DESCHOOLING SOCIETY Who's Behind the Public School Voucher Movement? THIS ISSUE

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FEATURE Deschooling Society: Who's Behind School Vouchers? by Louis Dubose 4 Bob Bullock says he resigned from Putting Children First when it became "partisan." As even a blind man should see, the school voucher movement was never anything else. Public Output by Michael King 8 The TNRCC is holding "town-hall meetings" around the state to try to clear up its murky image. If it looks like tin-horn public relations, that's because it is.

DEPARTMENTS BOOKS AND THE CULTURE VOLUME 90, NO. 6 Dialogue 2 Red Clay and Dusty Places 18 A JOURNAL OF FREE VOICES We will serve no group or party but will hew hard to the Poetry by Jim Cody & truth as we find it and the right as we see it. We are Dateline Texas dedicated to the whole truth, to human values above all G. Timothy Gordon interests, to the rights of human-kind as the foundation Revolting Taxpayers in San Antonio 10 of democracy: we will take orders from none but our by Karen Olsson John Ross on Mexico at War 19 own conscience, and never will we overlook or misrep- resent the truth to serve the interests of the powerful or Dumb Dumpers in Austin 11 Book Review by Philip E. Wheaton cater to the ignoble in the human spirit. by Nate Blakeslee Writers are responsible for their own work, but not The Old Gringo 22 for anything they have not themselves written, and in publishing them we do not necessarily imply that we Molly Ivins 14 A Conversation with John Ross agree with them, because this is a journal offree voices. Getting in Step SINCE 1954 So What's [Censored] News? 24 Founding Editor: Ronnie Dugger Jim Hightower 15 Book Review by Chris Garlock Publisher: Geoff Rips Brave New Dinners, FDA Gutting Editors: Louis Dubose, Michael King & Hi-Tech Low-Ball The Water Music of Three Divas 26 Assistant Editor: Mimi Bardagjy Profile by Louis Dubose Associate Editor: Karen Olsson Political Intelligence 16 Poetry Editor: Naomi Shihab Nye Afterword 30 Production: Harrison Saunders Interim Business Manager: Jeff Mandell The Back Page 32 A Sweatshop in Time Circulation Assistant: Nate Blakeslee Bush Unpardons Leadbelly by Joanna Hofer Development Director: Nancy Williams Web Editor: Amanda Toering Cover art by Kevin Kreneck Technical Consultant: Brian Ferguson Editorial Intern: Juliana Barbassa Contributing Writers: Bill Adler, Barbara Belejack, DIALOGUE Betty Brink, Brett Campbell, Lars Eighner, James K. Galbraith, Dagoberto Gilb, James Harrington, Jim High- tower, Molly Ivins, Paul Jennings, Steven G. Kellman, SWIFTIAN RAZOR non-person. May God have mercy. Bryce Milligan, Char Miller, Debbie Nathan, John Ross, This letter is in answer to the execution R. C. Leonard Carol Stall, Brad Tyer, James McCarty Yeager. Philadelphia Staff Photographer: Alan Pogue of Karla Faye Tucker by the Great State Contributing Photographers: Vic Hinterlang, Patricia of Texas ("The Humanity of Karla Faye Moore. Tucker," February 13). Hundreds of let- FOREIGN ENTANGLEMENTS Contributing Artists: Eric Avery, Tom Ballenger, Richard Bartholomew, Jeff Danziger, Beth Epstein, ters have been received by the governor One needn't be a rocket scientist, or even Valerie Fowler, Kevin Kreneck, Michael Krone, Ben requesting clemency, but the law must be a U.N. functionary, to recognize that the Sargent, Gail Woods. United States should make no deals with Editorial Advisory Board: David Anderson, Austin; followed in this peace-loving state. I Elroy Bode, El Paso; Chandler Davidson, Houston; would like to make a modest proposal. Middle Eastern terror ("War Ink," March Dave Denison, Arlington, Mass.; Bob Eckhardt, Austin; 13). A country which has invaded and Sissy Farenthold, Houston; John Kenneth Galbraith, Texas should adopt the invention of the Cambridge, Mass.; Lawrence Goodwyn, Durham, N.C.; French doctor, the guillotine. A platform occupied a neighbor, stockpiled weapons Molly Ivins, Austin; Larry L. King, Washington, D.C.; of mass destruction, persistently defied Maury Maverick, Jr., San Antonio; Willie Morris, Jack- should be erected at the steps of the state son, Miss.; Kaye Northcott, Fort Worth; James Presley, capitol in Austin. On Sunday at high the U.N., and sent assassins on a murder- Texarkana; Susan Reid, Austin; A.R. (Babe) Schwartz, ous errand into a friendly nation, deserves Galveston; Fred Schmidt, Fredericksburg. noon, a brief prayer service would pre- In Memoriam: Cliff Olofson, 1931-1995 cede the dropping of the blade and the the most forceful condemnation by the THE TEXAS OBSERVER (ISSN 0040-4519/USPS 54 1300). entire contents one remaining superpower. Kofi Annan copyrighted, 0 1998, is published biweekly except for a three-week interval separation of the head from the torso. between issues in January and July (24 issues per year) by the Texas Democ- must surely share this elementary judg- racy Foundation, a 50l(c)3 non-profit corporation. 307 West 7th Street, Austin, Without any form of documentation it is Texas 78701. Telephone: (512) 477-0746. E-mail: [email protected]. ment, which President Clinton has stated World Wide Web DownHome page: http://texasobserver.org. Periodicals difficult to confirm, but I believe that no Postage Paid at Austin, Texas. one has been discovered alive with his or so eloquently. SUBS: One year $32. two years $59, three years $84. Full-time students $18 per year; add $13/year for foreign subs. Back issues $3 prepaid. Airmail, for- her head literally missing. Why, then, does the U.S.A. continue to eign. group, and bulk rates on request. Microfilm available from University Microfilms Intl., 300 N. Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor. MI 48106. Finally, a collection should be taken up give moral support, and billions yearly, to INDEXES: The Texas Observer is indexed in Access: The Supplementary Index to Periodicals; Texas hulex and, for the years 1954 through 1981, to pay for the cremation of the person exe- Israel? The Texas Observer Index POSTMASTER: Send address changes to THE TEXAS OBSERVER, cuted, and the ashes scattered to the four James Sledd 307 West 7th Street, Austin, Texas 78701. winds. The victim is now a true Austin

2 ■ THE TEXAS OBSERVER MARCH 27, 1998 HEARD THAT March 13 is an excellent issue. I particu- THANKS: YOU'VE DONE IT AGAIN! larly enjoyed the review of Mark Adams' ate last year we went to the people Molly Ivins calls "the most loyal readers in book and his retrospective on the Progres- the world" — with a request that you contribute to the Texas Democracy Foun- sive Democrats at U.T. in the 1930s Ldation, the non-profit corporation that publishes the Observer. All right, it was a ("Memoirs of a Progressive Packrat," by contribution to the Observer, but the non-profit makes those contributions 100-percent David Richards). Also, I guffawed when I deductible. Our argument — that a fragile journalistic institution like the Observer is a got to Molly's line about possibly taking good investment — was bolstered by the generous offer of Bernard Rapoport to begin her effort in the early 1970s to be "one of the fundraiser with a $20,000 challenge grant — assuming our loyal subscribers and the guys" too far ("Three Chords and the other supporters would donate at least that amount. You have — and much more so. Truth," by Michael King). At this point our readers have contributed approximately $70,000. One reprimand. The fine piece on The Put simply, this has been the most successful fundraiser in Observer history. That Back Page ("War Ink") leads with a quote money will allow us certainly to keep the doors open through 1998. But it also means from George Orwell, but, inasmuch as he we can finally begin to invest some money in building circulation, in promotion to new died in 1950, he did not write those fine readers, and in creating a permanent financial base — so that we do not have to return insights about "pin-stripe bravery" on the so frequently to our readers to ask for support, and the Observer can continue to thrive part of some "leading" journalists. The au- as a trouble-reporting (and trouble-making) institution, on into the next century. thor deserved recognition, if only the ini- Molly eloquently summarizes our predicament in her new book, You Got to Dance tials of one of your editors. with Them What Brung You: Robert Heard After forty-three years [now forty-four] of surviving largely on subscription in- Austin come, the Observer has finally learned what every other political magazine in Amer- ica figured out a long time ago: It can't be done. To remain independent of advertis- The Editors respond: ers, political magazines must have either a wealthy backer ... or they must build in a The Back Page is "staff-written," so we permanent fundraising component, just like a university. The Observer is now en- generally share in the glory (or the gaged in building an endowment that will keep it independent. blame). But thanks, anyway. — M.K. You have helped us enormously in reaching that goal. As you know, the handful of progressive publications that do the sort of reporting we do — The Nation, The Progressive, RETURN OF THE NATIVE In These Times — all depend on a community of friends and funders to sustain them. And I was kidnapped from Texas at an early we will no doubt return to you during our five-year program to build the endowment that age of four. Since then I have lived in Cal- Molly mentions. ifornia. I have raised two beautiful sons, We are indeed very fortunate to be a small part of such a community. We thank you, gone through two divorces, and realize for once again, for your extraordinary solidarity. And we thank Bernard Rapoport for his the first time in my life you can take the extraordinary generosity. — The Observer Staff girl out of the country, but you cannot take the country out of the girl. My sons are now grown, I have been there, and as they say, done that, and am ready to look to- by KO.OP? Many people are doing excel- Democracy site where I read Ronnie bug- wards my roots near northeast Texas. lent work towards what promises to be an ger's article, "The Call" (September 1, Thank you for being some real sense to exciting event (in my opinion). And thanks 1995). After looking around this site this insanity. I wish to relocate to real peo- for all of your hard work at the Observer briefly, I knew I had to subscribe to the ple, real issues, real country. — I am looking forward to each issue! Observer. Have read and enjoyed Molly Weslie Ann Hall Temple McKinnon Ivins and Jim Hightower elsewhere. Jim's Geyserville, California Missoula, Montana show aired here in Portland, Oregon, for a time until he was replaced by Bruce RADIO ON UNCLEAR ON THE CONCEPT Williams 8-( . Am looking forward to the Just wanted to send my support your way. I Would you please send me a copy of your arrival of the new subscription. received my first Observer since moving Texas Observer? I got your address out of Oscar T. Priem from Austin and it was very heart-warming an Erotic Mail Order Coupon book. Please Portland in this climate. I also checked out your send me a sample copy and I hope to hear DownHome page (looks great) and want to from you soon. Thank you. FURTHER CLARIFICATION thank you for including KO.OP radio as a I am over twenty-one! In the article by Geoff Rips, "The Other link on your list of other progressive infor- Sidney D Dallas ISD" (February 27), "corruption mation sources. May I suggest that you fol- Somewhere in Texas at the school board" should have read low developments in the creation of the "corruption in the superintendent's of- first Grassroots News and Media Confer- OREGON OUTPOST fice." The mistake was an editor's error. ence and Culture Jam to be hosted this June Three days ago, I visited the Alliance for

MARCH 27, 1998 THE TEXAS OBSERVER ■ 3 FEATURE Deschooling Society: Who's Paying for Public School Vouchers BY LOUIS DUBOSE "Somebody had to eat the first oyster" With that salty metaphor; Lieutenant Governor Bob Bullock makes the argument that elected officials shouldn't be afraid to try new ideas — in this case, vouchers that would shift taxpayers' moneys from public to private schools.

ullock wouldn't discuss his recent resignation from the voucher PAC Putting Children First. But his aide, Tony Proffitt— who has worked for Bul- lock since long before he moved from the comptroller's to the lieutenant governor's office — said the Lieutenant Governor still supports a "very limited voucher program," and that he left Putting Children First because, as was first reported by the Dallas Morning News, "it was engaging in partisan 13activity." The specific partisan activity was a January 19 letter from Putting Children First Chairman Jimmy Mansour to Betsy DeVoss, the founder of the Amway company. The letter refers to last session's "tremendous momentum for our forces, as evidenced by Lt. Governor Bob Bullock joining our effort." And it mentions plans "to gain two additional seats in the senate, where we currently hold a slim majority." (Mansour's "we" is, bluntly, the Republican Party, which now holds a 17-14 advantage in the Senate.) The letter focuses, however, on the House: "There are eight crucial seats which we need to win in the Texas house, to obtain a Republican majority. By winning these seats we will ensure a new speaker of the house who will not attempt to block our legislation." "They assured him it wouldn't be partisan," Proffitt said. "Bul- lock still believes that a child who has been refused admission to another public school, after leaving a low-performing public school, should be allowed to attend a private school — as long as it doesn't have a religious program." Bullock spent only a few months as honorary chair of Putting Chil- dren First, and has since declined to discuss his resignation. In his A Lieutenant Governor Bob Bullock Vic Hinterlang six-sentence letter to Mansour, Bullock wrote, "since partisanship has been introduced into this effort I feel I can no longer serve as the And in all likelihood, he has known and knows about Putting Chil- group's honorary chairman," but he reaffirmed his support of "the dren First, which until last year operated as a thoroughly partisan concept of a limited, test program for school vouchers in Texas." political action committee called "The A+ PAC for Parental School Support for a limited voucher program is one thing; membership in Choice." A+ was directed and funded by the same Jimmy Mansour Putting Children First is another. to whom Bullock submitted his March 5 resignation from Putting To take Bullock's metaphor a little farther from the Gulf, the Children First. And A+, controlled by Mansour and San Antonio Lieutenant Governor's association with the voucher lobby is not so physician and medical supply company owner James Leininger, much about what you eat as who you eat with. Bullock's political spent a huge amount of money on legislative and State Board of Ed- office (which, until last year when he announced that he will not run ucation races, with almost all of that money going to conservative again, was a full-time, year-round political campaign) is as efficient Republican candidates. Although A+ focused on the House and and well-funded an operation as Texas has ever known. Because of Board of Education, it also worked to ensure that the Senate over that office and that operation, Bullock has often seemed omniscient; which Bullock presided would have a Republican majority, giving there is little that goes on in the capital that he does not know about. at least $20,000 to the unsuccessful candidacy of Bob Reese and at

4 ■ THE TEXAS OBSERVER MARCH 27, 1998 least $5,000 to Senator Steve Ogden, who trounced a woefully un- working on a credible account of who did. Readers might ask them- derfunded Democratic opponent. selves one question: How likely is it that an employee of a political The total amount A+ contributed to Senate campaigns can't be action committee would send out a letter to a major corporate funder, precisely determined from Ethics Commission filings, because over the signature of the PAC's director — without informing the Mansour and Leininger played a PAC shell game that makes it im- person whose signature would appear at the bottom of the letter?) possible to follow their money. For example, they funneled "I trust." wrote Mansour — in an underlined postscript that also $100,700 through Leadership Texas '96, a referred to an enclosed summary of races on the "targeting list" — Republican Party funding mechanism "that you will keep the information in this letter totally confiden- that no longer exists and which tial." A similar letter went to Wal-Mart heir John Walton, who re- never filed any disclosures with sponded with a $100,000 check. As Putting Children First has the Ethics Commission. They gave raised only $100,190 thus far, Walton is its sole funder. Walton, at least $73,000 to the Republican who has supported voucher programs in other states, also owns in- Party of Texas, and contributed terests in private schools. In 1996, Walton contributed $100,000 to $25,000 to 76 in 96. Seventy-six is the A+ PAC, which was largely funded by Mansour and the number required to hold a major- Leininger. ity in the 150-member House; and "This is not about the A+ PAC and it's not about any 76 in 96 — directed by Milton [funding] lineage," said Chuck McDonald, in re- Reisner, aide to Midland Repre- sponse to a question about the fun- sentative Tom Craddick, who ders and policy agenda shared by chairs the House Republican A+ and Putting Children First. Caucus — was one of the "big McDonald, who worked as three" Republican Party PACs spokesperson for Ann Richards that spent several million dollars Voucher when she was governor, now on elections. (Besides directly Contributions owns a public relations firm, also electing Republican candidates among those hired by Putting Tally: 4*. in the past two sessions, the Children First. "They formed a PACs' targeting of vulnerable in- Repubs group in January of '97 to go out cumbent Democrats has driven and do one thing and one thing the cost of campaigns so high . $587,445 only," McDonald said. "The that the limited funding resources Dems Ai PAC had one purpose and still of Texas Democrats are con- has one purpose. It exists to give stantly exhausted.) $8,500 equally to Democrats and Re- Not only did A+ contribute publicans" who support school $25,000 to 76 in 96, it provided ;Al voucher legislation. McDonald $10,000 to the campaign of Rep- said the PAC gave to candidates resentative Carl Isset, a freshman of both parties in this year's pri-

Christian Coalition candidate who - --:------manes, focusing on incumbents remained just outside the right mar- who had supported vouchers in the Kevin Kreneck gin of House politics during the last session. A+ and Leininger past and who had drawn primary oppo- himself gave at least $18,784 to Hollis Cain, who spent $70,000 in nents. "Ron Wilson [a Houston Democrat] a futile attempt to defeat House Speaker Pete Laney in 1996, and had an opponent and he got funding. And who is Laney's Republican opponent in 1998. (The exact totals are t:- Ken Grusendorf [an Arlington Republican] uncertain, because once A+ money was commingled with moneys had an opponent and he got funding." of Leadership Texas '96, 76 in 96, and the Republican Party of "Our contributions were bi-partisan," McDonald insisted. Pub- Texas, it couldn't be separately followed. And far more money lic disclosure forms filed with the Ethics Commission do indicate was spent on Cain's race by various interest groups working to de- that Putting Children First gave $13,500 to thirteen Republican in- feat the Speaker.) cumbents and $8,327 to seven Democratic incumbents. All the So it should not have been surprising to Lieutenant Governor Bul- Democrats are either black or Hispanic, and represent inner-city lock that Mansour would write to Betsy DeVoss, sitting atop urban districts (with the exception of the indicted and all-but-con- Amway's corporate pyramid, to ask for $125,000, to help "ensure a victed Gilbert Serna, who represents El Paso's Lower Valley). Mc- new speaker of the house who will not attempt to block our legisla- Donald also said there will always be some imbalance in contribution." (In the aftermath of Bullock's resignation, Mansour now de- tions, "as more Republicans than Democrats support vouchers." nies that he wrote the letter, and his various public relations subcon- At this point in the election cycle, Putting Children First's current tractors, which include Temerlin McClain Public Relations and contributions are almost irrelevant. The PAC raised $100,190 and McDonald and Associates, spent the week following the resignation spent $20,313 on administrative costs and candidates in the

MARCH 27, 1998 THE TEXAS OBSERVER ■ 5 Democratic and Republican primaries. It is in general elections that itics in 1987 by a CBS News 60 Minutes report on the Texas PACs make a big splash, and in the last election A+ PAC (Mansour, Supreme Court — has been investing in his own candidates ever Leininger, Walton, and several big, out-of-state funders) made sure since, spending last year $550,000 — or as Ratcliffe observed, that conservative Republican candidates were awash in money. So "about fifty percent more than the $365,775 spent by the wealthy Putting Children First has been bi-partisan thus far. But the last time political action committee of the Texas Medical Association." these funders got together as the A+ PAC, the contributions were Leininger has also collaborated with Mansour, who made his indeed "imbalanced." The A+ . PAC provided a total of $8,500 to fortune in telecommunications, to leverage Texas money by bring- Democratic House candidates. To Republicans, it contributed ing in funders like Wal- $587,445. As with the Putting Children First money, almost all the IT IS IN GENERAL ELECTIONS THAT ton, of Bentonville, A+ Democratic money went to minority, inner-city Democrats, PACS MAKE A BIG SPLASH, AND Arkansas; John Patrick who now find themselves in the seemingly awkward position of ac- IN THE LAST ELECTION A+ PAC Rooney of Indianapolis cepting contributions from corporate and Christian right funders MADE SURE THAT CONSERVATIVE ($50,000); and Robert L. whose explicit and much-announced goals include making the REPUBLICAN CANDIDATES WERE Cone of Elverson, Penn- Democrats a minority party, and reducing funding for public educa- AWASH IN MONEY. sylvania ($100,000). tion. In this battle, "vouchers" are simply a means to an end — and Leininger, and to a lesser that end is defined by Republican funders. extent, Mansour, provided all of the funding for A+, except what Dr. James Leininger, for example, got involved in political cam- was received from the aforementioned out-of-state funders — and paigns in 1990, when he decided to bankroll Republican candidates a single grassroots level contribution of $5,000 from Robert for the Supreme Court — at a time when its Democratic majority Schoolfield of Austin. included Ted Robertson, Oscar Mauzy, and Bill Kilgarlin. I asked Glen Lewis, an African-American Democrat from Fort Leininger hired Wal-Mart public relations director Fritz Steiger, Worth, if he had any misgivings about such funding, considering formed Texans for Justice, and relentlessly went after Robertson that most of the $685,000 Leininger spent on lobbying and cam- for accepting $120,000 in campaign contributions from South paigns last session was used against Democrats and Democratic Texas oilman Clinton Manges. But, according to R.G. Ratcliffe of Party interests. "I didn't go to them," Lewis said, "they came to me the Houston Chronicle, 86 percent ($196,000) of the money spent because I was interested in the issue." Lewis, one of three by Texans for Justice was Leininger's money, which ultimately re- Democrats who remain on Putting Children First's Legislative Ad- sulted in one of the most anti-consumer, anti-plaintiff, pro-corpo- visory Council, said he favors vouchers because of the extremely rate high courts in the country. Leininger — first turned on to pol- poor performance of the inner city public schools that his

arentvyu West began oun pressing 1Vl ested o es when his company lost its publican Bill Ratliff for an answer: insurance and he feared he would be sued. ■ J. Patrick Rooney of Indianapolis, Indi "Who's asking for implementation of this Instead of looking for a new insurance ana, is the Chairman of the Board of the program? Who's pushing this? I haven' t agent, he underwrote an electoral and lob- Golden Rule Insurance Company. He heard anyone from Dallas," West said. bying assault on the state's civil justice spent more than $1 million in the 1994 "I can't name names," Ratliff replied. system, and in 1990 invested $196,000 in congressional election that made Newt Now we can. Vouchers -- the use of making the Texas Supreme Court a safe Gingrich speaker of the House ($117,000 taxpayer dollars to fund private schools venue for corporate defendants. In 1996, to Gingrich's GOPAC), and is a member — are one of those fringe issues that have Leininger gave $281,000 to the A+ PAC of Gingrich's "Corporate Kitchen Cabi- been pushed forcibly into the mainstream. for school choice; $99,000 to the national net." Gingrich has made Golden Rule's It wasn't by any great public groundswell Republican Party, candidates for medical savings accounts — which many that they have arrived at top of the next Congress, and the Republican Party of see as a first step toward the privatization session's legislative agenda. Vouchers Texas; $134,000 to the tort reform group of Medicare — part of the Republican were advanced by a few big names, with Texans for Justice; and almost $70,000 to Party's perennial health-care reform cam- even bigger dollars, working behind the Rick Perry's campaign for Lieutenant paign. Rooney is currently helping fund scenes to engineer consent. Governor. Senator Phil Gramm's wife, supporters of the California ballot initia-

6 • THE TEXAS OBSERVER MARCH 27. 1998 constituents are forced into. (The other Democrats still with ing schools to accept students. Garcia said he will carry a bill that Putting Children First are Ron Wilson, of Houston, and Laredo will require schools to admit students whose home-district schools Representative Henry Cuellar, who sent Mansour a letter com- cannot meet their needs. And the state, he said, should cover the stu- plaining about the letter that provoked Bullock's resignation.) I dents' transportation costs. "I have seven students in my district asked Lewis if he had any objection to accepting campaign contri- who want to transfer to suburban schools that refuse to admit them," butions from a group whose huge investment in elections is mov- Garcia said. "They think if they accept these seven students, they'll ing the state's political center farther and farther to the right. have a whole wave of transfers and their standards will fall." "Texas politics?" Lewis said. "How could it get any farther right Garcia's pragmatic ar- than it already is?" (For the answer to that question, Representative IN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE, THE gument may seem to Lewis will only have to watch the next two election cycles.) BATTLE OVER SCHOOL VOUCHERS make principled liberal Domingo Garcia, a Democratic representative from Dallas, was IS NOT FINALLY ABOUT VOUCHERS opposition to vouchers more reflective than Lewis. "One, I resigned [from Putting Children AT ALL; IT'S ABOUT REAL RACIAL seem somewhat pre- First's Legislative Advisory Board]. And, two, I support public-to- INTEGRATION IN TEXAS (AND U.S.) cious. But in historical public and not public-to-private vouchers," Garcia said, adding that PUBLIC SCHOOLS. perspective, the battle his affiliation with Putting Children First had nothing to do with over school vouchers is partisan politics. He said he will take advantage of whatever re- not finally about vouchers at all; it's about real racial integration in sources are available to pass voucher legislation that will allow stu- Texas (and U.S.) public schools. Garcia has asked House Speaker dents to transfer from low-performing public schools to high-per- Pete Laney for a seat on the education committee, describes educa- forming public schools. "I have a different agenda. The tion as the biggest crisis we face, and said the dilemma he faces is Republicans are in this for the privatization and the free market as- that he cannot "write off a generation of children while we're fight- pect. I want to improve the public schools," Garcia said. "I support ing to improve the horrible public schools they're forced to attend." increasing teacher salaries and decreasing class size to eighteen." So like other legislators who represent inner-city school districts, But until schools, and in particular inner-city schools, are improved, Garcia has decided to make a deal with the devil. But the devil on the Garcia said, he will work to pass a voucher bill that will require other side of this particular deal happens to be unalterably opposed school districts with high academic performance to accept students to funding for public education, and moreover, the devil has more from schools with low academic performance. A law that Cuellar money to spend on elections than Garcia or any other progressive got through the 1997 session allows students to transfer from low- to high-performing schools, but doesn't require the high-perform- See "Vouchers," page 29

aause ° tittves ave provtde e $.!,)e. ads that Ing. c for the voucher call 4avein first through the A+ P Choice, and more recently through ember Children First, a political action commi eld its na- tee that thus far has been almost coin ert Cone is a Pennsyylvania t usine sr tioconvention Triad spent pletely funded by Walton. Want to know man. In 1996, along with his brother, Ed- $50,000 in television ads attacking the more about Putting Children First? You ward, he funneled $3 million into Republi- AFL-CIO's participation in electoral poli- can't. Late last year the Houston Chroni- can U.S. House and Senate races, using the tics and making the case that unions should cle attempted to use the Texas Non-Profit Triad Group, a political consulting firtn, as not be allowed to use members' dues in po- Corporations Act to obtain Putting Chil- a funding vehicle. According to the Na- litical campaigns. dren First's donor records, in an attempt to tional Journal, Cone and his brother Ed- find out if the group has "a broad base or if ward used Triad to funnel $1.3 million into ■ John Walton is one of the heirs to Sam it is financed by a handful of wealthy negative ads aimed at two dozen Demo- Walton's Wal-Mart fortune and a member men." Putting Children First, which spent cratic congressional candidates in the clos- of the Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. Board of Di- $675,000 on lobbying and a television ad- ing weeks of the 1996 election. Most of the rectors. Walton invested $25,000 in Cali- vertising campaign promoting vouchers, money went to negative "issue ads." The fornia's failed statewide voucher initiative refused to make its records public — ex- Cones, who amassed much of their fortune in 1993, and since then has put $2 million cept records of election expenses as re- when they owned Graco Children's Prod- of his own money into a foundation that is quired by Texas law. "We have some ucts, were founding funders of Triad. A attempting to establish 200 charter schools powerful enemies out there," said PCF former FCC attorney told the National in California. He has also funded Educa- Chairman Jimmy Mansour. — L.D. Journal that Triad could face an investiga- tion Alternatives, Inc., a California-based

MARCH 27, 1998 THE TEXAS OBSERVER • 7 FEATURE Public Output BY MICHAEL KING Houston, March 5 "We work for the people of the state of Texas " announces Barry McBee as he calls to order the evenine "town hall meeting," inviting public input into the Texas Natural Resource Conservation Commission `strategic planning" pmcess.

TITINRCC Commissioner McBee had come to Hous- even the high-tech, high-profile Houston Area Research Center have ton to host the fourth of a dozen such scheduled all issued reports addressing the local environmental crisis, with lit- meetings through early April, from El Paso to Ar- tle serious response from the TNRCC. "The agency continues to lington to Beaumont to Laredo. The Commission- issue permits to pollute without serious review, and their enforce- ers were coming, the TNRCC had announced, to ment against pollution violations is virtually non-existent," said receive input from "regular people." "I can't em- Smith. "They've had seven years to come up with a clean-air plan in phasize enough our desire to hear from represen- response to federal mandates from the E.P.A., and all they've done tative segments of the Texas population," de- is set 'targets,' with no control measures, no detail on quantification, clared McBee in the agency's press release, "and by that I mean and no expectation of results." Smith was looking forward to up- ordinary citizens, business leaders, environmental groups, civic or- coming public hearings on the agency's plan (called the "State Im- ganizations, and many others from all over." plementation Plan"), intended to control air pollution in the Hous- There are several of each here tonight, in the Houston/Galveston ton/Galveston area. The SIP is subject to review by the Area Council's meeting room, on the second floor of a glistening Environmental Protection Agency. "The state's plan is very weak," high-rise in the city's near-west side. McBee is accompanied by his Smith said, "and I expect the E.P.A. will reject it." local (Region 12) Manager, Leonard Spearman, Jr., and Jody Hen- If Smith is skeptical, activist LaNell Anderson is rejectionist. She neke of the agency's Office of Public Assistance. As they open the has battled the agency for years over industrial pollution near her meeting, all three emphasize their eagerness to hear from the pub- Pasadena home ("I've just moved to Kingwood in self-defense"), and lic. ("We're not here to debate, but to listen to your concerns," says she described the town hall meeting as just a "publicity stunt" she McBee.) When they finish their brief welcoming speeches, the dig- would not attend. "It's not a sincere attempt to reach the public," An- nitaries turn the podium around, and the vox populi resounds. derson said. "They haven't publicized it, they've scheduled it in an in- One should not be surprised if "the public" is more than a little skep- convenient location at a pro-business organization, and their message tical about the sincerity of the Commissioner's declared interest in its is, 'Don't talk to me unless you're industry.'" Anderson was hoping opinions. During its brief life, McBee's agency has developed a for better results from the E.P.A. "At least they listen," she said. formidable reputation as the bosom friend of industry and the indiffer- ent deflector (at best) of the public interest. There is, moreover, a good hose who do decide to attend this evening's three-hour ses- deal of specific skepticism among environmental groups about the in- sion provide a steady litany of the overwhelming environ- tent of these public meetings. The first three (El Paso, San Angelo, Ar- Tmental problems endemic to the Houston/Beaumont/Galve- lington) had been so feebly publicized that barely anyone heard about ston area. Representatives of the Bayou Preservation Association them early enough to attend. It hasn't been much better in Houston — describe the chemical and solid waste besetting the city's water- a rip-and-read press release buried in the Chronicle and on public radio ways. A retired professor describes the toxic soup that makes up -- but it's clear the environmental grapevine has done its work, bring- Houston area smog, generated both by major industrial sources and ing a capacity crowd to a room that holds perhaps 130 people. Several the gasoline life-blood of this car-choked metropolis. There are activists have told me earlier that they consider these ceremonial more localized concerns as well: a creosote-soaked superfund site in TNRCC occasions little more than public relations gambits. Conroe; a Houston-generated, sub-contracted sewage-waste sludge "I'm not sure what particular good can come out of it," said dump near Katy, so foul, says a local citizen, that he and his neigh- George Smith before the meeting. "They gave the meeting precious bors must stay indoors to avoid vomiting. His pleas to the agency little publicity in the first place, and it's not focused on anything in have fallen on deaf ears, as it simply responds, concerning the waste particular; I suppose numerous people will come up and speak about company, "'They're in compliance....' I don't have a good thought particular local problems." Smith chairs the air quality committee of for the TNRCC.... They have been a shield [for] the company." He the Lone Star Chapter of the Sierra Club, and he brought very low is followed by a Bay City alderman, who says that the TNRCC has expectations to the TNRCC meeting. Smith said the TNRCC has ignored the state's own Coastal Management Plan, in permitting paid little attention to organized efforts by Houstonians to focus on bay-area landfills, and that it appears "the TNRCC permits a landfill the area's massive environmental problems — "air pollution, toxic if every blank on the permit application is completed." waste sites, brown fields [poisoned land], et cetera." The Sierra The stream of complaint is interrupted occasionally by a touch of Club, the Galveston-Houston Association for Smog Prevention, and comic relief. One large suburbanite demands that the TNRCC stand

8 • THE TEXAS OBSERVER MARCH 27, 1998 tall against the E.P.A.'s attempts to "force me, a big man, to get on a sponse program about environmental problems in the Houston area, bus or to drive a jellybean car." As for pollution, he says, he's an en- the crowds would fill the newly-renamed, 16,000-seat Compaq Cen- gineer opposed to "junk science," and he has heard that trees cause ter down the block from HGAC headquarters, and the bureaucrats more pollution than cars. "So if they want to get rid of pollution in would not be allowed to return to Austin until they had done some- Houston," he concludes with uncertain irony, "what they need to do thing to make the city's air fit to breathe. "This is now the second is cut down all the trees." The Lumberjack is followed, a few minutes most-polluted city in the country, in terms of air pollution," sums up later, by a spokesman for the Houston/Galveston Area Council (the George Smith. "Only Los Angeles is worse on average, and we al- regional intergovernmental association hosting the meeting). Mr. ready have single bad air days that exceed anything in L.A. But theirs HGAC delivers all the conventional buzzwords in support of contin- is getting better, and ours is getting worse. They are doing something uing business as usual. He calls for state "partnerships" with local about auto emissions, about industrial emissions — while our risk of governments instead of directives, "incentives" to industry to obey lung cancer and related diseases continues to grow worse. We have a environmental laws, and above all, avoidance of "command and con- terrible problem here of so-called `grandfathered' plants — anywhere trol" measures. He's much better dressed than the Lumberjack, but from 30 to 60 percent of local plants with no pollution controls at all it's a tossup which of the two is more detached from reality. since the passage of the Clean Air Act in 1971, and no serious plans A few speakers cut closer to the bone. Paige Williams of the for cleanup or control. And what does the Governor offer? A 'volun- Sierra Club speaks on behalf of the organization, and reminds tary' plan, with ten companies claiming to have installed voluntary Commissioner McBee simply and firmly, "Voluntary compliance controls. There are approximately 750 grandfathered facilities, so at does not work." David Cobb, chair of the fledgling Harris County this rate, we will address the problem in seventy-five years." Green Party, passionately denounces the agency's "incestuous re- I asked Smith for his summary judgment of the performance of the lationship" with the industries and transnational corporations it TNRCC in its charge to protect the environment, and what he thought purports to regulate, pointing out that the conventional economic of McBee's assertion that he works for the citizens of Texas. "Oh, I development argument is increasingly hollow: "Multinational cor- don't like to make things too personal," he answered. "But I think porations have produced a net loss of jobs and industry in the U.S. they view their customers as the industries, rather than the citizens." and Texas." Cobb calls for a state-wide re-examination of the in- There were very few spokespeople for Houston industry at the dustrial system, arguing that "this way of life as currently orga- TNRCC's town hall meeting tonight. Perhaps they had all the nized is simply not sustainable." representation they needed, sitting at the front table. ❑ There is much more of this, with little interruption from the Commissioner's delegation, other than an occasional request from Jody Henneke that a speaker sum up so that others might get a PFQ COMPUTING "THE PASSION FOR QUALITY" chance. McBee responds briefly to a couple of direct questions, but is otherwise quiet, smiling, and polite throughout. It is abundantly clear that the form of this parody of a "town hall meeting" is of We'd like to share our passion with you... much more importance than its missing substance. Like the Wednesday afternoon "pop-off' sessions down at City Hall, the SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT. For applications in medicine, law, TNRCC's town hall tour will help maintain the illusion of demo- business, commerce. PCs especially. Client/server, Web. cratic process, while the real work goes on elsewhere. Visual Basic, Visual C++, Visual Modeler, VBScript, ActiveX, For if the TNRCC were to engage in a real public education and re- Java, Microsoft Active Server Pages, SQL Server, other ODBC databases, Microsoft Merchant Server, Microsoft Access 97, and Visual InterDev, others. Windows 95/NT, Unix, DOS.

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MARCH 27, 1998 THE TEXAS OBSERVER • 9 DATELINE TEXAS Taking a Stand in Taxpayer Land BY KAREN OLSSON San Antonio, February 27-28 As it turns out, the most powerful a round, bespectacled woman in an Ameri- is a balmy Friday in San Antonio, and woman in the state of Pennsylvania is Peg can flag windbreaker, announces the in the courtyard of the downtown Luksik, one of the leading lights of the U.S. American Heritage Party slogan ("Draw- Radisson, about 150 folks in their Sun- Taxpayer Party: now running her third gu- ing on our Roots to Secure Our Future") day clothes — most of them middle- bernatorial campaign, she's received a lot before launching into a huskily-delivered aged, most of them from Missouri, Wash- of press in her home state and has her own medley of patriotic songs ("You're a Grand ington State, or Texas, all of them white but show on Paul Weyrich's cable channel. Old Flag," "Yankee Doodle Dandy.") one — are eating brisket and sausage. A The USTP (1-800-2-VETO-IRS) was The woman then hands the mike over to man strums guitar and plays harmonica. founded in 1992, largely as a vehicle for her husband, who has written his own Waiters pour iced tea. The swimming pool Patrick Buchanan, and in 1996 held its con- USTP song, set to a Sousa-march style tune glistens. The winter meeting of the U.S. vention in San Diego one week after the backed by pre-programmed chords from Taxpayer Party National Committee is ad- Republican convention. The Taxpayers the electric piano. The lyrics begin with a journed for lunch. were primed to receive Buchanan — but he bit about the Republicans: "They don't At one table, a young man from didn't make the jump, and party founder even take a stand.... I don't believe that Longview with an Amish-looking beard Howard Phillips ran for president instead. every Repub-li-can. Don't believe 'em, and serious dandruff complains about He received 190,000 votes, and the party don't believe 'em, 'cause every Repub-li- George W. Bush, how he's just like Clinton, gained ballot access in thirty-nine states. can't, can't, can't, can't." The song pro- just as liberal. Everyone agrees that Republi- Buchanan may have left them at the altar, ceeds to chronicle how George Bush the cans these days are as bad as Democrats. An but the taxpayers are still kicking — or at Elder raised taxes ("taxes, taxes, taxes, older woman in an "Electoral College" least, still meeting, eating, and buying con- taxes"), how Clinton has raised money sweatshirt explains that she was part of a Re- servative souvenirs (like bumper stickers from dubious sources ("Huang, Huang, publican committee in her Missouri district, reading "No Special Rights for Sodomites" Huang, Huang), how the Congressional which voted to add a resolution to the party's and "Global Warming — Show Me the Republicans are phony conservatives national platform "to abolish ties to Red Science"). ("Newt, Newt, Newt, Newt"), and, finally, China." But when they saw the platform, how the rise of the USTP will change ev- there was not a word of it: "It was shocking." t takes more than bumper stickers to erything. "Now morality and virtue are After a few minutes it becomes apparent abolish the Internal Revenue Service, spreadin' cross the land," he sings expan- who the big cheese at the table is: a petite /and so most of the winter meeting is de- sively. "...This man is not a coward! Oh, woman with no nametag and short white hair voted to campaign school. After lunch, the let me int-ro-duce you to a pat-ri-ot named . cut to look something like a fluffy toaster Taxpayers file into a windowless ballroom Howard, Howard, Howard, Howard...." cozy. She agrees the Republicans are sham to be trained in the finer points of message- Patriot Phillips beams floridly at the conservatives. She has run for governor in crafting and direct mail. front of the room. When the music ends, her state, and she gets to talking about her First, though, come a few preliminaries, an old guy from California gets up and campaign tactics, affirming that it's worth it beginning with convocatory words from rambles for a while, and then at last it's on to run and put your message out there, even Don Wildmon, founder of the American to the campaign trainers. Enter the good- if you don't have a chance of winning. Be- Family Association (the Tupelo, Missis- cop/bad-cop duo of Mark Montini and sides, her opponents spent about twelve dol- sippi-based outfit which threatens to sue Mike Rothfeld, freelance political consul- lars for every vote they got; she spent one school districts that use textbooks it does- tants with ties to something called the dollar. "People know me for different n't approve of, and also runs outreach pro- Leadership Institute. First up is Montini, things," she says, "although I think everyone grams to help people who are, in Wild- who has the face of a boy scout and a who knows who I am knows where I stand mon' s words, "addicted to pornography"). jones for metaphor ("When you go forth on abortion" (i.e., opposed with no excep- Wildmon' s speech is disappointingly in- into battle, you've got to have the best tions). When she talks to the plumbers, she sipid — he spends most of it encouraging troops," "Let me tell you a story about says, she talks about federal School-to-Work the taxpayers to change the name of their when I was a kid and used to go duck initiatives that threaten union apprenticeship party to "The Conservative Party" — but it hunting," etc., etc.), followed by Rothfeld, programs. To parents, she talks about the de- nonetheless ends to warm applause. Then who calls to mind the somewhat unstable sirability of cutting all federal funding to it's on to the musical portion of the after- lieutenant in a police melodrama. A vet- schools. And so on. When I ask the guy from noon's program, courtesy of a husband- eran consultant to "pro-life, pro-gun con- Longview who she is, he says proudly: and-wife team from Washington, who sei vative candidates," whose work history "That's the most powerful woman in the make their way to the microphone and includes a stint at the U.S. Defense Foun- state of Pennsylvania." electric piano beside the podium. The wife, dation "giving money to anyone who was

10 • THE TEXAS OBSERVER MARCH 27, 1998 killing communists," Rothfeld lectures on "Texas Rally." This, too, starts off with sonnel get upset and call the police, "by the direct mail, holding his index finger to his music: several original ballads sung by the time they come after me, I'm gone!" temple to emphasize certain points, and same guy who played at lunch on the first Hansen exhorts her listeners: "Be realistic: every so often titillating the audience with day, and a soprano's rendition of "I'm Just expect a miracle!" and though the audience asides. ("If you're like me, you think last a Flag-Waving American." Next come 'a seems wary of her at first, by the end of the year was a great year, because of what few cheers ("2, 4, 6, 8, What Do We Ap- speech they're eating it up. happened in Peru: fourteen dead commu- preciate? The Constitution, the Constitu- Enthusiasm for electoral politics is high nists.") Though Rothfeld' s style seems a tion, the Constitution!"), and then speeches both at the Texas Rally and throughout the little at odds with the morality-and-virtue about how, for instance, Washington bu- general meeting. It seems that in the musical number that preceded his presen- reaucracies are invading our homes. weltanschauung of a U.S. Taxpayer, gov- tation, the taxpayers don't seem to mind. After Peg Luksik makes an appearance ernment is designated by a series of sinister He is, after all, vehemently opposed to to talk about the importance of voting one's acronyms (UN, NEA, NAFTA, IRS and so any abortions. During the morning ses- conscience, a woman from Nevada named on) which in their alphabetical union ac- sion, the executive committee amended Janine Hansen speaks on ballot-access complish mostly "baby-killing," the moral the party platform to make absolute oppo- drives. Where Luksik is matter-of-fact and vacuum-cleaning of children, and other sition to abortion the litmus test for the a little smug, Hansen warbles and shouts treacheries. But as evil as Government is, party's recognition of a candidate. and gets teary-eyed, all in the process of re- the elections that wrought it can unmake it lating how to get people to sign ballot ac- again. Even though, as is often repeated he Texas wing of the USTP is called cess petitions in Wal-Mart parking lots. She during the meeting, most Americans don't "the American Constitution Party of refers to a petition campaign as "a blessing care for politics. The Taxpayer's miracle TTexas." On Saturday, the meeting's in our lives." The key, she says, is not to will not require the consent of all those second and final day, about twenty-five give people too much information about the folks at Wal-Mart, as long as they are per- American Constitution Party members USTP: "We're not out to connect, we're out suaded to sign. 1=1 meet in a smaller room, for an afternoon to get our signatures!" — and if store per- Dumping on West Texas BY NATE BLAKESLEE Austin, March 13 The Sierra Blanca charade, it seems, is a with the commissioners of the agency in or Judges Kerry Sullivan and Mike moveable farce. question — in this case the three Bush ap- Rogan of Austin, the ongoing con- The State Office of Administrative Hear- pointees to the TNRCC board, Barry tested case hearing on the proposed ings, the agency charged with conducting McBee, Ralph Marquez, and John Baker. low-level radioactive waste dump contested case hearings like this one, was A final ruling is expected in mid-June. F created in 1993 as an independent agency, "Under the circumstances, we consider in Sierra Blanca has been more than just a crash course in the economics of the nu- ostensibly to inject some objectivity into approval of the license to be a foregone con- clear industry; it has also been a tour of the the review of licensing decisions made by clusion," said Richard Simpson of the Sierra extraordinary land — and people — of the state's regulatory agencies, particularly Blanca Legal Defense Fund. Simpson re- Texas west of the Pecos. the Texas Natural Resource Conservation ferred to the intense political pressure being Like the mounted judges of the Old West Commission (TNRCC) and the Depart- applied to the case by Governor Bush and for whom the original circuit courts were ment of Health. Such reviews were previ- Lieutenant Governor Bob Bullock, not to named, the two administrative law judges ously conducted by the very agency that mention the nuclear industry in Texas and have traveled across Texas, first touring the had made the licensing decision in the first across the nation. Foregone conclusion or Sierra Blanca site on January 21, and then place, with generally predictable results. not, the record of the Sierra Blanca hearing holding court in four different cities in six "The TNRCC used to employ their own offers an excellent roadmap for an appeal to weeks. After brief sessions in El Paso and hearings examiners, who were hired and a more objective authority (e.g., a U.S. dis- the venerable county courthouse in Marfa, fired by the commissioners," explains trict judge). It also provides a classic study in the judges brought the traveling court back Austin environmental attorney Rick Low- what citizen opponents can expect in the era to the Austin headquarters of the State Of- erre. "At least now there is some insulation of Deregulation Ascendant in Texas. fice of Administrative Hearings in late from the politics involved." Unfortunately, Even by Texas standards, the hearings February. Though the venues have regardless of the recommendation made by have been incredibly lopsided, with propo- changed, the nature of the proceedings con- the SOAH judges, the ultimate decision nents outspending opponents by a factor of ducted inside, participants argue, has not. whether or not to grant a license still rests forty to one. The state agency charged with

MARCH 27, 1998 THE TEXAS OBSERVER ■ 11 building the dump, the Texas Low-Level tion, even though forty percent of Hud- ness would come to the area. Radioactive Waste Disposal Authority speth County residents (which includes (TLLRWDA) was given $5.6 million by Sierra Blanca) live in poverty. The state ut TLLRWDA executive director the Legislature last year to spend on legal won't even pay to have key documents in Rick Jacobi walked away with the fees related to the hearing process. The the case — like the license application — B award for "Most Appalling Misrep- agency has been joined by legal teams from translated into Spanish, although Spanish resentation on the Record." To be fair, Ja- nuke operators Texas Utilities and Houston is the first language for a large percentage cobi has probably had more experience than Lighting & Power (whose deep pockets of Sierra Blancans. most folks at this sort of thing — he cut his will ultimately be replenished by the The TLLRWDA has not been shy about teeth as a licensing engineer at the South ratepayers), and by the executive director exploiting the financial weakness of its op- Texas Nuclear Project, leaving shortly after of the TNRCC itself (having already ruled ponents. The state's attorneys sought to de- the original contractor, Brown and Root, that the license should be granted, the pose SBLDF's main expert witness, Marvin was fired for gross incompetence. Since TNRCC staff is not a neutral party in the Resnikoff, a senior associate with the New 1982, Jacobi has been the brains of the TLL- hearing process). There are about twenty York-based Radioactive Waste Manage- RWDA, presiding over a string of failed sit- official parties in opposition, grouped into ment Associates and a nationally recognized ing attempts, culminating in the current three alignments: (1) West Texas and Mex- expert on low-level waste. Demanding a de- hearings — seemingly Jacobi's last chance ican governments; (2) "protestant" organi- position from Resnikoff was well within the to get it right. He was taking no chances on zations (no, not the Southern Baptists); and Authority's rights, but they offered him just the stand. When asked why the low-level (3) individual West Texas citizens. $70 a day for his time. Dr. Resnikoff — who waste dump at Maxey Flats, Kentucky, was As a means of demonstrating the David was helping SBLDF pro bono — normally closed, Jacobi explained that "it ran into vs. Goliath nature of the contest, the West earns $300 an hour for testimony. When he some regulatory problems" — not that it Texas alignment has chosen to use a rotat- refused to come down on his rates for the leaked radioactivity into the surrounding en- ing team of citizen cross-examiners, in lieu state's deposition, the TLLRWDA con- vironment thousands of years before its de- of hiring their own lawyer, which was vinced the judges to either demand that signers had predicted. When asked about never feasible in the first place. Protestant SBLDF pay the difference, or exclude long-term health effects from the Chernobyl organizations, led by the Sierra Blanca Resnikoff from the proceedings. The judges disaster, he reported that "reputable scien- Legal Defense Fund, are represented (at a chose the latter — a ruling that even the tists" found no widespread health problems generous discount) by David Frederick of TNRCC felt was going a little too far, ac- associated with the massive radioactive re- Austin. An attorney from the TNRCC' s cording to a motion they filed on the deci- lease, and that only power plant workers and Office of Public Interest Council has also sion. Perhaps the TNRCC' s attorneys were firefighters suffered from the accident. joined the opposition legal team, but she thinking ahead, to how such an arbitrary ac- Jacobi did admit that the most dangerous has been hamstrung by a lack of funding tion might appear to an appellate judge. isotopes to be buried at Sierra Blanca would for expert witnesses and independent in- Ultimately, the testimony of the TLLR- be hazardous for millions of years — a rev- vestigations, a chronic problem at OPIC, WDA's own witnesses may prove more elation which the director has managed to surely one of the most anemic agencies of harmful on appeal than the whims of the ad- avoid disclosing on a number of previous its kind in the nation. Public interest ministrative law judges. Appearing on occasions, often by employing some fairly groups like Public Citizen have called for Tuesday, January 27 was Dennis Harner, creative logic. Citizen cross-examiner the legislature to create a truly independent the authority's "expert" on socioeconomics. Richard Boren of El Paso reminded Jacobi oversight office for the TNRCC, as the On the stand, Harner reaffirmed his previ- of one such instance, which took place in state has done, for example, to oversee the ously stated opinion that the only possible front of the Senate Finance committee last insurance and utility industries. negative outcome of the opening of a ra- year. In response to questioning by Senator In the interest of holding fair hearings dioactive dump in Sierra Blanca would be Carlos Truan, Jacobi testified that low-level (or at least the appearance thereof), other potential disagreement among local citizens waste bound for Sierra Blanca would be states attempting to site radioactive waste over how to spend the millions of dollars radioactive "from five years, up to decades dumps have offered the opponents finan- that would be paid to Hudspeth County as in some cases." Pressed by Boren, Jacobi cial assistance to develop evidence, hire "impact" funds. When El Paso citizen insisted that what he told Truan was witnesses, and the like. In Illinois, for ex- cross-examiner Michael Wyatt asked if it "technically correct" — there being, for example, the hearings judges created a might not be a negative outcome for the ample, 100 thousand decades in the average $500,000 fund for opposition parties to use community if the dump released radioactiv- million-year period. Pride is a luxury, when in hiring expert witnesses and lawyers. Just ity into the surrounding environment — as you've made a career of apologizing for to participate minimally in a case of this all previous dumps have — he was re- the unredeemable. ❑ sort, the cost of paying for experts, warded with a truly-inspired nugget of nu- lawyers, travel, missed work, long-distance clear wisdom. Harner pointed out that hav- Austin writer Nate Blakeslee has written fre- calls, and faxes reaches into the hundreds ing a Superfund site in your county was not quently on the nuclear waste industry. This of thousands of dollars. But in Texas, the necessarily a bad thing, since it meant mil- report on the Sierra Blanca hearings was state hasn't provided a dime for the opposi- lions of dollars in remediation-related busi- supplemented with research by Gary Oliver.

12 • THE TEXAS OBSERVER MARCH 27, 1998 BERNARD RAPOPORT American Income I ife Insurance Company Chairman of the Board and

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• The Case Against Vouchers By Bernard Rapoport ssuredly, if Thomas Jefferson re-entered this world, he vouchers, for from it follows the conclusion that we have would add an article to the Constitution of which he failed in our essential obligation to provide education for all Awas the foremost author. That new article would com- our children. If that is so, why would any of us ever vote for mit the government of the United States to insure that each any politician who does not have as his or her Number One and every American child would have the same opportunity commitment the betterment of our school system, espe- for an education. Educational opportunity is certainly one of cially from kindergarten to twelfth grade. the most essential requisites for a democratic society, for without it, informed citizenship is literally impossible. et's set aside nostalgia. Forget the way things used to Beyond that essential national guarantee, the idea of in- be. Just recognize one fact: in most families today, dependent school districts has merit — no question about Lboth mother and father work. In such economic cir- that. Yet we sometimes exaggerate what is meant by an in- cumstances, schools must be in session year round, and dependent school district. As one observes the workings of they must be organized, through inteiti nning, to school districts, an unbiased conclusion is that they often keep children motivated from 8:00 a.m. to .m. work against what is necessary to the purpose for which Now comes the next question! Where the schools were first established, to wit: to ensure equal come from? The answer is readily at hand: we live in a tril- opportunity in education, not only for those children in that lion-dollar spending society, and the determinant of the particular district, but for all the children in our nation. quality of our society is how it allocates its resources. All The question of equality brings to mind the controversial that is needed to begin to address this most important of national and state issue of school vouchers. That vouchers societal issues, is a serious commitment to educating our should be proposed at all is an admission that public educa- kids. All our kids. tion is failing, and that private education is the only available Albert Carnus wrote, "Poverty is imprisonment without a alternative for too many students. As far as I am concerned, drawbridge." For our children, education can be that draw- there's nothing wrong with private schools: kindergartens, bridge, out of imprisonment. We cannot continue to ignore grade schools, high schools, colleges, and universities. But I the most productive and effective way to cross that draw- certainly don't think tax dollars ought to go to private institu- bridge: a fully supported and egalitarian public school sys- tions, because by definition these dollars should be used for tem, that makes the crossing possible. Seen in this stark the things that are public, especially in education. light, vouchers are simply another method to let a few chil- I am even more strongly opposed to vouchers because dren escape with public resources — while condemning so they provide an educational "alternative" for the wrong rea- many others to remain trapped within prison walls forever. son: the belief that private schools are the only possible Such an outcome will not only destroy the potential future source of "a good education." That is the most serious in- of those children — it will destroy the possibility of any true dictment any society might have for favoring school Jeffersonian democracy. We cannot let that happen.

MARCH 27, 1998 THE TEXAS OBSERVER • 13 MOLLY IVINS Conforming to Tyranny It can be argued that nonconformity is a good thing in and of itself. If we all marched in lock step what a dull world it would be. Nevertheless not conforming requires some judgment about when and why, and the United States of America is now out of step on some of the most obvious no-brainers in history.

ne hint that your nonconformity olution honoring motherhood. Politics in the only country holding up the treaty? has gone from independence to Washington are now so mean, ugly, and Compliance with the Chemical Weapons lunacy is when you find that your partisan that if President Clinton is for it, Convention is hung up in the House, which allies in out-of-stepness are notice- the Republicans are against it, no matter combined it with legislation aimed at pun- ablyO bats. For example, when you find your- what it is. ishing Russia for selling missile technol- self allied with Libya, Syria, and Iraq, in The long-prevailing doctrine that parti- ogy to Iran. This brilliant maneuver put us refusing to comply with a global treaty to sanship stops at the water's edge is kaput. in the position of threatening to boinb Iraq eliminate chemical weapons, this should Paying what we owe the United Nations, over alleged chemical weapons violations make you think about the company you keep. and the IMF, and endorsing a ban on chem- when we were in violation ourselves. When Somalia is the only country that ical weapons, are all hostage to domestic Shrewd move, fellas. joins you in failing to ratify the U.N. con- politics. Republicans even managed to sink Likewise, paying what we owe to the vention on children's rights, this is an indi- "fast-track" authority for free trade by United Nations keeps getting jacked cation that you should perhaps rethink your tying it to the abortion issue, for pity's around by Jesse Helms, the notoriously position. When not even Uganda will join THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE right-wing chairman of the Senate Foreign you in your single-handed attempt to block Relations Committee. U.N. Secretary-Gen- ITSELF SAYS WE OWE "A DECENT efforts to reduce the use of child soldiers, eral Kofi Annan, who just helped us stave it's probably time for repositioning. And RESPECT TO THE OPINIONS OF off a debacle in Iraq, wrote in The New when you are odd man out on banning land MANKIND." York Times: "Who benefits from a cash- mines — with countries like China, Libya, starved United Nations? The aggressors of and Iraq for company — and most of the sake, causing many of our allies overseas the world whose designs we seek to foil; world is hissing at you, well, the Declara- to wonder if there's a lick of sense left in the violators of human rights whose abuses tion of Independence itself says we owe "a our Capitol. we endeavor to curtail; the drug dealers and decent respect to the opinions of mankind." Winding up on the wrong side of import- international criminals whose dealings we How did we get ourselves into such awful ant human-rights questions because of reveal; the arms merchants whose traffic in positions? And why are we in the insane sit- petty, parochial politics is just uncon- deadly weapons our conventions help stop. uation of asking the United Nations for sup- scionable. Our objection to outlawing the Also impeded is our humanitarian work port against Iraq when we're the biggest use of child soldiers turns out to be over the against hunger, deprivation, the loss of deadbeat in the organization? Everyone fact that the minimum age for recruiting homes and livelihoods." there is furious with us for refusing to pay soldiers in the United States is seventeen. Our failure to join the land mine ban was the $1.3 billion we owe them. Why are we So? Why not make it eighteen, like every- especially embarrassing since Clinton was counting on the International Monetary one else, instead of holding up the whole the first world leader to endorse it four Fund to bail out the economies of Southeast works in Geneva? Is there some reason we years ago. The Pentagon says it can't stop Asia, when Congress is still hedging on pay- need to be sending seventeen-year-olds the North Koreans from coming through ing its share of billions to the fund? We may into battle? Fewer than 0.5 percent of U.S. the Demilitarized Zone without land be the only superpower left, but we're start- troops are under eighteen, and by the time mines. So why are we paying for all those ing to look like a super jackass. they complete training, almost all of them gold-plated bombers? Most of this madness is the result of are of age. I realize that this is a naive thought, but plain, old politics having reared its ugly According to Human Rights Watch, as at some point, can't we expect our leaders head. In the Texas Legislature, we used to many as a quarter of a million children, to forget their petty seeking of electoral ad-

give the If-He-Votes-Yes-I-Vote-No some of them as young as eight, are serving vantage and Do the Right Thing? ❑ Award every year to the most outstanding in armed rebel organizations or govern- pair of political rivals (both of them prepar- ment armies around the world. More than 2 Molly Ivins is a former Observer editor and ing to run for the same higher office, of million have been killed in armed conflicts a columnist for the Fort Worth Star - Tele- course) who simply refused to vote to- in the past decade, and 6 million have been gram. You may write to her via e-mail at gether, even if it meant opposing some res- seriously hurt or disabled. So why are we [email protected].

14 ■ THE TEXAS OBSERVER MARCH 27, 1998 JIM HIGHTOWER Dinner by DuPont The question is no longer "What's' for dinner?" but "What's in dinner?" o don't have to be Oprah Winfrey means you'll pay more and get less. Well, the middle class these days finds tto be revolted by Mad Cow Disease, Congress has learned this art of decep- itself in a hole that's even deeper than the E.coli and other exotic contaminants tive packaging, too. Hence, Newt Gin- Grand Canyon, and, yes, their hole is man- creeping into our food supply, cour- grich's 1995 proposal for a new tax give- made, dug by global corporate executives tesy of the industrialized practices of away to the privileged was labeled the "Job and their puppets in Washington. today's corporate cowboys. But if you find Creation Act." Likewise comes the "FDA A current example of this hole-digging is this worrisome, wait 'til you bite into the Modernization Act of 1997" — a twisted a special immigration visa that allows thou- Brave New Dinner being cooked up in the bit of legislation that "modernizes" the sands of skilled foreign workers to come to laboratory by DuPont, Dow, Monsanto and Food & Drug Administration's consumer- America each year to take high-tech jobs other chemical giants. protection regulations about like a tornado here. Wait a minute — aren't these high-tech The Wall Street Journal (January 29) re- modernizes a trailer park. jobs the very ones we're being told are "the ports that these corporations — which This bill was not even written by a mem- future" for American workers? Yes! Indeed, brought us such blessings as Agent Orange ber of Congress. Instead, it's primarily the they tell us not to worry about the massive and Astroturf — are now spending billions product of lobbyists for the giant manufac- loss of manufacturing jobs from our country, to buy up biotech firms, boasting that turers of drugs and medical devices. The because the U.S. "information industry" is within a short time, "Seventy-five percent industry put up $34 million in campaign creating new, high-paying positions for what of the food we eat will come from geneti- contributions and, in turn, the Republican they call "knowledge workers." cally engineered crops." As a DuPont exec- leadership of Congress allowed the lobby- But that very industry is now using the utive gushed, "The next Silicon Valley is ists to "modernize" the laws regulating government's H-1B visa program to bring plant biotechnology." Oh, yum. their own industry. No consumers were al- in 65,000 "foreign" workers to take these The chemical boys say they can improve lowed to participate in this rewrite — and positions — and Silicon Valley lobbyists on nature, engineering new genes into our no public hearings were held. are demanding that Washington allow even food that will cure everything from choles- The Health Research Group of Public more foreigners to get these high-tech terol to osteoporosis, whether you have Citizen, a consumer watchdog organiza- visas. Both Bill Clinton and Newt Gingrich those problems or not. Or, they say, they tion, looked into it and found these uglies want to please big campaign contributors can mimic nature, turning soybeans into written into the new law: like Bill Gates of Microsoft, so Washing- fake sirloin, chicken nuggets and crab. ■ Instead of the FDA reviewing safety ton is about to expand the number of H-1B Yes, but — why? Will their faux food be claims of a medical device, now the manu- visas to 100,000 immigrants a year. cheaper? Get real. Will it have the full com- facturer can select and hire its own private Are there no Americans who can do this plex of nature's nutrients? They're not even tester — a brother-in-law deal if I ever work? Of course — but the computer gi- researching that. What about people whose saw one! ants don't want to pay a decent salary for bodies are harmed by these exotic genes? ■ Also, it used to be that at least two clini- engineers and programmers, and hungry Tough luck. Will consumers even buy this cal investigations were necessary to OK a immigrants from India, Russia and else- stuff? Not if they're given a choice. drug's effectiveness and safety; now, only where will do the work for half the going And there's the rub. The companies' lob- one is required. rate paid to skilled Americans. Once the byists have stopped any regulation requir- ■ The industry re-write also says that keep- foreign workers get into the country under ing labeling of food with altered genes. In ing track of the performance of heart valves this temporary employment visa, the com- other words, you don't have a choice, be- and other high-risk medical devices is now panies can then sponsor them for perma- cause they're not telling which food is from optional, rather than mandatory. nent employment status — completely nature, and which is from the lab. ■ Finally, the new law tilts the regulatory shutting out American applicants for these If they're going to mess with Mother Na- process itself against us consumers and jobs, and knocking down the salary level ture, they should have to tell us. The Union patients. for all other high-tech jobs in the U.S. of Concerned Scientists is leading the To learn more about this regulatory gut It's a win-win for the executives and the charge for consumer labeling. Contact them job, call Public Citizen's Health Research politicians — and a lose-lose for our own at (617) 547-5552. Group: (202) 588-1000. workers and our country. El

GUTTING THE FDA LOW-BALL IMMIGRATION Jim Hightower is a former Observer editor Whether on toothpaste or breakfast cereal, According to park rangers, a tourist to the and Texas Agriculture Commissioner who you can bet that when a "New and Im- Grand Canyon actually asked: "Was this preaches the populist gospel nationwide on proved!" label appears on a package, it man-made?" his daily Hightower Radio show.

MARCH 27, 1998 THE TEXAS OBSERVER ■ 15 POLITICAL INTELLIGENCE

YOU NEVER KNOW what you'll hear at the Nothing is happening. I'm very happy here at passed by Congress after a few anecdotal re- movies. According to highly-placed Ob- Texas Monthly, I'm still planning stories for ports persuaded certain persuadable law- server sources, Texas Monthly Deputy Editor six or eight months down the road." makers that scores of parents were defraud- Evan Smith was in expansive spirits at the re- What about buying the good, gray Ob- ing the system -- made it harder for children cent Austin premiere of Richard Linidater's server? "You know, I thought about, I actu- with milder conditions, and particularly The Newton Boys. Smith regaled his party of ally said something to somebody as long as a those with mental health impairments, to visiting New Yorkers (and most of the upper year ago, about, 'Wouldn't it be great to buy continue receiving SSI. Yet of the hundreds reaches of the balcony) with his incipient The Texas Observer?' Then I thought, 'Well, of thousands of poor children whose bene- plans for a new Texas publication, which he they hate me over there, they wouldn't actu- fits were cut off, many had very serious con- described as perhaps a weekly along the lines ally sell it to me.'" (Smith was referring to ditions: heart disease, AIDS, schizophrenia. of the Dallas Observer or Houston Press, but his "Not Much Left," an April 1997 Monthly After a new Social Security Commissioner, statewide and "less sloppy or ideological," piece that smugly predicted the Observer Kenneth Apfel, took office in September and marketed to "the new leadership of would die by mid-year.) and instituted a review of the disability pro- Texas: software, medicine, media, real es- Asked if he hadn't thought to hit up his gram, SSA officers found that the govern- tate...." Smith said he'd drafted a proposal boss, Monthly publisher Michael Levy, ment had improperly cut off benefits for for such a publication, modeled on the icono- about spending some of those millions Levy many children, and that many parents had clastic (and money-losing) New York Ob- recently picked up when the magazine was been misinformed about their rights during server, owned by publisher Arthur Carter. sold to an Indianapolis media group, Smith the appeals process. Smith said he preferred a start-up, but that his answered, "I wouldn't ask a friend to So in February the SSA sent out a new potential funders favored taking over an ex- bankroll my future," and then reiterated, letter, offering parents another chance to isting Texas publication, and had suggested "Nothing is going on. It's theoretical, it's appeal. This second opportunity is cer- $4 million as the likely initial cost. "Because entirely speculative. It's fantasy, frankly." tainly a boon to parents like Green, who we would start immediately with highly-paid So what's the deputized truth? Our sources suffered a stroke last winter and has editors," said Smith, coinage jingling in his say that Smith is either fantasizing to us, or he stopped working; she has since been trying larynx, "and would lose a couple million the was fantasizing to his friends — or maybe he to support herself and three children on first year or two." was just exaggerating, theoretically. $275 of monthly child support. But the re- Asked if his backers had some particular sponse to the second letter has been weaker Texas takeover in mind, Smith answered, DON'T GO AWAY MAD.... On a recent than anticipated. In Texas, the letters listed "Well, there's The Texas Observer. It's got weekday evening, a half-dozen blank- an 800 number at the State Bar Association a name, and historical cachet because of faced parents sat quietly in the lobby of the that parents could call for help; one week the Willie Morris connection, and we could Houston Volunteer Lawyers Project office. after the letter went out, according to Emily buy it for about a dollar." They were there for a special clinic estab- Jones at the State Bar, about forty people When we heard the good news, Political lished last summer, to handle the cases of had called. (Out of 8,814 cases cut off in Intelligence contacted New York Observer children whose Supplemental Security In- Texas, 3,696 were not appealed.) "We're publisher Arthur Carter's office to see if we come disability benefits have been termi- very disturbed about it," said Jones. "What could at least raise the ante a few bucks. nated by the government. Following a can you do? We don't even have a theory." According to his spokeswoman Kathryn change in eligibility requirements passed in "A lot of people are discouraged," said Murphy, Carter has no interest in a Texas 1996, the Social Security Administration HVLP's Anthea Guest. "One of our clients publication, now nor in the immediate fu- sent out letters last summer to more than said she had friends that didn't even bother ture. Was Carter talking to anybody at the 142,000 SSI recipients nationally, notify- [to appeal].... They took Social Security for Texas (Indiana) Monthly about any such ing them and their families, in three pages their word." Apparently, numerous parents proposal? "No," said Murphy. of High Bureaucratese, that they were to have been dissuaded from appealing by local When we asked Evan Smith about his Sat- lose benefits. Parents were given sixty days SSA officers; many were told incorrectly that urday Night Live speculations, he said he had to appeal — ten days if they wanted to keep they would automatically be required to pay not talked to Carter — or to any other poten- their benefits during the appeals process. their benefits back if they lost their appeals. tial funders — in New York or in Texas. "I "When I first got the letter I didn't under- As of last December, some 900 of the like to talk," he said. "Oh, I mean might have stand," said a mother at the HVLP clinic Texas cases that were appealed had been re- put — I might have thought what it might be whose daughter has chronic asthma and a considered by the SSA, and about 30 per- like to do something like this — but no, to skin condition. (She asked that her name cent of those had benefits restored — indi- call it a proposal is probably an exaggera- not be used.) "When I first applied they said cating how flawed the initial determinations tion.... Arthur Carter and I have mutual she needed [SSI]." Jones, who was working were. But, as with other aspects of "welfare friends and I like what he's doing at the New as a temp then, did not appeal, and the reform," the cutoff of SSI disability benefits York Observer, but I don't know him and I monthly $454 check stopped coming. "It for hundreds of thousands of children has haven't talked to him about this.... Anybody was very hard ... because I couldn't get the proceeded in a strike-first, ask-questions- that says that I'm trying to go off and do things that she needed: medicine, clothing." later manner. Efforts to soften the blow something on my own, it's all theoretical. The stricter eligibility guidelines — come too late for many parents.

16 ■ THE TEXAS OBSERVER MARCH 27, 1998 QUITTIN' TIME. Two prominent state offi- to the Board of the Texas Department of with the Governor and, according to the leg- cials made a run for the lobby last week, Mental Health and Mental Retardation, the islator (who asked not to be named), often proving once again that years spent as a pub- predecessors to the Houston managed-care has to negotiate with Bush. "But what this lic servant are as good as gold (literally) when rollout have not been great successes so far. probably means is that June11 wants to be a it comes time to send the kids to college. Medicaid managed care has already been federal judge. It really sucks." Junell is also Health and Human Services Commissioner implemented in several Texas test markets the sole surviving member of the Demo- Mike McKinney, the man who was surprised (though the Houston Star Plus program is the cratic Partnership, a senior group of Demo- to learn that a state agency can't actually be first to include long-term care), where uti- cratic legislators who help set the party's acquired by Lockheed Martin, announced lization rates have been low. According to agenda and raise campaign funds (some that he would be leaving his post to start up the report, "managed care has created bu- from fellow legislators) to use in critical an Austin consulting firm. And Texas Natu- reaucratic barriers, and we fear that many House races. The group was made up of ral Resource Conservation Commission Ex- consumers may not be getting the services Junell, Mark Stiles, of Beaumont; and Hugo ecutive Director Dan Pearson is leaving the they need." In existing sites, the committee Berlanga, of Corpus Christi. Stiles and TNRCC to join what the Austin American- report stated, consumers and family mem- Berlanga are leaving the Legislature. "We're Statesman called a "public affairs practice," bers have not understood how to enroll, what supposed to send Junell $2,500 [from our headed by veteran Austin lobbyist Neal services were covered, or which doctors they campaign funds]," the legislator said, "while "Buddy" Jones. Clients of that most public of could see. In conclusion, the committee he leads a House Democratic organization practices, according to the Statesman, include likened the managed care rollout to "a grand and endorses a Republican for governor." all but one of the following: Alcoa, the Asso- experiment being undertaken in Texas. This ciation of Electric Companies of Texas, experiment has all of the characteristics of GEORGE P. VS. BOY GEORGE. New York AT&T, Fort Worth's Bass family, Continen- research on human subjects which is [nor- Governor George Pataki endorsed Texas tal Airlines, Intel Corp., Dallas Cowboys mally] guarded by ... rules, regulations and Governor George Bush as a Republican owner Jerry Jones, the Texas Bankers Asso- guidelines designed to protect people from presidential candidate. Or so he said, in a ciation, the Texas Health Care Association, being subjects of an experiment without their backhanded fashion, observing that Bush and your cousin Harry. prior knowledge and without information would be a "formidable candidate," and in about the possible consequences for them." particular that "his name would be a con- STAR MINUS. As part of "Star Plus," a siderable asset." The "Daddy's money" Houston pilot project to shift the disabled BANG-UP AT THE CAPITOL. Texas' answer criticism implicit in Pataki's "endorse- and elderly Medicaid population from fee- to Jews for Jesus is attracting members to ment" could be explained by the fact that for-service health care to managed care, its Austin chapter, as Democratic officials Pataki may himself run. And New York 60,000 Houston-area Medicaid clients line up to endorse George W. Bush for re- Mayor Rudolph Giuliani might also run, were required to choose one of three election. Following Bob Bullock's lead, although he endorsed Democratic Gover- HMOs by March 15. At press time, a third state representative Rob June11, chair of the nor Mario Cuomo when he was defeated of them had not yet chosen, and will there- House Appropriations Committee, jumped by Pataki. Giuliani is also mentioned as a fore be defaulted into an HMO, according onto the Bushwagon. "Governor Bush has vice-presidential candidate — on the bot- to Cathy Rossberg of the Health and done a job that is unparalleled, in my opin- tom half of a Bush-Giuliani ticket. Human Services Commission. These de- ion, in Texas government history," Junell fault assignments are not permanent, since told the Austin American-Statesman. "[He] patients dissatisfied with their HMO can has done a bang-up good job, and I think he UNION switch providers every thirty days. But the will do a bang-up good job the next time." changes are part of a worrisome trend: the Of course many are betting on Bush to run Labor Intensive Radio state is asking some of its most vulnerable for the bangingest office in the land, and citizens to jump through hoops to retain Junell may well have endorsed him in hopes benefits. Adult Supplemental Security In- that Bush, as president, would nominate him Radio of the union, by the union come recipients insured by Medicaid — to the federal bench. It wouldn't be Junell's and for the union. Hosted and i.e., poor people with mental and/or physi- first attempt to get himself a judgeship. In the produced by union members cal disabilities — were sent a chock-full- past he'd asked Dem gubernatorial candidate dedicated to bringing the of-fine-print packet of brochures and charts Garry Mauro to use his connections with voice of labor to last December, and instructed to select a President Clinton to get him a lifetime gig on the Austin airwaves. managed care organization. It seems likely the federal bench, but that never panned out. that the 20,000 people who did not respond So endorsing Bush is Junell's logical next to the mailing will learn what managed move. "The best reading of this is that he Tuesdays 6:30-7:00 p.m. care means the next time they try to visit wants to maintain a good relationship with KO.OP 91.7 FM their (former) doctors. the Governor," said a Democratic legislator P.O. Box 49340 Judging by a report issued last summer by who worked with June11 in the House. Austin, TX 78765 the Citizens' Planning Advisory Committee As Appropriations chair, Junell meets

MARCH 27, 1998 THE TEXAS OBSERVER ■ 17 BOOKS & THE CULTURE

The West Or Red Clay The West — what a thing! San Francisco de Asis Church, All my life I've kept looking for the West — Ranchos de Taos, June 1995 those romantic dusty places "A complex just is a thing." where grim-lipped serious people —Wittgenstein battered by wind, dust, rain, snow and evil overcome insuperable odds and This is not about retablos. look with grim determination Or santos. Or reredos. to the positive future. Or the history of the Church. I wanted to see those trails Or how it was restored. winding from the Rio Bravo to Dodge; Or los pobrecitos de la tierra who built it. from Independence to Ft. Vancouver. Or an irenic monk who inspired it. Yet, all around me are more or less Or The Shadow of the Cross, pitched black. manicured Or Penitentes. Genizaros. fenced fields; Or the cholos who prowl about the Plaza over beyond that next hill I knew without mufflers, superfine, mellowedout, beyond my sight customized Malibus, El Caminos and Chevelles, was the real West flaunting skirts and ground effects, that I hadn't seen. cranking up da gangsta rap. One day, standing at Taylor and Pine in San Francisco, Or the past, present, or future Hispanic culture. those stone and glass buildings everywhere; Or designer giftshoppes y gallerfas upscaling it. I saw at last: Or fannypacked, Evianed shutterbugs preserving it. I am the West. Or architectonic: form/function. Bauhaus. Or the niceties of Nature. JIM CODY Or Poetry, for that matter. Or the meaning of the Rood, prefacing it. Or anything even remotely religious. This is just about an adobe church. Named for a man. Or red clay. —G. TIMOTHY GORDON

im Cody (a.k.a. Jim White Bear Cody) is a poet, essayist, reg- but people still "reverence" teachers. istered nurse, and teacher. Recent books include A Book of Texans have an acute sense of mythologized and popularized J Wonders — Dreams, Visions and Unusual Experiences. Past places — the insights of these poems are much appreciated. Then resident of both Texas and Korea, he is married to the Korean artist again, I live on the street where David Crockett's bones are buried, Jeong Ja Kim and currently resides in Seattle. only blocks away in a crypt at San Fernando Cathedral, oldest G. Timothy Gordon writes poems and stories and has recently cathedral in the U.S. — what do I know? been teaching in China where, he writes, the humidity is daunting, —Naomi Shihab Nye

18 • THE TEXAS OBSERVER MARCH 27, 1998 BOOKS & THE CULTURE ► A History of Conquest and Rebellion John Ross Re-Examines the Mexican Wars Since 1325 BY PHILIP E. WHEATON

THE ANNEXATION OF MEXICO: These foreign powers inevitably justified heroic moments of resistance to foreign From the Aztecs to the IMF. their takeovers by deprecating the Mexican (and domestic) assaults on their patrimony, By John Ross. people. Consider the editorial published in property, and wealth. Common Courage Press. December, 1860, in The New York Times, Yet despite such heroic examples of pop- 345 pages. $19.95 (paper). which called explicitly for "The Annexa- ular resistance and patriotic pride, the an- tion of Mexico": nexation process has continued. In the he title of John Ross' new The Mexicans, ignorant and degraded twentieth century, the pattern has altered book is historically, politi- as they are, [might welcome a U.S. pro- somewhat, changing its dominant form cally, and economically accu- tectorate] founded by free trade and the from direct occupation and expropriation to rate: the history of Mexico has right of colonization so that, after a few indirect sell-out and bribery. Annexation been primarily one of external years of [tutelage] the Mexican state has become largely a consequence of in- annexation. But it has also would be incorporated into the Union vestment rather than invasion. Since 1945, been a history of internal under the same conditions as the origi- this new style of investment annexation has betrayal, by Mexican dictators nal colonies.... taken place under the cover of what Ross and greedy politicians: his "Supreme High- calls "the integration of Mexico into three ness," Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna 's is Ross' repeated observation U.S. wars — World War II, the Cold War, (1822-1855), infamous in Texas; the ultra about the ruling U.S. perspective, and the War on Drugs...." As the methods right-wing Porfirio Diaz (1876-1906), noto- Trright down to the present: "The obses- have changed, so have the dominant play- rious for his sell-out of Mexican land to sion of annexing Mexico still burns strong in ers; those who betrayed the fatherland are North American businessmen; and (as Ross the boardrooms of [corporate America]." no longer outright dictators or the ultra-rich, describes in careful detail), Mexico's latest And, as illustrated nicely by the Times, these but the Revolution itself — the leaders of traitor, Carlos Salinas de Gortari (1988- lupine predations are always cloaked in the the long-ruling Partido Revolucionario In- 1994), who gave away the whole country, sheep's clothing of "free trade." stitucionalizado (PRI). Once established in via the North American Free Trade Agree- However, these voices of imperial pro- power, they became devoted primarily to ment (NAFTA). paganda never bother to inform their read- preserving that power and enriching them- For almost six hundred years (1300- ers how often, over the centuries, the Mex- selves — remaining in power so long that 1898), the main method of annexation was ican people .have courageously resisted they are now known as "the dinosaurs." military invasion, occupation, and expropri- annexation, whether significantly or For example, Ross describes Miguel ation. In 1325, the slaughtering Aztecs burst ephemerally. One hears little in this coun- Aleman, president from 1946 to 1952, as into the valley of Mexico from northern try, for example, of the fifty cadets from the "Washington's Man in Mexico." Aleman Aztlan, gaining control through murder, Military College — the "Heroic Children" dismantled Cardenas' social revolution, threats, and alliances; the Spanish conquista- — who refused to submit to the gringos, six and allowed U.S. oil companies access to dores did the same, beginning in 1519 under of them plunging to their deaths rather than Mexican petroleum, either under "the scam Hernan Cortez; in 1847 the massive gringo surrender. Or of Benito Juarez, who over- of 'risk contracts' that permitted [foreign] annexation began, under General Winfield threw Santa Anna, challenged a reactionary drillers a hefty share of any resource they Scott and his U.S. Marines, who stormed the Catholic hierarchy, and carried out the brought in," or via substitute foreign own- "Halls of Montezuma" in the name of the biggest single transfer of property in the ership (prestanombres), allowing wealthy Colossus of the North (stealing 51 percent of nineteenth century — from the landed aris- Mexicans to hold vast properties in the Mexico's land mass); and finally, there was tocracy to the commercial classes. Or of the name of family members or a foreign wife. the Napoleonic-Hapsburg dynasty takeover great Mexican Revolution (1910-17), when By creating a "wall of tariffs" in the indus- by Archduke Maximiliano in 1862. Emiliano Zapata ousted Porfirio Diaz, trial sector (and thereby defying the con- In each annexation, foreign forces took transforming the country's government and ventional mythology of "free trade"), what they wanted, primarily by slaughter- its way of life forever; or of Lazaro Carde- Aleman did turn his six-year term into an ing Mexicans. But by far the worst were the nas (1934-40) who restored Mexico's patri- economic "Mexican Miracle," but one gringos, who conquered, stole, and kept on mony over oil and gas, and handed out 45 from which ordinary Mexicans benefited annexing. As the saying goes: "Poor Mex- million acres of land to poor peasants as little, and which was "rife with nepotism ico — so far from God, and so near the communal (ejidal) lands. So the people of and corruption." Meanwhile, under his ad- United States." Mexico have not been without their own ministration the PRI was becoming an

MARCH 27, 1998 THE TEXAS OBSERVER ■ 19 anti-democratic dynasty that no other party could challenge. Within the party — a "perfect democracy" autocratically controlled through carefully rigged elections — each new presidente was PRI-designated by the outgoing president. In the 1950s, the initiation of the Cold War would define all relations between the U.S. and other countries in the hemisphere. The successive Mexican governments ea- gerly deferred to Washington in combating "communism" and allowed U.S. security forces (both C.I.A. and F.B.I.) to operate freely within Mexican borders. Following the Cuban revolution of 1959, there was considerable sentiment in Mexico in favor of the Castro regime, but the governments of Adolfo Lopez Mateos and Gustavo Diaz Ordaz made pronouncements of friendship with Cuba, while continuing to allow American counterrevolutionary operatives free access to Mexico. It was a public relations dream: a seemingly progressive foreign policy providing cover for an increasingly repressive domestic policy. In August 1968, the year of the Mexico City Olympics, university students rose against the repression and went on strike in support of social reform. The Diaz Ordaz regime, terrified that the students might dis- rupt the Olympics, ordered out the troops. On October 2, the Mexican police and mili-

tary (under the guidance of the C.I.A., as A From the cover of The Annexation of Mexico Juan Ramon Martinez Leon/ La Guillotina later documented), massacred approximately 300 students at the Plaza of Three chapter entitled "The War on Drugs: Whose connections. Cultures near Tlateloloco. As C.I.A. agent National Security?" The success of recent During his October 1995 state visit, U.S. Philip Agee (then on assignment in Mexico) techniques for annexing Mexico rests most Secretary of Defense William Perry spoke later wrote, "The student rebellion had been importantly upon convincing Mexicans that of "a new era of political, economic, and a spontaneous popular demonstration their "national security" is equivalent to the military cooperation. " Perry added, "We against political violence and the PRI' s "national security" of the North Americans, must redefine the role of the military in the power monopoly." The massacre marked a as that term is defined by the White House Americas," by which he explained that we turning point in contemporary Mexican his- and State Department. Today, the main co- must "redirect" our military attention to tory, toward increasingly repressive state nundrum in U.S.-Mexican relations is "the plague" (i.e., the drug war). The State politics. But it also inaugurated a wave of "drugs." But "drugs" in Mexico today does- Department claims that its vastly increased courageous struggles for justice on political, n't imply so much the using of drugs (where military aid, equipment, training, and fund- labor, and religious fronts, all inspired by the main social addiction is alcoholism), but ing is used exclusively to counter drug- the cry, "Dos de octubre, No se olivide!" rather the laundering of drug money. trafficking. In fact, during that very year ("October 2, Never Forget It!"). Money laundering through Mexican banks (1995), Mexico initiated its new "low-in- is now such an enormous business that it tensity warfare" against the Zapatistas. uring the past two decades, the more sustains whole sectors of the Mexican econ- Much of this U.S. aid, including aircraft sophisticated process of annexation omy. Without drug money — currently val- given or sold to Mexico, is now being used has turned on the question of con- ued at $25 billion in liquidity — the whole against the Indians in Chiapas. D Militarization became increasingly impor- trol: who shall have control, the U.S. and its economy would long since have gone belly- governmental clients, or the Mexican peo- up. This is why Mexican assassinations, tant after the stock-market crash in Decem- ple? Ross addresses this question in the corruption, and NAFTA all have their drug ber 1994, because the crash triggered an im-

MARCH 27, 1998 20 ■ THE TEXAS OBSERVER

mediate escalation, not only in bankruptcies communally-owned lands set aside under metaphors: the first he calls "the curse of and unemployment, but also in protests and Article 27 of the Mexican Constitution. Malinchismo" and the second, "patriotic re- violent crime. During 1995, with the inaugu- Why? Because under those ejidal lands are sistance to economic annexation." "La Ma- ration of low-intensity warfare, the Mexican massive oil and gas reserves which the linche" was Cortez' Indian concubine, who Army militarized the states of Chiapas, transnational corporations want to get their is said to have admired what was foreign Guerrero, Oaxaca, Tabasco, and others. The hands on, without any interference from over what was native Mexican; the master government has nothing to offer the poor as Indians growing corn on the topsoil. Mexican muralist Orozco depicted her as a — with the exception of military hardware, The 1994 crash of Mexico's stock mar- temptress, a Mexican Eve, a whore. Her often supplied by the U.S. — it has so few ket was so severe that even Michel curse is thus seen as a form of Mexican self- resources itself. As in many other countries Camdesus, president of the International loathing, born from complicity in the rape throughout the world where the economy Monetary Fund, labeled it "the first major and violence against Mexico by foreigners. has crashed, police and military control have crisis of our New World of globalized mar- Defenders of Malinche respond that her become the government's only response to ket economies." In times of crisis, blame submission to Cortez was a necessary strat poverty and protests. the victim. When "the house of cards had egy, designed to free her people from Aztec All of this U.S. involvement in Mexico, domination. Perhaps so. But if the from indirect miliary intervention to the THE ZAPATISTA STRUGGLE IS ALSO A metaphor persists, who might be the "Mal- economic dominance codified by NAFTA, STRUGGLE, IN THE LONG TERM, FOR inche" who can free Mexico today from its has been justified as steps in the develop- economic annexation by U.S. corporations, ment of "free markets" and "free trade." THE NATION AND AGAINST THE COR- PORATE ANNEXATION OF MEXICO. and how might her "submission" succeed But Ross sees free trade as containing its against such economic domination? own internal contradictions. "Free trade," Ross suggests that there is an alternative he explains, "is a formula for aggrandize- collapsed [in December 1994] and Mexico metaphor, and it is provided by the Zap- ment imposed upon the weak by the was once again spinning into an abyss," the atista call to reaffirm the patria and to re- strong...." This sort of "free trade" — be- rich investors from the North badly needed cover the Mexican patrimony. The rebel- tween a rich company and a poor one, be- a scapegoat. Predictably, they blamed the lion in Chiapas has not only rekindled the tween a rich country and a poor one — in- Zapatistas for their troubles — or rather, spirit of Mexico's Revolution, it has of- evitably favors the rich. And what do they blamed the Mexican government for fered an alternative to Malinchismo — the foreign corporations want out of this its failure to act with sufficient repression. sacrificial resistance of the Mayan Indians NAFTA deal? All of Mexico. As Salinas' Thus, in mid-January 1995, the Chase in Chiapas, who demand democracy, free- opponent, Cuauhtemoc Cardenas (now Manhattan Bank mandated "the elimina- dom, and justice for everyone. The promise mayor of Mexico City), has said, "Cheap tion of the Zapatistas." ("While Chiapas, in of NAFTA was Malinchismo's modern labor, cheap energy, raw materials and lax our opinion, does not pose a fundamental moment. When that promise spectacularly environmental enforcement should not be a threat to Mexican stability," wrote Riordan failed, in the crash of 1994, the marginal- basis of partnership." He is echoed by Jorge Roett of Chase's Emerging Markets Group ized and impoverished poor, inspired by Castafieda (Mexico's op-ed mouthpiece to in an analysis of the Zedillo regime, "it is the suffering, honesty, and vision of the the North American public), who warned of perceived to be so by many in the invest- original Zapatistas, discovered an alterna- the danger of annexation: "In the case of ment community. The government will tive to La Malinche, one which affirms cul- two nations so disparate in size and power need to eliminate the Zapatistas to demon- tural creativity, indigenous dignity, and na- and wealth, the weight of economic superi- strate its effective control of the national tional pride, by saying "No!" to NAFTA. ority can be crushing and can lead to a sig- territory and of security policy." — Chase John Ross writes poignantly about his nificant loss of sovereignty and cultural Manhattan Bank's "Mexico Political Up- own awakening to the Zapatista rebellion, identity." Yet this lopsided "partnership" is date," January 13, 1995.) and how he has been "shifting from one bat- precisely what NAFTA is all about. But as it happens, Zedillo's attempt at tleground to another as this coming-together Ross puts it more succinctly: unmasking Subcomandante Marcos has (La Coyuntura) of resistance struggles [NAFTA] only codified a silent inte- thus far backfired, instead fostering "a new around the country solidifies, deepens." Ross gration of the two economies...the sanc- slogan of defiance, now scrawled on walls compares several coyunturas in past and pre- tification of an unholy union, one in across the land: Todos Somos Marcos' sent times — in Morelos and Tabasco, which the North American gorilla would ('We Are All Marcos')." And the Zapatista among the middle class (El Barzon), in dictate the terms of the marital contract struggle is not just for indigenous rights in Guerrero and Oaxaca. They all meet in the to the thin Mexican burro. Chiapas, or against the PRI dictatorship. It Mexican jungles of the past and future, and If one needed proof of the true meaning is also a struggle, in the long term, for the merge with those struggling globally for of free trade, one item is sufficient: as a nation and against the corporate annexa- worldwide justice. For what is happening in pre-condition for Mexico's signing on to tion of Mexico. Mexico is merely a template of the corporate NAFTA, President George Bush forced Ross concludes his fascinating history of blueprint to conquer the whole world, the at- President Salinas to eliminate the ejido, the Mexico by contrasting two historical tempt to eliminate all popular resistance to

MARCH 27, 1998 THE TEXAS OBSERVER • 21 what is called "the end of history." tle the neo-liberal beast: "The triumph of "We want a world with all the many As Ross says, one finds in these coyun- the local over the global is dangerously worlds that the world needs to really be turas both darkness and light: the death of counterproductive to transnational inter- the world." ❑ the indigenous in Chiapas, carried out by ests." But as Ross reminds us: "In the Zap- the Mexican military at the behest of North atista world, there is room for everyone." Philip E. Wheaton is an Episcopal minister, American bankers (witness the massacre of He concludes: social activist, and Latin American histo- forty-five Indians in Acteal this past De- Marcos's globe is not the same as that rian. He is the Coordinator of Conversion cember); the Zapatista dream of peace and of the globalizers, who would homoge- for Reclaiming Earth in the Americas autonomy, and Indian resistance to the an- nize us into one faceless mass of produc- (organizing survival assistance in Nica- nexation of "a country without a flag by ers and dispensers and consumers of ragua and Mexico), and a member of the that patria called money." Such pretensions sterile, efficient, fast food tacos. As the Alliance for Democracy and the National to autonomy by indigenous nobodies star- Sup (Subcomandante Marcos] says, Commission for Democracy in Mexico. The Old Gringo An Interview with John Ross planned by the government — because of ohn Ross wrote his first article about Mexico in 1963, in the the discovery of the government's "Chiapas Plan" that includes as one element the use of southern Mexican state of Mi- paramilitary forces against the Zapatistas. choacan. "It was about logging in Other observers suspect that the massacre the communal forest, in a place ("There were forty-six killed, not forty- where I lived in 1963. We were five," Ross says, "because a fetus was killed trying to stop them, and we did along with its mother.") was done by for a while," Ross said in a tele- paramilitary groups beyond the govern- phone interview from his home in Mexico City. "Thirty-four years later, I'm still writ- ment's control. Whatever the internal details, Ross said, Jring the same story." Among editors in the President Ernesto Zedillo has decided that United States, the peripatetic Ross is known the government urgently needs a solution for his prolific filing of stories from Mexico to the Chiapas situation. Ross summarizes City and the most remote corners of the the government perspective as, "This is Mexican republic, his journalistic and per- troubling our relations with Europe, where sonal courage, and his occasional habit of we have got to sign a treaty [i.e., the human using Latinate cognates that exist in neither rights provisions of a free-trade agree- English or Spanish — a result of years of ment]. We've got to end the problem, get reporting in Spanish and immediately writ- the Zaps to the table, [and] if that doesn't ing in English. • John Ross Marcia Perskie work send in more troops to pressure them His work — often in the form of weekly to get to the table ... and eliminate the inter- dispatches — appears in the Bay Guardian Often Ross's reporting somehow appears nationalization of the conflict." This per- in San Francisco, the L.A. Weekly, Universal under alien bylines — recently, for exam- spective, Ross said, explains the current at- and La Jornada in Mexico City, The Nation, ple, reporters from The New York Times tacks on foreign observers (several have ("whenever patrician New Yorkers remem- seem to have been following Ross through been deported in recent weeks), the ongo- ber that there's another country out here"), Chiapas and writing official Mexico's sanc- ing pressure on Chiapas' Roman Catholic Latin American Database, which distributes tioned version of stories he had previously dioceses, and the constant pressure on the his weekly "Mexico Bcirbaro," and Gemini published in U.S. papers. In the last couple government's own mediating groups, in News Service in London, which circulates of years, Ross has written extensively of particular the congressionally-appointed in all of the former British Empire. "I once Chiapas, since the January 1994 rebellion mediating body — which has been difficult gave Marcos a clip that came from of the Zapatista National Liberation Front. Botswana. Marcos wanted to know exactly After the recent December massacre at for Zedillo to control. The next move, Ross predicts, will be on where Botswana is." Also regularly carrying Acteal, Ross said, there has been a change in the legislative front, and will begin in the his dispatches are the Latin American government policy. Ross said that there are Mexican Senate. The Senate is dominated by Weekly Update and The Texas Observer. some who argue that Acteal was indeed MARCH 27, 1998 22 P THE TEXAS OBSERVER' the PRI, the party (as Ross parenthetically re- that's a real possibility." this happening. And Cardenas is not good at minds readers in almost every dispatch) that As Ross sees it, the Zedillo administration communicating at all; he's not helped by his has been in power for sixty-nine years. He prevailed in the specific terms of the skir- party's majority in the [city council] chamber, expects the Senate will pass a weakened ver- mish over Indian autonomy. "But the Zap- who spend all of their time fighting among sion of the San Andres Accords (already re- atistas have raised indigenous consciousness themselves. And this three years are crucial to jected once by Zedillo), creating the momen- in this country in a way it has never been the prospect of democratic change here. If the tum to push them through the House, where raised before, and it will be hard to put the PRI can derail this and keep the city in a siege the PRI doesn't hold a majority. genie back in the bottle now that it's out." mentality, then so long to any hope of democ- "The Zapatistas are isolated," Ross said. racy in Mexico." He observed that they have, through the ut Mexico is predominantly an In addition to his just-published history, San Andres Accords, helped formulate a urban society, and there is more to The Annexation of Mexico, Ross is awaiting law that will affect fifty-six different ethnic B the struggle for democracy than the publication of his new novel, by Bobby groups in Mexico — thus providing the what is happening in the jungles and moun- Byrd's Cinco Puntos Press in El Paso. (He's government's leverage. "That's where the tains on the Guatemalan border. I asked also published a guidebook to Mexican pol- government will say that we have to deal about Cuauhtemoc Cardenas, the Partido de itics, edited an anthology of basketball writ- with all of the indigenous peoples in the na- la Revolucion Democratica mayor of Mex- ings, and his seventh chapbook of poetry, tion, not just Chiapas." ico City (from whom Carlos Salinas de Jazzmexico, is forthcoming this fall.) Ross Asked about the current situation of Gortari stole the presidential election in described the novel as the story "of the Subcomandante Marcos, Ross said that for 1988). "You'll have your piece on Sunday," Mexican cataclysm," set during the millen- a period of time he had perceived a change Ross said, then began to lay out his dispatch nial elections of 2000. "It's a high-tech sci- in Zapatista leadership, with Marcos with- on Cardenas. "I've written about the 100- fi, magic realism, political thriller, that I've drawing somewhat — until the Acteal mas- rewritten three times since Cardenas' 1988 sacre. "He has always been a bridge to stu- "THE ZAPATISTAS HAVE RAISED campaign." The novel, he says, even in- dents, to urban intellectuals, to trade INDIGENOUS CONSCIOUSNESS IN THIS cludes a computer subplot. "And it ends up unions, and at one time that usefulness was COUNTRY IN A WAY IT HAS NEVER in a flower war [Guerra Florida], like the not important any more and what became BEEN RAISED BEFORE, AND IT WILL Aztecs used to have, when they captured important was developing a new layer of BE HARD TO PUT THE GENIE BACK IN the enemy and ate him. A lot of people get leadership." Following Acteal, Marcos has THE BOTTLE NOW THAT IT'S OUT." hearts ripped out in a flower war — all man- resumed his role of spokesman and is more aged by political parties." The title of the directly involved in the leadership. day siege [of Mexico City]. They [the PRI] novel is Tonatiuh's People, perhaps sug- Chiapas, Ross said, is still extremely have not given him very much breathing gesting that all Mexicans descend from the volatile, in particular the northern part of room. From the beginning, they have Aztec rain god Tonatiuh. the state, "where Peace and Justice, a death worked to slowly create chaos, to make the And as always with John Ross, there's a squad that claims it is not a death squad" is city ungovernable. The court system began sequel: Tonatiuh's Revenge. Tonatiuh's conducting a campaign of oppression. "Re- handing out eviction orders that had been author turned sixty on the night I inter- cently in the town of Tila, a man whose frozen for years, forcing the Cardenas ad- viewed him. — L.D. name is actually Jose Tila was murdered ministration to enforce the evictions. That's after he met with observers — probably by an attempt to introduce an element of turbu- John Ross spoke with Louis Dubose last Peace and Justice. That situation is ready to lence in his relations with the popular urban week from his home in Mexico City's old blow. There are probably 4,000 refugees movement that is his base. In Coyocan [in quarter, once the Aztec Island of Tenochti- who have fled their communities because southern Mexico City] Cardenas appointed ticin, where he was celebrating his birthday of Peace and Justice and the people in the the ex-director of the Mexican Communist as well as the publication of his new book, Zapatista communities who haven't left are Party, Arnoldo Martinez Verdugo, as the The Annexation of Mexico: From the fighting back — not attacking anyone, but local delegate. He is now in charge of chas- Aztecs to the IMF. His 1995 book, Rebel- they're out blocking roads instead of hud- ing squatters out of a shopping mall site lion From the Roots: Indian Uprising in dling in churches. When I'm out there, my owned by Auchan, a French commercial Chiapas, won an American Book Award. sense is that it's worse there than it has enterprise. In all levels, on all fronts, on TV, He has reported extensively from the Chia- been in a long time. on talk shows, they never stop complaining pas region in recent months, and when "On any given morning, Zedillo could about how Cardenas has not done things asked about the dangers he faces there, he order an elite military unit, camped five that need to be done. said his greatest worry is maintaining his miles from the Zapatista camp, to go that "And he has to deal with a city workers' press credentials. The government has not night with infrared lights and get the Zap- union, with 112,000 members, that's a PRI af- acted against him, Ross said, but should it atistas out of the way. The five miles might filiate. You have to be a PRI member to join. interfere with his credentials, he could be vary a little, because I'm told that Marcos PRI' s policy is to make him fail and make the driven from the country he has called home sleeps in a different camp every night. But city ungovernable. We're beginning to see for more than thirty years.

MARCH 27, 1998 THE TEXAS OBSERVER ■ 23

BOOKS & THE CULTURE Have Muck, Need Raking? Valiant Remnants of the Independent Press BY CHRIS GARLOCK by TOM TOMORROW 20 YEARS OF CENSORED NEWS. THIS 11111110.14111 PRESS CORPS STRIVE IS WHY, WHEN 14E CAMERAS ARE ON, MEMBERS or THE WRITE ABUSE litta'( COMPETE FRANTIKALI:( TO BE SEEN) ASK- By Carl Jensen and Project Censored. TD MAINTAIN THE lLLuStoN THAT illef ARE ACTo- HOT JUST ING A QUESTION-- ANT CLUESTIoN - Seven Stories Press. ALLI WOW,* REPORTERS•AND •:•sr<=<.\>:...:.,.w PAMPERED OVERPAID STENOGRAPHERS... HOW MUCH-HOW MUCH•EXCUSE ME- HoW 352 pages. $24.95. MUCH WOOD DOES THE PRESIDENT BE- OUST MAKES HEY-• I AM A NIE LiEstE A WOODCHUCK. WOULD CHUCK-- SICK To MY STOMACH! STOMACH t CHUCK WooD? uick pop quiz: what was the IF A WOODCHUCK COULD top news story of 1978? HO :AS osOttousw Ois. Too hard to remember WSW, o'JA mairiAtit CAR- .z.•;tr- ,,., Tacoa MASCoT, SPP►RM twenty years ago? Okay, THE PEM6upt, HAS San- k flit g rA-POwNSIZED.,,g u WE'RE sumt Yat1Kt. Eitbof what was the big news in WACKV AVMS oF IIIS SUCCESSOR, WOO VI 1988? T. LON'S STOMACH Still drawing a blank? How about just five years --THOUGH HOPE ULLY ONE WHICH CAUSES THE ...ALL OF WHICH tS THEN ISItaAwAsT ON THE ago: 1993's top news story? I N 6 EVENING NEWS-AND ACCEPTED RC MUCH OF BRIEFING oFFICt AL To FALTER—ALLOW ACTUAL tiouRN..1.isM,s, If you answered the People's Temple THEM lb MOVE tN FoR ori4E KILL... THE PUBLIC AS tragedy, George Bush's election, and the VVMAT DOES THE -4$ THERE A C V DAL BREWING ADMIN ISTR ATtoN IN THE WHITE HOUSE? COMING UP Great Flood that devastated the Midwest, NAVE To ii/pEf! NEXT, BRIT HuME TAKES AN IN- DEPTH Loot( AT WOOACNUCX&ATiE you're either a news junkie in need of a life, PIOT THESE or you've got near at hand a copy of Carl MESsAdi Si Jensen' s 20 Years of Censored News. Whether you're following the news, making the news, or just trying to understand the daily drivel that spews out of the newspapers and spills out over the airwaves, this is a book guaranteed to inform, cause of how far we've come since those educate, and amuse. ington reporters were assigned to the Wa- wide-eyed days of the mid-seventies. At a The value of Censored is that it both re- tergate break-in; and of those fourteen, time when yawns greet revelations that minds us of what the mainstream media only six were assigned on an investigative would have sunk entire administrations just told us was important over the last twenty basis. When Walter Cronkite himself tried a decade or so ago, it's useful to take a years, and then shows us what the newspa- to do a two-part series on Watergate, a close look at how little things have really pers of record and the nightly news left out. phone call from the White House to CBS changed over the last twenty years. Be- Since 1976, Project Censored has been chairman William Paley resulted in a watch-dogging the media with its list of the scaled-down version of the program. cause while the Jim Joneses and Monica Lewinskys come and go, the real stories "most-censored" (i.e., either not reported or "Watergate taught us two important that affect our day-to-day lives continue to under-reported) stories of the year. The pro- lessons about the press," Jensen says. be ignored, trivialized, or mis-reported. ject got its start because Jensen, then an as- "First, the news media sometimes do fail The Associated Press list of the sistant professor of sociology (and long to cover some important issues, and sec- 1978: Top Ten news stories of the year included since promoted) at Sonoma State Univer- ond, the news media sometimes indulge in the People's Temple tragedy, the Camp sity in Northern California, was looking for self-censorship." David accords, the death of two Popes, and a subject for a mass media seminar. "For In 1998, this is certainly old news to a the world's first test-tube baby. Yet, just a some time, I had been curious about how public jaded with Monica, El Nino, and the year before Three Mile Island would be- Richard Nixon could have won the 1972 government/corporate deception of the come a household name, the public re- election with a landslide vote, nearly five week, but in 1976, when Jensen created mained blissfully unaware of the dangers months after the biggest political crime of Project Censored, it was an eye-opener for a of nuclear power plants, which were out- the century — Watergate," Jensen says in public just beginning to learn about the mis- lined in a damning report — ignored by the his preface. deeds of its governments and businesses, mainstream media — by the Union of Con- Six months after the June 1972 break-in, and about the collusion of the media itself. just fourteen out of 2,000 full-time Wash- Censored is a timely book precisely be- cerned Scientists. MARCH 27, 1998 24 ■ THE TEXAS OBSERVER 1979: The following year, TMI did land highly lucrative offshore drilling rights have since managed to kick, scratch, or make the AP list of top stories. But before in the Persian Gulf, resulting in huge bene- sneak their way into the mainstream media. a reader can respond with a complacent fits in the wake of the Persian Gulf War. When I was fourteen, daydreaming while shrug, Censored provides this sobering up- Regular Observer readers will be neither stuffing envelopes for the local muckraking date: "Despite the warnings of the Union of surprised nor shocked by this kind of con- bi-weekly in Rochester, New York, my Concerned Scientists in 1978, the lessons nect-the-dots investigative work, but Cen- heroes were two young reporters who, sup- of Three Mile Island in 1979, and Cher- sored provides a valuable public service, in ported by their editors, relentlessly dug into nobyl in 1986, and the promises of Bill assembling two decades of top-notch in- the story of a "two-bit burglary," until the Clinton to 'ensure safety' in the nuclear vestigative journalism by largely unsung truth brought down a venal President. power industry during his 1992 campaign, Cen- heroes laboring in the vineyards of "alter- sored celebrates muckraking journalists the problems and dangers of nuclear power native" (i.e., independent) journalism. (In who still believe that truth — and the media plants are as prevalent today as they were fact, the Observer itself is cited in a 1991 that report it — continues to wield power. in 1978, if not even more so." Censored story on the Bush family's web "The press does have the power to stim- In fact, just two years ago, the Critical of conflicts of interests, and in 1996 pub- ulate people to clean up the environment; Mass Energy Project urged the NRC to lished its own Top Ten "censored" story, to prevent nuclear proliferation; to force shut down twenty-five nuclear reactors, be- about Royal Dutch/Shell's collaboration corrupt politicians out of office; to reduce cause they are, in the words of the Project, with the brutal Nigerian military regime.) poverty; to provide quality health care for "disasters waiting to happen." Yet today, But Censored does much more than sim- all people; to create a truly equitable, fair thanks to our servile mass media, we know ply provide an intelligent road-map and just society.... We have a free press in more about chemical weapons plants in through the last twenty years: it supplies a the United States guaranteed by the First Iraq than we do about the nuclear time- welcome and desperately-needed antidote Amendment and we have the best commu- bombs in our own back yards. to the ennui and cynicism that abounds in nications technology in world history. Now The genius of Censored is that it criss- these fin de siecle days. let us seek a more responsible and respon- crosses the tumult of the last two decades, Trust in our leaders and institutions sive press — a press that earns its First brilliantly melding the fascination of good seems to have been replaced, too often, Amendment rights the old fashioned way. history with the accessibility of an excel- with a vague conviction that all are repro- Indeed, a press not afraid to do a little lent reference book. From 1976 to 1996, bates, corrupt and bound together in a dark muckraking." each chapter runs down the mainstream web of intrigue and conspiracy. And while Amen, brother. Pass the ammunition. ❑ media's Top Ten news stories, and then there is much fodder for such fancies in goes on to show how the media missed the Censored, Jensen and Project Censored in- Austin writer Chris Garlock is the pro- boat on the Top Ten censored stories of the sist they are after much bigger and more ducer of Hightower Radio's daily radio year — and, most importantly, what has palpable fish. talk show, broadcast live from the Chat & happened to the stories since. "News is too diverse, fast-breaking and Chew Cafe at Threadgill's World Head- 1988: The AP Top-Ten lists George unpredictable to be controlled by some sin- quarters in Austin. Bush's election and the end of the Iran/Iraq ister conservative eastern establishment war. Yet in all the newsprint and airtime de- media cabal," says Jensen. "However, voted to the '88 presidential election, the there is a congruence of attitudes and inter- mainstream media somehow managed to ests on the part of the owners and managers miss the "Dirty Big Secrets" that should of mass media organizations. That non- have helped the American public decide conspiracy conspiracy, when combined whether George Herbert Walker Bush was with a variety of other factors, leads to the indeed fit to lead the nation. Secrets like: systematic failure of the news media to Bush's role in delaying the Watergate inves- fully inform the public." And in analyzing tigation after Nixon put him in charge of the the top 200 mainstream media stories over Republican National Committee; or a twenty-year period, Jensen's history in- George's role as a C.I.A. "asset" in 1963, deed reveals a systematic omission or con- when he ran the Zapata off-shore oil drilling sistent under-emphasis of certain subjects, company; or, the way he encouraged the including political, corporate, interna- heavily criticized C.I.A. to resume "busi- tional, and military issues. ness as usual" when he became director of Yet, although it is filled with page after the agency in 1976. page recounting journalistic malfeasance The Zapata-C.I.A. connection paid off and political deception, Censored remains 307 West 5th Street for another Bush (and, God help us all, pos- ultimately a hopeful and encouraging Austin, Texas sible future President) — son George W., book. After all, these stories did see the (512)477-1137 who was the third-largest stockholder in a light of day, and some — although not small Texas oil company that managed to nearly enough — of the subjects and issues

MARCH 27, 1998 THE TEXAS OBSERVER • 25 BOOKS & THE CULTURE The River, the Rain, and the Ocean Hinojosa, Chiwesh Baca and the Myriad Sounds of Water BY LOUIS DUBOSE

Seattle, Washington; Portland, Oregon 114111ish Hinojosa has covered a lot of ground — artistically and geographically — since she left San Antonio for Northern New Mexico, moved on "From Taos to Tennessee," then returned home to Texas. She has shuffled through country dancehalls with songs like "The Real West," performed in Korea, where "iit DOnde Voy?" — a haunting, Spanish account of a young man's flight from the Border Patrol — inexplicably went plat- inum. She has followed Don Americo Pare- des through as beautiful and evocative a collection of border ballads ever put into one package, in Frontejas. And most recently, she has pursued Frida Kahlo, Sor Juana de la Cruz, and Octavio Paz into a Mexican labyrinth that resulted in the artistically daring Sonar del Laberinto. "There's always a river song in my work," she told an audience at the Aladdin Theater in Portland. That river is often the muddy Rio Grande — the official border between Texas and Mexico. Three years ago she climbed on a bus with Butch Han- cock, Santiago Jimenez, and Don Walser, and pushed that border northward. (Imag- ine a line that begins at Kingsville, extends through San Antonio, follows I-10 west, Alan Pogue • Tish Hinojosa and then begins to drift east of El Paso's Raza Cosmica." Tish's frequent border Upper Valley, and you will have some was a rare moment of understatement. The crossings — and the music they produce — sense where the border is today.) three Divas — and the seven men who back them — are an exceptional show. have always suggested that Vasconcelos might have been on to something; but at inojosa is on a bus again, this time Conceived by International Music Net- Meany Hall in Seattle, I think I witnessed in the company of Zimbabwe's work's AnnMarie Martins, the tour inside the baptismal rights of the Cosmic Race Stella Chiweshe and Peru's Susana the concert hall begins in Africa with Chi- H weshe, moves to the Afro-Peruvian music Vasconcelos once promised the Americas. Baca, on a two-month, thirty-city tour in The music of Stella Chiweshe, "the which the three stars are billed as The of Baca, and concludes with Hinojosa's in- queen of Zimbabwe," is almost a Global Divas. "This is a cool-ass show," terpretation of Texas and Mexico. Eighty mbira primal force. Locked into two major keys said Hinojosa's longtime guitarist Marvin years ago, Mexican intellectual, historian, on the mbira and backed by the sort of per- Dykhuis, four dates into the tour, in the and goofball philosopher Jose Vasconcelos cussion that can only come out of Africa, it Green Room of Seattle's Meany Hall. For predicted that the Spanish Conquest of the is both mesmerizing and overwhelming. Dykhuis (a Racine, Wisconsin, guitarist, Americas, if it achieved nothing else with The mbira is a twenty-two-prong "thumb charangista, and vocalist), its mixing of Amerindian, African, and Eu- mandolinist, piano," two tiers of metal tines that are who moved to Austin ten years ago, this ropean genetic stock, would produce "La MARCH 27, 1998 26 • THE TEXAS OBSERVER plucked while they resonate inside a large When one of the Texas musicians asked The song began with a poem written by Pe- dried gourd. The result is a sound like me what I thought of Chiweshe's perfor- ruvian poet Cesar Calvo, which was later nothing most westerners have ever heard. mance, I said that I had the sensation it all put to music by a singer named Chabuca It is a music that John Cage might have had occurred under water. If a river runs Granda, before it was picked up by Baca, loved, had he given himself over to the dis- through Hinojosa's work, Chiweshe's who slightly reworked the melody line. cipline of rhythm. Or something you music seemed like it was played within a After she performed it at a 1984 festival would expect to hear in the work of the be- much larger body of water. On the follow- on International Women's Day, it became ing afternoon, riding south on the tour bus from Seattle to Portland, I asked Chiweshe about her music, suggesting that it was very spiritual. "It is spiritual," she said. "It is not my music but the music of a spirit, and that spirit is a person who lives at the bottom of the Indian Ocean." Like the Spanish singer Paco Ibanez, Su- sana Baca collaborates with poets (living and dead) to produce the most extraordinary music. (Musicalizar is the infinitive she uses to describes what she does with verse.) And just as Ibanez captures something of the essence of Spain in his work, Baca's music is quintessentially Peruvian: literally, the poetry of the legendary Cesar Vallejo, put to music. On stage, Baca, a small, elegant, barefoot black woman with a San Martin de Porres haircut, constantly dances to a lando or a samba beat, singing in a wonderfully pure voice. Susana Baca Louis Dubose The Afro-Peruvian rhythms that shape A Stella Chiweshe International Music Network her music, she said, were carried out of An- atific Lou Harrison, had he not been com- gola and the Congo by the Portuguese. And the anthem of the tens of thousands of pletely seduced by the sweeter tones of the the way her three-member band plays sug- women working in Peru's gamelan. On and on and on it goes, as the cocinas popu- gests that this was all developed some- lares: the public kitchens where women three men accompanying Chiweshe move where other than a concert hall. The per- living at the bottom of Peruvian society from gourds to drums to mbiras — or cussion section, dominated by the cajun, a pool their meager resources in a common dance across the stage and incorporate box turned on end with a player sitting atop pot, and cook huge meals that feed entire their hands and feet into the rhythm sec- it as he pounds out a beat, also includes a neighborhoods. tion. smaller cajita, a quijada, a complete lower "Maria Lando" is also one of the songs Chiweshe opened with a song that she de- jaw of a burro (whose rattling teeth pro- that sent David Byrne south; Byrne actu- scribed as a bus ride — a "way to get us from duce an abrasive hiss), cowbells, a water ally tracked Baca down at her home in Peru here to there." Sung in Shona, the dominant jar, and a set of conga and bongo drums. to ask her to record the song. Like Hino- native language in Zimbabwe, "Mazarura" is And guitarist Rafael Munoz has so skill- josa's "Las Manias" (inspired by an Elena a metaphor longer than the train that pulls fully mixed the vocabularies of samba and Poniatowska essay about the Marias who Alan Paton's narrative through Cry, the jazz that he could probably step off the pour into Mexico City to do whatever work Beloved Country. Yet on the following after- Divas' bus and begin a solo career some- is offered them), "Maria Lando" tells the noon, Chiweshe would complain about the where between Seattle and New Hamp- story of a woman who works so hard that difficulty of performing three songs during shire (where the tour will end, on April 3). she doesn't have a moment to lift her eyes one concert. "When you play mbira," she But it would be hard for any ensemble to and look at the sky. said, "thirty minutes is not enough time to upstage Baca, who offers up an extraordi- Pero para Maria, no hay madrugada. warm up." Often a single tune, she said, can nary repertory in an extraordinarily pure Pero para Maria, no hay mediodia. go on for hours. Chiweshe's electric Earth- and plaintive voice. "Maria Lando," for ex- (But for Maria, there's no dawn. quake Band has toured widely in Europe, but ample, is an evocative piece that has be- But for Maria, there's no noon.) this small acoustic ensemble seems like it come Baca's signature work. (And the And although "Maria Lando" came to might actually be playing the mbira as it was quiet conversation between Baca's voice Baca third hand, from a poet and a singer intended: to call on the spirits of the players' and Munoz' s guitar on "Maria Lando" ancestors. who are no longer alive, she clearly owns helps make it the centerpiece of her set.) the song, which she sings in a strong voice MARCH 27, 1998 THE TEXAS OBSERVER • 27

Baca singing the second verse, then singing that is complemented but never dominated the best concert halls on the West Coast harmony as the piece became more legato. by the extraordinary guitar work of Munoz. was not unlike what I had seen (and experi- The combination of Baca and Hinojosa The single weakness of Baca's first U.S. re- enced) sitting with two dozen of Hino- seems fitting not only because they share lease, Susana Baca, is the mixing and over- josa' s homeys in Austin eight years earlier. the same language (almost, although the production that allow the percussion tracks There is, in fact, one delicate, sustained tour may well need a translator who speaks to dominate her voice. ("Maria Lana," isn't note in the first line of the last verse ("Well both Mexican and Peruvian), but because included on Susana Baca but appears on talkers talk and dreamers dream...") that is they obviously share the same peoples' David Byrne's compilation, The Soul of so exquisitely beautiful and evocative that politics that many associate with Parra. Black Peru.) "Luna Llena" is a small poem it's impossible even to write about without And both seem to share a commitment to filled with imagery — a heron struggling in being deeply moved. lyrics that advance those politics without a river, a full moon watching — which Hinojosa's "river song" on this particular being didactic. "Maria Lando" and "Some- Baca sings almost a capella. "No, Valen- night in Seattle was prefaced by one verse thing in the Rain" are both songs that show tin" provides a workout for Baca's percus- of the wonderfully lachrymose "La rather than tell, each laying out the life of sion section, and allows the boys in the Llorona," a traditional Mexican song about one character and allowing the listener to band to prove they can sing harmony. a weeping woman who walks the banks of a come to her own conclusions. Moreover, I first heard Tish Hinojosa sing "Some- river looking for her lost child. The song, in the music and presence of Stella Chiweshe thing in the Rain" eight years ago in Lydia this a capella configuration, is a fine show- provide a spiritual dimension to the pro- and Cynthia Perez's Las Manitas Avenue case for Hinojosa' s voice, and it was disap- gram — while also suggesting that music Café in Austin — on a winter night when pointing that her protracted interpretation can transcend the limits of language. the streets were so icy that only a few peo- of the first verse of "La Llorona" is only the This show concludes with a fifteen- ple had shown up. Many in the small, inti- introduction to "Laughing River." But Mar- minute, multi-instrumental jam that is yet an- mate audience were overwhelmed by the vin Dykhuis kicks off "Laughing River" other performance, unto itself. And some- raw poetry of a young boy's first-person with a guitar lick he couldn't have learned where between Berkeley and Boston, narrative of the central tragedy in his life as in Racine, and Hinojosa moves into her Hinojosa will find a few days for studio work a migrant farm worker. (The song is based salsera voice and tempo, easing the disap- in Nashville, where she is working on her on a Robert Granat short story; it some- pointment that arises when you realize that third Warner Brothers album. She will return times seems that Hinojosa can't read a "La Llorona" has run its course. Hinojosa's to Texas to spend Easter with her family — book without stealing a song). So it was in- first encore, with Susana Baca, Stella Chi- rafting down the Mariscal Canyon on the Rio teresting to observe that the response of an weshe, and every musician on the tour bus, Grande, looking for another river song. ❑ audience of 1,250 in what is clearly one of was Isabel Parra' s "Gracias a la Vida," with

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MARCH 27, 1998 28 • THE TEXAS OBSERVER

"Vouchers," from page 7

funders could raise if they mortgaged everything they owned. There is an enormous amount of cynicism attached to this sort of issue-related campaign giving. What looks like principle at a distance, is politics-as-usual at close range. Minority inner-city candidates have accepted $500 to $1,000 checks, but their entire intake was less than the $10,000 provided for right-wing Lubbock Demo- crat Carl Isset — who will vote against teacher raises, smaller classes, and improved curriculum as long as he is an elected legislator drawing breath. And he is just one of a pack of Christian right franchises elected by Mansour, Leininger, Walton, and a myriad of other Republican PAC funders. If you want to understand what is driving the Texas legislative movement for school vouchers, don't read Chuck McDonald's lips, or Bob Bullock's resignation letter. Read instead the canceled checks of James Leininger, and Jimmy Mansour, and John Walton — if you can find them, as the funders will now re-PAC and try to recover from an embarrassing episode. Short term, these guys will use inner-city children as a first step, and even spring for a few tickets for poor minority kids to attend rich majority schools. In the long term, as Republican Representative Rick Williamson said after the House came as close as ever to passing a voucher program in the 1997 session, losing only on a tie vote (67-67): "We're going after the whole system."

The stories the other media somehow left out are just at the end of your mouse. DownHome with The Texas Observer. Now you can read your favorite Observer features on The Texas Observer DownHome Page: Investigative Reporting, Molly Ivins, Jim Hightower, Political Intelligence, and all the rest. Also on our site is a list of progressive organizations on the web — folks who share our progressive politics. — the Editors http://texasobserver.org rampolipe"

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MARCH 27, 1998 THE TEXAS OBSERVER ■ 29 AFTERWORD A Stitch in Time BY JOANNA HOFER Guarded look, stooped shoulder1 and the scent of Ben-Gay greet you at the door. The country Top Forty drones endlessly in the background Dozens of sewing machines with souped-up motors low like mech- anized cattle scared and headed for slaughter. A race is on, a race against time and physical exhaustion. Success depends upon conservation of movement Eliminate all unnecessary steps. Think of Henry Ford Your task is simple. Sew fast but sew accurately. We do have standards, you know We dont want the hunters who wear our garments to be cinched up in the seat of their pants.

For inspiration you find yourself study- he first goal is to meet "production." seams through the legs, crotch and both an- ing the lady to your left. Her name is Ri- This will ensure your place in the kles. There is nothing immediately striking carda, a name which is repeatedly shop at minimum wage. Later when about her, but all of her movements are butchered by a few ignorant women who in- you can sew more than production, graceful and precise. In one deft motion she T grabs a garment, turns it inside out and sist upon calling her by the masculine name you will make more than minimum wage. If of Ricardo. Ricarda provides much inspira- you get really good, you could make "big hefts it onto the table next to her machine. tion. A widow, she works another job after money." See that lady over there? She makes Her pile doesn't topple over onto the floor. her ten-hour stint in the shop. Not long after eight dollars an hour! Sit down at this ma- All twenty stack up perfectly. Seconds you begin working there, you will hear chine. It is an inseamer. Each machine per- elapse and she is done with her first gar- about the accident. It seems that when Ri- forms a specific step in the production pro- ment. From there, a tall, thin man with his head shaved for summer picks up her dis- carda first started at the factory, she didn't cess. For example, there are hemmers, have all of her documents in order, a state of sergers, and bar tackers. The garments are cards and turns them right-side-out in affairs which has since been rectified. One grouped by bundles of twenty. You work by preparation for the next process. He is day a needle (each of which has over one tickets. Each ticket specifies a type of opera- called a turner. He has the extremely monotonous job of turning garments right hundred of pounds of pressure behind it) tion and a predetermined number of minutes pierced all the way through Ricarda' s finger set for its completion. If you complete the side out all day long. After your first day of turning bundles in preparation for inseam- penetrating the bone. Not one peep did she process in the minutes specified by the ticket, utter. The women noticed that Ricarda, who you will achieve production. Every time you ing, you develop an incredulous admiration ordinarily was so active at her station, now finish a bundle, you take the ticket for that and respect for the turner as well. sat perfectly still, staring straight ahead. process and affix it to your time sheet. At the You started at $4.25 an hour. You've at- tained production, but now the Clinton ad- The supervisor went to check on her. The end of the day, all of your tickets will be mechanic was called in and worked for an counted. The accumulated tickets will deter- ministration has given you a worker's raise. Your daily quota must also increase. hour trying to release the needle from the mine how much money you earned for that machine. Not one tear fell. After needle and day. At the inseamer, production requires Since you are getting paid more, you will machine were parted, Ricarda, for obvious that you sew twenty bundles, or 400 gar- produce more. Two more bundles please. Look what your ninety-cent raise has reasons, refused to go to the hospital to have ments in a ten-hour day. No one seems to the needle extracted from the bone. She and know how the guidelines for minutes were bought you — barely enough to cover that new tube of Ben-Gay you'll be needing. the supervisor disappeared into the office. A established, but you wonder if the girl they few minutes later, with a Band-Aid on her timed wasn't an Olympic athlete. The walls close in. You feel trapped like a prisoner, and find it interesting to learn that finger, Ricarda went back to work. Worry, but don't loose sleep trying to in- The physical challenges of professional seam your sheets to your pillow. You are you do indeed work with a few ex-cons. It makes sense. Employers desperate for sewing are immediate, but there are subtler not expected to make production immedi- psychological challenges as well. The roar of ately. As long as you show up for work and workers need workers desperate for employment. Even more interesting is that the the machines coupled with the distance be- improve, your supervisor will work with tween workstations makes chit-chat with you. Eventually, if you apply yourself, you prison in Gatesville, just thirty-two miles away, has a sewing factory in which the your neighbors difficult at best. Plus, you will meet production. don't want to slow them down and vice A deep-rooted respect emerges for the prisoners do actually sew. What a wonder- ful sentence! The system works. Your heart versa. Now and then a passerby, someone lady who triples your output. You watch her taking a repair to Quality Control, a me- intently, hoping to learn. How does she do gladdened by this new understanding of crime and punishment, you rethread your chanic, or a bundle boy may drop a few it? You time her. In ten minutes she turns words. For the most part only the lyrics of the twenty garments inside out and sews the in- needles and give it the ol' college try. MARCH 27, 1998 30 • THE TEXAS OBSERVER • Sweatshop sewing Photo from No Sweat: Fashion, Free Trade, and the Rights of Garment Workers, edited by Andrew Ross country music keep you company: "Poor, stressed out. Even the supervisor prefers it because the fire marshal calls before poor, pitiful me," and "I'm married to a wait- he in- when Quality Control forgets her glasses. spects? ress and I don't even know her name." Shouldn't a worker have the right to Safety is also an issue in the factory. review any document that bears his signature After a while, words are unnecessary to Consider a large shop housing dozens of without first having to obtain a subpoena? sense the moods of those around you. At machines, some of which have been known Shouldn't a worker's raise really be a raise? times expressions so focused, so intense, to overheat and catch on fire. Now consider Take a week off and sew in a factory. and so full of hatred scare you. There is It the flammable piles of fabric that sit at each shouldn't be too hard to get on. There are usu- simply too much time to think. You may workstation. Look up at the, ceiling. There ally openings. Try to make production. Your see tears roll down a co-worker's face while is no sprinkler system. Look at the aisles to clothes will never look the same again. • he continues to work, and you may shed a the exits. Carts holding bundles block ❑ few of your own. Alas, it is probably too them. Look at the fire extinguishers. They Joanna Hofer, a freelance writer living in late for that ambitious young psychology are inaccessible due to barricades of bun- Round Rock, dabbled in production sewing student to survey the effects of anger on the dles. Hope you're not allergic to stinging for six months (as any longer surely would speed of production. That study has been scorpions. Now blow your nose. The result have killed her). done. It won't be long before the ladies in is the color of whatever fabric you were the break room tell you about the most sewing that day, black, blue, or brown. You memorable disagreements. On one occa- have signed release forms acknowledging ANDERSON & COMPANY sion two women took to each other with your awareness of the formaldehyde con- COFFEE their nippers, the scissors used to cut loose tent in the clothing. Try looking at your TEA SPICES • threads. On another occasion more humor- file. Don't bother trying to get copies. The TWO JEFFERSON SQUARE ous than violent, a worker was said to have secretary will not show you anything that AUSTIN, TEXAS 78731 grabbed the toupee off her boss's head. bears your signature. Better understand the 512-453-1533 Life is sure to be hard for those who like to company accident policy. Don't wait too Send me your list. play supervisor. Unauthorized quality control long after injuring yourself to report it, and Name checks and sending back garments cost the demand to see a doctor immediately. You Street women in line valuable minutes, i.e., money. won't be provided with eye protection, Don't nitpick people who are already physi- even though needles sometimes shatter. City Zip cally, economically and psychologically Are laws violated on a regular basis simply

MARCH 27, 1998 THE TEXAS OBSERVER • 31 THE BACK PAGE Dead Wrong If I had you Gov'nor Neff Like you got me, I'd wake up in the mornin' and I'd set you free, Wake up in the mornin' and I'd set you free —Huddie Ledbetter ("Leadbelly") in the Sugar Land Prison, March 13, 1924 Austin, March 10 Hughes said. "He had previously served overnor Pat Neff's 1924 pardon time in Louisiana, and he wrote a song glo- f Huddie Ledbetter was no doubt rifying life in prison and mocking the then- well-intended. But it sent the sheriff of Harris County. The governor be- wrong message to the school chil- lieves Neff's pardon of such a hardened dren of Texas. It sent the wrong message to criminal set a bad example." criminals in Texas. And it sent the wrong Leadbelly wrote "The Midnight Special" message to victims of crime in Texas," Gov- while serving a thirty-five year sentence in ernor George Bush said at a Capitol press Sugar Land. The song refers to the mid- • Huddie "Leadbelly" Ledbetter conference today. "We want all Texans to night train on the Sugar Land Spur route, an Austin Republican political consultant. know that if you do the crime, you will do and the prisoners' belief that if the train's "The Governor also may have felt he was the time — in this life or hereafter." light swept across a convict in his cell, that being outflanked by [Republican Attorney The Governor said his unprecedented ac- prisoner would be freed. "The irony is," General candidate] Barry Williamson, who tion will "correct an error made by the man Alan Lomax wrote, "that the light could is flying around the state denouncing crimi- who held this office seven decades ago" and never reach the prison walls." Some histo- nals and drug dealers. The state is running "underscore our commitment to justice for rians argue that despite the Governor's short of high-profile criminals to jail, so un- victims and their families." Bush overturned post-mortem response, the song in fact pardoning dead ones certainly ups the ante. Governor Neff's pardon of Ledbetter, better sends a strong anti-crime message: The Democrats may have to find a way to known as "Leadbelly," the African-Ameri- If you ever go to Houston, match it." Rove (a folk music enthusiast) de- can blues/folk singer first recorded by Texas Boy you better walk right You better not gamble clined to be interviewed for this story. musicologist Alan Lomax. State representative Ron Wilson, who In a prepared statement, the Governor You better not fight, once played bass for legendary Houston said, "As I noted last month in rejecting Sheriff Taylor will arres' you, bluesman Lightnin' Hopkins, noted that clemency for condemned murderer Karla His boys will drag you down, when Leadbelly shot Will Stafford, he did Faye Tucker, once a jury has spoken, And before you know it, so with a concealed weapon. "Because of elected officials cannot presume on deci- You'll be jailhouse bound. the right-to-carry law I sponsored, that sions that must be made by a Higher Power. In 1924, after hearing Leadbelly sing an would not be an illegal act today," Wilson Governor Neff acted outside his God-given improvised, personal plea for mercy, Neff said. He promised to speak to the Governor authority, and Ledbetter is still wanted by granted him a full pardon and restored his in defense of the dead convict's Second the state of Texas — dead or alive." rights as a citizen. Leadbelly had served six Amendment rights. The Governor's spokesperson, Karen years and eight months of his sentence. He Attorney General Dan Morales rejected Hughes, said the Governor had been consid- died in New York in 1949. the contention that the Governor's unpar- ering revoking the pardon since February Democratic political consultant George don might rest on uncertain legal grounds. 26, when he attended a staged reenactment Shipley suggested that while it is always an "Dead people have no 'special rights' under of Governor Neff's signing of the legisla- astute political posture to be tough on crime, our constitution," Morales said. "The Gov- tion that created the state park system. in revoking the pardon of a dead man Bush ernor' s retroactive unclemency may open "Huddie Ledbetter was a violent crimi- may have moved just a bit too far to the up a whole new field of jurisprudence. In- nal, convicted of assault with intent to mur- right. Shipley speculated that Bush was en- deed, it appears admirably presidential." der under an alias in Bowie County," couraged to make the move by Karl Rove, ❑