SEIU Blitzes Houston Air Force "Pajama Police" Defeated Plus: Ivins on Freedom & Volleyball Eighner on Godly Republicans Tyer on Sex Pistols in Houston

THE TEXAS

A JOURNAL OF FREE VOICES

Reports from Sierra Blanca Labor's Day: SEIU Blitzes Houston Air Force "Pajama Police" Defeated Plus: Ivins on Freedom & Volleyball Eighner on Godly Republicans Tyer on Sex Pistols in Houston

Wst:tz -A0:4S THIS ISSUE

FEATURES Dole Takes Control by Louis Dubose Cheerleaders, Christians, and CEOs Aplenty in San Diego. Guess Who's Throwing the Party?

We All Live in Sierra Blanca by Karen Olsson and Carrie Evans 10 Sierra Blancans and supporters from across the state and across the border bear witness against the nuclear dump. Is anybody listening?

Blitzing Houston with the SEIU by Ann Walton Sieber 14 This Labor Day, there's a new wind blowing across the South, VOLUME 88, NO. 17 and these union blitzers brought it to Texas. A JOURNAL OF FREE VOICES We will serve no group or party but will hew hard to the Air Force Major Defeats "the Pajama Police" by Robert Bryce 17 truth as we find it and the right as we see it. We are dedicated to the whole truth, to human values above all in- The Air Force asked Major Debra Meeks to abandon her career and disappear. terests, to the rights of human-kind as the foundation of democracy: we will take orders from none but our own Instead, she beat them in their own court. conscience, and never will we overlook or misrepresent the truth to serve the interests of the powerful or cater to the ignoble in the human spirit. DEPARTMENTS BOOKS AND THE CULTURE Writers are responsible for their own work, but not Texas Summer & Sunflowers 23 for anything they have not themselves written, and in Dialogue 2 publishing them we do not necessarily imply that we Poetry by Robert Trammell agree with them, because this is a journal of free voices. Editorial 4 When is Race not Race? Missing the Bus 24 SINCE 1954 by Lars Eighner Molly Ivins 18 27 Founding Editor: Ronnie Dugger Freedom is a Volleyball Infomercial Lying is Good for Us! Publisher: Geoff Rips Book Review by Ben Terrall Managing Publisher: Rebecca Melancon Norman Solomon 20 Smoking Gun 28 Editor: Louis Dubose Made-for-TV Convention Associate Editor: Michael King Book Review by James W. Kunetka Production: Harrison Saunders Political Intelligence 32 Reloaded Pistols in Houston 30 - Copy Editor: Mimi Bardagjy Music Review by Brad Tyer Poetry Editor: Naomi Shihab Nye Cover photo by Alan Pogue Circulation Manager: Amanda Toering AFTERWORD Editorial Interns: Katy Adams, Carrie Evans, Karen Doctors R U! 31 Olsson By Karen Olsson Contributing Writers: Bill Adler, Barbara Belejack, Betty Brink, Brett Campbell, Jo Clifton, Carol Country- man, Lars Eighner, James Galbraith, Dagoberto Gilb, James Harrington, Jim Hightower, Molly Ivins, Paul DIALOGUE Jennings, Steven Kellman, Torn McClellan, Bryce Milligan, Debbie Nathan, Brad Tyer, James McCarty Yeager. FEED READING out of balance, create havoc with their words, Contributing Photographers: Vic Hinterlang, Alan My dog didn't know she had been missing generating what an old Zapatista friend of Pogue. mine used to call "creative disorder." Contributing Artists: Michael Alexander, Eric Avery, real food (as opposed to the pellets of veg- Tom Ballenger, Richard Bartholomew, Jeff Danziger, Beth etable dust vets insist we feed her) until she Davis' article is a brilliant beginning. Epstein, Valerie Fowler, Kevin Kreneck, Michael Krone, More, please. Ben Sargent, Gail Woods. tasted meat. I didn't know how much I Editorial Advisory Board: David Anderson, Austin; missed the real thing in the Observer (or Jim Simons Elroy Bode, El Paso; Chandler Davidson, Houston; elsewhere) until I read Rod Davis' piece Austin Dave Denison, Arlington, Mass.; Bob Eckhardt, Austin; Sissy Farenthold, Houston; John Kenneth Galbraith, ("The Fate of the Texas Writer," July 26). Cambridge, Mass.; Lawrence Goodwyn, Durham, N.C.; Thank God, somebody noticed and spoke Texas isn't the only place where writing has George Hendrick, Urbana, Ill.; Molly Ivins, Austin; Larry L. King, Washington, D.C.; Maury Maverick, Jr., up about the sorry state of the printed word. been a colonial enterprise. Even here in San Antonio; Willie Morris, Jackson, Miss.; Kaye Texas writers and writers all over the "mighty" California (now at 32 million Northcott, Fort Worth; James Presley, Texarkana; Susan Reid, Austin; A.R. (Babe) Schwartz, Galveston; country are an endangered species. It is population, sixth largest economy in the Fred Schmidt, Fredericksburg. largely a function or dysfunction of eco- world, Hollywood, Silicon Valley, etc.), Development Consultant: Frances Barton nomics, the kind of system we have. I' writers must still answer to the Northeast- Business Manager: Cliff Olofson, 1931-1995 ern (mainly New York) publishing estab- SUBSCRIPTIONS: One year $32. two years $59, three years $84. Full-time have almost given up reading as I have students $18 per year. Back issues $3 prepaid. Airmail, foreign, group, and bulk rates on request. Microfilm editions available from University Micro- given up expecting reform from the politi- lishment. The same is true in most elec- films Intl., 3(X) N. Zed, Road. Ann Arbor, MI 48106. cal process or integrity from politicians. tronic media where one must bow to the INDEXES: The Texas Observer is indexed in Access: The Supplementary Index ro Periodicals; Texas Index and, for the years 1954 through 1981.The Writers have nothing to sell, a fatal flaw corporate "Big Three"—NBC, ABC and Texas Observer Index. THE TEXAS OBSERVER (ISSN 0040-45 I 9/USPS 541300), entire contents in capitalist culture. The truth is not a com- CBS, firmly headquartered in New York copyrighted, (0 1996, is published biweekly except for a three-week interval between issues in January and July (25 issues per year) by the Texas Democ- modity. Writers are not good managers, not City, for most TV/radio reporting jobs racy Foundation. 307 West 7th Street, Austin, Texas 78701. Telephone: (512) 477-0746. E-mail: txobserverOige.apc.org . good followers, not team players. In short, (whenever there are any). In the U.S., you World Wide Web Downllome page: http://www.hyperweb.eurnitxobserver Periodicals postage paid at Attain, Texas. exactly the kind of troublemakers (I call either live in the Northeast—the center of POSTMASTER: Send address changes to THE TEXAS OBSERVER, 307 West 7th Street, Austin, Texas 78701. them anarchists) who want to throw it all power (corporate and political), or you live

2 ■ THE TEXAS OBSERVER AUGUST 30, 1996 DIALOGUE

in one of its colonies. It is Wall Street's Gallego, voted for this turkey, and you GETTING TECHNICAL , -,ambition to make sure the new Global won't find Hudspeth's name among the I'm all for cheap shots, but at least make

------/Economy revolves around New York City, eleven counties with resolutions against them well-informed cheap shots. Your July and therefore, Wall Street. "Everybody the dump; the home-county elected offi- 26 "Political Intelligence" item ("Starr 1 Wants to Rule the World" went the song by cials have had a taste of the money, and Fading?") on Kenneth Starr's contribution Tears for Fears, especially, it seems, if apparently they like it. to the Texas Tech Law Review really you're a New Yorker. As for the rest of us In the coming months, one state agency, missed the boat. here in The Colonies, we're expected to the TNRCC, will hear the plea of another First, Texas Tech is a good law school. suffer in silence. We need many more Rod state agency, the Texas Low-Level Ra- Observer readers should note that the dean, Davises (and Rodney 0 and Joe Cooleys)! dioactive Waste Disposal Authority, to es- W. Frank Newton, is one of the country's Chris Ellis tablish a dump favored by the Governor of most effective advocates for legal-services San Bernardino, CA that state in a poor, minority community in funding, pro bono legal work and other an active earthquake zone. The TNRCC progressive measures. Tech doesn't need After just returning from my local public li- has on this issue received over 500 re- Starr for some grab for national recogni- brary where I read the July 26 issue of the quests for hearings, including requests tion; it already has it. Observer from cover to cover, I realize just from the Mexican states of Chihuahua and Second, Starr's essay is part of a "Faith how little real news and impassioned con- Coahuila and the cities of Juarez and and the Law" issue put out by the Texas scientious writing I've been getting through Acufia, the Mexican Foreign Ministry, the Tech Law Review. The editors asked schol- the mainstream media. As one of many for- city of El Paso, and the counties of Culber- ars and practitioners from across the mer journalists who gave up in disgust, I son and, I am proud to say, Presidio. Poli- county to write on the topic and then they particularly identified with the lead feature tics, not science, will determine the put it all together in a 516-page review. A on the fate of Texas writing and writers. TNRCC's decision, so the only strategy lot of it's good reading. Starr's essay, how- Sign me up!...Thanking you for keeping likely to prevent this proposed injustice is ever, is hands down the weakest of the truth alive, to make approval of the dumpsite as ex- bunch—just a couple pages' worth of Jim Bush posed, as international, and as politically vague ramblings about being humble Waxahachie expensive as possible. Mexico's reported (something I don't think he's ever been linkage of cleaning up Carbon I and H with accused of). So criticize it on that basis, if COVERING SIERRA: GRACIAS our scrapping the plan to build the Sierra you will, but don't pick on Tech because We in Far West Texas owe a debt of grati- Blanca dump might make a noise that they asked him to contribute. tude to Lou Dubose for the persistence and some would hear if the media in general Why am I flacking for Tech? Glad the quality of his reporting on stories from would cover it. you asked. I'm helping to moderate an on- our area that have been generally ignored by The Observer covered it. Thanks again, line discussion of faith and the law the rest of the media—the dual outrages of and please keep it up. Without media vision Counsel Connect, a national legal the largest sewage dump in the country and bility we're as good as nuked. online service. the proposed radioactive waste dump, both Gary Oliver Bob Elder in tiny Sierra Blanca. Only he bothered to Marfa Austin, reldernn@ counsel. corn cover the incredible sludge libel trial in Pecos this spring, and most Texans reading of the Earth Day blockade of the interna- IN MEMORIAM, MICHAEL ROBERT tional bridge at Del Rio in the May 31 Ob- Michael Robert, a Port Aransas innkeeper and tireless worker for progressive political server will be reading of it for the first time. causes, was buried August 9 on the island where he had made his home since he re- The deck has indeed been stacked turned from England in the 1980s. He was born in Port Aransas and graduated from against Sierra Blanca. Dan Shelley, the ex- high school there. He was murdered in his home. state rep who sponsored HB 2665—the Michael was an unrecognized hero in the progressive and gay political movements. "Screw Sierra Blanca Bill"—which drew a In Port Aransas, he worked for the Coastal Bend AIDS Foundation, quietly funded, or- box around 370 square miles, including the ganized, and served Thanksgiving dinners for AIDS sufferers, ran unsuccessfully for town, and mandated that the site would be local office in the Democratic Primary, and worked on the Ann Richards and Bill Clin- there, whatever the geology, is now the ton campaigns. He recognized that true democratic politics transcend the politics of ..!.gislative liaison for Governor Bush. Ex- the Democratic Party, yet remained utterly committed to Democratic Party politics— Governor Ann is said to be working as a often challenging leftist and liberal friends on the Island and in Corpus Christi to show lobbyist for the Compact, the bill that will him "a better option." make the dump competitive by introducing He was a supporter of, and an occasional source of stories for, this publication, be- "volume of scale" (in the form of imported lieved that one could fight the good fight and have a good time doing it, and had waste from any number of other states) to planned to attend the Republican National Convention in San Diego—as a protester. lower the tipping fees. Even Sierra He was missed there. We continue to miss him. Blanca's own State Representative, Pete

AUGUST 30, 1996 THE TEXAS OBSERVER • 3 EDITORIAL When Is Race Not Race?

n American politics the Race Card is, outlandish shapes of the districts. The Michael Olivas (of the University of by definition, the one your opponent is Supreme Court cited Texas Monthly's pre- Houston Law School) pointed out to the playing. That is one of the many small Columbian description of the former 29th: Observer, "They don't see the monstrous ironies at work in the wake of the "The 29th District looks like a sacred gerrymandering when it advantages / Mayan bird, with its body running eastward whites, as it always has....As long as that Texas Congressional redistricting lawsuit, which now has generated—unless the along the Ship Channel from downtown mindset rules the people who are drawing Supreme Court grants an unlikely stay— Houston until the tail terminates in Bay- the lines, and the people who are looking thirteen open-primary special elections and town. Spindly legs reach south to Hobby at them afterwards—or in the case of perhaps several runoffs, the latter to be Airport, while the plumed head rises north- judges, who are both drawing the lines held a couple of weeks before Christmas. ward almost to Intercontinental. In the and judging them—there's not going to be These unprecedented elections have been western extremity of the district, an open any relief whatsoever." ordered, out of season and out of legislative beak appears to be searching for worms in On this page is an artistic reproduction session, by three Republican federal Spring Branch. Here and there, ruffled of the newly re-drawn, and still legally judges, who no doubt would bristle at the feathers jut out at odd angles." "compact and contiguous" 6th Congres- epithet "activist." And the strongest imme- A little art history is a dangerous thing. sional District, set in Republican concrete diate electoral effects of the judges' efforts The Southern District judges (Edith Jones, and represented for the millennia by the will be outside the so-called unconstitu- David Hittner, Melinda Harmon), not con- equally concrete Joe Barton. The popula- tional districts (18th, 29th, and 30th), tent to translate minority empowerment into tion of District 6 is—no doubt by aesthetic where the incumbents (Sheila Jackson Lee, "Orwellian" apartheid, decided also to turn coincidence-87 percent white. Yet under Gene Green, and Eddie Bernice Johnson) art critics. Jones, et al.--thinking perhaps of the strict scrutiny of federal judges, District will almost certainly be re-elected. Jackson Pollock, or maybe Mondrian, who 6 does not resemble a modernist painting, Ash Indeed, District 29 (Harris County) is knows?—.-described the legislative map as nor does it bear "the odious imprint of W now more secure for the incumbent Demo- "a crazy-quilt of districts that more closely racial apartheid." cratic; Congressman, Gene Green, an Anglo resembles a Modigliani painting." When is racial gerrymandering not racial elected in what was a majority Hispanic dis- The problem with these baroque analo- gerrymandering? When the race gerryman- trict—a district radically redrawn by the gies—like the court's decisions—is that dered can see every color but its own. court, because, it ruled, the 29th bore "the they are so selectively applied. As —M.K. odious imprint of racial apartheid." That is also an irony, but it isn't a small one. What- • Compact and contiguous? Joe Barton's legally - drawn District 6 ever the outcome of the fall elections, the Hispanic citizens of Houston have been the immediate losers. Asked for his sense of the effect of the court's decisions on Texas minority politics, Democratic Party Chairman Bill White responded bluntly, "It seems likely that the hopes of Texas Hispanics for a Hispanic urban district have been dashed."

in the rush to sort out the new districts and new elections is the fact that the original redistricting lawsuit (Vera v. Richards), brought by a group of Houston Republicans calling itself the "Campaign for a Color-Blind America.," contested twenty-four Texas Congressional seats 00 the,gvunds .that they had all been- racially gerrymandered. Yet only three districts—curiously, only those drawn to empower minority voters—were finally out- lawed, accompanied by reams of metaphorical prose about the supposedly

4 ■ THE TEXAS OBSERVER AUGUST 30, 1996 FEATURES preachers and Profits in San Diego BY LOUIS DUBOSE "Think of it," said Pasadena State Senator Buster Brown, "as the fourth quarter of an A&M game, when the team's losing and tired and the fans are down. Then the coach looks down the bench and calls for Bucky Richardson, the second-string quarterback. Before he even on the field, the crowd starts to cheer and the team hears them and starts to play better.."

hat protracted sports metaphor was Brown's take on the nominating convention in an age when its function has been displaced by the primary system. (Not since 1948 has the Republican Party had to resort to even a second ballot to select its candidate.) As Brown -saw it from the floor of the convention hall, the central function of the event was to boost party morale and get the viewers back home—down 25 percent from the 1992 nominating convention—behind the team. Then there was the entertainment metaphor. "People pay a lot of money to go to a big Hollywood show," said Susan Weddington, "and we pay a whole lot of money to come to this event." Wed- engton, the state party's vice-chair, had been present for the heavy lifting the week before the convention began. The rules committee required a lot of work, said Weddington, a fundamentalist Christian who, along with Republican state party chair Tom Pauken, rode the PRESEN Christian Coalition organizing wave to a leadership position four Artr years ago in Fort Worth. (The platform committee met during the same week.) "By the time we get to the convention itself," Wed- REPUBUCAN WWI CRS dington said, "we're getting our message out and celebrating. SAN DSO, `U.M There's not much more than that left." Pedestrian metaphors about cheerleading and entertainment tell part of the story of a convention that was so uneventful that by Wednesday Ted Koppel had packed up and gone home. But to really penetrate the reality of this five-day affair in San Diego, what is required is a sexual-favors metaphor. Consider, for example, the party that Chase Manhattan Bank and the Public Securities Associ- ation threw for House Ways & Means Chair Bill Archer of Hous- ton—at a club called Dick's Last Resort. Featured on the drink list there is "the BJ" (the blow job), and regulars at Dick's will tell you that if you can drink the whole thing without touching the glass to your lips, you can take the glass home.

Not the sports metaphor, not the entertainment metaphor, not A Party Favors the Texas Delegation Louis Dubose even the religious metaphor that gives us Bob Dole as Lazarus provides a better framework by which to understand this convention. And for much of the time, they were going at it with such intensity •aybe the few remaining secular work-a-day Republicans consid- that it was hard to tell who was on the bottom and who was on top. Much of what went on, like the fraternizing in the non-stop ered the convention a big , pep rally, while for the fundamentalist Cluistians it was a` week-long revival, with Pat Robertson, Jerry-Fal corporate hospitality suites one floor above the convention hall, well and Ralph Reed in and out of the pulpit. But for the country was strictly off-limits to the press. Now and again, however, club Republicans who serve as consorts for the corporations that reporters—whom Republicans, despite their protestations about govern the country, five days of continuous physical contact with the coverage, really needed in the convention hall—got inside the CEOs and lesser executives must have made this convention feel story. When they did, they provided the rare moments of insight like a week-long violation of the biblical sanction against sodomy. absent in most of the reporting on a convention at which there was

AUGUST 30, 1996 THE TEXAS OBSERVER ■ 5 EVEN BEFORE HALEY BARBOUR CALLED THE FIRST SESSION TO ORDER ON MONDAY MORNING, THE SAN DIEGO HOST COMMITTEE, WHICH SERVED AS A DROP BOX FOR CORPORATE DEPOSITS, HAD RAISED $12 MILLION.

no drama, no surprise, no conflict—and therefore no story line. promises to fire Food and Drug Administration administrator While most of the press corps watched from the docks, National David Kessler and thus end the FDA attempt to regulate nicotine as Journal's Peter Stone followed the tobacco lobby out onto the bay a drug. (It was Dole who earlier in the campaign argued that to- behind the Convention Center, where the Brown & Williamson bacco is not addictive, but only harmful to some people—like Tobacco Corporation and House Majority Whip Tom DeLay milk.) Tobacco interests will be present when the Democrats con- paired up on the deck of the Hornblower. The tobacco company vene in Chicago, although as one company executive said: "We'll got the Hornblower through Americans for a Republican Majority be smaller than here." DeLay, an alternate delegate, was so busy (ARMPAC)—DeLay's own version of Newt Gingrich's GOPAC. behind the scenes that he was rarely visible on the floor. But it's not easy to say who procured the yacht for whom. The to- Nor was tobacco the only industry underwriting the 1996 Re- bacco company already had contributed $10,000 to ARMPAC, and publican convention. Though no final tally is yet available, even DeLay was both returning the favor and spreading the wealth before Haley Barbour called the first session to order on Monday around—lending Brown & Williamson his rented yacht while morning, the San Diego Host Committee, which served as a drop using their contributions to provide another craft for Georgia Sen- box for corporate deposits, had raised $12 million, with big contri- ator Paul Coverdell—and to organize a golf tournament to raise butions that included Philip Morris' $2 million; $1.3 million from start-up money ($90,000) for Coverdell's new PAC. Amway (as much a Christian cabal as a pyramid marketing sys- Brown & Williamson is not ARMPAC's only tobacco-industry tem); $1 million from AT&T; $694,000 from Lockheed Martin; sponsor; R.J. Reynolds provided much of its operating revenue and $631,000 from Atlantic Richfield; $513,000 from Chevron; other tobacco interests are also involved. Nor was DeLay the only $503,000 from Houston-based Enron; and $465,000 from Gold- recipient of tobacco's largesse. In fact, the convention itself was man Sachs. Almost fifty companies, according to Wayne Slater of partially underwritten by tobacco. Philip Morris—which routinely the Dallas Morning News, paid $100,000 or more each to help fi- provides Republicans $250,000 a year to maintain its "Republican nance the convention. season ticket holder" status—kicked in $2 million for the San In order to receive such corporate support, both major parties- Diego Host Committee. The industry also flew in its top Washing- count on liberal interpretations of Federal Election Commission ton lobbyists, booked two additional yachts for its own functions, campaign-funding regulations. And the Senate Ethics Committee and laid the groundwork for a campaign to elect Bob Dole, who waived the gift-ban cap during the convention, holding that what

FOLLOW THE MONEY uild more Navy destroyers, deregu- Enron, Browning-Ferris, Chevron, tees) could help the company fend off anti- late communications, go easy on Occidental Petroleum, Texaco, ARCO smoking activists in Congress, where B environmental protections, relax and Union Pacific. Philip Morris is fighting proposals to limit worker safety laws and keep those bananas ■ Lockheed Martin and AT&T have lob- minors' access to alcohol and tobacco coming: imperatives like these top the leg- bied for worker safety law "reform," while products and to give the Food and Drug islative wish lists of the Republican Con- Marriott International won a three-year Administration authority to regulate to- vention's major corporate contributors. stay of execution from the 104th Congress bacco. The company also successfully lob- Last spring the San Diego Host Committee on a new law that prohibits companies bied for the repeal of the Delaney Clause, released a list of thirty-seven companies from bon-owing against their employees' which barred the slightest traces of carcino- that had already donated at least $100,000 life insurance policies. genic chemicals in processed foods. toward the cost of the convention (more ■ Dole (the fruit supplier) successfully op- have signed on since). A review of the cor- ■ "We do not lobby. We have no lobbyist. posed Dole (the supply-side fruitcake) last porations' past lobbying agendas suggests We never lobby," maintains Archer- year when he tried to impose trade sanc- what they'll be asking for in return: Daniels-Midland Chairman Dwayne Andreas. But ADM continues to con- tions on Colombia and Costa Rica. Dole ■ Defense contractor General Dynamics tribute to both Republicans and Demo- Food banana rival and Bob Dole contribu- successfully lobbied Congress last year to crats, and to reap the enormous benefits tor Chiquita had pushed for the sanctions ; procure four Arleigh Burke class destroy- of federal agricultural subsidies long but Dole Food is nonetheless on the big- ers for $3.4 billion—$750 million more championed by Bob Dole. contributor list. As they say in the board- than the administration had been prepared room, let bygones be bygones, or: whatever ■ Tobacco giant to spend. Philip Morris' contribu- happens, keep doling out the goods. tion (during the 1996 election cycle the ■ Companies lobbying on environmental company has given more than $2 million to law (that is, anti-environmental law) in the Source: Center for Responsive Politics Republican candidates and party commit- $100,000 club include Anheuser-Busch, —Karen Olsson

6 ■ THE TEXAS OBSERVER AUGUST 30, 1996 goes on here in large groups is not the same • as one-on-one lobbying. But is it? In the lobby of the upscale Hyatt Islandia on Mission Bay, where the Texas delegation set up residence, three executives of PacifiCare sat talking among themselves until Senator Phil Gramm and his wife Wendy Lee Gramm passed through the lobby. When the Gramms en- tered, Joseph Gunn, wearing a large, gold Republican Eagles badge that signifies yearly contributions larger than $100,000, introduced PacifiCare CEO John Wampler to the senator and his wife, and the group stood chatting until Gramm left the hotel for what Gunn said would be "your three or four breakfast meetings." (No, Gramm's not running for president again—yet.) "I had a good meeting with Wendy yes- terday," Gunn told Wampler after the Gramms left, adding that the senator's wife is "a great lady." Then the three returned to the task of preparing for the Texas Delega- tion breakfast, paid for by PacifiCare. ipunn, who works in Texas, got his boss up to speed on Kay Bailey Hutchison, provid- ing details on her career: "state treasurer, Louis Dubose then a senator, and before all that she was a A The Christian Right got the platform and the floor state legislator." When Wampler rose, the other two men followed him onto the ris' Day at the Races (the waste disposal giant, like several other manicured lawn south of the hotel where breakfast would be corporations, booked a racetrack), and you begin to understand that served to the delegation, while it listened to speeches by Wampler, what occurred here was an unregulated, influence-peddling bac- Oklahoma Governor Frank Keating, Tennessee Senator Fred chanal that would have made for far better programming than the Thompson—with each speaker standing under a PacifiCare banner carefully scripted event TV viewers not watching sitcoms or base- stretched between two palm trees that also held up a red and blue ball endured for four long nights. cowboy made from hundreds of balloons. Pat Buchanan and Friendswood Congressman Steve Stockman also addressed the at Buchanan's arrival at PacifiCare's breakfast changed the group, but they were there to rally Buchanan's "peasants"—not the tenor and emotional intensity of the event. Messrs. country club Republicans Wampler spoke to when he said, p Wampler, Pauken, Keating, and Thompson had delivered "You've probably read about us in the newspapers recently." restrained partisan speeches to a crowd that laughed at the punch PacifiCare had done well: facetime with three U.S. senators, one lines, applauded when appropriate, but mostly tended to the break- governor, and a congressman—if Stockman, a rare bird even in this fast PacifiCare provided. Buchanan's presence was a signal for a aviary, really matters. Unlike the Texas delegation's Philip Morris third of the delegates to jump to their feet and begin the chant: "Go, luncheon—where demonstrators from the National Lung Association Pat, go!" And Buchanan responded with his 1996 convention momentarily spoiled the view that Philip Morris President Jack Dil- speech for small venues: an admixture of stock campaign lines— lard, Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, and party chair Tom Pauken en- "No pale pastels in our platform!" "Never under a U.N. command joyed from the head table—PacifiCare's outdoor affair was perfect. again!" "The only pro-life party in the United States!"—and a re- AkWhen Congress again convenes, whatever the company paid for a signed endorsement of the Dole-Kemp ticket. (I was standing to catered breakfast for 350 should be returned with substantial interest. the right of a busboy named Jose, and wondered if he was the same Add to this Enserch's Texas breakfast (which had the com- man Buchanan had in mind earlier in the campaign, when he would pany' s senior vice president connecting with Governor George W. urge his soldiers to "lock and load" and tell "Jose" this is where Bush and Kay Bailey Hutchison), the railroads' reception for "America draws the line.") Hutchison and Gramm, and the Koch Corporation's daily flat-tax Standing by in the street and holding up a "Faith and Freedom luncheon. Multiply that by fifty delegations. Factor in the big vari- Rally" sign was Floyd Hernandez, a Houstonian who had moved to ables, like Chevron's open invitation to lunch and Browning Fer- San Diego to work for the Christian Coalition. He had, he said,

AUGUST 30, 1996 THE TEXAS OBSERVER • 7 • Sam Donaldson and Dallas Delegate LaNeil Wright Spivy Louis Dubose already sent two half-full buses on to Balboa Park, where Ralph lectern to a gentile. In the time he was allowed, he managed to tell Reed, Pat Robertson and Dan Quayle were scheduled to speak. his audience that Jews have "more to fear from the collapse of Hernandez was holding one bus, he said, because most of the del- Christianity than from its resurgence," and to thank Christians for egates who waited to hear Buchanan probably would want to at- "laying the foundation of the American tolerance tradition." It was tend the Faith and Freedom Rally. He obviously knew his market. the same message he delivered to the Christian Coalition banquet As soon as Buchanan finished and delivered himself over to a pack at the party's state convention in San Antonio, where the time- of reporters starved for both breakfast and something to write keeper was more deferential. Since then, Houston Chronicle re- about, the "Go, Pat, go!" crowd headed for the Christian Coali- porter Alan Bernstein has done a bit of reporting around the Hous- tion's last yellow school bus. The Republicans on the bus, most of ton office of the ADL and discovered that Polland's version of his whom would never have swallowed the sexual innuendo served up resignation over principle doesn't exactly square with the recollec- with the drinks at Dick's Last Resort, were a friendly if sober tions of his former colleagues on the ADL board. Yet there was crowd, and in the course of a twenty-minute bus ride only one pas- something poignant about Polland standing in the hot sun before a senger pulled out a cell phone—a count far lower than the conven- huge Christian audience—then getting the hook before he felt like tion average during midday downtime. These are K-Mart he had hit his stride. "He is a Jew, he is a Republican, and he was Republicans, who found their way into political activism through elected with the votes of Christian conservatives," said Reed, as Pat Robertson's 1988 political campaign and six years later in Fort Polland was directed backstage. Worth seized control of the party machinery. This, after all, was the Christian Coalition's day in the sun. An Their bus arrived to a standing-room-only crowd of more than what was most noteworthy about Reed and Robertson was their 3,000, listening to a black singer's pop arrangements of religious bold public dismissal of the Federal Election Commission, which, standards and waiting for Reed, Robertson, Quayle, and Gray Pol- in a lawsuit that belabors the obvious, has threatened the organiza- land, a Houston Jew who is becoming a regular at Christian Coali- tion's non-profit status—because, the FEC claims, it engages in tion gatherings. Polland, the Harris County Republican Party chair electoral politics. and former regional chair of the Anti-Defamation League, got the Reed, for example, spoke for the party: "The Republican Party crudely lettered STOP! sign three times before he surrendered the is a pro-life party. We are inclusive, we are open, we exclude no

8 ■ THE TEXAS OBSERVER AUGUST 30, 1996 one, but lest there be any doubt, we will never walk away from the nio," Weinhold said. A Dole delegate who defended Kay Bailey • innocent sanctity of human life in the mother's womb." (Facing the Hutchison's right to serve as delegate when many Christian con- stage from the back of the amphitheater were a dozen ten-foot tall servatives at the state convention wanted her barred because she is black-and-white photographs of the same aborted fetus, held aloft weak on the abortion issue, Weinhold cited the platform and by ten young men.) Dole's selection of Jack Kemp as big victories for the Christian Coalition. "We came here prepared to fight if we had to, but obvi- eed didn't stop with the party's statement of principles on ously we didn't have to. We're very pleased." abortion, but went right at his critics. "Christians are Amer- Later that night, in an aisle packed with TV crews and scream- 'cans, too, and they have a right to get involved in the polit- ing alternates who had managed to get past the monitors instructed ical process. And to those on the left—the pundits, the prognostica- to keep the them in their designated section in the back, I asked tors, the government bureaucrats that would like for us and our Tom Pauken, the Texas Party Chair elected by the Christian wing voter guides and our phone banks and our precinct walkers and our of the party four years ago, for his observations on the convention. church coordinators and our energetic grassroots network to just dry Pauken shouted back over the noise of the crowd: "This delegation up and blow away: if you thought 1994 was something, you ain't is pleased with this convention. We've written a very conservative seen nothin' yet!" platform, and Bob Dole's selection of Jack Kemp was a home run." Robertson, in a long digressive sermon that included the history "A home run!" he said again, as he made way for Henry of his life and the ACLU-litigated collapse of the American family Kissinger, the eye of yet another slow-moving storm of TV camera and middle class values, reiterated the Christian Coalition's com- crews and a few secular Republican fans moving out of the Florida mitment to the 1996 elec- delegation. Kissinger would tion. Then, obviously speak- "CHRISTIANS ARE AMERICANS, TOO, AND THEY HAVE A RIGHT push his way to the back of ing extemporaneously, he TO GET INVOLVED IN THE POUT! CAL PROCESS. AND TO THOSE ON the Texas delegation, which promised to help move the THE LEFT...YOU AIN'T SEEN NOTHIN' YET!" at hard stage left could Clintons out of, well, Staten barely see the podium, past Island. "We're not going to rest," Robertson said, "until once again the alternate who for the duration of the convention blew up bal- *America is that bright shining light set on a hill, when it is consid- loons and sailed them over the crowd, past the woman who stood ered the hope and freedom of all the nations of the earth, when that like a Christian stylite holding a poster of an aborted fetus, and into Statue of Liberty is once again held high without the stain that has Rhode Island. Behind Kissinger would follow yet another been placed upon it by certain occupants from Arkansas and others celebrity, Jim Brown, Dan Quayle, or Joanne Kemp, each followed who need to go home!" Robertson, CBS news anchor Dan Rather by camera crews elbowing their way through the aisle and back observed later, "walked into the convention hall like a Caesar, like past the tiny Rhode Island delegation. an old-time political boss." Here on the floor, this was the people's convention, Buster If the Christian Coalition speeches are vetted by lawyers de- Brown's pep rally, where delegates could stand on their chairs and fending against the FEC, it's not obvious today. (But who fears the cheer for the seemingly omniscient George W. Bush, for Kay Bai- FEC anyway?) This crowd, which obviously shares with Pat ley Hutchison, or even Railroad Commissioner Carole Keeton Ry- Buchanan the belief that "the cultural war" waged against the Clin- lander, whose "get tough with immigration" speech allowed her to tons is more important than the Cold War that was waged against stand in for New York Governor George Pataki. (Pataki's insis- the Russians, celebrated every applause line, in particular those tence on including a line about abortion resulted in his watching dealing with the platform and the ticket. Both, Reed said, "com- the televised version of the convention from afar.) pletely affirm the party's pro-life position." Two months earlier in San Antonio, Tom Pauken had described The platform and the ticket seem to lie at the core of a compromise the dilemma facing the Texas party leadership: how to keep the either explicitly or tacitly negotiated by the party leadership and the social conservatives and the economic conservatives working in party's large contingent of Christian conservatives. To the party the same party? This convention answered that question on a leaders, the Christian right ceded the podium, which allowed the grand scale. It did so by first making a clear distinction between televised version of the convention to appear moderate, multi-ethnic the party platform and the speakers' platform, then selling the lat- and compassionate. The Christian Coalition, in return, got its plat- ter to anyone who would watch it on television. That was what form, which includes for starters strong positions on both a school was truly ingenious about this convention. It served Colin Powell prayer amendment and an anti-abortion-rights amendment. And de- and Susan Molinari to the folks back home, fried chicken to the spite the occasional public grousing by Christian conservatives on Christians at Embarcadero Park, and Chablis and salmon to the We floor, the leadership understood how this worked. economic conservatives at the Del Mar Thoroughbred Club. Bob On an afternoon before the convention was called to order, while Dole read from a teleprompter, Pat Robertson delivered his ser- both Phil Gramm and Dan Quayle, both trolling for reporters, mon at Organ Pavilion in Balboa Park, and Pat Buchanan blus- walked through the empty hall and TV crews scouted positions, I tered his way through dozens of small events. But the real deals in asked Dick Weinhold, the chairman of the 120,000-member Texas San Diego were made sotto voce, and in the end, I'm left with the Christian Coalition, for his take on the convention. "We did our feeling that the public is going have to pick up the tab for more

work; the groundwork for this convention was laid in San Anto- than just a few stiff drinks at Dick's. ❑

AUGUST 30, 1996 THE TEXAS OBSERVER ■ 9 B We All Live in Sierra Blanca BY KAREN OLSSON ■ PHOTOS BY ALAN POGUE On the morning of August 5, twenty-five people from the Austin area met near U.T., loaded one car B' and two vans with tents, coolers, protest signs, sleeping bags and guitars, and set off for the town "A the of Sierra Blanca, in West Texas' Hudspeth County. The group rode along I-10 from morning until sec night, 500 miles in all, to attend the next day's public hearing on the proposed siting of a low-level elq radioactive waste dump, on the 16,000-acre Faskin Ranch south of town. Perhaps a quarter of the riders intended to speak at the hearing; all of them were opposed to the siting of the dump near Sierra Blanca.

reenpeace Texas Director Bill Jackson, who looked on impassively from their table behind the proscenium. The led the group, seemed a little out of breath all unnatural glare of the television lights washed over faces in the au- day long, counting heads and reviewing the dience, casting long shadows, and the loudest sound other than the schedule, passing a hat around for gas money, val voice projecting through the multiple speakers was the drone of the clasping and unclasping his hands. Many of to fans. The mood was subdued, especially in the early going. Out- the travelers were strangers to him: this was oth side the gym the high school juniors peddled concessions, officials not a united troop of environmentalists but an prc spoke to reporters and a couple of people from the Austin caravan assortment of people making the trip for vari- cia held up signs or played guitar. ous reasons—among the riders were a photographer from Tijuana, act A number of onlookers wore crimson ribbons with the inscriptiop- aG retired naval officer whose child had suffered a birth defect "I Live In Sierra Blanca," distributed by the pro-dump Bank of Sierra- caused by radiation exposure, an El Paso native homesick for West op( Blanca; apparently the intended subtext was "And You Don't, So Go Texas, and several musicians planning to perform for the other be Home." One of the complaints of the pro-dumpers is that Sierra protesters. off Blanca doesn't need a bunch of out-of-town environmentalists telling Late that night, after arriving in Sierra Blanca and stopping at COI the Community Center (anti-dump headquarters for the duration of Ho the hearing), an exhausted Jackson sat in his parked van and looked V Sierra Blanca Mountains and surrounding desert an( out at the motley travelers as they pitched their tents in the field ow across from the school gymnasium. "I question whether this is He worth it," he said, referring to the logistics of transporting this lit- • tak tle group all the way from Austin. Though dead set against the rec dump, Jackson felt less certain as to what impact a few concerned haE Austinites could have on the proceedings. the During the next two days it was not just Jackson who raised this question of influence. In hours and hours of speechmaking, resi- ber dents of Hudspeth County and of surrounding counties, environ- wh mental activists, Mexican government officials, scientists, doctors, 20( prc cancer survivors, lawyers, and university representatives argued for and against the dump. But the real issue at hand was who had bu( wil the right to be arguing at all—and specifically, who would be rec granted "party status" in the official hearing, to be held sometime an( next year, before the State Office of Administrative Hearings. Several hundred people came to the hearing—certainly more Wi' par than usually congregate in Hudspeth County, whose total popula- Rei tion is just under 3,000. It was a considerable crowd, but substan- tially less than the "thousands" predicted by pro-dump Hudspeth I the County Judge James Peace, who had warned his neighbors (and in I the newspapers) that legions of Mexican rowdies would overrun Sierra Blanca. The hearing participants sat in the gym, in folding dab chairs arranged to face the stage, and spoke into microphones positioned at the end of each aisle, as the two presiding judges

24 • 10 ■ THE TEXAS OBSERVER AUGUST 30, 1996 it what to do (though they welcome out-of-town nuclear waste dis- '",., posal companies, state officials, and "scientific experts"). But it was- n't clear that all the ribbon-wearers shared the bank's views. "At first when they were handing the ribbons out I took one for me, and one for Bill," said Gloria Guerra Addington, who along with her son Bill Addington is one of the dump's most vocal opponents, "But then I thought, 'Wait a minute, what does it matter who is from here and who is from somewhere else?', and I took it off."

hat does it matter? The question of who has a locally- based interest in the dump came up again and again over the course of the hearing, and in the end it wasn't clear what the answer was, or why the "local" tag is even important. "It's sad that we had so many other people in here...we really don't need the help," said Sierra Blanca school superintendent, Lewis Rogers, a few days after the hearing. Though he testified that the school would neither support nor oppose the dump, Rogers, who has been able to buy two new buses, a new gym floor A Bill Addington of Sierra Blanca and playing field lights courtesy of the $1.9 million which the likewise voiced worries about the health risks, while residents of Texas Low Level Radioactive Waste Disposal Authority has al- surrounding counties argued that the location of the dump would go. ready granted the county, echoed sentiments expressed by dump weaken tourism in the region and lower their property values. supporters in their testimony. West Texans accused East Texas of dumping on the entire region "Like that guy from Acuria [Ciudad Acuria Mayor Emilio de because of its low political clout, East Texans protested the in- Hoyos Cerna]," Rogers continued. "What business do they [Mexi- tended disposal of Maine and Vermont waste anywhere in the 3 cans] have coming over here?" Last June Cerna led hundreds of state, and anti-nuclear activists spoke out against the planetary Mexican children to Austin to protest the siting of the dump six- damage inflicted by power plants and disposal sites. teen miles from the Rio Grande, and he spoke passionately against If the tangle of local and regional and global assertions formed the dump before the judges August 6, warning that the siting of the one axis of the debate, the various claims to "scientific" and "fac- facility threatens the drinking water of Mexico's border region and tual" authority constituted another. University officials, doctors violates international environmental agreements. Sierra Blancans and nuclear industry representatives delivered their litanies of

AUGUST 30, 1996 THE TEXAS OBSERVER • 11 21 degrees-and-titles-held into the microphones, followed by paeans lyptic notes struck by the hearing's fringe speakers—the radiation to the societal benefits of radiation-based technologies and assur- victims and the more radical environmental protesters—under- ances that the design of the facility would guarantee its safety. On scored the slightly eerie feel of the entire proceeding. More than the other side, dump opponents pointed out that all six nuclear one person noted that the date of the hearing, August 6, was the an- waste storage facilities built in the United States have leaked in the niversary of the Hiroshima bombing. past, and they disputed the state's assessment of the site. "Our ground is very unstable," testified Kathi Rush, a local rancher op- he hearing testimony articulated not so much a battle be- posed to underground storage. "Sometimes when you're on horse- tween two sides as a storm descended upon this small desert back you can hear it—it's hollow." Ttown. At the center of the storm stands Bill Addington, who Victims of nuclear radiation exposure—former military officers for five years has been trying to prevent the dump from coming to exposed while on duty, and others who'd lived near power plants Sierra Blanca—a fight he says has cost him $95,000, his marriage or dumps—came from both Hudspeth county and other parts of and his son. The strain shows in his face, and when he speaks, the the country to tell the judges and the crowd that they, too, had been arguments against granting the dump license come tumbling out, in assured of their safety by experts. One of these was June Stark a voice both angry and exasperated. "West Texas needs to under- Casey, a Washington state native exposed to radiation in 1949 stand," he said, "the entire area is under attack. George Bush is when government scientists released experimental doses of radia- promoting something to make us the pay toilet of the United tion into the air near Hanford, Washington. Casey has an become States....The truth is not getting out, of what this dump will be, of anti-nuclear missionary, traveling from place to place and telling what is low-level radioactive waste'—that's a misnomer." her horror stories, and during the hearing she delivered a speech When one of the judges suggested he cut his testimony short, which, it seemed, she'd given many times before—about her ill- Addington's response—"I've been waiting five years to say this, nesses, the constant pains in her spine and shoulders, the deformed sir"—drew cheers from the audience. Yet even after the judge children born to her college sorority sisters. Her testimony proba- granted Addington a few more minutes, he spoke resignedly: "I bly did little to influence the judges, but the gruesome and apoca- know that these comments don't really mean much," he said.

IS ANYBODY LISTENING? BY CARRIE EVANS its waste in Sierra Blanca. The . controversy has split the commu- - f the more than one hundred people nity. Friends and families disagree over the who spoke at the hearing held Au- benefits of the potential economic growth 0 gust 6 and 7 in Sierra Blanca, well versus the possible health and environmen- over half—including twenty-five Sierra tal risks associated with radioactive waste. Blanca residents—opposed the proposed nu- The benefits—thanks to almost $2 million clear waste dump. But this public commen- from Texas' Low-Level Radioactive Waste tary is not considered part of the "evidentiary Disposal Authority—already include a new record," and cannot form the legal basis re- library, two new fire trucks, a refurbished quired for the hearing judges' recommenda- football field and a new medical clinic, all tion to the Texas Natural Resource Conser- paid for out of the $19 million in "planning vation Commissioners, who will make the and implementation fees" collected by the ultimate decision. The hearing was simply an state from low-level waste generators. opportunity for people to express their opin- "I only wish that the proponents from ions on the proposed site, in hopes of broad- Maine Yankee, Vermont Yankee, Houston ening the judges' perspective. (Presiding Lighting and Power, and Texas Utilities... were Administrative Law Judges Mike would stop spreading this economic black- Rogan and Kerry Sullivan, from the State mail," testified Bill Addington, a lifelong Office of Administrative Hearings.) Sierra Blanca resident and one of the most Whether the dump will be built depends active opponents of the site. "I'm sick and on next year's licensing hearing before tired of it. It's torn apart our community." Rogan and Sullivan, and on the passage in But Leo Carveo, the president of the Congress of HR 558, a bill that would rat- Sierra Blanca Chamber of Commerce, said ify a waste-disposal compact among Texas, he feels that the facility "would improve Maine and Vermont. That legislation the quality of life for Sierra Blanca would allow not only Texas, but Maine, [through] jobs and revenue for our county A Low-level Waste Authority Attorney Vermont, and "any person, state, reason- and community." Hudspeth County Judge Rich Jacobi considers testimony ofNavy able body or group of states" to dispose of James Peace testified he does not see any veteran Don,Darling

12 ■ THE TEXAS OBSERVER AUGUST 30, 1996 VICTIMS OF NUCLEAR RADIATION EXPOSURE-FORMER MILITARY OFFICERS EXPOSED WHILE ON DUTY, AND OTHERS WHO'D LIVED NEAR POWER PLANTS OR DUMPS-CAME TO TELL THE JUDGES AND THE CROWD THAT THEY, TOO, HAD • BEEN ASSURED OF THEIR SAFETY BY EXPERTS.

The applause and cheers that followed every piece of anti-dump they're not allowed to say anything." One woman said her boss at testimony indicated that much of the town opposes the facility (each the grocery store had instructed her not to speak to reporters about statement in favor of the dump met with silence), and during the the hearing. Why? She didn't know. hearing Gloria Addington held up an anti-dump petition signed by After all, there's nothing we can do about it—that sentiment over 700 adult residents of Hudspeth County. A 1992 poll con- lurks on both sides of the fence in Sierra Blanca, which already has ducted by the Disposal Authority found that 63 percent of respon- a 90,000-acre sludge dump just west of town. "It will be better dents in Hudspeth County and neighboring Culberson County op- [with the radioactive waste dump] because we'll have more posed locating a dump in the area, even though the poll questions jobs....I don't worry about the risks; this town is shot anyway," were peppered with statements such as "Nuclear medicine is used in said Damon Stadamir, one of the students selling burgers outside many hospitals to detect and treat disease..." and "Modern technol- the gym. Inside, standing along the walls of the room, quiet, ogy has developed safe ways to store low-level radioactive wastes." solemn Sierra Blanca spectators added to the peculiar stillness of Most of the Sierra Blanca residents I spoke with, however, felt the hearing—and of the town itself. Were there no public hearing, that opposing the dump was of questionable value, probably futile. no proposed dump and no existing sewage dump, it might seem "The commissioners, the judge, they're feeding us a bunch of natural if in this tiny, remote town surrounded by mountains and bull," said Patsy Maynez, a waitress, referring to the public offi- thousands of acres of desert, the people seemed small and power- cials who have supported the dump. "But we don't have any say, less. Now, though, they seem preyed upon. "This is tearing apart we're poor." Few people felt they knew where the rest of the com- our community," says Bill Addington, and on that point even the munity stood on the issue; another restaurant worker told me that "people here keep their opinions to themselves. They feel like See "Sierra Blanca," page 22 •

great danger in the facility and supports its modern research in biology and medicine [the way that the dump was brought to proposed location. But county judges from in Texas would grind to a halt." (According Sierra Blanca] was very underhanded. virtually every neighboring county have to opponents, medical waste accounts for They didn' t give its a chance to speak our. opposed the dump. less than one percent of projected nuclear Mind, and now we're here at the last Dr. Emilio de Hoyos Cema, who in early wastes.) Jack Khromer, chairman of the minute trying to fight it and keep it out of June organized a protest with more than Texas Radiation Advisory Board, said the our town," Ramirez said. "And I don't 400 children and adults from Acuiia, dump would not only solve a "nagging think there will be job opportunities, like Coahuila, Mexico, at the gates of Governor problem," but it would also "help Hud- they say. If any jobs come to our town, Bush's mansion in Austin, reminded the speth County to usher in a new and exciting they'll be janitorial jobs....They' re going judges of the "good will of the La Paz era." Asked what his reaction Would be if to bring their own technicians and their Treaty," signed in 1983 in order to protect, his hometown of Georgetown had been own drivers." improve and preserve the border region. chosen for the site, Khromer said, "If it was Austin resident Tori Bunker recalled "We are not in agreement with the federal done properly it wouldn't bother me." growing up in a small town twenty miles governments of Mexico and the United Khromer can rest easy; suburban George- north of a nuclear power plant: "Fifteen States, to give the state of Texas an artificial town, a few miles north of TNRCC head- people died of cancer in my community, autonomy to construct this deposit, which quarters, is unlikely to be high on the and one of those was my mother. That state would have as its only end the nullification TNRCC's list of potential dumpsites. was Maine and that plant was Maine Yan- of the treaty," said de Hoyos, the President "Sierra Blanca was chosen because it kee. I am standing here today to say 'No' to of Acuila's City Council. "We must not for- was politically expedient, not because it this nuclear waste dump." get that whatever affects a tiny corner of the was a good site scientifically," testified Two additional preliminary hearings are Ak earth, affects all of us, and that behind all Don Gardener, a board member of the scheduled: El Paso (September 9) and u. nationalities, behind all races, behind all Sierra Blanca Legal Defense .Fund. "What Alpine (September 11). The judges will re- cultures, is a human being." is driving this project is the U.S. nuclear in- port to the commissioners, and the TNRCC Nuclear industry witnesses spoke in de- dustry.... We've been fighting this dump will hold a final hearing on the dump in fense of the dump. John Jagger, a retired for five years, and all we've been able to 1997 to consider formal evidence. Oppo- professor of biology from the University of raise is $70,000. Will opponents be able to nents are skeptical that the hearings are any- Texas at Dallas, emphasized nuclear afford expert witnesses to prove our case?" thing more than a token technical procedute medicine, saying that "without the assur- Sierra Blanca resident Maria Ramirez ances of permanent disposal...much of the concluded her testimony in tears. "I think See "Listening," page 22

AUGUST 30, 1996 THE TEXAS OBSERVER • 13 Blitzing Houston The SEIU Takes Aim at Texas BY ANN WALTON SIEBER "Labor unions have often been a significant force—in fact, the blitzers are nursing home workers from West Virginia, hospital main social force—for democratization and progress." workers from Massachusetts, school security workers from Oak-

—Noam Chomsky land. The union they all belong to is the Service Employees In- ternational Union, whose 1.2 million members range from nurses Houston to janitors to amusement ride attendants to scientists to office loria Santos is stoked. Even though this morn- workers. Currently the fastest growing of the eighty-eight unions ing she didn't get any filled-out blue union that comprise the AFL-CIO, the SEIU is a harbinger of the future cards, that precious signature of commitment for unions in America. While heavy industry, manufacturing and ("I hereby authorize Local 100 SEIU, AFL- other historical trade-union strongholds have been weakened by CIO, to represent me for the purpose of col- layoffs and globalization, the service industries continue to grow. lective bargaining with my employer..."), even though the Project Head Start manage- lthough the blitz is a common organizing tool—hit 'em hard ment gave her yet another frosty reception, anda keep hitting 'em 'til you've got the 50-percent-plus-one even though she's been up since five and has another twelve hours A needed to vote in a union—the staff of SEIU Local 100 ofG aggressive work before her, Gloria is talking fast and excited says that this blitz is trying a new approach. The Houston experi- with that rush of conflict. ment is the brainchild of new national SEIU president Andy Stern, "Some of them don't even know what a contract is. They say I elected last fall following his predecessor John Sweeney's election ia don't need it, I don't need it. But do you know that tomorrow they to the presidency of the AFL-CIO. Sweeney and Stern have bothIP can dismiss you and not tell you why? It's for your benefit, not for emphasized organizing. But instead of relying solely on paid union me. I'm a worker, just like you. So you better listen to me. I'm staff to organize new locals, Stern proposed to recruit new mem- leaving, so you better get together and organize." bers by using the workers themselves, as member organizers or Santos and ten others "M/Os." And Houston is came from across the IF IT SEEMS A BIT ODD TO PUT THE SQUEEZE ON HEAD START WITH the SEIU' s guinea pig. country for a ' two-week WORKER PRESSURE FROM BELOW JUST AS THE PROGRAM IS GETTING "They could have done "blitz" in late July, hop- THE SQUEEZE FROM ABOVE IN TERMS OF GOVERNMENT CUTBACKS, it first in California," says ing to form a union THAT IS EXACTLY LOCAL 100'S STRATEGY. Orell Fitzsimmons, state among Head Start staffers director of Local 100 and employees of their umbrella organization, the Gulf Coast (covering Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas and Mississippi), "but they Community Services Agency. If Local 100 is successful—and at have 289,000 members there, so they may not be as interested in press time, it looks likely—the Head Start/GCCSA union will be doing a big organizing push. We're committed to organizing the the largest private sector union organized for a generation or more South." Plus, Stern is familiar with Houston's work from his days in the South. (Four hundred and twenty workers had already joined as head organizer for the SEIU; in 1991-92, he and Local 100 the union, and negotiations were ongoing over precisely how many worked together on a successful $1.5 million campaign to organize more were needed for union certification.) 6,000 school district workers statewide. Santos and her fellow visiting organizers are not paid union reps. If it seems a bit odd to put the squeeze on Head Start with worker They are workers in their own companies back home, workers who pressure from below just as the program is getting the squeeze once had to make that same decision—sign the blue card, join the from above in terms of government cutbacks, that is exactly Local union, take the risk, demand some control over their own jobs—or 100's strategy, according to chief organizer Wade Rathke. Head not. Santos herself works for Head Start—a program designed to Start is a nonprofit corporation, not a government entity, and there- help children in poverty and their families get a leg up in terms of fore is not subject to the state law prohibiting union contracts. And health and education—so she speaks from experience about the because they are in the public eye, the governing board responds problems Head Start employees face, and the solutions the union more readily to political pressure than would a private company. can bring. A composed woman, calm and dignified, Rathke pointed to the union's recent success in New Orleans, Santos grew up in Texas, was married at sixteen and now, a single where it organized the garbage "hoppers" (hoppers ride on the mother of five, lives in San Diego. Although she seems demure in back of garbage trucks and hop off to pick up the waste cans). Iron- a dress and stylish haircut, she is not shy about wearing down the ically, the city government's move to privatize services created a resistance of a reluctant Head Start teacher. window of opportunity for union organizing. Unlike Houston, Santos joined the union four years ago. Among her fellow New Orleans does not collect its own garbage but contracts it out

14 ■ THE TEXAS OBSERVER AUGUST 30, 1996 to an independent company. When the hoppers stalled in their col- have a good reason, a bad reason, or no reason to fire you." lection one day and New Orleans was strewn with decaying Because of charges of cronyism within the agency, the SEIU is garbage in the July heat, a different sort of heat quickly persuaded also asking that center director jobs be put on the open market and the company to negotiate a contract. advertised. The blitz workers begin at six every morning, picking up their By eight in the morning, blitzers are straggling into the 1 1 th day's assignment from Local 100 headquarters, and heading out Street Cafe in Houston's Heights neighborhood, lighting cigarettes to intercept the teachers as they arrive at one of the sixty Head as they tumble into the booths. A few are upbeat—"We signed up Start centers around Houston. Under the ground rules negotiated with William Lawton, director of GCCSA, the organizers are required to do their talking outside the buildings, so as not to interfere with the school day. Since Head Start has about 800 employees and GCCSA only 100, Head Start has been the focus for most of the organizing energy.

ocal 100 considers Project Head • Start badly in need of some .4.W.L4k*„.§ Lorganizing and reform, from the bottom up. The federal Head Start program was initiated with great promise in 1965, as part of the Great Ak Society's "arsenal of weapons to fight w poverty," and nationally it has been one of the few government programs that can point to measurable success in ".*Kklfte„ improving the performance of disad- vantaged students. But Houston Head Start has been the target of several investigations since the late '70s— ranging from allegations by a federal • Gloria Santos (center, in sunglasses) with fellow organizers grant-screening body that the cost per Head Start student in Houston was much greater than that found elsewhere, to various newspaper five at Haverstoch! Alright alright alright! I'm happy now." Most exposés of mismanagement. are already drooping—"I went to four centers and didn't get a Executive Director Ruth Marshall has worked at Houston damned soul." Several are surprised at the uphill battle. Most come Head Start since its inception, and has been in charge of the from states where unions are more commonplace and accepted, agency since 1975. Asked if she supported the formation of a and they had joined unions that were already organized and strong. union, Marshall would only say, "I don't have any information They didn't have to fight for that first vote. on it." As to any objections to her employees unionizing, she "It's real hard to get people to be involved in a union when they said, "I've had a lot of complaints from my staff, so I'd just as don't know what it is to be involved," says Mynette Theard, who soon not make a comment." works as a security guard in an Oakland, California, school. "Also, But Head Start employees are blunt about the source of poor there's no involvement in their families. Most of us have other working conditions at the agency. "It's coming down from the family members who have been in the union. We're used to it." top," says Carolyn Manning, the educational coordinator at Eliot In Texas and throughout the South, most people's knowledge of Head Start, who was one of six staff members who wrote a public unions seems to consist of Sally Fields looking defiant in Norma • letter and filed a lawsuit protesting Head Start employment prac- Rae, or the millionaire ballplayers' unions of professional sports. tices. "It's a very good program, but people are really scared of "Once you leave Atlanta, you pretty much don't run into anything voicing their opinion because they've been dictated to for the else of substance [in terms of organized labor] until you get to San whole time they've been working. They're afraid they're going to Antonio, where there's a hospital or two," says Wade Rathke. Now lose their jobs." national SEIU leadership is targeting the South: members from the As Orell Fitzsimmons explains it, what he'd like to see bar- South are on the national executive board for the first time, and gained for in a Head Start contract are due-process provisions plans are afoot to start an annual Southern SEIU conference, com- under which employees can be dismissed: "Right now they can mencing next spring. "We're the David, not the Goliath," Rathke says. "We're feisty and scrappy, not dominant." grumblings among the guinea-pig blitzers that the days were cru- The difficult organizing situation is perpetuated by anti-union elly long, and conditions poor. One could look skeptically at then legislation. In Texas, public employees are prohibited by law from scant 110 union cards brought in during the two-week blitz—that's having a union contract. Thus, for example, although teachers can less than eight cards signed per day to show for fourteen people's have a union, and they can have a contract, they cannot use the col- concerted efforts (the four-person staff had already gathered 240 in lective bargaining power of the union to determine the contract; the the preceding six months), and surmise that there was inefficiency contract is a one-way proposition given them by the school district. still to be worked out of the machine. Also, Texas is a so-called "right-to-work" or "open-shop" state, But if another purpose has been to train organized workers, one- where organizing is made more difficult because a union vote is not by-one, to organize more workers, it has had at least some success. binding on all employees. In a closed-shop state—like California "I've never organized before, so I'm learning a lot," says Santos, or New York or Illinois or any one of twenty-three states—once a her eyes still lit up despite almost two weeks of fifteen-hour days company's work-force has voted in the union, every employee and Denny's Grand Slam breakfasts. "If they send me anywhere hired thereafter is required to join. "Let's just say Texas is a very else, I will go. I'm ready to start." business-friendly environment," says Randall Saunders, one the four staffers working for Local 100. Freelance writer Ann Walton Sieber woke blearily with the Saunders worked as a mechanic for twenty-seven years, in Mis- blitzers, and published an earlier version of this story in the Hous- souri ("now there's a good closed-shop state") and Texas, until the ton weekly, Public News. torque on the crankshaft wrenches got to his elbows, and his agi- tating with the machinists' union got to his bosses. He began find- ing that first interviews for jobs would go well—and then he wouldn't get called back, because word had gotten around that he was trouble. Saunders has been working for the SEIU as a paid rep for six months. He wears a straw hat with buttons: "We strike from tVIY-E YOUR SPIRITS Pi Ti-lt within: Hospital Workers," and "Robin Hood was right." Carol Young knows what it's like to get a union started. Wiry and tenacious, she fought for eight years before she unionized the ilOUST0111-10fE nursing home where she works in West Virginia. "It was hell," she says, dragging on one of her ever-present cigarettes. "The first time 11 fli ETROLIJORLD T001 it came up, it was voted down—hanging onto your job for eight years after that, it was hell." The management got pretty creative in their opposition. They calculated what union dues would total over .00plus tax the course of a year (dues are set at 1.5 percent of salary, so a Package includes: $20,000 worker would pay $300 a year, or about $25 a month), and commodations, - Double Occupancy went out and bought a table's worth of groceries equaling that Two tickets to Astroworld amount to use as psychological leverage. or $166.00 plus 15% tax

The organizers can get pretty creative themselves. The first job , ,,,Two nights Accommodations of an organizer is just to get the names of the workers in the com- • Two tickets to Astroworld pany they're trying to organize. That can mean everything from Additional discounted Astroworld tickets are available for purchase at the hotel. dumpster diving to tracing license plate numbers. For the Head The newly renovated Hobby Airport Hilton allows you easy Start project, the organizers conducted a free raffle to win $100. access to many popular Texas attractions, including the The Head Start employees filled out the raffle tickets with their Astrodome - 10 minutes, NASA - 20 minutes, Galveston Island names, addresses, and phone numbers, and voila!—the contacts - 45 minutes, Galleria shopping - 20 minutes, Gulf Greyhound Park - 30 minutes, and Downtown - 20 minutes. During your with which to start an organizing campaign. During the blitz, the stay, enjoy free HBO, new 25" TV's, fine dining, and our union organizers spend their evenings making house calls to Sundance Lounge. Cool off in our beautiful pool nestled in a likely prospects. beautiful Mediterranean style setting. Over breakfast, one of the out-of-town M/Os asks me who I am. Package available through September 1996 and valid "I'm a spy," I say, joking. "No, we're the spies," answers another, Thursday - Sunday, based on availability. Limited availability, and they all laugh. There's definitely an outlaw atmosphere, this advanced reservations required. Offer can not be combined crossing of limits in the name of right and justice. It's very intoxi- with other promotional offers, award stays, or group stays. cating. "It's psychological warfare," Saunders says. "Get them to For reservations, call your professional travel agent or contact show their true colors. The union can't be seen as intimidated by our hotel directly at (713) 645-3000. You may also call 1-800-HILTONS. _3E management, or else there's no reason to have a union." Houston Hobby Airport The M/O blitz experiment has not been an unqualified success. ocifrver4...„ For starters, any Texan might have told the International that bring- ing folks to Houston in July to stand around outside and argue was 8181 Airport Road, Houston, TX 77061 • 713-645-3000 Fax 713-645-1409 probably not the most natural-born brilliant idea. And there were The Hilton logo and logotype are registered trademarks of Hilton Hotels Corporation. ©1996 Hilton Hotels. 16 • THE TEXAS OBSERVER AUGUST 30, 1996 • Defeat for "the Pajama Police" Air Force Major Acquitted in Sodomy Trial

BY ROBERT BRYCE ' " 1\14 ilitary justice" is all too often an oxy- she agreed, Meeks would have been dismissed from the Air Force moron, akin to "jumbo shrimp" or "fam- (the equivalent of a dishonorable discharge) and would have lost ily vacation." Consider the San Antonio her military pension and benefits. Meeks refused, and asked for a court martial last week of Major Debra military jury trial. The Air Force responded by adding a charge of Meeks, charged with sodomy and con- sodomy, based on another Dillard allegation—that she and Meeks duct unbecoming an officer. On August had been lovers. 15, after a lengthy investigation, wide- Since 1993, the Pentagon has officially operated under President spread scandalous publicity, and a brief Clinton's "Don't ask, don't tell" policy on sexual matters. Under trial, Meeks was acquitted on both charges. But there remains these rules, military personnel are allowed to serve as long as (1) abundant evidence that Meeks should never have been put through they don't engage in sex with other members of the service, and (2) the ordeal of an investigation and trial at all. they don't make public their sexual preferences. Throughout her Indeed, Meeks should have been a poster woman for Air Force ordeal, Meeks herself clearly abided by the policy, refusing all recruiters. She enlisted in the Air Force in 1974, went to Reserve comment on her sexual behavior or preferences. But that didn't Officer Training School, got her college degree and worked her stop the Air Force from harassing her. A February 1995 memo, way up through the ranks. Throughout her military career, she had written by Major General Henry Hobgood to investigators at the not been cited for any disciplinary infractions. Air Force Office of Special Investigations, indicates that Meeks' Then, in 1994, an adult civilian named Pamela Dillard told the superiors knew exactly what they were doing, and it wasn't "Don't Air Force that Meeks had threatened her with a gun. But the Air ask, don't tell." Hobgood ordered investigators to "expand the O Force investigated and closed the case, saying the evidence was in- scope of the investigation" of Meeks to include allegations that conclusive. In April of 1995, Meeks, stationed at Lackland Air "she has engaged in homosexual conduct." Force Base in San Antonio, was told by her commanding officer Despite the military's apparent violation of its own policies, it that no action would be taken against her. The Air Force approved was Meeks who faced the serious consequences. If convicted, she her retirement plans, and Meeks was expecting to retire at the end could have received eight years in military prison, and the loss of of February, 1996. her $1,800 per month military pension. But unknown to Meeks, in February of 1995 the Air Force had Before the trial, Meeks said she wasn't afraid, but was disap- decided to revive its investigation. In November, her retirement pointed in some of her fellow officers. "I feel sorry for a couple of was canceled, and her superiors asked her to plead guilty to conduct unbecoming an officer, for allegedly threatening Dillard. Had See "Police," page 22

UNNATURAL ACTS hile the Air Force vigorously to retire with a full pension and benefits. Meeks was court-martialed under the pursued allegations of homosex- ■ According to a lengthy investigative re- sodomy statute in the Uniform Code of Mil- Wuality against Major Debra port published last October by the Dayton itary Justice, regulations which have gov- Meeks, dozens of other members of the Daily News, in 1989 a female assistant to erned all military personnel since 1951. As armed forces who have been involved in an Air Force surgeon was raped by the offi- written, the statute mandates that any per- serious sex-related offenses have never cer in her barracks. His punishment? The son who engages in "unnatural carnal copu- seen the inside of a military courtroom. Air Force transferred the officer to another lation with another person of the same or For instance: base, where seventeen of his female pa- opposite sex" is guilty of "sodomy." ■ In 1991 at the Tailhook convention in Las tients later complained of his "inappropri- Lawrence Korb, former assistant secretary Veias, eighty women, many of them offi- ate touching." The officer was allowed to of defense under President Reagan and now cers, were fondled and assaulted by Naval resign from the Air Force with an honor- a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, and Marine pilots. After a lengthy investi- able discharge and no criminal record. describes the language as a bit broad. "If we gation, only a handful of the officers in- ■ The Dayton Daily News also found that read that article in the UCMJ literally, we volved were prosecuted, and none was con- the Air Force allowed more than one of wouldn't , have too many people left in the victed. Admiral Frank Kelso, who was every nine people charged with sexual as- force," he said. "We'd probably have the suspected of tampering with the Pentagon's saults or child molestation to resign and chaplains and that would be it." —R.B. investigation into the matter, was allowed avoid being tried.

AUGUST 30, 1996 THE TEXAS OBSERVER • 17 MOLLY IVINS Freedom Is Volleyball Be still, my heart: the single most transcendent moment of a lifetime covering politics occurred on Tuesday night of the Republican convention, and you poor schnerks in Televisionland missed it because the R's didn't have the guts to put House Speaker Newt Gingrich on during prime time.

K, here's what you Olympic Committee, which itself does not The government of the United States of missed (C-SPAN will contain a single government bureaucrat! America has been demonized, vilified and be replaying this in Leaving aside the fact that the IOC is one used as a fire hydrant by every speaker at Great Convention of the most notorious sinks of bureaucratic this convention in terms that would have Moments for years to awfulness in the history of man, setting made the old Soviet politburo blush, but all come): Gingrich ex- aside the fact that it's run by a nest of these folks are patriots, so it's OK. The plained freedom to us. hideous old fascists (see The Nation, July country is going to hell; its moral fiber is It's beach volleyball. 29-August 6), and blithely ignoring the rotting; we are beset on all sides by immi- I know, at first it's a little confusing, but complete lack of accountability for how the grants who come here to go on welfare, follow0 closely. This is the new, cuddly IOC spends its billions, we are to conclude murderers of unborn children, militant ho- Newt Gingrich, not the old, mean Newt that the IOC is dandy simply because it is mosexuals, criminals, drug addicts, sex- Gingrich. We know this because the video not a government bureaucracy. crazed teen-agers and lay-abouts on food bio about him consisted of pictures of Newt Nope, it's an awful snake pit of bribery, stamps—but this is the greatest country on being kind to little children, including a corruption and fascists, but it is—hallelu- Earth, and there is no people so generous black one—not Newt kicking them off wel- jah—a private bureaucracy. And it's so and wonderful as our own. fare or shipping them off to orphanages. We brilliantly run that various levels of gov- It's hard to think of a sillier place for a saw Newt smiling, Newt laughing, Newt ernment had to pony up $354 million to put major political party to take a monumen- with a cuddly animal, not tally dumb stand on immi- even picking wings off flies CUT TAX ES, INCREASE SPENDING, AND THE BUDG ET WILL gration than San Diego. Here or calling Democrats sick, BALANCE A LL BY ITSELF. PROMISE. IT'S WRITTEN ON A NAPKIN it stands, living proof that disgusting traitors. AND CALLED THE LAFFER CURVE. every argument (make that Then, Newt himself ap- almost every argument...ac- peared and started talking about freedom. on the Olympics in Atlanta, according to tually, make that every argument a Repub- Suddenly, he turns to introduce this rather The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. And lican would make) against immigration is godlike young man wearing a gold medal that's what freedom is all about. pure horse puckey. slung around his neck and informs us that This same zany conviction that nothing San Diego is closer to Tijuana than Fort this is the first citizen ever to win an said here need make any sense pervades Worth is to Dallas. Although the Califor- Olympic medal for beach volleyball. You the entire convention. Bob Dole said nia-Mexico border bristles with Border Pa- still don't get it, but persevere. Wednesday morning that he will increase trol, bright lights, motion detectors and Then, Newt explains to us that beach vol- military spending without touching Social other fancy, high-tech equipment, it is just leyball is a game that people started playing Security or Medicare, thus completing the as porous as Texas' own beloved border. on beaches all by themselves, without any famous Reagan prescription for economic The only difference is that no one here calls government bureaucrats telling them how disaster: cut taxes, increase spending, and them "wets." to do it. And gradually, the people orga- the budget will balance all by itself. By day, the speakers at the Republican nized themselves into leagues and began Promise. It's written on a napkin and convention inveigh against the perils of im- playing competitive beach volleyball, and called the Laffer curve. migration; by night, the litter they leave be- after twenty years, they got beach volley- Naturally, we all bash government here hind is cleaned up by brown-skinned peo- ball accepted as an Olympic sport, all with- at the Republican convention, especially ple who "no habla." As Peter King of the out any help from the government. Washington. Government is terrible, Los Angeles Times notes, the Republicans' "That," said Speaker Gingrich, "is what dreadful and awful, which is why we drinks are served, their dishes are washed, freedom is all about." should vote for Dole (who has been a major their towels and sheets are changed, their Aaaahhh, I hear you say, now I under- player in it for thirty-six years) and Jack toilets are cleaned and their meals are pre- stand. Now, for the first time, I get what Kemp (for twenty-two years). Everything pared by the very people they want to boot freedom is all about. Yep, there it is. that's wrong with government is the fault across the border because, of course, they Further, Newt explained, beach volley- of Bill Clinton, who first set foot outside only come here to go on welfare. ball was accepted by the International Arkansas four years ago.

18 ■ THE TEXAS OBSERVER AUGUST 30, 1996 MOLLY IVINS

WITH MODERATES AND PRO-CHOICE WOMEN TOTALLY DOMINATING THE PODIUM, THE HARD-RIGHT MESSAGE WAS • NOT ONLY NOT GETTING OUT—IT COULDN'T EVEN BE FOUND. BEHIND THE INFOMERCIAL Engler of Michigan, Pete Wilson of Cali- hard to get them chatting, except in the San Diego fornia and so forth and so on. The Kemps bars. However, by the end of the week, a When I took Theories of Communication in look like a nice family if they'd just calm noticeable disenchantment had set in journalism school, they made us learn about down a little. among the hard-right troops (about two- "cognitive dissonance" and "narcotizing Personally, I think that God gave us thirds of the total). With moderates and dysfunction." There was a lot of that going friends to make up for the families we got pro-choice women totally dominating the around at the Republican convention. As a stuck with. podium, the hard-right message was not rather frazzled press corps kept trying to ex- If George Bush is every woman's first only not getting out—it couldn't even be plain all week, the Republican Party on the husband, Elizabeth Dole is every man's found. "I feel like an unpaid extra in an in- television screen was not the Republican second wife—if he's lucky. fomercial," said a Texas delegate who did Party that was here in person (cognitive dis- And now on to the speech department. not want to be named. While moderates- sonance). But none of the Republicans "Plain-spoken" is the new political eu- and-pro-choice-women blathered on end- much cared, since the Republican Party on phemism for "Our candidate is hopelessly lessly about inclusion and tolerance, the television was nice and pretty and they all inarticulate." In an otherwise splendid per- Christian right, which had written them out liked it (narcotizing dysfunction). oration, Senator John McCain of Arizona of the platform entirely, started to feel Texas state Senator John Leedom ob- deplored "the aimless direction we have en- slightly duped. ❑ served genially on Wednesday that he fig- dured for four years." It's not easy to ures the whole shindig could be cut down to achieve an aimless direction. Texas' own Molly Ivins, a former Observer editor, is three days: "I think I got the message: less Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison was not only a columnist for the Fort Worth Star- government, lower taxes; less government, having a good hair day but a good speech Telegram. lower taxes. OK, can we go home now?" day as well. Never heard her that tough • Which just goes to show what a serious old before. Wow. She goes into a phone booth, sober-sides Leedom is, because those of us rips that Peter Pan collar off her Linz dress LOOK FOR US NEXT TIME who have studied Theories of Communica- and out comes...the old Bob Dole. YOU LEAVE THE HOUSE. Dole's speech reads like a dream, and tion realize that the real message of the con- YOU'LL FIND US IN THESE vention was Family (pro) and the American hearing it while surrounded by cheering TEXAS LOCATIONS: Dream (restore same). Republicans, I thought it was a home run. The matter of restoring the American Then, I saw it again on C-SPAN. Oops. • B. Dalton The party that lives by the television screen Dream, which seems like a fine idea at • Barnes & Noble first glance, leads to some fairly startling may also die by the television screen. cognitive dissonance of its own. Like, On behalf of SPAN-heads everywhere, I • Bookstop who's been screwing up the dreaming would like to testify that the Republicans • Borders around here? Do we need professional seen on C-SPAN looked like the Republi- • And many other dream counseling? Dreaming 101? What cans on the actual convention floor. This is retailers across is it? A chicken in every pot and a car in a sore point with both the Republican Party the state every garage? In the popular new spirit of and the brothers in broadcasting because functionaries from the Republican National interactive media, I invite you to answer To LOCATE AN OBSERVER Committee were calling the network con- these and other questions concerning the NEWSSTAND NEAR YOU trol booths during the televised speeches, restoration of the American Dream, in- (INCLUDING STORES OUTSIDE cluding who, what, where, when, why, screaming that the nets were showing the OF TEXAS), CALL US AT how and so what? wrong kind of Republicans. Then RNC 512/477-0746. I'm familied out. Do you know anyone types would recommend a black delegate who actually has a Father-Knows-Best in Row 46 by the Kentucky standard. As a family? My own is frequently trying and result, 20 percent of the delegates shown in PLEASE LET YOUR LOCAL • occasionally a royal pain in the rear. Cogni- network reaction shots were black, BOOKSELLER KNOW THAT tive dissonance is the Republican Party whereas only 2 percent of the total dele- YOU'D LIKE TO SEE THE GOOD, going onandonandon about familyfamily- gates were black. That someone actually GRAY TEXAS OBSERVER family while led by Ronald Reagan (some sat down and quantified this phenomenon ON HER SHELVES. textbook dysfunction there), Bob Dole, gives you some idea of how little the media Newt Gingrich, Dick Armey, Clarence had to do at this clambake. Thomas, John McCain, Phil Gramm, Gov- The delegates had been instructed not to ernor John Rowland of Connecticut, John speak to the devil-media, so it was kind of

AUGUST 30, 1996 THE TEXAS OBSERVER ■ 19 NOR MAN SOLOMON ►

kets and going to sleep on cement as mat- Conventional Unreality ter-of-factly as most of us brush our teeth and go to bed. But, the truth is, you'd hardly need to Soon after the Republican convention began, CNN was rating travel to San Diego to see impoverished the speeches by how much prime time they had snagged on the people whose lives of quiet desperation get little notice from news media. Many of our big three TV networks. That says a lot about the media echo communities are suffering from extreme chamber that has surrounded the political process in America. gaps between the comfortable and the pow- erless, the wealthy and the poor. The selec- et's face it: both major parties the hours between dusk and midnight, other tive coverage of what has just occurred in depend on a high degree of col- Americans gathered a dozen blocks from San Diego is a distant mirror of problems lusion with national news the lavish spectacle. Not ready for prime closer to home. media—and vice versa. The mu- time—now or ever—they rolled out thin tual sniping that goes on is more blankets on sidewalks in San Diego's ware- Norman Solomon is a syndicated columnist synergy than anything house district and went to sleep. and co-author (with Jeff Cohen) of else. The politicians and For the politicians scaling new towers of Through the Media Looking Glass: Decod- journalists need each babble, the destitute of San Diego—and ing Bias and Blather in the News. other; their shows must go on. throughout the country and beyond—are Inside the San Diego convention center, unimportant. That's politics. But journal- the press gallery provided a clear view of ism should be a higher calling than imita- the superb choreography. All over the hall, tion of the priorities of the powerful. eyes tilted to the giant screens. And reality ANDERSON & COMPANY At convention time, the usual patterns of COFFEE didn't have a floor pass. media politics intensify. Partisan struggles, TEA SPICES In fact, authenticity did not intrude on more than ever, resemble the battle for mar- TWO JEFFERSON SQUARE the TV movie known as the 1996 Republi- ket share that pits Coke against Pepsi. Yet, AUSTIN, TEXAS 78731 can National Convention. Again and again, in politics, while some commercials are 512-453-1533 the lavish facades and careful rhetoric filled paid for, others are provided gratis in the Send me your list. the almighty screens on behalf of the illu- form of de facto propaganda often called sion-promoters. - • ' _ - – "news coverage." Name Even the most genuine human emotions Many people imagine that journalists are Street were grist for the propaganda mill. Nancy a rather cynical bunch. But, whatever they City Zip Reagan spoke movingly about "the long may say in private, most reporters are rou- goodbye" of Alzheimer's disease—but she tinely deferential to the conventional wis- did so in a speech that was marbled with dom on the job. In San Diego, few seemed bedrock partisan schlock. Even that was interested in departing from their col- not enough for the convention's choreogra- leagues on the crowded media trail. phers, who piled on more soft-lens footage A shortage of independence in journal- 4 NOUM of the former First Couple in happier times. ism can have dire consequences. When the ...... It was fitting that the initial big media media focus excludes some people, then bounce of the convention came from the they—and the human realities of their speech by Colin Powell—a man who be- lives—are rendered invisible. came a national hero as a result of the Gulf y That invisibility makes it easier for us to War. His current stature owes much to the assume that some people don't matter. Out but not refusal of the TV networks to convey the of sight, they remain out of the public mind. human suffering inflicted by that war. Ignored by politicians and media, the At the podium in San Diego, the retired wretched of the Earth cannot even tug at general denounced "violence" and lauded our consciences unless we go out of our Narrow the sacredness of "families." Naturally, no way to consider their plights. Pick up your FREE copy network pundit was willing to mention that So, if you visit San Diego in a few at over 200 locations Powell had overseen the decimation of months, or a few years, and take an in Austin & Houston. many Iraqi families when his career was evening stroll several blocks east of the Forfurtherinforrnationcall capped by. the Gulf War's massive carnage. downtown area, the chances are good that 512.476.0576 or While delegates and journalists dis- you'll find people on the same sidewalks 713.521.5822 persed from the convention each night, in where I saw them—laying out their blan-

20 ■ THE TEXAS OBSERVER AUGUST 30, 1996

. - .

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THE INNOVATION OF FEDERALISM Federalists. siro It is an overstatement to say the U.S. Constitu- quired an inf ted tion is nothing but a bundle of compromises. zenry. The only wa y Those who gathered in Philadelphia in 1787 through structuring

were not only practical men of politics, they were an individual and his • also students of public affairs and history and zenship was nurture political theory. The Constitution they created re government, reas flected this, as much as the need to forge a com- they are to abLe to promise that might work. One of the principal and control ir features of that compromise was one of the touch with thou novel inventions of the Constitutional Conven- distant got/dr' *A3 tion: federalism. own. Most impor tani The debate over the definition of the relation- undermines the

ship between the states and the new central gov- in a democrat''''''''4 ii

ernment not only captured the attention of the for that republi: • delegates to the Philadelphia Convention, it also In order to ..614) was the overriding debate among those who ment must be sub. would decide the fate of the Philadelphia consti- accountability;i: .,.m. ..4,•,..t.,17i:02e::4 tution—the delegates to the various state ratifi- meant kee p ! 1 cation conventions. While it is unnecessary to need to be abi dwell on all the issues in those debates, it is in- order to rem ain structive to consider how the arguments tribute tpi.' mounted during the ratification period sprouted self -g A from two very different approaches to government in general and embraced differing under- standings of citizenship, community, and indi vidual rights. We shall see that the issues that `. interes ts led to disagreement and debate in 1787 are not wider generaT e t unrelated to the sorts of concerns Americans This concern fthmanaqtheI

confront today as they struggle to redefine their can exist betwe: . democracy and sense of self-government. community or 'AtiadU.N.W ' root of the Antit CONCERNS OF THE ANTI-FEDERALISTS publican politici The concerns of the opponents of the new con- citizenship, Pop Wit stitution, the Anti-Federalists, should be exam- succeed, required public- ined first. The term Anti-Federalist is used here sense of what was once cattevt in reference to that unorganized, loose coalition can virtue needs to be cultit, of men throughout the 13 states who wrote in within the society. This civic 417, opposition to the ratification of the Constitution motel by the interaction of citize and argued against it during the state ratifica- other as they sought to pursue t. tion convention. Because they lost the ratifica- terests. Civic virtue was what . tion debate, their arguments are too often ig- built on Citizens interacting with o nored. But the Anti-Federalists' position the discussion and pursuit of puilic' • \ \: • \ ;IA V, sk. ., ,, ,-, k' ''.• '''stk '' *,. .- ,. Vs::'ks• reflected a firm grounding in republican politi- within a community in which each citizen reccig' ..: \ s ‘ , 4. ..**'', ...‘1,1%.fit,.,- slk,. .• '. 4t'' . ''' VAs cal theory and practical political experience. nizes his well-being is related to the well Moreover, most Americans at the time would of his fellow citizens. The new Constitution :IP have been comfortable with their arguments. with its relatively sophisticated institutional ar- Civil So4zetv x Citizenship was a critical concern to the Anti- rangement of checks and balances among sepa- Pennsylvania.

EXECUTIVE OFFICES: P.O, BOX 208, WACO, TEXAS 76703, 817-772.3050

AUGUST 30, 1996 THE TEXAS OBSERVER • 21 "Sierra Blanca," from page 13 War. Union soldiers set fire to most of the "Police," from page 17 town of Barnwell....") dump supporters agree with him. The woman who works at the visitors folks who felt it necessary to be this...vin- At midday on Wednesday, with the center supports the licensing of the dump, dictive," she said. "But you can't get angry about things you can't change. I have no hearing still underway, the Greenpeace she said, but the look in her eyes is wary, a vans began their return journey to Austin. little haggard: she resembles Bill Adding- control over other people's attitudes and prejudices." On the way out of town they made one ton more than the cheerful Barnwell resi- final stop at the Faskin Ranch, where the dents pictured in the brochure. After a few Meeks' court martial began at Lackland Low Level Authority has constructed a minutes the visitors from Austin exited and on Monday, August 12. Based on Dillard's "visitors center"—a prefab house where drove off, leaving the woman to watch over testimony and private correspondence she you can inspect a mock canister of radioac- that land which has been marked, surveyed, provided, Air Force prosecutors attempted tive waste and help yourself to nuclear in- sampled and fought over—an enormous, to prove both the gun-assault charge and that Meeks had engaged in sodomy. The dustry brochures ("People and Nuclear haunted stretch of desert. ❑ Waste" recounts how much the people of case rested on the credibility of Dillard and Barnwell, South Carolina, enjoy having a Observer intern Karen Olsson has written four other prosecution witnesses (the de- radioactive waste dump nearby. "The pace for Civilization (the magazine of the fense called no witnesses). On August 15, after seven hours of deliberation, the seven- of life in Barnwell County," reads one cap- Library of Congress), Washington's City tion, "hasn't changed much since the Civil Paper, and other publications. member jury concluded that the Air Force had not proved its case. The jury acquitted Meeks on both counts. The next morning one of Meek's lawyers, Michael Tigar of the University of "Listening," from page 22 money, some state and local county offi- Texas, said he accepted her case because "I cials want to make my beautiful home the was offended by what had happened to her, on the part of the TNRCC. "I feel the dice pay toilet for radioactive poisons. This is and how she had been treated. It seemed to are loaded toward the TNRCC and the gov- politics. The governor appoints these peo- me that having a pajama police force was a ernment," said Austinite Genevieve ple and the governor wants the facility. waste of money." ❑ Vaughn, founder of the Foundation for a He's going to make a call to them in the Compassionate Society. "They back up next nine to twelve months, and say, 'I rec- Robert Bryce is a Contributing Editor for their power with so-called authorities—it's ommend you do this,' and they will proba- the Austin Chronicle, and writes frequently sort of like a good ol' boys network. Even if bly do what the governor recommends. I for the Observer on statewide news. the judges change their minds, they will be only hope that the commissioners will be telling [their recommendation] to other peo- sensitive [to the fact that] they're only hear-

ple who have already made up their minds." ing one side of the story." ❑ Bill Addington's prediction is similarly grim. "At the risk of being labeled emo- Observer intern Carrie Evans highly tional," he told the judges, "it grieves me recommends a road trip to Sierra Blanca Ab...A. e4- ‘‘‘ Sc a very deeply that because of the love of before the TNRCC decides its fate. ow Horse • Inn • • Kitchenettes_ Cable TV Heated Pool

) beside the Gulf qf Mexico mental an c on Mustang Island • Available l'or private parties Oak ores, logos, paper Unique European Charm orrnational packets, Atmosphere AFFORDABLE RATES a vertising, direct mail, signage, Pet s Welcome aging and specialty pieces. ‘04( 1423 llt h Strceti) 61 1" Port Aransas, TX 78373 1 Sca// (512) 749-5221 j 512.445•57413 fin- Reservations 1

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22 ■ THE TEXAS OBSERVER AUGUST 30, 1996 BOOKS & THE CULTURE

Pitchfork Things Come To This Sunflower, The straight Ash This Morning A Cicada. handle graceful By now most of the Sunflowers as a Viking ship. have opened except for the group at the top Tan and darkened of the garden I planted later. by hand oil. Handled. There is a time just after the Solstice in the heat Odin's tree Ygdrasill, when they open. baseball bats and ancient Irish oars I should name it. Things come to visit this Sunflower. are Ash. Tree of At least twice as tall as I am. sea power with that This Sunflower doesn't open but grows power that water holds. taller & the flower from This morning Adrienne down here appears a new star used this pitchfork to turn at twilight. the compost. Sawdust Things come to visit it now, not breaking down this morning a Cicada, as fast as horse manure. not a Cicada husk A slower heat coming. but a whole Cicada with wings clung near the top. 5 tines hardened in fire, forged, the tip of each shaped When it was still there at noon different. Hammered. I thought it dead but by nighttime it had flown away. The long handle precisely joined to the steel. Things come to visit it now. As perfect as the motion I should name it. Today 2 small raccoons came. made, the arc you define I will see tonight what visits at 5 in the morning in the moonlight. turning the compost.

—Robert Trammell

obert Trammell is program director for WordSpace in tions and is author of twelve books, the latest being Pickups, Bugs, Dallas, a fellow of the Dallas Institute of Humanities and and Oram's Orchard. RCulture, and winner of the DART (Dallas Area Rapid Tran- These two poems are from a series about Texas summer and sit) public art competition. His poems will appear on ten porcelain/ sunflowers. Trammell's language tips its head quietly inside enamel wind panels to be installed at the Lover's Lane Station. He images, the same way a sunflower does in a world of changing sun. has published poems and essays in over one hundred fifty publica- His observations are gracious and keen. —Naomi Shihab Nye

AUGUST 30, 1996 THE TEXAS OBSERVER • 23 BOOKS & THE CULTURE The Guys Who Missed the Bus Trying to Understand the Republicans BY LARS EIGHNER "A busload of supply-siders went off a cliff; cans—is a born-again budget-buster. Al- (I guess this is the national karmic payback the bad news is there were two empty though skeptical at first, he has finally suc- for having put down the Whiskey Rebel- seats."—Bob Dole. cumbed to the urgings of his running mate to lion.) For the nonce, I will concentrate on feel the power of the supply side. This is the Republican bleakness, partly because there epublicans should be the Republican ticket for 1996: the guys who is so much of it, and partly because it is such happiest people on earth. missed the bus. a profound, uncanny sort of bleakness. Barring a political cata- But the Republican plight can hardly be clysm of unprecedented encouraging to Democrats who, after all, proportions, the voters will have the Republican candidate who will elect a president this Nov- win this election. Surely only Democratic ember who reflects old- party hacks can take much joy in "Happy fashioned Republican Days are Here Again" being replaced by values and politics. Although he is beholden the new sax solo, "You Could Do toR. the likes of Archer-Daniels-Midland and Worse, You Know." For supporters others who rely upon corporate welfare, he of First Amendment rights, minori- promises to gut what little remains of the so- ties, working people, human rights, cial welfare system, dismantle affirmative the environment—all the traditional action, and balance the budget. Democratic constituencies—what This man, a Southern Baptist who they will get out of their winning can- openly confesses Christ as his savior, has didate is (as someone has describe been in the forefront of efforts to keep smut the offer of domestic partnerships to off television and away from underage same-sex couples in lieu of mar- computer hackers. He has challenged the riage) like offering Rosa Parks air- Hollywood moguls to "create movies, CDs conditioning for the back of the bus. and television shows you would want your The outlook is bleak all around: own children and grandchildren to enjoy." Greens offer us Ralph Nader—whose take He has made it very clear that he intends to on human rights issues of importance to take what action he can to prevent legal gays and lesbians was that he recognition of same-sex marriages, and he had no interest in "genital pol- has been involved in enacting into the law itics"; Ross Perot is back, the prohibition of gays in the military. with his charts and graphs, which The man who will be elected in Novem- illustrate the problems better ber will be president, if he lives so long, than the major parties care to when the new century arrives on January l , have them illustrated but do 2001. That will be a century, or so we are not improve on their "Trust promised, in which public assistance and me" solutions. (In the Trust budget deficits are things of the past. He Department, Perot makes Clin- will be a law-and-order president, with a ton and Dole look like record of putting more cops on the streets Schweitzer and Schindler.) and of doubling the number of federal Meanwhile, the Libertarians wiretaps. I could go on about this man's ap- seem to have a lot of interest in the parent dedication to so many deeply-held Second Amendment, and very little Republican values. in any of the others. For Republicans, there is but one fly in Most of this bleak news—or at the ointment: the man who will be elected least the broadcast version—has been in November is named Bill Clinton. underwritten by Archer-Daniels-Mid- On the other hand, the Republican candi- land, whose every dollar of profit on date—that is, the one offered by the Republi- ethanol costs the taxpayers thirty dollars. Kevin Kreneck

24 • THE TEXAS OBSERVER AUGUST 30, 1996 BOOKS & THE CULTURE

THE REPUBLICAN RIGHT-THE RELIGIOUS RIGHT-CANNOT WIN PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS BECAUSE THEY CANNOT • FORMULATE THEIR UNCOMPROMISABLE PRINCIPLES IN A WAY THAT IS ACCEPTABLE TO THE MAJORITY.

he history of Republican bleakness is cards: the people-who-want-to-win elec- for Pat Robertson to put together a real extensive, but can be summarized tions persuaded Dwight Eisenhower that he grassroots organization aimed not merely Tthus: was a Republican, and they persuaded the at persuading the Republican party to adopt At its birth the Republican party was the Republican party with the four words that positions agreeable to the religious right, dominant party in America and remained still ring in the ears of the Republican right: that for seventy years. Founded on a belief "Only Ike can win." Ike did win, and the in the primacy of the national government, Republican right has never forgiven the the party was conservative in the traditional people-who-want-to-win-elections. sense of the word. It used the power of In 1964, when perhaps no Republican government to subsidize industry and to could have been elected, the right wing regulate it in various degrees. It freed the finally got its chance. To their credit they slaves, enacted civil rights laws (which nominated one of the most honorable men remained dormant for almost a hundred in American politics, but still led the party years), busted trusts, reformed the civil to the greatest election disaster up to that service (several times over), and enacted time. In 1980, with Ronald Reagan, the the first consumer-protection legislation. Republican right believed it had won at last. But in those days the business cycle was Reagan was, of course, the tool of the peo- thought to be something like a natural law, ple-who-want-to-win-elections, but he had which government might influence no more the ability to do the symbolic things and say than it could the tides, and except in the the words that made the right wing feel et. coinage of money, no one saw much of a good, without actually doing much to fur- role for government in managing the econ- ther their social policies. This ruse was so omy—until the bottom fell out in 1929. effective that much of the Republican right- After 1929, the Republicans had no wing rank and file is not yet even dimly chance, really, on the national scene, until aware that it had been had. In terms of hard after the Great Depression, FDR, and the policy, George Bush was virtually identical to Ronald Reagan, but without Reagan's end of the Second World War. When the • Jeff Fisher, Texas Christian Katy Adams dust settled, some curious things had hap- ability to cloud the minds of the right. They Coalition stalwart and GOP Delegate pened. The meanings of the words "liberal" saw him for what he was, and felt he had to and "conservative" had traded places, and be dispensed with. The could not deny him but at taking over the Republican party. to a large extent the constituencies of the renomination, but they could administer the How Robertson did that is detailed in parties had shifted. The extent of the re- blow that told the nation Bush was beatable Robert Boston's The Most Dangerous Man shaping of American politics can be judged and which helped Perot—and thus Clin- In America? Pat Robertson And The Rise by this fact: before the Great Depression, in ton—to perceive an opening. Of The Christian Coalition (Prometheus; 1925, William Jennings Bryan, great ora- $16.95 paper; 248 pages). tor, progressive, Democrat, and free-silver le Ronald Reagan is now This then is how it stands today: the advocate, upheld the yahoo position in the revered by many of the religious Republican right has been very successful Scopes monkey trial, claiming the Bible right, he reached office without in shifting the whole battlefield of Ameri- was to be interpreted literally. And no one owing them much of anything. They sup- can politics far to the right, and they have in those days saw those positions as espe- ported Reagan, they voted for him, but they gained control of enough of the Republican cially contradictory. did not have an on-going national organiza- apparatus to play spoiler. They cannot win As they crawled out of their foxholes, tion of any note and they were a rather presidential elections because they cannot Republicans found themselves to be of two minor part of the large majority Reagan formulate their uncompromisable princi- varieties: the ideologically pure—which won in 1980. Instead, it was they who owed ples in a way that is acceptable to the him—for he provided a sense of possibility majority, yet they cannot realize. this is I, meant racists, fundamentalists, goldbugs, and libertarians—and the people-who- in the Reagan years that encouraged them, their problem because they believe they are want-to-win-elections. In 1948, the people- often by stealth, to begin to subvert the Re- divinely inspired. To a certain degree, the who-want-to-win-elections had first crack. publican organization, precinct by precinct. Republican right—the religious right—can To everyone's surprise Dewey lost, and the Jerry Falwell's Moral Majority—little maintain its high opinion of itself precisely ideological Republicans were certain they more or less than Falwell's mailing list— because it is in no danger of governing and would get the next shot in 1952, with their came to the fore and rather rapidly disinte- exposing itself and its leaders to the kind of man Robert A. Taft, Jr. It wasn't in the grated during Reagan's term. It remained scrutiny to which elected national officials

AUGUST 30, 1996 THE TEXAS OBSERVER ■ 25 BOOKS & THE CULTURE ► are routinely subjected. schools or a manger scene in the state capi- ple—and such a coincidence that they hap- For example, the Republican right be- tol at Christmas. pen to be married to each other. I have lieves Bill Clinton committed adultery, and Within the Republican party, the real looked pretty hard for the dirt on Dole and despite his willingness to sign the Defense function of the Christian Coalition has be- one of the worst things I can say about him of Marriage Act, they blame Clinton for the come the role of "good cop"—to the "bad is that his name appears on this book. whole issue of gay rights and gay marriage. cop" played by whichever candidate is car- The truly amazing offering is Senator They call these "character issues." rying the banner for the religious right at For Sale: An Unauthorized Biography Of But consider Republican marriages: the moment. Make no mistake about it, the Senator Bob Dole by Stanley G. Hilton (St. Robert Barr, author of the Defense of Mar- Coalition is Pat Robertson's organization, Martin's; $22.95; 308 pages). What is riage Act—on his third wife, has been sued but it exists to say reassuring things when amazing about it is that it seems to be try- for failure to pay child support; Pat Robert- Robertson proposes making America a ing very hard to be a hatchet job, but when son—lied for years about the date of his theocracy, or when Buchanan's anti- you get past the name-calling and down to marriage to cover up the fact that his wife Semitism is too baldly revealed. This gives the nitty-gritty Dole doesn't come off so was five months pregnant when they mar- candidates the option of winking at racism badly. Does he flip-flop on issues? Does he ried; Newt Gingrich—divorced his wife or other lapses in political taste, while pro- do big favors for his friends and campaign when she was suffering from cancer, also viding the movement with a thin veil of contributors? Does he discover elaborate sued for failure to pay child support; plausible deniability. rationalizations to avoid the blame when Ronald Reagan—divorced the mother of The job of keeping the home organization things go wrong? Well, yes, and lot more his child; Bob Dole—divorced his first squeaky clean has fallen to the squeaky- stuff like that. He has been senate majority wife, who nursed him through the war clean-looking Ralph Reed, and his contribu- leader twice—what does Hilton expect? wounds we hear much about, leaving her tion to this year's bumper crop of election- But Pat Robertson is not going to move with a young child; and reams of similar year books is Active Faith: How Christians into the White House if Dole ever goes situations involving Republicans that are Are Changing The Soul Of American Poli- there. Dole's not going to run the ship of matters of public record which can be dis- tics (Free Press; $25, described on the Coali- state aground. He has been off and on the covered without staking out sleazy motels. tion's web page as a "suggested donation"; supply-side several times, and although None of these situations seems to bother 311 pages). It is a tricky business to be Pat he's on it at the moment, he'll be off it the religious right—who claim to believe Robertson's vehicle while appearing to be at again at the first sign that it is a liability. He the Bible is to be taken literally—although arm's length from Pat Robertson's posi- is perfectly capable of handling foreign according to the Bible, Jesus equated di- tions, but there could hardly be a better per- policy, and the Republican party's foreign vorce with adultery, and never uttered a son for it than the adroit Reed. So far the we- policy assets are as weighty as they are word about homosexuality. want-to-win-elections Republicans (of slick. Dole would direct, but not second- Of course all factions of all parties have whom Reed, despite his born-again cloth- guess, the pros. their sex scandals and unpleasant domestic ing, is clearly one) have prevented the reli- The main disaster Democratic apologists situations, but for Republicans, "character gious right from making an absolute shibbo- predict is that Dole might get a Supreme issues" are problems that only Democrats leth of the abortion issue, a great favor to the Court appointment or two. Well, Supreme have—and the Republicans' opponents are party. Because if the right ever succeeds in Court nominations are crap shoots to begin not claiming to have the word, on what a its objective of expelling all the pro-choice with—ask the Republicans how happy they family is and how to be one, directly from Republicans the debate will be over, and the were with their appointment of Earl Warren. God. The relevance of Republican family Republican party will become the asterisk in Moreover, I think it is highly doubtful that a values is that Republicans have raised the election returns. Clinton appointee is to be trusted any more cry of family values—otherwise none of than a Dole appointee—I might have bought this would be anybody else's business. And o what kind of man is Bob Dole? this argument before I saw Clinton govern. in the same way that they blind themselves How would the next four years be There is really little reason to prefer ei- to the peccadilloes of those enjoying their S different if Dole were elected instead ther of the Republican candidates. The Re- favor, the people of the religious right blind of Clinton? publican candidate offered by the themselves to political reality. When they Election year books have come a long Democrats will almost certainly win the run a Buchanan who expresses sympathy way since A Texas Looks At Lyndon. This election. But the Republican candidate of- for the Nazis—the real, German Nazis— year we have Unlimited Partners by Bob fered by the Republicans would not be any they can garner enough votes to win a pri- and Elizabeth Dole (Simon & Schuster; worse if he were elected, and on the only- mary, but they cannot possibly elect such a $24; 379 pages), remarkable only in that it Nixon-could-go-to-China theory, might be man president. When, as he sometimes has probably set a speed record for this sort a comparatively pleasant surprise. does, Pat Robertson claims the separation of book—it went to press after Dole re- Dugger's going with Nader, and I'm of church and state is a communist slogan, signed as Senate majority leader. It is of going fishing. ❑ he is going to turn people off—including course, all sweetness and light. What a many people who would have no problem blessing it is for America to have at its ser- Lars Eighner's recent books are Gay with a "nonsectarian" prayer in the public vice at the same time two such saintly peo- Cosmos and Pawn to Queen Four.

26 • THE TEXAS OBSERVER AUGUST 30, 1996 BOOKS & THE CULTURE ► It's Not Sludge, It's Mr. Biosolids! BY BEN TERRALL

TOXIC SLUDGE IS GOOD FOR YOU! IT's TIME FoR YET ANOTHER LooK AT NOW THE STEP IWO: THE P.R. FIRM PROLEEb5 To MANI - Lies, Damn Lies and the Public NEWS WoRgs...sTEp ONE: A CORPoRATIor4 PULATE PUBLIC oPINto/4 IN A VARIETY OF WHICH HAS BED CAUGHT ENGAGING IN SOME DEVIouS,uNDERHANDED WAYS• SucH AS Relations Industry. ILLEGAL oft UNETHICAL ACT HIRES A PUBLIC ANONYMOUSLY PLANTING OP-ED PIECES IN By John C. Stauber and Sheldon Rampton. RELATIONS FIRM... THE NAllotr5 NEWSPAPERS... Common Courage Press. PEOPLE. ARE UPSET WELL—BY THE. 236 pages. $16.95 (paper). BECAUSE. WE'VE n Pets WE'RE BEEN DUMPING TbX- THROUGH, /welt. IC SLUDGE INTh NE ram% you FOR ired of hordes of PR flacks WATER SUPPLY! IT/ who, in the words of Noam Chomsky, "[try] to turn people into ideal, manipu- latable atoms of consump- tion who are going to de- vote their energies to .,. As WELL AS SENDING out SLICKLY-PRODUCED STEP THREE: PUBLIC OPINION IS SWAYED BY buying things they don't "VIDEO NEWS RELEASES" WHICH MANY CASH- THIS ONSLAUGHT OF MEDIA MANIPULATION MAS- want"? Sick of phony investigative reporting STRAPPED LOCAL NEWS DEPARTMENTS AIR QUERADING AS NEWS...SINCE, AS P.R. FIRMS VIRTUALLY UNED/TED... GIVING CoRPo RATE WELL UNDERSTAND, ANY LIE REPEATED OF- that reeks of Chamber of Commerce PROPAGANDA THE APPEARANCE or 03 05C- TEN ENOUGH BECOMES TRUE... puffery? Think that obsequiousness in the riVE REPORTING... CANT IMAGINE WHY face of corporate power has become a dis- 50 YOU SEE, ToxIC. SLUDGE IS wE EVER WORRIED ease of contemporary culture? If your an- ACTUALLY QUITE GOOD FoR YoU! A80U1 TOXIC SLUDGE! swer is a resounding "Hell, yes!" then Toxic Sludge Is Good For You! is required reading. John Stauber and Sheldon Rampton are co-editors of PR Watch, the quarterly from which much of this book was compiled. They trace today's public relations industry back to campaigns designed to incite jingois- from "This Modern World" by Tom Tomorrow tic hatred of Germans during World War I. The emergence of this pseudo-science was sons cited in the book excel at the dema- regimes. Smear campaigns don't get much pioneered by self-satisfied hucksters like Ivy goguery that made the 1950s such a wonder- uglier than the one waged against Haitian Lee and Edward Bernays (Sigmund Freud's ful decade. The National Smokers Alliance, President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. After the nephew). Bernays contended that "manipu- a pro-tobacco group created by PR giant Cedras regime ousted the democratically- lation of the masses is natural and necessary Burson-Marsteller, satisfied their sugar elected president, it hired a number of in a democratic society." Supreme Court Jus- daddies at Philip Morris when they called ad- Washington PR shills to paint Aristide as a tice Felix Frankfurter disagreed, and in a let- vocates of smoke-free workplaces "anti- "psychotic manic-depressive with homici- ter to President Franklin Roosevelt derided American." Chemical-industry-funded anti- dal and necrophiliac tendencies." The in- Bernays and Lee as "professional poisoners environmentalist Elizabeth Whelan claimed vestment paid off when Jesse Helms oblig- of the public mind, exploiters of foolishness, that David Steinman, the author of Diet For ingly burbled on the Senate floor that fanaticism and self-interest." a Poisoned Planet, and others like him, "may Aristide was a "psychopath." The Bernays and Lee legacy—the corpo- pose a future threat to national security." Of course, not all apologists for brutal dic- rate PR industry outlined in this book—vin- Steinman's book cites government inspec- tatorships are quite so negative. Many, in dicates Frankfurter. From the Global Cli- tors who found that "raisins had 110 indus- fact, choose to accentuate the positive, as did mate Coalition (which fights efforts to trial chemical and pesticide residues in 16 Mobil Oil in last summer's salute to "Inde- prevent global warming) to Keep America samples" and recommended avoiding all but pendent Indonesia." For over thirty years, In- Beautiful (bankrolled by manufacturers organically-grown raisins—clearly a frontal donesia has been ruled by Suharto, a dictator staunchly opposed to a national bottle-re- assault on the Pentagon. who came to power in a coup that killed a turn-and-recycling bill), Stauber and Ramp- But this seemingly comical, pseudo- million people. Among his accomplishments ton show how big business front groups rep- Cold War dishonesty takes on truly sinister is the invasion and on-going genocidal occu- resent the sort of grave threat to democracy overtones when employed by what Stauber pation of East Timor, which has resulted in once associated with the Red Menace—and and Rampton call "the torturers' lobby": the deaths of over 200,000 of the island na- predictably, a number of industry spokesper- gung-ho cheerleaders for repressive tion's people. Efforts to organize labor

AUGUST 30, 1996 THE TEXAS OBSERVER ■ 27 BOOKS & THE CULTURE

unions in Indonesia are routinely met with ple, not in the mindless mantras of con- Ben Terrall is a freelance writer living in military crackdowns, keeping labor costs at- sumerism that Stauber and Rampton San Francisco. - tractively low for multi-nationals. Mobil's skewer so effectively. ❑ verdict? "The future is a bright one for this archipelago nation...a powerhouse in the Pacific." One of the most disturbing PR campaigns moke Gets in Your Eyes exposed in the book is suggested by its title. Disposing of tons of waste accumulated in sewage treatment plants is an obvious prior- The Story of Tobacco's Poisonous Hypocrisy ity for the Environmental Protection Agency, leading the agency to downplay the presence BY JAMES W. KUNETKA in the sludge of PCBs, chlorinated pesticides, SMOKE SCREEN: often in secret and in foreign locations, that and heavy metals such as lead and cadmium. The Truth Behind the Tobacco not only revealed tobacco's hidden health To improve the public image of sewage Industry Cover-up. dangers but its addictive qualities as well. sludge, a waste product with little appeal to By Philip J. Hilts. Yet an unofficial consortium of tobacco gi- the public, something called the "Biosolids Addison-Wesley. ants—among them Brown and Williamson, Public Acceptance Campaign" was orga- 253 pages. $22.00. R. J. Reynolds, and the American Tobacco :nized by the Federation of Sewage Works Company—until just a few months ago Associations which, after several name he tobacco industry has maintained an odd sort of solidarity against changes itself, became the more appealing always enjoyed a special any charges of health danger, nicotine ad- "Water Environment Federation." This cam- niche in America. Nur- diction, or product liability. paign took off in tandem with the EPA's bid tured 'by lucrative agri- Hilts makes plain that this is a history re- to "educate" the public about the safety of cultural subsidies, pro- plete with ironies. The cigarette of the sludge and to entice farmers to buy "biosolid moted by brilliant past—real tobacco, golden and sun- fertilizer P"—one of the profit-making prod- advertising campaigns warmed, julienned and wrapped in white ucts that came out of the EPA's "beneficial and generally protected paper—hasn't existed since the 1950s. research" program. Yet Stanford Tackett, a by a government reluctant to control it, the Today's cigarettes are made from a stew of chemist and expert on lead contamination, industry has flourished like few others in leftover stems, scraps, some fresh tobacco warned that "97 to 99 percent [of sludge] is our history. It is only recently, under a bar- and reconstituted "dark juices." Cigarette contaminated waste that should not be spread rage of law suits and insider disclosures, manufacturers learned early on how to to where people live....The claims now being that the industry at last seems on the edge eliminate tar, but only at the expense of made for 'sludge safety' sound eerily like the of losing its protected position. There are lessening nicotine—the key element in to- earlier claims that 'DDT is perfectly safe' and several new books about the subject, in- bacco addiction. The same manufacturers asbestos is a miracle fiber that poses no dan- cluding this one by New York Times re- have known for almost forty years how to ger at all." porter Philip J. Hilts. make safer cigarettes but found themselves The authors argue that solutions to the Smoke Screen is not a history of the to- caught in a public-relations "catch-22": to grave problems they outline in their book bacco industry in America per se, although produce a safer cigarette, market and sell it, lie in the rejection of passive spectator pol- you are reminded that in the last century or meant admitting that ordinary cigarettes itics and a return to grassroots activism. We so it has become very rich and enormously were in fact unsafe. Faced with that can't count on mainstream news outlets to powerful. Rather, it is the story of one chill- dilemma, and therefore with the prospect of provide us with the unvarnished truth of ing aspect of the last fifty years: the ongo- admitting what they had known all along, what is being perpetrated by big money: ing effort by the industry, since the end of tobacco companies simply dropped the video and radio news releases and such World War II, to keep current smokers ad- matter and went on denying any causality "wire services" as "PR News Wire" are dicted to smoking and at the same time, between smoking and cancer, smoking and ubiquitous on the media landscape, spin- continue to attract new ones to the habit. lung disease, and so forth. ning their sales pitches into even the most That means inventing new cigarettes, new One of the more intriguing subsets to the seemingly innocuous stories. But indepen- combinations of tar and nicotine, and new story is the battle over nicotine. Tobacco dent voices, like this publication and PR advertising campaigns. And more recently inherently contains nicotine, and some var- Watch, do still exist, and the body politic it has meant to defeat—at all costs—any ieties of tobacco contain higher levels than ain't dead yet. As Toxic Sludge Is Good For legislation to control the industry, or any others. Reducing tar, manipulating taste, You makes clear, there are feisty activists, legal suits against it. adding filters—each varies the amount and like Jim Bynum of Laredo (director of The owners of the tobacco industry type of nicotine that hits the smoker's sys- "Help For Sewage Victims"), standing up learned early on that their products were tem. But nicotine is also elemental, first, in to corporate power throughout the country. unhealthy, if not lethal. The industry itself creating the smoker's need to smoke, and Our hopes for the future lie in their exam- conducted elaborate scientific research, secondly, in feeding and sustaining it.

28 • THE TEXAS OBSERVER AUGUST 30, 1996 BOOKS & THE CULTURE

Read: addiction. best when he counters public testimony like school, junior high, or younger?), the execu- r- • These days, outside of the industry, there this with secret Brown and Williamson re- tive replied: "They got lips? We want them." is little question that nicotine is addictive. ports, internal memos and minutes from Smoke Screen is not a book of great rev- Some authorities, including the U.S. Food high-level strategy sessions which clearly elations, nor of "scoops." In fact, the book's and Drug Administration, suggest that it is document that corporate officials were not deliberate page-by-page buildup leads you even more addictive than heroin. For obvi- only aware of the dangers of smoking, but of to expect some big bang at the end. There is ous reasons-especially since it has spent the need to maintain nicotine levels high none. Instead, there is only a facile recount- the last half-century arguing the opposite- enough to keep smokers hooked. This seg- ing of corporate greed and deceit. Hilts the tobacco industry can't acknowledge this ment is the book's, and perhaps the indus- compellingly explores the mass of secret in- scientific reality. The industry doesn't deny try's, most revealing moment. In this age of dustry documents that have recently come that tobacco contains nicotine, just that corruption and cynicism, it's hard to be sur- to light and matches them against nearly nicotine is addictive. More specifically, in- prised by anything new, or to believe that we fifty years of corporate PR, advertising, dustry leaders and PR hacks have repeat- could become any more cynical ourselves. public testimony, interviews, legal gambits edly insisted that cigarettes are not designed But considering what tobacco manufacturers and massive lobbying efforts. The result is a to cause addiction. have known, both about health effects and damning portrait of an industry determined Remember the impressive sight, in 1994, addiction, and considering what they have to prosper at any price, even at the cost of of a half-dozen or so tobacco industry corpo- said under oath, it is hard not to be shocked the ultimate irony: killing its best customers rate executives, lined up before a Congres- by one RJR executive's recent statement as with its own products. 0. sional subcommittee? Every single one of quoted by Hilts. Asked by a new cigarette them testified, under oath, that he did not be- - salesman exactly which young people, were Austin writer James W. Kunetka is the lieve nicotine to be addictive. Hilts is at his being targeted by publicity campaigns (high author of five novels.

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AUGUST 30, 1996 THE TEXAS OBSERVER • 29 BOOKS & THE CULTURE The Sex Pistols Reload BY BRAD TYER

can't remember when it was ex- since by the time I started to see what was actly—sometime after junior high going on it was already a done deal. They but before the graduation slide. proclaimed, however cynically, an al e Say 1984 for a ballpark estimate; giance to destruction, and they ha . eat. eady way too late stroyed themselves, never again t Lyd 4Vhat e ocals :Pw tols the myth with reality—the per and it ion" of z.;A. WO.,:s- ,.,. Later on I learned the criti altgnati sensib wly for- ! t the Sex Pistols destr tted rasp oft, words to ey didn't destroy les",.,, 't want that looks , satisfying mi at.,.: : screaming, g, bloody do, for me still sound. y beyond the der roc once invited spit eatened the first 9 ottle on stage and be- Vi 101.1 with "I'm getting paid to rate and woP § fti *WA at's your flicking excuse?" Of ra e end-consume as complaining about the heat. of a g Lydon could not have been un- clination for checking :7.79,71g1, e of the psychic parallels with the bought my copy because ated Elvis when near the show's end, he had previously turn took to slinging his sweat-soaked towels and The Kinks, out into the audience. I didn't band that chants no "No Future" on a re- quences eighteen years after the fact invites I g the end, it was just one more h t Yo uthing off about it knew eagaa074apia,,,. Pu der Amen I wnsend, who fa- N • • thro time y Rotten- WC 1 o t old, has bina o>4, my " ; Lydon—pf 1.4ar Y years. liked 'te t-s roll questions • is that album up front that the mo tome black sp simple: money. cilling the So when the tour final father's car and he was a strange sense 0 a•Ma.0...`• walked over t doing. Which ment, of pleasurable sent him into a ge, which resulted in rived at a gutted or the LP being snapped in half. Just from look- Houston—not so 'th ing at the cover of the thing. I wanted to tell to San Antonio' long him he should listen to the music before pass- Pistols played ing judgment, but even then I knew enough to 1978—with ed. And guess that wouldn't help. sold-out thro pent con- All I really knew then was all I really never-sho ironies (I needed to know—that The Sex Pistols had Agai ',`$ entitin the tour t- ish the power to piss off my parents. It was fast, producing left standing it was nasty, it was artsy, it was foreign, and ("Punk? x Pistols, the I liked it just fine. Never Mind the Bollocks Matlocie„ urn had made was my introduction to musical subversion mer Paul C now, with one and to the entire line of punk rock and post- Lydon's sweaty e for punk. ❑ punk alternative bands that's engrossed or yellow silky shirt tha amused me since. And the Pistols had about paunch. Cook and Jones we o \&i, t\ •,,,ost-punk alternative them even then the aura of original myth, mous as could be, and Matlock s of Houston.

30 ■ THE TEXAS OBSERVER AFTERWORD Heal Thyself! BY KAREN OLSSON (Editor's Note: In February of 1997, a girth Mr. Grimm is remarkably nimble— Grimm, is the recently-crowned Miss group of Republican congressmen were shades of Rush Limbaugh and Willy Alabama. "We got her for the opening," he lunching at a Washington restaurant, Wonka both—and I have trouble keeping says. "She fits right into our image. We nibbling on crostini and hashing out the up with him. "Too many people rely on the want to create an all-American, upbeat details of proposed legislation to ban tooth- government for health care," Grimm is say- kind of atmosphere here. You'll notice our brush sales to immigrants ("They should staff people are friendly, our lighting is remember to pack one before they come bright, our music is good...." He pauses a over here," commented one of the bill's moment and then sings along, nodding to co-authors) when suddenly the overhead each beat: "Help me Rhonda, yeah!" lights dimmed and the Vivaldi came to a We move on to a row of what look like halt. Moments later, when the lights came bulk-food bins. "Now this is what I call back on, the lunchers had all come to a Mr. Grimm's Pills by the Gram," says horrible realization: they were employed Mr. Grimm. "From antibiotics to Zoloft, by the very same federal government they'd we've got it. Just serve yourself." been railing against for years. Confused Mr. Grimm shows no sign of slow- and disgusted, they all resigned and went ing down. He takes me past the off to seek jobs in the private sector. Seniors Department, with its arthri- Our reporter caught up with one of tis medications and Hip-In-Place! them a few months afterward...) repair kits; the Bandage and Cast center; the cappuccino bar. I am starting to feel EALTH DEPOT" overwhelmed. reads the sign above ing as he leads me down aisle 3 (spinal At last we stop at Customer Service, and the entrance, "Your taps, tuberculosis tests, gauze). "Govern- Mr. Grimm explains that Health Depot also One-Stop Do-It-Your- ment-funded public hospitals, private care provides free health counseling services. self Medical Super- facilities receiving government grants, gov- He picks up a brochure. "Now this is one of store," and below that is ernment funding for medical schools...do I the programs that our health counselors can a red banner: "GRAND detect a pattern here? The plain truth of the help get you started on. It's called a Man- OPENING." Just inside matter, the truth that has been kept hidden aged Breath-Savings Account," he says. the automatic doors, next to the gumball ma- from regular folks like you and me, is that "You see, people don't realize this, but just chines and the line of shopping carts, stands you don't need to go to a doctor for most of by breathing a little less you can get a lot Health Depot founder Salamander Grimm, this stuff! No! What has been created in more mileage out of your lungs. And then who has agreed to give me a tour of the store. this country is a massive culture of depen- when some Washington politician tells you Mr. Grimm rubs his hands together as he dency funded by the government!" Mr. he wants to spend a bunch of your tax greets me. "Welcome to the revolution," he Grimm, whose speech has been accelerat- money on reducing air pollution, you can says, gesturing behind him to the rows of sur- ing rapidly, reaches into his pants pocket, tell him you aren't worried because you are gical tools and rubber gloves stacked eight swallows a couple of transparent capsules, taking care of the problem yourself: by feet high. "What you are about to see is the takes a deep breath and continues in a breathing in less air, and by breathing out future of medicine." calmer tone. "This store is all about restor- less carbon dioxide. It's so simple!" Mr. Grimm grabs me by the wrist and ing a sense of self-worth to the people. A As if on cue, I start to have a hard time leads me into the store. "You know, the first spirit of 'Yes-I-Can!'" breathing. time I tried to build this store, they turned "But it's more than a store," he says, and I thank Mr. Grimm for the tour and walk me down," he says, but before I can ask stops in front of a MRI machine cordoned quickly toward the exit, skirting two who "they" are he hands me an advertising off by thick red ropes. "It's a place where women who are fighting over the last Nico- ( circular. Rubella shots, eye drops, full- people can empower themselves, medi- tine Patch Kid. As I leave I can still hear body casts all on sale this week. "And you cally speaking. Instead of having some the music playing: help me Rhonda, help,

get a free Physicians Desk Reference with doctor order a lot of expensive tests for help me Rhonda.... ❑ the home urinalysis sets," says Mr. Grimm, you, here you can get them yourself on a pointing to the next page. pay-as-you-go basis," says Mr. Grimm. Following her vision of the freemarket We speed past the customer welcome pa- "And you get to keep the pictures." Seated medical future, Observer intern Karen trol and on toward the towering aisles of next to the machine is a blonde woman Olsson is planning on not getting sick any- medical supplies. Despite his considerable wearing a nightie who, according to time soon.

AUGUST 30, 1996 THE TEXAS OBSERVER ■ 31 CI-L8L Xi wisnv

-171- I- • L 10d 00V 1V1H3S S3IEIVE19111VEOND9 SVX3.1d0 AlISEIDAINn 3I-11 Z 9L839 POLITICAL INTELLIGENCE ► • votes needed for a return trip to 1600 Penn- WE'RE GROWING! sylvania Avenue. Thus, Bob Dole simply If your Observer feels a little more weighty this week, that's because it is. We've must win Texas if he is to have any chance added eight pages to our standard issue length—bumping up to thirty-two pages—to of beating Clinton. make more room for additional reportage and the best in Texas writing. (Please note The Democratic National Committee that the price, single-issue or subscription, remains the same.) We've also boosted our plans to spend some $3 million in Texas bookstore distribution across the state, so we should be easier to find, from Abilene to this year, but the GOP has won six of the Humble, Arlington to El Paso. And if you still can't get enough of the Observer's eyes last seven Texas elections. GOP leaders are on Texas, please visit our spruced-up DownHome Page on the World Wide Web: optimistic. On the last day of the GOP http://www.hyperweb.comAxobserver . convention in San Diego, Governor George W. Bush told Ken Herman of the Austin •American-Statesman, "We are not. in dan- HIGHTOWER CALLING. Readers who've crippling because Congress eliminated . ger of losing Texas." Polls taken in August missed Jim Hightower's voice since he was additional funds for the legal defense of -of 1988 and 1992 both showed the Demo- kicked off ABC Radio Network last fall migrant workers. ' - cratic candidates to be ten points ahead of should keep their ears peeled, beginning Last year's Congress also imposed a their Republican counterparts in Texas, yet Labor Day. That's when Hightower Radio pile of restrictions on recipients of LSC in both races, the Democrats lost. At the f re-takes the airwaves—live from the "Chat funds, including a ban on class-action' beginning of the GOP convention, polls & Chew Cafe" at Threadgill's World suits. Scrambling to get out of six remain- showed Dole and Clinton each getting 38 Headquarters in Austin. The two-hour ing class-actions by the federally - percent of the Texas vote (with Ross Perot show will air weekdays at noon, EST; to mandated August 1 deadline, TRLA at 11 percent). The crucial variable may be find Hightower on your local dial, call found itself pleading with other lawyers to Perot. "As long as Perot doesn't emerge (512) 477-5588. take over its cases. In Laredo, for exam- with his money and draw votes away from ple, a class-action suit in which 1,300 Dole," says Earl Black, a professor of NOW MUCH JUSTICE? Providers of legal migrant workers are suing for unpaid political science at Rice University, "the services to the poor were spared the axe wages has been transferred to a Dallas Republicans should win Texas." last month, when the House passed an firm, but whether anyone at that firm will Clinton lost Texas in 1992 by just three amendment setting the Legal Services be able to handle the case remains unclear. percentage points. At a meeting of Austin Corporation's (LSC) 1997 budget at $250 "There is no dumping ground for these Democrats last week, State Chairman Bill million, down from last year's $278 mil- cases," TRLA director David Hall told White predicted that the Republicans lion but up from the $141 million originally Texas Lawyer. "We are the dumping would soon have to concede California, proposed by the Republican leadership. ground. It's a pretty grim situation." leaving Florida and Texas as "the battle- The Senate Appropriations Committee grounds." even recommended increased funding— BATTLEGROUND TEXAS. What do Bill $288 million—for LSC on August 1, and Clinton, Richard Nixon and Calvin SOME BOATS RISE. "Republicans are for a the final figure will be determined when Coolidge have in common? They are the minimum wage—the minimum possible." Congress reconvenes in September. last three candidates to win the White That was Harry S. Truman, quoted by Ted Still, said Texas Rural Legal Services' House without winning Texas. Clinton lost Kennedy during the July Senate debate Bill Beardall, "It's a sign of the peril Legal the state in 1992 to former president over raising the minimum wage. According Services is in, that everyone's breathing a George Bush. Nixon narrowly lost the state to the Washington Spectator, last year's sigh of relief at the prospect of a mere 10 to Hubert. Humphrey in 1968. And average pay for a U.S. CEO was $12,000 a percent cut." Spurred on by the Christian Coolidge lost Texas in 1924 to John W. day; the annual minimum wage, under the Coalition and agribusiness, Congress last Davis, but still managed to win the race. new law, will rise next summer from year cut funding for LSC by $122 million, Why does this matter? Well, Clinton has $8,500 to $10,300. Currently the minimum with plans to phase out the agency in three already proved that he can win without the wage is $4.25 an hour; in 1968 it was years. In Texas, total federal funding for Lone Star State. If he wins California $1.60. In case you're wondering, members legal services agencies went down 25 per- again, as he did four years ago, and wins of Congress earn $64 an hour; in 1968 it cent; cuts in border states were particularly Texas, he will have more than a third of the was $15. ❑

32 ■ THE TEXAS OBSERVER AUGUST 30, 1996