to $100,000. was soliciting prostitutes in Dallas. But the Party after the 1993 session. In District 65, more potent charge in East Texas was that Burt R. Solomons, a Carrollton Republican Legislative Issues Soileau, a Lumberton Democrat, was a trial won the seat vacated by incumbent Republi- lawyer and former progressive state repre- can Ben Campbell following his conviction George W. Bush will fmd that he has to deal sentative with ties to organized labor. in federal court on bank fraud charges. with the Democratic majorities in the Legis- Tom Haywood, a Wichita Falls Republi- In West Texas, Gilbert Serna won the lature. "The power in Texas does not lie with can, won his rematch with moderate Demo- seat after defeating progressive Tony Parra the governor," Senator Gonzalo Barrientos, cratic Senator Steve Carriker, also of Wi- in the Democratic primary for District 75. an Austin Democrat, said on election night. chita Falls, by a margin of 3,886 votes out In El Paso District 79, Joe Pickett, a Demo- 'The power lies with the Senate and the of 151,026 cast. In 1992 Carriker had edged crat, won a seat formerly held by Republi- House. If the governor wants to work with Haywood by less than 1 percentage point. can incumbent Pat Haggerty, who had been the Senate and the House, we'll work with Jerry Patterson, a Pasadena Republican, redistricted into adjoining District 78, him. If he doesn't, that's his problem." got 55.6 percent of the vote to fend off which he won after moderate Republican Still, Bush and the Democratic leader- Democrat Mike Martin, a highly regarded ship of the House and Senate have mutual Jack Vowell retired. In District 80, Repub- friends in the lobbies. progressive state representative from lican Gary Walker of Plains won the seat While Bush campaigned on getting tough Galveston, in Galveston Bay District 11. given up by moderate-to-conservative The Democrats also gained Mario Galle- Democrat Jim Rudd of Brownfield. on crime and welfare and returning control gos, a progressive state representative from In the Dallas-Fort Worth area, Democrat of schools to local districts, business-ori- Houston who was unopposed in District 6. Glenn Lewis takes the Fort Worth seat given ented lawmakers saw the election as a man- date for lawsuit reform that has long been Bullock's bipartisan leadership team is up by progressive Democratic incumbent the Holy Grail of business and professional expected to include Democrats John Mont- Garfield Thompson in District 95. In District ford of Lubbock, Ken Armbrister of Victo- 105, Democrat Dale B. Tillery won the seat groups. They want to make it harder for in- ria, Mike Moncrief of Fort Worth, John given up by progressive Democrat Al Gra- jured parties to sue and to collect damages Whitmire of Houston and Judith Zaffirini of noff. In District 107, Democrat Harryette for negligent acts. After the election Bush Laredo as well as Republicans David Sibley Ehrhardt won the seat given up by moderate- claimed "a clear mandate for tort reform ... of Waco and Ed Ratliff of Mount Pleasant. to-progressive Democrat David Cain. so that we can free our producers and peo- ple who risk capital from the dangers of In the Houston area, Republican Joe frivolous and junk lawsuits," although Rick State 'House Nixon won the seat given up by Republican Freeman of Austin, president of the Texas Bob Eckels of Houston in District 133; in While 21 Texas House members are not re- Trial Lawyers Association, noted in the turning, the 150-member House of Repre- District 134, Republican Kyle Janek won November 10 the seat given up by progressive Democrat Dallas Morning News that sentatives ended up with 89 Democrats and Bush also campaigned that individuals Sue Schechter; in District 135, Republican 61 Republicans, signifying little apparent should be held responsible and accountable Gary Elkins won the seat given up by Re- change in a chamber that has been controlled for their actions. "That is one of the things publican Dalton Smith; in District 136, by the business-oriented conservative wing. we ask juries to do—to hold individuals Beverly Woolley, Houston Republican, Only five House members were defeated and corporations responsible for their ac- while seeking re-election. Nine others won the seat given up by Republican Ash- tions," he said. ley Smith. In District 143, Democrat Ger- stepped down, another's seat was vacated Texans for Lawsuit Reform and its mem- ard Tones won the seat given up by pro- when he was convicted on a felony charge bers pumped $600,000 into various races, gressive Democrat Mario Gallegos; and in and six sought higher office. including $155,000 into the campaign of the In Galveston District 24, Democrat Craig District 148, Democrat Jessica Farrar won opponent of Steve Carriker, who was an ally the seat given up by progressive Democrat Eiland succeeded Mike Martin, a progres- of the trial lawyers who lost the election. Yolanda Navarro Flores, who unsuccess- sive Democrat who unsuccessfully ran for The group also gave $125,000 to Drew fully ran for the Texas Senate. the Senate. Charlie Howard, a Sugar Land Nixon, who defeated trial lawyer Curtis Representative Kevin Bailey, a Houston Republican who had unseated Representa- Soileau of Lumberton. Mike Galloway was Democrat and chairman of the progressive tive Jim Tallas of Sugar Land in the Repub- such a longshot that the group did not risk Legislative Study Group, said he hopes the lican primary, won the general election for Parker's ire by contributing to him. "Parker group can maximize the influence of moder- District 26. In District 31, Democrat Judy was a bonus for us," the News quoted Mike Hawley, a Portland schoolteacher, won the ate and progressive lawmakers in the House. seat given up by Robert Earley, a moderate "If you look at the numbers, 89 or 90 Continued on pg. 21

10 • NOVEMBER 25, 1994 MOLLY IVINS

Interesting Times not just that Mansfield put stuff on his ré- each other off as they vie for the nomina- sumé that's not true; it's the stuff he left tion in 1996. Austin off that's sort of interesting, too. He seems A people whose stomachs were strength- Sheesh. Sest lah vye, Mabel. I'll say one to have lost two races for Congress in ened by the Reagan years should be able to thing for the results of the recent plebiscite: New Hampshire, and we're not sure what get through this laughing all the way. It is sure as hell going to be interesting for he did in Massachusetts. Is it time to con- the next couple of years. • sider appointing judges instead of electing Return Power to Whom? What an utterly fabulous cast of charac- them, team? ters. Strom Thurmond, 92, chairman of And despite the best efforts of an alert I listen to Republican rhetoric about how Armed Services. Jesse Helms, chair of For- press (watchdog of democracy), you've power should be returned to "the states" eign Relations. Alphonse D' Amato, chair gone and put three of those stealth Chris- with some degree of alarm. It sounds so of Banking. Orrin Hatch, chair of Judi- tians on the State Board of Education, giv- good in the abstract—by George, gummint ciary. And in the House, Speaker Noot. ing the Republicans a one-vote majority. should be closer to the people, those bean- I must confess that once the election Don't say we didn't warn you about this brains in Washington don't know anything started to break Republican, I was rooting one. You get careless in those down-ballot about our problems here. But then one real- for all of them and was terribly disap- races and the weirdest stuff happens. izes what that means in specific is the pointed when both 011ie North and Michael Newt Gingrich's Contract with Amer- Texas Legislature. They want to give more Huffington bit the dust. You have to think ica—the one that promises a balanced-bud- power to the Texas Legislature. Yep, that entertainment at times like this, and the rule get amendment, tax cuts and more military same old collection of guys with pots on is: The more outrageous, the better. It spending in the first 100 days of the next their heads. brings to mind the glory days of the Reagan session—provides us with a substantial I regret to report that familiarity with the era, when he kept appointing people like snack for thought. What should a patriot Texas Lege does not breed respect. But I James Watt to jobs like Secretary of Inte- do? Try to stop it? Let them be hoist on am happy to report that many of the new rior. You could never tell whether he meant their own petard? It is tempting to envision members of the Lege give promise of up- it as a joke or not. a strategy of Democrats' sitting on their holding the old standards. For example, the One thing we can say in favor of the re- hands while the Republicans cut Social Se- new state senator from Carthage is Drew sults is that at least it will clear up the con- curity and otherwise endear themselves to Nixon, who was arrested last year in Dallas fusion on the Blame Patrol. We've all been the populace. But as Milhous Nixon once with three prostitutes outside his car. He pointing fingers in 360 different directions, said, it would be wrong. pleaded no contest to a weapons charge. and now it's simple: We get to blame the Clinton is an incurable compromiser You can tell Nixon will be a great state sen- Republicans. anyway, so he'll be GATTing with these ator: Not one prostitute but three. This is Texas is in relatively good shape. guys and telling us all what statesmen they right in the old "Too Much Is Not Enough" There's nothing actively wrong with Shrub are. But I think (and the advice is free) he tradition. Bush, and as we keep reminding you, the would do well to try a little carpe diem. Overall, the Democrats, who had hoped governor of Texas does not have much One thing this election proves is that we're to pick up a couple of seats in the Senate power. We blow some great chances for all sick and tired of this whole disgusting because of redistricting, wound up losing entertainment here. At one point, it looked political mess. Now is the time for cam- one, for a 17-14 partisan split. Lite Guv as though we might get Marta Greytok- paign finance reform, spending limits, Bob Bullock can also call on a couple of known in Public Utility Commission cir- PAC limits, the whole package. My own Republicans when he,' s got a have-to deal. cles as "Attila the Bun"—for land commis- Modest Proposal is as follows: "No candi- The House also had little change in its sioner, but no, you put boring old Garry date for public office shall be permitted to profile: net loss of one Democratic seat. Mauro back in, and all he'll do is run buy either time or space in any news Speaker Pete Laney told the press with around trying to save the environment, to medium. Compensatory time and space for straight face that the House has never been the general annoyance of all who profit the purpose of debate on the issues shall be out of touch with the conservatism of from its rape. provided by the media." Texas voters. I'd say so myself. And darn, no Gene Fontenot out of Do I think that Gingrich, the man who Actually, there weren't a lot of seats in Houston, the guy who had God for an inte- killed lobby reform and then bragged about play this year. Redistricting left the House rior decorator. Ken Bentsen, indeed. You it to lobbyists while he hit them up for big with a bunch of safe seats on both sides, so know perfectly well that none of those bucks, is going to do this? No. But we'll nobody did much candidate recruitment. Bentsens has an ounce of Elvis. know where the blame lies. Among the notable losses: On other hand, we have managed to put Given the fiscal irresponsibility of Re- • Tony Parra, who got elected by drag- Steve Mansfield on the Court of Criminal publicans, Clinton should also remind ging a large wooden cross around El Paso Appeals—the fellow who suffers from, these folks that the economy is now grow- but never contributed much thereafter. ah, résumé problems. Mansfield was en- ing (and would be doing better if the Fed- • Betty Denton of Waco, who always dorsed by the victims-rights group Justice eral Reserve would quit jacking with it), voted right but earned a reputation as the for All, but they suspended their endorse- the deficit is going down, and any change Carlos Truan of the House. Many a time we , ment after learning that Mansfield seems in those conditions will be on their heads. have heard a desperate lobbyist plead, never to have practiced criminal law. It's Aside from that, I look forward to a fan- "Betty, please don't get up to speak for our tastic display of gooniness, spiced, of side. Please don't get on the mike." Molly Ivins, a former Observer editor, is a course, by the piquant sight of our newly • In the Senate, Steve Carriker lost to Re- columnist with the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. elected Republican leaders trying to kill publican Tom Haywood, who has Parkin-

THE TEXAS OBSERVER • 11 son's disease. In the primary, some vile a load of watermelons. Rude, crude, some- favorite Parkerisms is "If you took all the Repub ran footage of Haywood trembling times deliberately ungrammatical, he led fools out of the Lege, it wouldn't be a repre- from his disease, and there was a sympathy many a fool to think he was just a loud, sentative body anymore." backlash that got him the nomination and rough guy from the Triangle. I think he's the Good on you, Carl, and thanks to you for then the election. smartest man I ever new in the Lege. And he all the ways you have made life in Texas • And worst of all, Carl Parker of Port had a hell of a lot of fun doing it. One of my both fairer and safer for Texans. Arthur got rained out in the anti-Jack Brooks follies in the Golden Triangle. Parker, a master legislator, was the trial lawyers' main guy in the Senate, so now they're all suicidal. He will be replaced by Michael Galloway, who is "in invest- JIM HIGHTOWER ments," What we have here is proof that the yuppies in the Woodlands now outnumber the union members in the Triangle in that Make Environmentalism us—let's work together to make environ- district. Mean Business mentalism mean business for all of us. It occasionally falls my lot to write polit- As Kermit the Frog tells us on Sesame Trade and Children ical obituaries for brothers fallen in the po- Street: "It's not easy being green." litical wars, and I do so for Carl Parker with In fact, as documented in a new book Diplomacy, Mark Twain observed, consists special regret. Twenty-five years ago, when called The War Against the Greens, if of "getting the formalities right ... and nev- he was in the House, he was known as Cap- you're an environmental activist, being erminding the moralities." tain Tuna, after Charlie the Tuna, an adver- "green" can be downright dangerous. Some Well, as President Clinton heads off to tising cartoon character who was always cases make national news, like that of Judi Indonesia to begin negotiating the formali- trying too hard. Parker would be a wonder- Bari, a prominent crusader against the cut- ties of more trade with Asian nations, take a ful study for political science students, es- ting of California's ancient redwoods by look at the moralities of the trade we al- pecially those who might be suffering from timber companies. ready have there. feminist correctness. Parker loved to play In 1990, a bomb planted under the front Millions of Asian children are forced to the role of professional sexist; he could be seat of her car exploded, maiming her for forego schooling and work in despicable as crude, raunchy and obnoxious as anyone life. and dangerous conditions, toiling for I've ever known, but once you learned that But most cases target local activists and hours to make consumer goods that major he liked smart women who answered back, get only minor media attention, if any at U.S. brand-names—from Nike to Wal- he was easy to deal with. Underneath all the all—like the toxins protester in Cincinnati Mart—then import here and sell to you. bluff and bluster, Parker finally had a heart whose home was set on fire and who later It's called "free trade"—but you pay a as gold as his brain. Too much testosterone, pretty penny for the goods, and the chil- though. was knifed; or the Florida activist who op- posed water pollution by Procter & Gam- dren pay with unimaginable poverty, One advantage of longevity for a journal- ble and was raped and tortured by three degradation and illiteracy. ist is that one can remember someone like men; or three opponents of logging in In a recent report, the U.S. Labor Depart- Parker at different periods. Early on, he Maine and New Hampshire who had their ment found more than 2 million children wore the last of the "East Texas afros," a houses torched. making furniture for export in Indonesia, flat-top haircut, and raised hell in the House. While the big polluters and anti-green or- nearly 6 million making clothing for us in One of his finest hours was the last night of ganizations that front for them disavow any Bangladesh, 2 million making carpets in the Constitutional Convention in 1976: The responsibility for this rising wave of vio- Pakistan and more than 17 million making entire constitution, six months of effort, lence, they are the ones out there preaching shoes, carpets and other items in India's ex- hung in the balance, and the only way to hate every day, asserting that environmen- port factories. pass it was with a right-to-work provision talists are The Enemy who want to take The exploitation includes little tykes as written into the document, and Parker was a away your jobs and destroy the economy— young as 5, squatting for hours on end in union man, son of a union man. He voted all for a bunch of owls and snails. These dark pits, four to a loom, knotting carpets for Texas that night, but his old labor friends polluters might not commit the acts of vio- that end up in America's finest homes; would never see it as anything but selling lence, but they've got a stain on them so Bangladesh children, 10 to 14 years old, out. I've seen a lot of politicians under a lot deep they can't get it off with Ajax and a making cotton clothing for us while liter- of pressure, but never one under more than wire brush. ally locked in factories for 10 hours a day; Parker was that night. He won't admit this Ironically, while they poison the climate and goods coming from the hands of Asian now, but he cried that night. with fear and hate, more and more evi- children who've been sold into debt Just last session, when Parker had started dence shows that good environmental poli- bondage by their impoverished parents. looking old for the first time, heavy and cies in fact create jobs. Indeed, a new anal- Meanwhile, three-fourths of us con- slow, one leg gone bad on him, he still rose ysis by the Institute for Southern Studies sumers say we'd refuse to buy a product if on the floor to remind his colleagues that finds that the states with the highest envi- we knew it was made by children. So, be- they were not there to advance the interests ronmental standards also are the best off fore we let the president, the Congress and of the insurance industry or of the timber in- economically. the corporations put your and my country's dustry or of the oil industry—they were So all of you, bean sprout eaters and snuff name on a new "free trade" deal with Asian there to represent the people of Texas. dippers alike, don't let the polluters divide nations, shouldn't we first make them deal Understand that Parker's moments of no- with the moralities? bility were rare; mostly he was just a fighter, Senator Tom Harkin of Iowa has a bill to a battler, who wound up in fistfights or near Jim Hightower, a former Observer editor and ban the importation of any product made by fistfights about once a session. One of his Texas agriculture commissioner, does daily children younger than 15. To get a copy, call best weapons is that he's a moon-faced fel- radio commentary and a weekend call-in talk 202-244-3254. low who looks like he just rode into town on show on the ABC Radio Network

12 • NOVEMBER 25, 1994 POTOMAC OBSERVER

Newt Gets the Chair Street Journal, summed up the election on fice holders' terms but not on Republicans', CNN as one which "repudiated liberalism and for balancing the budget except for mil- Washington, D. C. but did not approve Republicanism." If you itary spending. In Mordecai Richler's viciously comic substitute "conservative Democrats" for An extra added attraction of the coming novel The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz, "liberalism" there might be some truth to biennium is that, as a Washington journalist young Duddy does everything his Mon- the whole thing. (who wishes to remain nameless in order to trealer elders tell him. They value material But letting the Republicans and their con- remain employed) remarked, "At least success and clout. He duly hustles, makes servative Democratic allies do the analyzing under the Republicans we can all buy lots of money, spends it lavishly. So, naturally, for us would prove as damaging to the pub- guns to make the revolution." they all hate him for it. lic weal as letting them vote for us. Oops, While accurately reflecting current Re- Bill Clinton and the Democrats are kind they're about to do that in Congress. publican social policy, this view perhaps of in the Duddy posture these days. Having The new Speaker of the House will be overstates the weight of civic discontent. agreed with the Republicans and Perotistas Rep. Newt Gingrich, a puff-cheeked, white- If we were half-mad enough to revolt, that deficit reduction should form the cor- bread, draft-dodging, frat-boy, Atlanta-sub- wouldn't we at least try to vote first? nerstone of federal economic policy, Bill urban, attack-Republican Congressman. He Maybe not. and Congressional Democrats expended is known as "Nuke-'Em Newt" for the sub- Mercifully, we're not going to have to considerable political capital on getting tlety of his foreign policy views, also as wait too long to watch these people shoot genuine, effective deficit reduction passed. "Gingrich-Khan" for the delicacy of his do- themselves in the feet. Repeatedly. If they They gave up on his economic stimulus mestic policy intentions. Next to Newt, can't manage to make themselves unpopu- package in order to get it through, in fact. Senate Majority Leader-designate Bob lar in two years by carrying out the crack- So now we have measurable deficit re- Dole, a Kansas Republican, looks almost pot schemes they imagine they were duction for the first time since the Vietnam responsible, just like "the convict Veep," elected because of, the volatile citizenry, War first began consuming our national Spiro Agnew, used to make the unindicted which now blames Bill for everything in- treasure and our youths. But do those who Richard Nixon look almost statesmanlike in cluding the baseball strike, will have had most benefit from reduction—the property comparison. to show an unusually long-lived stability owners, the bondholders and stockhold- However, Newt's being sentenced to the of attitude. ers—reward Bill and the Democrats for it? chair of the House of Representatives could If somebody as inoffensive, good-na- It don't take a Kravitz to know which way well turn out to be a Br'er Rabbit moment. tured, and warm-hearted as Bill can hack the wind blows. Newt cried out to thrown into the leadership people off in two years doing the things they All stories about the inherent and irre- briar patch, but the thorns are going to be elected him to do, I can't wait to see what versible morbidity of the Democratic Party mighty sharp. Aside from the usual plati- happens when Dole, Gingrich, and incom- are completely suspect, since the exact same tudes about his having to govern instead of ing Senate Foreign Relations Chairman stories were all written about the Republi- oppose, nothing is more calculated to en- Jesse Helms get together to, say, authorize cans two years ago. A defeat of the magni- gender public disgust with Republicanism invasion of Cuba. tude of 1994, however impermanent (as is than passage of the more salient portions of the nature of majorities), offers some re- its agenda. OOTNOTES: 011ie North's defeat building opportunities amid the ruins. Since the Republicans will be in a hurry proves that even if you shouldn't even Think of four years of Shrub's weak copy to pass their legislation before their majority F be there you can still run close. And of his father's most insincere smile, as he runs out in two years, they might have to Kay Bailey's reelection over the bumble- presides over the dismantling of the govern- combine a few things. How about the En- dicked opposition of Richard Fisher proves ment and the promise of the erection of forced School-Prayer and Pregnancy Act? that Perotism without money is invisible. more prisons. One Term For Sure. In the new dispensation, the rule will be The Republicans' dismal emphasis on The main thing to remember about 1994 "You have to pray; and you have to get welfare—when, it is such a small percent- is that, ideologically, it was more a rejection knocked up." In the old days, of course, one age of the budget—while signalling their of conservative Democrats than it was of frequently had recourse to the former in moral bankruptcy, also shows that they liberal Democrats. Psephologically, the order to evade the latter; but no more. Now are too rabid to run the country for long. Democrats couldn't deliver for their urban, we'll have to do both. I can't wait for the split between the minority, women and disenchanted base, We shall doubtless get the Prison School- 011ie/Newt/Phil Gramm incendiaries vs. who then didn't bother to vote for them. yard Act, under which all the new prison the Dole opportunists. How about the rural This is how you get de-elected: Don't de- beds will be built next to urban high and trailerpark Christian right vs. liver, while scaring your enemies into think- schools, perhaps sharing chain-link fences, Catholics, Jews and secular suburbanites? ing you're going to. administrations, and weapons. The Urban This could be real fun. Al Hunt, an actually half-decent reporter Area Abandonment and Toxic Dumping My final electoral image comes from the with the wholly execrable Republican Bill will merge two long-standing Republi- late Charles Addams. One of his cartoons can ideas, contempt for cities and for envi- shows a building labelled "Acme Silk Purse James McCarty Yeager is an inadvertent en- ronmental safety. Co. Research Dept.," into which is being trepreneur in Bethesda Maryland, who edits Then, of course, we'll get the Balanced driven a herd of pigs. Visualize the Capitol Minority Business Report, visits Congress Term-Limit Budget Constitutional Amend- building with such a sign, and a herd of ele- more often than is proper for a delicate- ment through the Congress, though proba- phants being driven in. I'm not buying any minded lad, and occasionally misses the bly not through three-quarters of the states, silk purse futures from them. massed high rainclouds of Houston. that will call for a limit on Democratic of- — James McCarty Yeager

THE TEXAS OBSERVER • 13 A public service message from the American Income Life Insurance Co. — Waco, Texas — Bernard Rapoport, Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer. (Advertisement)

Little People—Big Things

No one, not even the president of a corporation, is exempt actions, they do. For most of them, Scott Buchanan's description from the responsibility to do his or her best thinking about the of the Old Italian City-State Rulers would be most applicable: "... mess we are in as a species ... and to share it with the rest of us. the defense of honor took the place of the practice of virtue." I do this here, in the form of this speech which I made before a Unitarian group in Memphis, Tennessee, in March of 1974. It Too often, erroneously, they assume that they are the over- originally was published in the Texas Observer of May 24, 1974. equals and we the un-equals. Confrontation with the fact that all Bernard Rapoport of us are not equal—that is, in terms of intelligence and special talents—is not, In my view, what has produced the pall of "All the rest is commentary." This is the answer to the ques- seething that permeates our society. tion as to the ills of our society. It is reminiscent of the old con- Tom Watson, when he was a good populist, said: frontation between the Jew and the conservative Rabbi Sham- mai. The Jew asked the Rabbi to "Explain the Bible to me while ..Keep the avenues of honor free. Close no entrance to the I stand on one foot." The Rabbi responded with a blow on the ear poorest, the weakest, the humblest. Say to ambition every- of the Jew, who then went to Rabbi Hillel and posed the same where, "the field is clear, the contest fair; come, and win your question. Rabbi Hillel replied, "Do not do unto others what you share if you can." would not want done to yourself—the rest is commentary. Now Robert L. Heilbroner (The Human Prospect) indicates that the go out and study." emotional depression that seems to be affecting all of us is the And so it is with we who are concerned about our society—we result of, among several things, the tragedy of Vietnam and the need to go forth and study. violence of these times. Crime and Vietnam dramatized the BIG Dennis Gabor, in his book entitled The Mature Society, points THING and that we are but LITTLE PEOPLE. Collectively, we out the cul-de-sac into which Rousseau led us with his thesis of couldn't stop the war in Vietnam: Whether it was the intransi- the basic goodness of man when he says: gence of our leaders or the inflexible anachronistic instinct of our I believe in the perfectibility of man, because this is the only institutions or, perhaps, a combination of the two, the collective working hypothesis for any decent and responsible person. will of the people wanting a stop to the war was but of little effect. But I know of the almost infinite corruptibility of man. History We haven't learned much; we all are unanimous in being against is mostly a sad tale, full of nauseating examples. war, but our leaders and our institutions just don't seem to be able to get along without war, or having us on the brink of one. Joshua Heschel reveals his discovery of this fact thusly: Ditto relative to crime: Everyone is against it, but our leaders and I was taught about, inexhaustible mines of meaning by the our institutions never seem to get around to erasing the reasons that contribute to it. Baal Shem; from the Kotzker I learned to detect immense mountains of absurdity standing in the way. The one taught As a people, Americans have lost confidence—not only in me song, the other—silence. The one reminded me that there their institutions ... in their churches, but more sadly in them- could be a Heaven on earth, the other shocked me into dis- selves. We are a nation that seemingly has inhabitants all under covering Hell in the alleged Heavenly places in our world. the influence of some kind of depressing drug. One of the most salutary aspects of the Roosevelt Adminis- A little explanation will add to understanding of this quotation: tration was that as we began to emerge from the Great Depres- From Mezbish comes the famous Rabbi, known as the Bal sion, Americans felt a certain control of their own destiny, and Shem Tov, and the great leader of Hasidism, which of course is more importantly that their leaders could meaningfully deal with Jewish mysticism in its most beautiful sense. These mystics be- society's problems: We no longer believe either one of these. lieved firmly in the total goodness of Man. And then Heschel dis- The answer as to why, Professor Heilbroner summarizes thusly: covers Rabbi Mendt of Kotzk, Poland, who understood Man's capability for evil. Any approach to an understanding of what our "We have become aware that rationality has its limits for en- society has been ... what it is ... and what it can be, that doesn't gineering social change and that these limits are much nar- relate to what Gabor and Heschel have indicated, is just an ex- rower than we had thought." ercise in futility. Lord Ritchie Colder of The Center for the Study of Democratic The first requisite of a good society is TRUTH. Solzhenitsyn Institutions in Santa Barbara says it even better: says in one of his articles that "One word of truth outweighs the whole world." The Declaration of Independence begins with the But we know how that efficiency has a built-in tendency to emphasis upon the equality of all men. Clarence Ayres, how- take us rapidly to where we will not want to be when we get ever, reminds us, in his book Toward a Reasonable Society, there. that: This is the dichotomy which Heschel faced all of his life in Equality means the absence of artificial and arbitrary barriers. spiritual conflict between the Bal Shem Tov and the Rabbi from It does not, and of course cannot, mean the absence of indi- Kotzk. vidual differences, physical, mental or even social. Our leaders appeal not to our rationality ... not even to hearts That is the truth with which the leaders of our society are well and our feelings, but, rather, to sensitive prejudices, which they aware, but in their conversations do not take notice of it; in their are able to obscure the fact that they really do mean to do any-

14 • NOVEMBER 25, 1994 thing to meaningfully ameliorate the state of society. They can most instances, through a revolution. History has always demon- talk about skyscrapers and six-lane highways, computers and strated, when revolutionary governments come into power— atom bombs, and all of the advances of science—yes, in Texas even when motivated by noble purpose—their first years of rule we can even talk about the guy with the fastest gun—all this are characterized with harsh and oppressive laws and regula- seems irrelevant. Maybe we have discovered—and perhaps too tions. If the Russian experience is indicative of what is to come, late—that while being poor means we may not have things—and population control may be achieved but concomitant with it will certainly no one is suggesting that we go back to that state— come an idolatry for the machine. And then comes the quest for even worse than this condition is the worldwide impoverishment control of markets. And, finally, war as a means obtaining mar- of our combined spirit. Voltaire said it best in this episode of kets. There is one thing different in this scenario from past his- Zadig: tory, and that is the ease by which modern nuclear weaponry is 'What! my lord," cried the fisherman, "can you then be un- obtainable. Just the other day, I believe it was the Atomic Energy happy, you who bestow bounty?" Commission or some other government agency that cautioned "A hundred times more unhappy than you," answered Zadig. that every installation that had any material of a fissionable na- "But how can it be," said the simple fellow, "that he who gives ture should be guarded They pointed out that it would be very is more to be pitied than him who receives?" easy for a small group of revolutionaries to threaten the destruc- "Because," replied Zadig, "your greatest misfortune was a tion of an entire community, should they be able to obtain the hungry belly, and because my misery has its seat in the heart." necessary information to enable them to do so. It was pointed out how simple it would be to manufacture nuclear bombs once We now come to the central question that you and I must an- one had possession of the ingredients. So again, we are con- swer: Are we willing to accept limits on growth so that you and I fronted with the possibility that we may be done in. can get BIGGER and things get SMALLER? Heilbroner poses The third possibility of this happening is that we could run out the question more politely: of groceries. We may be able to stop war or stabilize population; there is, however, a finiteness ... a limit to the amount of natural Thus, even more disturbing than the possibility of a serious resources on which we can depend for our existence. To this day deterioration in the quality of life if growth conies to an end is we have not willingly accepted confrontation with this possibility; the awareness of a possibly disastrous decline in the condi- science certainly has not provided any hope that it has a solution tions of existence if growth does not come to an end. to the situation. We have lived too long under the lie that bigness means effi- One astute observer of America and Russia came to the con- ciency and smallness inefficiency. I submit, however, that even if clusion that if you took the Russian industrialist and substituted it were true, still the concern must be with the quality of living him with an American; took the Russian military leaders and sub- stituted them for the American military leaders, and the Russian rather than efficiency. An interesting confirmation is revealed in a newspaper report labor leaders for American labor leaders—and gave them inter- which indicates that the chances of being murdered in New York preters—none of them would have to change their ways. I'll are one in 17; in Washington, one in 16; in Fort Worth, one in 53; guarantee you—you couldn't tell the difference. The point of this El Paso (the smallest of the cities under survey), one in 322. A being that bigness produces the same kind of mentality whether baby born this year in one of America's 50 largest cities has al- the leaders involved are Communists, Socialists or Fascists. The most a 2 percent chance of being murdered in his lifetime. The old argument of capitalism vis-a-vis socialism doesn't loom source is Dr. Arnold Barnett of the Massachusetts Institute of nearly so important as it once did; in fact, I think capitalism prob- ably is more compatible with attitudes of the individual than any Technology. The world is changing all around us: We are so inefficient system yet conceived by economists. when it comes to understanding people and crime; this is be- When I use the term capitalism, I am not referring to what we cause our commitment to BIGNESS is so enveloping that as have here in the United States, which is more monopolism than long as things get bigger we construe this as progress. We have anything else. I am thinking of what Adam Smith had in mind been so efficient in our exploitation that the best we can do is when he advocated having such a multiplicity of producers not boast that we have oil supplies for the next 100 years ... a coal one of them could "fix" prices and control the supply of goods. supply of a few hundred years beyond that. Today, we have ap- The genius of Adam Smith, upon whom I looked with disdain for proximately 3.6 billion population. In much of the western world so many years of my life, was his understanding of the nature of we have achieved some population stability—in other portions, the power processes. He knew that people had to be bigger than such as in Asia, Latin America, and Africa, the Malthusian pre- things, and that this could be achieved only in a society where dictions seem increasingly accurate. It is estimated that this area power was fragmented. which has about 2.5 billion of population will have something like As an interesting aside, I recall a conversation with one of my 40 billion inhabitants a century from now—that is, of course, un- very good friends who is a leading banker and who chided me less the population control methods can be effective in those about my liberal ideas. Later in the conversation I reminded him that a group had applied for a new bank charter in our commu- areas. The lack of fertilizer and water alone may be what does us all nity and that his bank, as well as all of the other banks, fought the in, if the population explosion continues. granting of this charter, and that out of his mouth came praise of What is to be, because of this, is that in the underdeveloped competition, in practice he was a monopolist. countries a poverty even worse than Man has yet experienced I never thought that I would be using George Wallace's ideas will be accompanied with political indifference, riot and crimes. to buttress my own; I must say, however, that his assessment of Such societies will obviously be ruled by military dictators and the frustration of the average American because of his inability to they only stay in power by making war. But there is a second al- change things and to have to accept things as they are, is most ternative: Some of these countries may have men of stature, perceptive. When people are frustrated, they are more inter- commitment and deep concern for the people as their leaders; it ested in hating than they are in loving. If this state of mind con- could logically be assumed that they reached those positions, in tinues, who knows what kind of America we will have if it is an

THE TEXAS OBSERVER • 15 America filled with hate? stand why the individual on welfare is seldom appreciative of the Murray Edelman wrote (Politics as Symbolic Action) the fol- handout he receives. lowing: I once made a speech in which I began with the statement: I Political history is largely an account of mass violence and of am in favor of the abolition of welfare and unemployment com- the expenditure of vast resources to cope with mythical fears pensation. I was giving the speech to a conservative group, and and hopes. At the same time, large groups of people remain they applauded loudly until I said: You haven't let me finish my quiescent under noxiously oppressive conditions and some- sentence, and so I continued: welfare and unemployment com- times passionately defend the very social institutions that de- pensation are too cheap a form of bribery for the Establishment prive or degrade them. to pay for the system not working. One of the residues of this accentuation on bigness and our Americans are now beginning to understand this. worship of it is that from a quantitative point of view, it is too Viktor E. Frankel, in recounting his years in a concentration temptable. What do I mean by this? The nefariousness of Wa- camp, and replying as to how he was able to endure the indigni- tergate was not caused by money or the pursuit of it; a certain ties and the physical suffering, said: "He knows the `why' for his group had great, great power, and the prospect of losing it was existence will be able to bear almost any 'how.'" Yes, that's why unbearable; what unfolded is a matter of record. So many of for so many of us we appreciate the martyr but we never under- today's crimes come about because middle-class Americans ac- stand how he endured: It is because to him, the "why" of his ex- cept bigness so totally that they conceive of themselves without istence is so meaningful that he doesn't feel the sufferings of any status unless they are a part of it. Members of this middle "how" his existence is to be. He knows that he must exist to fulfill class are always tempted, many of them succumb. If things were that driving commitment that fills his Being. Well, that's the kind smaller—and again, we mean here the controlling institutions; of spirit that is lacking among Americans today, because they such as labor, business, academe and government, the tempta- seem to themselves to be so powerless. tion to do wrong would not be nearly so strong. The myth that I once proposed to one of the great unions of this country that rural people are more honest than city dwellers evolved because it sponsor legislation that would break up the giant corporations. there was far less crime and violence in the smaller communi- It was a tax on total income, starting at 1 percent for the first 50 ties ... the inhabitants were not exposed to the big wealth, and million in sales and going up 1 percent for each additional $50 quite frankly, these folks needed one another and recognized million. Under this proposal, for example, if one bought a $3,000 that need. In the cities, we need one another, but don't recognize car from General Motors, the tax might be $1,400 or $1,500; pur- it. chasing a car from American Motors would result in a tax of only The old Populists recognized these evils of bigness; today, $100. Obviously, the primary purpose of this tax—aside from its when you confront the modern-day economist, government bu- revenue factor—is to fragment the giant corporations. One of the reaucrat, labor leader or businessman, and talk about breaking economists of the union responded that technology today re- up big corporations, they whisk off the suggestion with a "Don't quired too much capital, and this proposal was not practical. It be silly, it's not practical." My response is that this attitude of appeared to me then—and even more so now—that we cannot "Let's be practical" may really do us in. Even if something be un- have unlimited material goods and a satisfying way of life, or a economic but it adds to the quality of living we had better re-ori- society in which we little people become big and the things get ent our thinking to accepting this as a practical idea. smaller without some adjustments. Dennis Gabor sums it up per- Our leaders underestimate us; if they will make the "why" of fectly: living bearable, you and I can stand the "how." Tolstoy under- stood this when he explained how the Russians stood up to Let us face the problem squarely. We cannot stop automation Napoleon in 1812 when he invaded their homeland, as com- and mechanization of manual and clerical work, because it is pared to how he had run all over them when they fought him in a powerful means of increasing the wealth and well-being of Austria: our industrial civilization. But if we do not stop automation and mechanization, we cannot stop the lowest intelligence brack- Force (the volume of motion) is the product of the mass into ets from becoming unemployable on the production line. We the velocity. then have the choice of bracketing them with the lunatics and feebleminded, whom our society already maintains at the tax- In warfare the force of armies is the product of the mass mul- payer's expense. tiplied by something else, an unknown X. And Gabor talks about "ergonomics," which is the art of mak- ing work agreeable and interesting, and that we need to make X is the spirit of the army, the greater or less desire to fight jobs fit people instead of people fitting jobs. He relates a story and to face dangers on the part of all the men composing the that, in one of the large computer factories in France, each work- army, which is quite apart from the question whether they are man assembled an entire computer by himself ... tested it ... and fighting under leaders of genius or not, with cudgels or with then signed his name on the computer—just as an artist would. guns that fire thirty times a minute. The men who have the Now listen to this: The workmen not only were enthusiastic in greater desire to fight always put themselves, too, in the more their work but also in intellectual matters and became excellent advantageous position for fighting. The spirit of the army is students of evening classes. After a few years, however, the fac- the factor which multiplied by the mass gives the product of tory was automated and the workmen developed the same kind the force. To define and express the significance of this un- of attitudes that one would expect when he is bored all day to known factor, the spirit of the army, is the problem of science. earn a living. You and I are an army. Our X is at a rather low ebb these To those of us who are concerned about crime and violence, days. If our society provides a climate wherein we can be big— we would do well to remember that happy people are rarely vio- bigger than things—then our X ... our spirit, that is ... will take lent; too, we must face up to acknowledging that dependency care of the things. breeds contempt; that's why Americans generally misunder-

16 • NOVEMBER 25, 1994 BOOKS & THE CULTURE On the Road

BY STEVEN G. KELLMAN WHAT NOW MY LOVE Francisco, and, accompanied by Sam, a Henry James, Salas shares more than phys- By Floyd Salas. pusher who is Carole's former lover, they ical appearance with his fictional writer 154 pp. Houston: Arte Publico.$9.95. hop into Miles' MG and head for Miles, who, though 5-feet-5-inches and Mazatlan. They get as far as Tijuana. "I 125 pounds, has "the wiry, flat muscles of UST AS THE D1F1 ERENCE be- want to be a free man, first of all," pro- a tall, rangy man." Like his creator, Miles tween a torso and a carcass is a swarm claims Miles, who, in hitting the open attended college on a boxing scholarship, Ell of flies, what distinguishes mere phe- road, deserts his work as a writing instruc- and he boasts that he has won every one of nomenona from a veritable tradition is the tor at a local private college. "I want to more than 200 street fights. Pugilistic proliferation of dissertations. Mexican- live my ideals, not talk about them and do prowess saves his life in Mexico. American literature, which 30 years ago something else like nearly all people do, Salas, who was born in Colorado but existed more on faith than paper, is now a and that includes most writers, and espe- moved to California at 8, traces his roots canonical category, the subject of semi- cially institutionalized professors, who to an ancestor who arrived in Santa Fe in nars, symposia and offers from commer- talk big and act small, play their campus 1585 with Spanish explorer Juan de Oilate. cial publishers. But long before Random power politics, play it cool when the pres- Though his heritage is complicated by House discovered Sandra Cisneros, hum- sure's on." Navajo, Irish, Belgian, French, Jewish and ble houses such as Quinto Sol, Bilingual Miles is an oracle of the Zeitgeist, the Basque strains, Salas has been a prominent Press and Arte Pdblico were publishing emblem of an era in which personal free- figure in Chicano literature since 1967, and promulgating the work of new His- dom, doing one's own thing, was the when his first novel, Tattoo the Wicked panic authors. Many are now ancient supreme virtue. It is why we who resisted Cross, was published to acclaim. The nar- enough to be venerated. the coercions of the Selective Service Sys- rator of What Now My Love calls himself Rudolfo Anaya' s Bless Me, Ultima, first tem were not in Vietnam. But Miles shares "a spic" but attributes his "piecemeal published in 1972 by Quinto Sol, has just his journey with two other people, and his Spanish, which was functional enough but been reissued by Warner—the popular freedom is restricted. He resents the pres- sure wasn't fluent" to the fact that "My novel's first appearance in hardcover. ence of Sam, and he even mistrusts his family had immigrated to the U.S. from Tomas Rivera' s ...y no se lo trag6 la tierra passion for Carole, though the two manage Spain too many generations before and in- (1971) has lately found new life as Severo erotic gymnastics in the car's front seat. termarried with too many other national Perez' s film ...and the earth did not swal- Recalling how his friends and former wife types for Spanish to be second language." low him. And Arte Pdblico Press, which is had assisted the police in pursuing him for Yet Miles commands the language well based at the University of Houston and of- marijuana possession, Miles is determined enough to negotiate for drugs in Tijuana fers as its motto: "Recovering the past, never again to rely on anyone but himself, and express his contempt for the natives. creating the future," is restoring to print even as he slips closer to Carole. Miles, Much of what was once hip in What Floyd Salas' What Now My Love. Early in whose first book will be published in four Now My Love is now politically incorrect. Salas' second novel, a drug dealer gets months, is absolutely devoted to his art, Mordida - eager Mexicans are caricatures high merely by packing empty capsules and he is convinced that freedom is a pre- of corruption and malevolence and its, only with LSD. Reading the book, first pub- requisite for literary greatness. female character, the six-foot-tall blonde lished by Grove in 1969, now is like snap- "Great art can only come out of an un- Carole, is an insecure male's fantasy more ping open a time capsule packed with fettered personality, a person willing to than a fully realized human being. Getting quaint but ever potent substances. In stand totally alone in the world without high is exalted. Nothing ages faster than 1969, the year that Kerouac died and God or man or love or any crutch but his nonce words, and Salas' readers must be Woodstock was born, no one over 30 was own conscience. I want to produce great willing to decipher earnest dialogue fit to be trusted. At 29, Salas' s narrator, a work, and I'm willing to die in the at- fraught with antique terms like "groovy," writer named Miles, is barely reliable. He tempt," proclaims Miles, who by the end "dudes" and "fuzz." The text retains its recounts his flight down the California of the story has not yet died or produced original solecisms, inappropriate to a nar- coast following a violent drug bust. Miles great work. In his sober concluding deci- rator who is a college teacher, even (espe- and his 19-year-old "chick" Carole visit sion to "go back to America and nothing," cially?) of creative writing; Miles berates an apartment in Haight-Ashbury in order he has learned something about the delu- "the laws that made dope illegal in Amer- to score some acid. sions of freedom. ica and forced people like Sam and Carole But a bungled police raid sends them and I into the underworld." scurrying through the window and onto N HIS 1992 autobiography Buffalo What Now My Love evokes a vanished the roof. Fearful of arrest as accessories to Nickel, S alas recounts a life shadowed world in which cats wore Nehru tunics and murder, Miles and Carole abandon San I by alcoholism, drug addiction, violence chicks donned miniskirts, in which it was and prison. A brawler and a boxer who possible to fill an empty tank of gas for succeeded in pulling himself up by his $3.80. It retains its power to take readers Steven G. Kellman teaches comparative litera- own typewriter ribbon, a working-class on a swift and sobering trip. ❑ ture at the University of Texas at San Antonio. author more akin to Jack London than

THE TEXAS OBSERVER • 17 American Tales

BY SEVERO PEREZ

THE HAMMON AND THE BEANS ville). He expresses an affection for a little officer. Loyalties have long before been AND OTHER STORIES. girl who burlesques the soldiers, imitating abandoned or perverted, and the Mexican- By Americo Paredes. their chow conversations of "give me the American soldier wonders if he's been set 230 pp. Houston: ham," and "give me the beans." The girl's up by the American POWs. The mission is Arte Publics) Press. $9.95. real father died long before in an encounter certain death. And the "gift" turns out to be with the soldiers, and her stepfather is cal- heartbreaking. HERE'S AN encanto surrounding lous about her welfare. In another of several World War II tales, The Hammon and the Beans and In "The Gringo," set about 1916, a brash the theme of chaotic loyalties is tightened T Other Stories by Americo Paredes. 16-year-old boy, Ygnacio, has gray eyes another notch. In "Ichiro Kikuchi," a young The cuentos recall yellowed photo albums and sandy hair, giving him the appearance man, a Mexican citizen of Mexican and of people and places long gone—refined of being an Anglo. But his upbringing is Japanese parents, is stranded in Japan at the and elegant, yet powerfully elemental. To thoroughly Tejano. His father and brothers time of Pearl Harbor. Toward the end of the a Chicano like myself, the characters in the having been murdered in an ambush, Ygna- war, Ichiro is conscripted into the Japanese stories represent an extended family of un- cio is trying to meet up with a Revolution- army along with other boys and old men. cles, aunts and cousins I've never met. My ary named Villegas and revenge himself Without training, Ichiro and his company great-grandfather and great-uncles clashed against the hated Americans. Ygnacio's al- are sent to the Philippines to face the Amer- with the Texas Rangers. And my father legiances are tested when he is seriously ican Army and "to fight to the death." He and uncles went off to serve in the great wounded and captured by the Anglos: Be- and other comrades surrender to the Amer- war. In this collection for the first time cause he has a light complexion and gray icans only to discover the Allies are not tak- Paredes relates stories my family might eyes, the unconscious Ygnacio's life is ing prisoners. The Japanese soldiers are have told around the kitchen table. And spared. He awakens in a Protestant minis- forced to dig their own graves—and their like Isaac Singer or Anton Chekhov, Pare- ter's home to be nursed by blonde, blue- executioner is to be a Mexican-American des writes with an honesty transcending eyed Prudence, the minister's teen-aged soldier. borders and time. daughter. But not even the love of the de- These 17 stories represent Americo voted girl can sway the young man's deter- HE AMBIGUITIES OF loyalty are Paredes' personal output from the late mination to get into the fight. At the first given yet another twist in "Sug- 1930s to the early 1950s. This was before opportunity, the young man is out the door T amo." An African-American soldier, With A Pistol In His Hand retold the story with guns, silver coins and the minister's Private J.C. Jones, is arrested by racist of Gregorio Cortez as a multidimensional best horse—all supplied by Prudence. On American MPs for the murder of a epic. A handful of the stories were pub- the run, the young man finds himself dis- Japanese pimp. Jones had become violent lished in regional periodicals long ago trusted by combatants of both sides. And in when he was refused the service of a (The title story was first published in the the final confrontation, the invisible walls whore because he was a black man. Even Observer); most are available in this print- of culture and language become concrete. though Private J.C. Jones had been com- ing for the first time. These cultural encounters and confused mended earlier for following orders and The first and last stories take place some- loyalties are offered in several variations in shooting a pleading Japanese prisoner of where south of San Antonio near the Mex- the collection. Each encounter is different. war in cold blood, he now faces hanging ican border. In between there are bracing All are quite profound. for the death of the pimp. side trips to a violent South Texas con- "Rebeca" is the exception in theme and In the final two stories Paredes intro- frontation 80 years ago; a nightmarish stop content. Set in the early 1950s, it is a story duces a cocky Mexican-American GI, Juan in the South Pacific at a World War II of a chain-smoking matriarch contending Picadero. In "Getting An Oboe For Joe" Japanese prisoner-of-war camp; and a with a diagnosis of terminal lung cancer. and "The American Dish," there's no am- more contemporary visit with a chain- She is surrounded by her daughters, pam- bivalence about Juan's identity. Juan is smoking senior citizen recapitulating her pered and fussed over. With her limited Chicano through and through. It's the life and loves. Encounters, cultural and oth- time weighing on her, she recalls her life world around him that's full of duplicity— erwise, are rarely benign in Paredes' uni- and how the man she loved was too shy to and people and events are never what they verse, where Ambrose Bierce would have ask for her hand. She was pressed into a appear to be. appreciated the occasional chill in the marriage to a man she did not love. After The collection includes an informative moral tpography. the wedding her husband became tyranni- introduction by Ramon Saldivar of Stan- In the first story, "The Hammon and the cal and abusive. He even drove away her ford University. One doesn't have to read it Beans," the observer, a young boy, recalls beloved son. She wonders if maybe death to enjoy the stories, but I found myself flip- the American soldiers stationed in will be a welcome release, if only she could ping back and forth wanting to learn more Jonesville on the Rio Grande (Browns- see her son once more. In this tale, as else- about certain stories. where in the collection, the final turn is not However belated the arrival of these sto- what the reader would expect. ries, the imaginative spins of The Hammon Los Angeles filmmaker Severo Perez re- In "The Gift," the only Mexican Ameri- and the Beans and Other Stories are a wel- cently completed a film version of Tomas can in a World War II Japanese prisoner-of- come addition not only to Chicano litera- Ramirez's y no se lo trago la tierra (... and war camp draws the short straw and is se- ture, but to our Southwestern heritage. Fe- the earth did not swallow him up). lected to kill a traitorous commanding licitaciones al Maestro. ❑

18 • NOVEMBER 25, 1994 Blaming the Symptom

BY TODD BASCH

DEAD RIGHT Urban Development; William Bennett, for- lion jobs created in the Reagan years and By David Flinn. mer head of the Education Department and "work had been available for anyone who 230 pp. New York: the nation's first Drug Czar; and Pat wanted it." A second assumption is that the New Republic/Basic Books. $23.00 Buchanan, Nixon speechwriter, pundit and "majoritarian morality" is unfriendly to ho- Presidential candidate. Kemp is the supply- mosexuals, abortion, sexual license and HE END OF THE 1994 midterm side standard bearer bent on lowering taxes, "permissiveness" in general. Frum needs election campaign brings the begin- but willing to use government programs to these assumptions to make his case that T ning of the 1996 presidential race, address urban decay; Bennett sees the welfare is the root of all evil. If there were and Phil Gramm's starting gun just fired. major ills of the United States residing in no jobs, joblessness could not be blamed on Over the next two years, the story of issues of character and culture, and hopes to the jobless; if the majority—who are not on Gramm's run for the presidency will unfold, and as far as David Frum is concerned the tale will end happily if Gramm finishes in first place. Gramm is the "most articulate and impassioned promarket voice in the Senate," and he has "a strong voting record for less government." Free markets and small government are Frum's fundamental political principles and Gramm fights for them, says Frum, more than any other presi- dential prospect. With Gramm at the top of the political pile, all the ills caused by the welfare state, which are at the root of almost all our social and economic prob- lems, might be remedied. "Big government" invites people to avoid work and to self-indulge, it allows people "to engage in de- structive behavior without imme- diately suffering the conse- quences." "Without welfare and food stamps," Frum tells us, "poor CREDIT Senator Phil Gramm people would cling harder to working-class respectability...." Frum is an advocate of "risk," which is the make things right with a revolution in val- welfare—were permissive, then welfare "overwhelming fact of a capitalist econ- ues, but he still retains faith in the "poten- could not be blamed for permissiveness. omy..."; risk "makes people circumspect, it tialities of government"; Buchanan is one Frum obviously shares with the Religious disciplines them and teaches them self- of the most vocal and effective mouth- Right a yearning for social and cultural control." The Welfare State takes the risk pieces for social conservatism, but his will- conservatism, but one of the more interest- out of life. ingness to pander to protectionism belies ing aspects of Dead Right is its insistence These beliefs drive Fnim's critique of conservative economic principles. All that religious conservatives are not a threat many of his fellow Republicans, who are three, in short, have streaks of the staunch to Republican unity. They are only a supposed to harbor the same love of com- conservative principles that inspire Frum, "Pseudo-Menace." According to Frum, petitive capitalism that he does. Frum di- but because optimists, moralists and nation- "there is no Religious Right." The move- vides modern Republicans into three alists are willing to live with elements of ment described as such by the press and camps: "optimists, moralists, and national- big government, they ruin real conser- lamented by moderate Republicans does ists," represented, respectively, by Jack vatism. Such, as Frum sees it, is the sorry not exist. Kemp, former secretary of Housing and state of Republicanism. The big rift in the Republican Party di- Dead Right proceeds with two basic as- vides "libertarian Republicans," like Gov- sumptions. First, Frum assumes that there ernor William Weld of Massachusetts, who Todd Basch is working on a doctorate in is abundant opportunity in the United supports legal abortion and gay rights, and Austin. States. He observes that there were 18 mil- socially conservative Republicans like

THE TEXAS OBSERVER • 19 Frum, who often agree with the Religious tive nuisances." If the welfare state were to enumerate various modern social condi- Right, but do not insist that social and cul- not doling out welfare and affirmative ac- tions that have no direct connection to the tural issues be placed at the top of the polit- tion cash, the recipients of such largesse welfare state, admitting that there are "hun- ical agenda. Complaints about the Reli- would be too busy fending for themselves dreds," citing examples such as the tripling gious Right are no more than "oratorical to offend the Religious Right or any other of the average income since 1945, the re- devices" used by moderate, "permissive conservatives: Cut off welfare and remove duction of manpower need on farms and in Republicans" and liberals to demonize from the books the civil rights laws that factories, suburbanization and mass com- their opponents. The defeat of the Republi- work in its favor and the "growing gulf' be- munication, to name a few. Yet he chooses cans in 1992 (and their achievements in tween various groups of Americans just to ignore them and concentrates on "the ex- 1994 and prospects in 1996) is a result of might go away. Frum wants to blame "cul- pansion of government" because it is the the contradiction within Republican ranks ture war" on the welfare economy and not only problem "we can do anything about." caused by the simultaneous promotion of on moral decline, the whipping horse of the So the problem is not necessarily that wel- "both big government and majoritarian Religious Right. fare is the root of all evil, it is just the only morality...." It is "not the power of the Re- Frum's attention to economic issues is root that can be dug up. A defeatist who ac- ligious Right ... that dooms to ineffective- reasonable and the logic he brings to the ar- cepts that there is no hope for any change in ness conservatives and Republicans who gument strengthens his claims about the our society except in regard to the size of want to mix free-market economics with Religious Right. Social and cultural dis- government, Frum sets his sight on welfare. social permissiveness," but the willingness putes, the ones so often driven by the reli- He has picked the wrong target. Frum of Republicans, like Weld, to ignore major- gious right, do not mean much when eco- mentions, in passing, that critics of conser- ity opinion and use civil rights laws, that nomic issues are neglected, as they vatism often build an argument on what so- can only be imposed by big government, to generally are by the Religious Right. When cial critic Daniel Bell called The Cultural promote social permissiveness. You cannot "severed from economic conservatism," Contradictions of Capitalism; namely, the support both free-market economics and social conservatism and its airy rhetoric tension between "consumerism liberated by big government, Frum argues, describing about family and responsibility tends to be the market economy" and "traditional such an accommodation as "intellectually abstract. Frum's focus is on the economic virtues of piety, family loyalty and self- contradictory." factors that he contends have so much in- control...." Frum passes over this contradic- Frum sets out to persuade permissive and fluence on behavior. And this is a good tion, but it is a social condition that he conservative Republicans to unify and dis- point. Critics on both the left and right too should pay some attention to. As anyone mantle the welfare state, which would re- often ignore the limits imposed on cultural who has been to a mall or watched TV ad- turn "risk" to American life and diminish conservatism, as well as cultural radical- vertising knows, an absolute imperative of the possibility of culture war. In a welfare ism, by the forces of major economic insti- our economy, over 60 percent of which is state, "the only way to mobilize and excite tutions. And Frum is very likely right about supported by consumption, is to urge peo- voters is precisely to emphasize the wide the Religious Right. Despite its success in ple to buy on impulse, satisfy individual and growing gulf between Americans of Texas and several other states, the closer wants, not delay any gratification, not save differing backgrounds, races, and moral the Religious Right gets to real political money, stay young, have fun, accept no convictions." Frum compares the workings power on the national level, the less effec- limits on freedom. Whatever one thinks of of the welfare state to "hurling a single ba- tive it is. all the permissiveness that Frum finds so nana into a cage of monkeys.... So long as Although Frum's calls for greater atten- odious, it is the culture of consumption, the society hurls economic and psychic rewards tion to the economy make sense, his at- fuel for the engine that drives the American at everyone with a plausible claim to vic- tempt to hold the welfare state responsible economy, that provides its fundamental timhood, people are going to cultivate their for almost all that has gone wrong in the support—economically and ideologically. grievances against the rest of society." The United States is clearly strained. He argues "Circumspection" and "self control," the best thing to do is to stop "tossing bananas." throughout Dead Right that economic, so- very bourgeois values whose loss Frum There is no way, Frum writes, to "pre- cial, political, and cultural ills can be reme- laments, were lost precisely because the serve bourgeois values [those values en- died by reducing the size of government. culture of consumption would not work couraged by capitalist risk] in a world ar- Then, in his final three pages, Frum makes well if those values guided our behavior. ranged in such a way as to render those the rather simple observation that "social Capitalism and permissiveness are not con- virtues at best unnecessary and at worst ac- conditions ... form character." He goes on tradictory, intellectually or otherwise. Frum's obsession with welfare is re- flected in his admiration for Gramm, who, as the Senator's detractors say "is mean." Gramm's meanness is precisely why Frum likes him. "Conservatives," he writes, "need to find themselves the meanest guy they can." As unfriendly as this sounds, Frum is not mean himself. He likes Gramm PEOPLE because his meanness, supposedly, results from his honesty, and what Frum seeks is Make a world of difference intellectual honesty from Republicans who We're proud of our employees and their contributions to your are not living up to their rhetoric. Conser- success and ours. Call us for quality printing, binding, mailing vative intellectuals, like all intellectuals, and data processing services. Get to know the people at Futura. Frum says in his final sentence, must "prac- tice honesty, and pay the price." If Frum is P.O. Box 17427 Austin, TX 78760-7427 genuine in his concern for honesty, and FUTUM there is no reason to think he is not, he COMMUNICATIONS, INC 389-1500 should take an honest look at consumerism, and senators other than Gramm.

20 • NOVEMBER 25, 1994

Continued from pg. 10 ward wealthy families with tax and regula- "suicidal thinking," Polinard of UT-Pan tory relief to industry and large landowners American said. The Texas Poll has consis- Toomey, a lobbyist for Texans for Lawsuit in Texas. That's what we've seen with Bush tently found less than 20 percent of Texans Reform. They also gave $85,000 to two suc- during the campaign as the Rangers [baseball identify themselves as liberal (it was 16 per- cessful Republican Supreme Court candi- club] got special rights to condemn land and cent in the middle of October). "That at least dates: Justice Nathan Hecht, and Priscilla tax exemptions and the oil companies [Bush makes it a fairly chummy group," Polinard Owens, a Houston corporate lawyer. was connected with] got bailouts to clean up said. "One rule that still does hold is who The state's workers compensation sys- the land they had polluted," Smith said. captures the center holds the winning hand. I tem, which is under appeal to the Texas "We hope the Republicans read the elec- don't think the Democrats should ignore the Supreme Court, likely will come up for re- tion as a sign that Texans want dramatic traditional Democratic constituency but you view in the next session, the AFL-CIO's Ed change in the way we govern and campaign don't want to be isolated and six out of every Sills said, but workers' interests are in a lot for and finance our elections and that they 10 [white] men are voting against you. worse position. "Even if we get a positive will be willing to work with us to end the Democrats can take some comfort in the ruling out of the Supreme Court, any revi- dominance of special interest money in cam- fact that, after 27 percent of Texas Hispanic sions will be written to the business com- paigns. But we're not holding our breath." .voters called themselves independent in a munity's liking, and we just hope to be at John Hildreth of Consumers Union was 1992 exit poll while 66 percent called them- the table," Sills said. waiting to see the Bush Administration's com- selves Democratic, this year 73 percent of Other items expected to be reviewed in- mitment to consumer protections already in Latino voters in the Southwest Voter survey clude the state's prevailing wage law and place, particularly the insurance and utility called themselves Democrat, the indepen- the . Texas Employment Commission. counsels, both in terms of quality of appoint- dent Hispanics were down to 17 percent and Unions also will be concerned about plans ment and level of funding they'll support. the Republicans were holding steady at 10 to privatize schools and prisons to save "Bush ran a very focused campaign and the percent. "If the changes that have been taking Money at the expense of workers. issues he talked about were not central to con- place in party identification and voting pref- Dee Simpson, a lobbyist for the American sumer protection items. Subsequent to the erences can be called realignment, Latinos Federation of State, County and Municipal election he mentioned tort reform as one of his have not been participating," said Bob Employees, was not looking forward to the major initiatives in the first session and obvi- Brischetto, the institute's executive director. coming Legislature. "The way our world ously a lot of what gets talked about under the "If anything, it is an Anglo realignment." looks now is we have Bullock on the left term 'tort reform' seriously undermines legiti- Anderson of TSU advised the Democrats and there's no more Carl Parker. You have mate protections." to recast themselves as the party of the main- Bullock on the left and [House Speaker] Hildreth said Consumers Union is prepared stream rather than allowing the Republicans Pete Laney in the middle. It's rough." to fight for the insurance reforms Richards to continue to define them as the party of "tax Simpson, like a lot of people, wondered helped to achieve. He also expects another ef- and spend." He added, "If Richards had artic- where Bush was going to find the money to fort by small finance companies to increase ulated something different maybe that would put into local education, as he promised in their interest rates. Richards vetoed a bill in have motivated African Americans to get out his campaign. "My guess is the only way he 1991 that would have allowed interest rates of in greater numbers." can deal with this is with an income tax and 30 percent or more on short term loans. Simpson of AFSCME said reforming the that's what he's going to have to do to pay Ken Kramer of the Sierra Club said Bul- Democrats depends on what progressives for an increase in education—or shut down lock's commitment to address "property want to accomplish. "What do progressive the highways. You and I know they're not rights" is a major concern. "If it means things Democrats expect out of public policy? If going to shut down the highways and he's like tax incentives to maintain property that's it's socialism, there is no hope. If it is a to- not going to shut down the prisons." fine but if it means instituting economic im- tally pristine environment, there is no hope. Tom "Smitty" Smith of Public Citizen pact reviews, such as were defeated in Ari- Do they want to move the ball on public called the election results "devastating" to zona by 60 percent of the voters, and which policy? Of course there's hope. But for four consumer advocates. "Not only the loss of would have blocked environmental regula- years we're not going move the ball. We're the governor, but we lost the Senate when tions, that will be another matter." going to get that ball vetoed." we lost Parker and Carriker. We had antici- Kramer also expects some kind of attack Simpson said liberal Democrats must ac- pated Soileau and Martin being elected to on local governments' ability to protect cept that there is a cultural war going on and help shore up the progressive forces but the water resources that will be similar to the the liberals are losing as long as the debate is way it's shaping up it's going to take some bill last year, which Gov. Richards vetoed, about lifestyles rather than jobs. "They don't senators who are not generally considered that would have undermined Austin's re- like our ass.... We used to have communists progressive to vote to stop bad bills." strictions on developments in the Barton to hate and nuclear war to fear and behind In addition to the push for "massive" tort Creek watershed. "There's not as much that in the white culture we had James Brown reforms, Smith expects an attempt to legal- likelihood that the new governor would veto and the Famous Flames. We've removed the ize home equity lending at the expense of something like that," Kramer said. godless communists from the mix and now homestead protection, attempts to gut con- Kramer believes the electorate supports we have nothing to fear [except liberals.] sumer agencies such as the Office of Public efforts to keep air and water clean as well as This is Billy Sunday's wet dream. My eyes Utility Counsel and the Office of Public In- species diversity. "What we have to do is have seen the glory of the coming of the lord surance Counsel and environmental protec- get our Republican members to bring pres- and he's one big Anglo-Saxon son of a bitch tion agencies such as the Texas Natural Re- sure on the Republican officeholders and to with guns and he's a mean bastard. I think sources Conservation Commission. The frame our arguments on public health pro- we're in a real dark moment and it's cultural Republican gains also bolster the chance of tection and fiscal conservatism where there warfare because there's nothing else to do developer interests passing a bill to require is common ground," he said. after we beat the communists. state or local governments to compensate "The upside, I hope, is that we can have land speculators for restrictions on develop- What Next? intelligent conversations once again about ment of their property. The Democratic party has to make some who voters are because they're the ones ul- "We can expect a massive assault on wel- changes to appeal to the Texas electorate, but timately that make decisions—not the peo- fare for low-income families and a shift to- talk about realigning the party on the left is ple, but the voters." ❑

THE TEXAS OBSERVER • 21

Irr- r le • •••:.• ■•■■• • Continued from pg. 24 Paul Enlow, 35, who unseated civil Judge wards Underground Water District. Walter Catherine Adamski Gant, describes himself Barfield, a civil engineer and former Bexar would pour his vast personal wealth into the as an anti-abortion activist; the Star- Tele- Audubon Society president, won in the general campaign and he didn't. I hope he's gram reported that he had not tried a district four-man field with 34 percent of the vote back. He's an easy mark." court case to completion in 1993. Tarrant while Susan Hughes, current president of County GOP Chairman Steve Hollern said the local Audubon Society, won with 36 ✓ REVERSING REAGANOMICS. he, too, would not oppose moving to a non- percent of the vote against three men. Rep. Bill Archer, R-Houston, the chair-ap- partisan system for electing judges. parent of the House Ways and Means Com- In Houston, where straight ticket voting V REHAB DIVERTED. Prison beds ear- mittee, denies that the Reagan Administra- helped sweep Republicans into all but one marked for substance abuse rehabilitation are tion wrecked domestic oil producers in 1986 of the 42 contested races for countywide being converted to more secure cells for by intervening in the world oil market to re- judgeships, 19 Democratic judges lost their higher-risk criminals that are backed up in duce oil prices but now he wants the govern- jobs, including civil District Judge Eileen county jails, the Austin American -Statesman ment to provide tax breaks to help the do- O'Neill, a Democrat who was targeted by reported. While the state prison population mestic oil and gas industry, according to anti-abortion activists after she ordered was topping 100,000 prison officials said Citizen Action, a Washington-based con- limits on abortion clinic protests during the half of the 12,000 beds authorized for inten- sumer organization. Edwin S. Rothschild, Republican National Convention in 1992. sive substance abuse treatment are being "en- energy policy director for Citizen Action, She lost a rematch with Republican John hanced" with extra security measures at a noted that Archer has expressed doubts Devine, an anti-abortion activist. Harris cost of as much as $6 million to hold other about the U.S. influence over Saudi Arabia's County Republican Party Chairwoman convicts. A prison official said the conver- oil production in 1985-86 to reduce the price Betsy Lake joined the group seeking alter- sion would save the state millions of dollars of crude oil. Now he wants to finance tax in- natives for judicial selection. in reimbursement to counties that are holding centives to support oil and gas drilling with a In Dallas, Republicans controlled 91 ad- state felons. Substance-abuse project would sharp increase in the federal gasoline tax or a ministrative and judicial offices, including have to be phased in anyway and in Septem- national sales tax, Rothschild said. all but a handful of justice of the peace and ber, a study projected that only 7,200 rehab constable seats and all but three county- beds would be needed by 1996. V WHO'S A CHRISTIAN? Dick level offices: Commissioner John Wiley Weinhold, president of the Texas Christian Price, state District Judge John Creuzot and V RIGHT STUFF. Winning candidates Coalition, may have given some insight into state appeals court Judge Ron Chapman. in Texas who were aligned with the Reli- where Catholics and other mainstream reli- gious Right, as identified in a report by gionists stand in the fundamentalist firma- V OFF COLOR. The election was a dis- People For the American Way, included ment in recent comments to the Houston aster for minority judges as well as Gov.-elect George W. Bush; U.S. Sen. Kay Chronicle on the effect of Ann Richards' Democrats across the state. Three black Bailey Hutchison; in Congressional races speech at the state Democratic convention in judges were wiped out in Harris County Jim Chapman, D-Sulphur Springs; Sam June when she warned of the threat of the Nov. 8, leaving the county with only two mi- Johnson, R-Dallas; Joe Barton, R-Ennis; radical religious right. "Ann Richards' at- nority judges: an Asian American who was Bill Archer, R-Houston; Jack Fields, R- tack ... did more to energize Christian voters unopposed and a Mekican American whose Humble; challenger Steve Stockman, R- and Roman Catholics than anything I could term has not expired. But while most of the Friendswood; Kika De La Garza, D- have done," Weinhold was quoted Nov. 13. minority judges were Democrats and sup- McAllen; Tom DeLay, R-Houston; Dick posedly fell before the Republican tide, Armey, R-Lewisville; state Sen. Jane Nel- V SNAP JUDGMENT. The election of Robert C. Newberry of the Houston Post son; and state Rep. Bob Turner, D-Voss. marginally qualified judicial candidates was noted that Mamie Proctor, a black woman, Religious Right candidates also won a ma- not a phenomenon limited to the Supreme was the only Republican to lose an appellate jority on the State Board of Education, which Court and Court of Criminal Appeals races, court race. "After Proctor's predicament, is threatens the state's participation in a contro- where the Republican sweep ushered in there any wonder why blacks and other mi- versial program establishing national educa- judges of questionable merit. In Fort Worth, norities want Harris County judges elected tion goals as well as the continuation of the the only Democrat who won a Tarrant by districts? The way this race went rein- state's central education agency. Donna Bal- County judicial race beat a write-in candi- forces the beliefs of many minorities that it is lard of the Woodlands, Randy Stevenson of date. In another Tarrant County race, James virtually impossible to get a black person Tyler and Richard Watson of Gorman, all Wilson, who according to the Fort Worth elected to a judgeship," Newberry wrote. In Republicans, won with Religious Right Star- Telegram began practicing law in 1989 Dallas, the Republican sweep resulted in the backing and give the GOP a one-vote major- and has tried only two felony cases and four loss of one minority judge, Lena Levario, a ity on the 15-member board, which sets poli- misdemeanor cases, beat Criminal District Richards appointee, leaving five minorities cies for the Texas Education Agency, re- Judge Bill Burdock. At least Wilson, who is on the Dallas County judicial bench. views textbooks for the 1,048 school districts 38, said he plans to repay his student loan. in the state and recommends the state educa- V BEXAR GOES GOP. In San Anto- tion commissioner to the governor. nio, Republicans gained control of the The future of State Education Commis- Service Employees International Union Bexar County Commissioners Court for the sioner Lionel "Skip" Meno, whose term ex- first time in more than a century, the county pires in March, hangs in the balance. The LOCAL 100 clerk's office, took five of nine contested Houston Chronicle quoted Republican 1(800)322-7348 district judicial seats, three of five con- board member Robert H. Offutt of San An- tested county court-at-law benches and two tonio saying he is not sure Meno, as a pro- BECOME A of six seats on the Fourth Court of Appeals. fessional educator, can conform to Bush's However, while the Republicans were education plan but Jack Christie, a GOP UNION ORGANIZER sweeping county races, environmentalists board member from Houston, said he would Statewide Placement who support limits on groundwater pump- "without hesitation" recommend to Bush ing won two contested seats on the Ed- that Meno continue to head the TEA. ❑

22 • NOVEMBER 25, 1994

• ineeropow+A.V.**.. AFTERWORD Books Suck

BY DAGOBERTO GILB

MAGINE THIS: One day you're pronounced a writer. I'm not talking about a book being pub- lished—even after all those years and years of waiting for that—but when they—you know, they—say you've won an award for it and they fly you above the Chihuahua desert, across all of Texas and over the Mississippi River, and then above all these roads and highways you've never driven on—never seen a sin- gle billboard sign from the airplane window—to a city as expensive sounding as Boston, Massachusetts. And they're paying. You've de- cided to take your son, who's 15. Fifteen, those jerk years. The years when you can often look at him, once a soft, GAIL WOODS sweet baby, as tender as your first true love, and you are boy, pops y m'ijo. The two of you together. shock—my boy, my handsome son over faced with the age-old fatherly question: And he's gonna see this you, the writer you. there, if he happens to say books suck, well, Does he want me to kick his ass? Is it right That you you were those years he pointed you know, please, forgive me, forgive him. to kick his ass? Despite internal and exter- to his empty mouth and bare feet and won- How old is he? she asks, and she nods her nal protestations to the contrary, would it dered why you weren't really working right head when you tell her. She says she under- be GOOD to kick his ass? then. It's like a rite of passage thing for him stands. She has two sons. But do you be- But you're taking him because you've al- to go with you to Boston. lieve her? N'hombre! You think she proba- ways promised yourself that this day would Here's the secret part, the worm at the bly had sons who liked her for being a come. You imagined it differently. You bottom of the bottle: Your son says—he writer. She doesn't realize that your boy imagined that you and him, just the two of says often, very often, so often it doesn't means it. That he really means it. you, would go hiking up Glacier National sound as funny as it does when you say it So one day your son comes home from Monument, that sacred Indian place of just once or twice or so—he says, books the mall with a friend. They saw a movie, emerald lakes, beneath pearl mountains of suck. Try meditating on that for about a day and guess what, he bought a book. A book? ice, risking the hazards of sudden snow and you'll get the impact. I mean this. For You are a little suspicious. It's called, This drifts and grizzly bears. You got real one full day, everytime you see or hear Book Sucks. A magnum opus featuring though. You are a city guy. You have to about a book, you utter it. Whenever you Beavis and Butthead. wait for some nature friend to take the two think of a book, think, books suck. How do you like that, dad? he asks, and of you sometime—something like that. Imagine how it is if you write books. And he's smiling sarcastically, proud, like he So, instead, Boston. As a writer. That's that voice is your son's. Your first son's, wrote it. official language, upheld by a panel of wise the cute baby all grown up. And you don't You look at the price. Twelve bucks! He judges (whether they'll regret it or not). think he's kidding. spent 12 bucks on this book?! Of his hard- You take your son because that right mo- And so when you get to Boston you de- earned money? Money he soaked from you, ment has come. Father and son, dad and cide to sneak over to Annie, the Pulitzer now that you think about it. Easy money, Prize and National Book Award winner, you might say. But ... his own money. Dagoberto Gilb, a carpenter for 15 years, is who you admire so much, and warn her be- So whada you think, dad? the author of The Magic of Blood and The forehand. You don't know her well, so It's a tough call, a real tough call. You Last Known Residence of Mickey Acufla. you're a little worried about impressions. ask if he'll let you read it. Sure, he says, He lives in El Paso. This originally was Annie, you whisper, I want to tell you, so and for the moment he's actually pleased broadcast on NPR's "Fresh Air." that it doesn't come as too much of a with you. ❑

THE TEXAS OBSERVER • 23 Postmaster: If undeliverable, send Form 3579 to The Texas Observer, 307 W. 7th St., Austin, Texas 78701

POLITICAL INTELLIGENCE

✓ YOUTH MOVEMENT. George W. provided with a ballot and angioplasty and prescription when they were not produced Bush announced his first appointment one recovered sufficiently to survive the election. by the customer. In Glendale, a dental clinic week after the Nov. 8 election: 35-year-old employee demanded that a mother provide Cameron County Judge Tony Garza as sec- ✓ KNIVES SHARPEN. There is talk residency documents for her child before the retary of state. As a Republican primary among Democratic Party statewide officials child was treated. In Paramount, police re- candidate for attorney general in the spring, that the party in Texas might be served by quested documents from a street vendor. In Garza staked out one of the harsher posi- the departure of Democratic Party Chair Bob Inglewood and Los Angeles, California tions on juvenile justice, advocating trying Slagle, the Sherman lawyer who has served Highway Patrol officers and Los Angeles 13-year-olds as adults in certain cases. as party leader since 1980. Before the talk policemen stopped drivers and demanded to Garza came in fourth in a field of four. The surfaced, Jim Mattox, who represented Dal- see their green cards. In Santa Paula, a cus- appointment of Garza, from Brownsville, las in the Texas House and U.S. Congress tomer at a restaurant demanded to see the serves several purposes for Bush—who has and served two terms as Texas attorney gen- cook's green card, saying "It's a citizen's said on several occasions "I'm not a quota eral, was asked if he would be interested in duty to kick out illegals." In Los Angeles, a guy." It reaches toward Hispanic voters, the job. Mattox, . now practicing law in Metro Transit Authority told.passengers they who voted overwhelmingly (76 percent) for Austin, was equivocal, saying that he is not could no longer speak foreign languages on Ann Richards and it also could inoculate sure if he could afford to accept the position, the bus. In Sylmar, there were reports that a public reaction to later appointments, which which pays nothing. For some, Mattox hospital was asking to see patients' immigra- are unlikely to be as inclusive or representa- would be a likely choice—considering his tion documents. In Atherton, a school secu- tive as those made by Richards. support among established constituent rity guard stopped two American-born Chi- groups—like labor and minority organiza- canas and told them, "We don't have to let ✓ MORE CHOICES. Bush will make tions. ("Democratic campaigns shouldn't fucking Mexicans in here anymore." In Bell approximately 4,000 appointments to state spend all their money on TV," Mattox said Gardens, a fifth-grade teacher asked students boards and commissions during the next of the recent election. "The party's strength in class if they had their immigration papers four years but it will take time to put his has been grassroots organizing.") Another and required them to write about their par- stamp on state government. In his first year potential replacement for Slagle is Austin ents' immigration status for homework. And Bush has a chance to name chairs of state plaintiffs' lawyer Kirk Watson, who was ap- in Chino, an electronics store denied credit to boards and one-third of their members but pointed by Gov. Richards to the now-defunct an individual who has a good credit record many of those whose terms expire in 1995 Texas Air Control Board. Watson, also a but was unable to produce documents that are holdovers from the Bill Clements Ad- progressive and currently the Travis Party prove his immigration status. ministration. Bush will not start clearing Democratic Chair, is younger and not as Dallas Rep. Roberto Alonzo, chairman of out Richards' appointees in earnest until his confrontational as Mattox. the Mexican American Democrats of second year in office. Bush can replace Texas, and El Grupo de Apoyo a Inmi- agency heads at several departments, such V UNDOCUMENTED VIGILANTES. grantes Latinoamericanos (GAILA), a as Commerce, Film Commission, Insur- One week after the election, U.S. Rep. North Texas immigrant-rights group, have ance, Health, Housing and Community Af- Lamar Smith, R-San Antonio, backed away urged a boycott of California goods, includ- fairs, Alcohol and Drug Abuse, Criminal from his post-election proposal to sponsor a ing its entertainment industry, in protest. Justice, the Criminal Justice Policy Coun- national version of California's Proposition cil, Adjutant General of the Texas National 187, which requires the denial of govern- V BIG TALK. Richard Fisher spent $2 Guard and directors of the Canadian River, ment services, such as public school and million of his own fortune in the 1993 special Pecos River and Rio Grande compact com- non-emergency medical treatment to un- election and another $1.7 million to beat Jim missions. He also will have the option of documented persons. However, Smith still Mattox in the Democratic primary for the choosing candidates recommended by the supports the intent of the measure, as do 36- U.S. Senate this past spring. Then, he spent State Board of Education for Education 40 percent of Hispanic voters surveyed by only $300,000 in the general election cam- Commissioner and the Board of Mental the Southwest Voter Research Institute on paign and remained a perfect gentleman as Health-Mental Retardation for the Com- Nov. 8. "I agree with the thrust of Proposi- Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison swept to a full missioner of Mental Health. tion 187 and the message it is intended to term with 60.8 percent of the vote. Fisher send," Smith said. Latino Californians were suggested he was not through with politics, ✓ HEALTH CARE REFORM. In the getting that message within a week of the but he failed to impress Republican consul- throes of a heart attack at a Houston hospital election, in spite of the fact that most of the tant Karl Rove. "He misled Democrats into three weeks before the Nov. 8 election, Texas controversial initiative's provisions were thinking that he would run a superior general Democratic National Committeewoman Bil- already temporarily blocked by a federal election campaign, and he ran a poor one," lie Carr made an unusual request of the at- judge, as the National Immigrant Forum re- Rove said of Fisher in the Houston Chroni- tending physician. "Can you get me a bal- ported the following incidents: cle. "He .led Democrats into believing he lot?" asked Carr, longtime leader of the In Palm Springs, a pharmacist demanded liberal Harris County Democrats. She was immigration documents and refused to fill a Continued on pg. 22

24 • NOVEMBER 25, 1994

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