A Modest Proposal the Westmoreland Affair
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POLITICS OF CHOICE Pg. 4 A JOURNAL OF FREE VOICES NOVEMBER 10, 1989 • $1.50 A Modest Proposal The Candidates React to Bill Hobby's Income-Tax Speech The Westmoreland Affair How The Houston Chronicle Beat the Post to a Post Story Nuclear Family The . PUC Picked an Industry Sweetheart to Audit Comanche Peak Also: Michael King on Ishmael Reed and Oscar Romero as Remembered by a Friend DIALOGUE Le Probleme what made us great, Red China vs. Taiwan, Americain don't you imagine? More than 25 years ago I)TIRE •TIX AS I was as shocked to see Carpetbags and The "Flag-Burning in Texas" issue of the Scalawags having a meeting in a motel in Observer arrived in Paris quite a while after Amarillo as I would have been to see server there had been contemptuous articles in the Communists there from Cuba. Now look A JOURNAL OF FREE VOICES European newspapers about the proposed at them. And wrapping themselves in the We will serve no group or party but will hew hard to American flag protection laws and the death flag. the truth as we find it and the right as we see it. We are dedicated to the whole truth, to human values penalty for children and idiots. So that John Smith above all interests, to the rights of humankind as the when, reminded of the latest sorry Paris, France foundation of democracy; we will take orders from reactionary American image campaign, I none but our own conscience, and never will we over- asked a center-right French friend what Did the look or misrepresent the truth to serve the interests of the powerful or cater to the ignoble in the human spirit. would happen if I attacked a Tricolor she Right Thing Writers are responsible for their own work, but not didn't know what in the world I was talking for anything they have not themselves written, and in about at first. But what if I burned the Congratulations on the 9/29/89 issue; it is publishing them we do not necessarily imply that we French flag or shit on it in the street? "Then, excellent! I was especially struck by John agree with them because this is a journal of free voices. my dear," she replied, "I would send you Bauer's insightful and (I hope) prophetic SINCE 1954 to kindergarten." You've heard about the piece describing the growing division in the Publisher: Ronnie Dugger French and their sense of proportion. Texas (and Southern) Democratic Party; and Editor: Louis Dubose There's an example for you. And then, by the visceral and passionate review of Do Associate Editor: Allan Freedman having had the real Fascists, I don't think the Right Thing, Spike Lee's book and Copy Editor: Roxanne Bogucka Editorial Intern: Karen Speed most Europeans want to act like them all movie, by Michael King. Professor Bauer Calendar: Elisa Lyles these years later. makes me glad to be a Democrat in Texas Washington Correspondent: Mary Anne Reilly On Japanese television two weeks ago an in 1989; and Mr. King has just about Contributing Writers: Bill Adler, Betty Brink, convinced me to see that disturbing and Warren Burnett, Jo Clifton, John Henry Faulk, American environmentalist was asked if it Terry FitzPatrick, Gregg Franzwa, Bill Helmer, was true that Americans considered the thought-provoking movie again. James Harrington, Amy Johnson, Michael King, Japanese a more serious threat to their Furthermore, he has helped me crystal- Mary Lenz, Dana Loy, Tom McClellan, Bryce survival than environmental problems. What lize some thoughts about it into a question: Milligan, Greg Moses, Debbie Nathan, Gary he ought to have answered is that the bad because of the very adult dilemmas and Pomerantz, John Schwartz, Michael Ventura, Lawrence Walsh Bush-Baker Sunbelt bankers are a much moral issues raised by the movie, should Editorial Advisory Board: Frances Barton, scarier threat to whatever nice people like it be "X"-rated rather than "R" so that only Austin; Elroy Bode, Kerrville; Chandler to think the American flag stands for than adults see it; or, on the contrary, should Davidson, Houston; Bob Eckhardt, Washington, it be mandatory viewing for all Jr. and Sr. D.C.; Sissy Farenthold, Houston; Ruperto Garcia, hardworking Japanese and ozone holes put Austin; John Kenneth Galbraith, Cambridge, together. Bad Bush-Baker Sunbelt bankers High social studies/civics classes, with class Mass.; Lawrence Goodwyn, Durham, N.C.; don't care what you do with any flag and discussions involving panels of black and George Hendrick, Urbana, Ill.; Molly Ivins, neither do their hard, climbing Texas white students to follow? Considering recent Austin; Larry L. King, Washington, D.C.; Maury wives. They wouldn't have any events here, perhaps a start would be a Maverick, Jr., San Antonio; Willie Morris, Monthly Oxford, Miss.; Kaye Northcott, Austin; James problem with cute rolls of Jasper Johns flag mandatory viewing by all Westlake High Presley, Texarkana; Susan Reid, Austin; Geoffrey series toilet paper in every cute bathroom, Students, with LBJ, Lanier and Reagan Rips, Austin; A.R. (Babe) Schwartz, Galveston; family and guest, in Houston, Washington students participating in the discussions. Fred Schmidt, Fredericksburg; Robert Sherrill, and the Bahamas. And why should they after Al Lindsey Tallahassee, Fla. all? I don't decorate with the flag myself, Austin Layout and Design: Layne Jackson Typesetter: Lana Kaupp but it's a matter of taste. It's not what these Contributing Photographers: Bill Albrecht, Vic crooks do with American flags that bothers Hinterlang, Alan Pogue. me. CORRECTIONS Contributing Artists: Eric Avery, Tom Ballenger, The first and only time I ever "met" Richard Bartholomew, Jeff Danziger, Beth Epstein, Dan Hubig, Pat Johnson, Kevin Kreneck, (shook hands with) friendly George Bush In W. Gardner Selby's October 13 Michael Krone, Carlos Lowry, Ben Sargent, was in the lobby of a Ramada Inn in review of Ann Richards's Straight from Dan Thibodeau, Gail Woods. Amarillo around 1962. I always remember the Heart, the final sentence of the Managing Publisher: Cliff Olofson them as having a convention going on for second paragraph of the review should Subscription Manager: Stefan Wanstrom John Birch Society members or followers have read: Cursory acceptance of these Special Projects Director: Bill Simmons of General Edwin Walker, but it was Development Consultant: Frances Barton statements might lead us to see the folksy probably really just for the Texas Richards as an iron lady after all — and SUBSCRIPTIONS: One year $27, two years 548. three years $69. Full- time students $15 per year. Back issues $3 prepaid. Airmail, foreign, group, Republican Party. Of course they amounted just tough enough, as another Democratic and bulk rates on request. Microfilm editions available from University to the same thing in those days, more or Microfilms Intl., 300 N. Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, MI 48106. Any current candidate for governor says, to be guy. subscriber who finds the price a burden should say so at renewal time; no less. Mr. Bush was to speak. The We regret the error, which occurred one need forgo reading the Observer simply because of the cost. Republicans didn't even fill up the Rotary in production. THE TEXAS OBSERVER (ISSN 0040-4519/UPS 541300), Club banquet room. I doubt if there was Almost equally regrettable was the ©1989, is published biweekly except for a three-week interval between issues in January and July (25 issues per year) by the so much as a reporter from the Amarillo incorrect spelling of Austin attorney Texas Observer Publishing Co., 307 West 7th Street, Austin, newspaper, in which case we will never Elliot Naishtat's last name, on the Texas 78701. Telephone: (512) 477-0746. Second class postage know what that earnest, Ivy League-style paid at Austin, Texas. October 13 Political Intelligence page. conservative from Connecticut told the tiny POSTMASTER: Send address changes to THE TEXAS Naishtat, a veteran utility player with the OBSERVER. P.O. Box 49019, Austin, Texas 78765 group of angry right-thinkers. Communism Observer softball team, is a Democratic just 90 miles from our shores, how to keep candidate in the District 49 House race. your empire from declining, free enterprise, 2 • NOVEMBER 10, 1989 EDITORIALS o, bpisE eTE rv..S er „, NOVEMBER 10, 1989 Politics of Conviction VOLUME 81, No. 22 FEATURES Austin spending $630 million to provide 25,000 ILL HOBBY might not have earned new prison beds, says a great deal about A Scoop in Houston . B himself a chapter in Profiles in his vision and conviction. Hance, a profes- By Allan Freedman 7 Courage, but the speech he made as he sional politician running for the Republican begins his final year in office has to be gubernatorial nomination, recently browbeat Imprudent Choices considered an important event in the political fellow candidate Clayton Williams back into By Louis Dubose 9 history of the state. It is true, as former the pack on the income tax question. When Republican Secretary of State Jack Rains Williams, a businessman who, in the Pollution Control Deferred told the Observer two days after Hobby's dominant cliche of the Republican party, has By Louis Dubose 13 speech to the Texas Association of Taxpay- created jobs and met payrolls, suggested that DEPARTMENTS ers, that "Bill Hobby is a politician who it might require a state income tax to fund will never have to face the electorate again." the war on drugs, Hance's shrill attack Dialogue 2 But Rains is only half right. Because forced Williams to publicly recant. Only Hobby's speech, in which he called for a Rains, among the Republican candidates for Political Intelligence 14 four percent state income tax, was another Governor, has been openly critical of one of several public stands that separates Hance's "ban it now" campaign.