The Spies of Texas

NOVEMBER 17, 2006 I $2.25 I OPENING THE EYES OF TEXAS FOR FIFTY ONE YEARS

The Spies of Texas Newfound files detail how UT-Austin police tracked the politics, drug habits and sex lives of Sixties dissidents NOVEMBER 17, 2006 Dialogue TheTexas Observer JOBS WELL DONE Prisonville," October 20). Reporter Forrest Wilder did a great job of FEATURES Good article by Jake Bernstein on Chris Bell ("Why the Bell Not," explaining the complex way private November 3). Hard to be even close investors make money and circum- 6 THE SPIES OF TEXAS to "serious" with the field in which vent the public in their dealings with Newfound files detail how UT-Austin he found himself. What a really odd corrupt officials. The use of revenue police tracked the lives of Sixties dissidents state this is, two ex-Democrats- bonds allows privateers to dangle the by Thorne Dreyer one the guv and a Republican, the economic development lure in front other the CPA and an independent of the faces of struggling county rep- DEPARTMENTS after using the other two parties to resentatives as if there were no finan- her advantage—a musician/merry cial consequences to the county. As DIALOGUE 2 prankster, and the other candidate, a Willacy County struggles to meet its Libertarian. next payment of $700,000 to investors, 3 EDITORIAL Dunya McCammon Municipal Capital has already walked Anger Triumphs Over Fear Via e-mail away with its $453,900. Let that be a

POLITICAL INTELLIGENCE 4 warning to others. Wonderful expose on the scandal Ken Kopczynski

MOLLY IVINS 14 in Willacy County ("Welcome to Private Corrections Institute Start With Basics

JIM HIGHTOWER 15 NEW MANAGING EDITOR Heartsick in Bangalore We are pleased to announce that veteran journalist David Pasztor has

OPEN FORUM 16 joined the Observer as our new managing editor. Pasztor has worked as a Habits of Democracy reporter and/or editor at the late Kansas City Times, the late Dallas Times by Ernesto Cortes Jr. Herald, Phoenix New Times, the Dallas Observer and SF Weekly. Most recently, he was special projects editor for the Austin American-Statesman.

LAS AMERICAS 18 Welcome Mr. Pasztor! Let Them Eat Microcredits by Beatrice Edwards

DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS BOOKS & CULTURE In our October 20 story on the gubernatorial debate ("Better Debate than

POETRY 20 Never"), we confused two of Carole Keeton Strayhorn's sons. Strayhorn by Naomi Shihab Nye appeared at a post-debate press conference with her son Brad McClellan. Mark McClellan runs the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid

STAND AND DELIVER 22 Services in Washington and wasn't present. We regret the error. by James E. McWilliams

TRUE GRIT 24 by Char Miller DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTED CORRECTIONS

REDISCOVERING ELROY BODE 26 Slippery 'til the end, former Ohio Republican Congressman Bob Ney by Marian Haddad compels us to correct a previous correction. To recap: We wrote an October 20 editorial assuming Ney would resign his seat promptly after his

AFTERWORD 30 indictment on corruption charges. He didn't, and remained in Congress A Salute to Molly Ivins as we pointed out in a correction published on November 3. Which was by Lewis Lapham the day Ney did resign. On January 19, Ney will be sentenced and is not expected to be going anywhere other than prison for the next few years. Cover by Matt Omohundro

2 THE TEXAS OBSERVER NOVEMBER 17, 2006 EDITORIAL Anger Triumphs Over Fear

emocrats have emphat- Wyoming four days before the vote. their way through Republican prima- ically ended 12 years (The election results sent the Dow ries and buy their way into Democratic of Republican rule Jones Industrial Average to a new high. strongholds to no avail. In two of in Congress. On Go figure.) Singling out Democratic the more notable examples, Leininger November 7, they resistance to legislation that bestows favorite Kent Grusendorf went down picked up at least 28 on the president extraordinary new to an anti-voucher Republican in the seatsID in the House of Representatives. power—unchecked by the courts or primary. In San Antonio, Leininger (As the Observer went to press, 13 addi- Congress—such as the Patriot Act and dropped $1 million on behalf of George tional races, some leaning Democrat, the Military Commissions Act, Bush Antuna. Democrat Joe Farias man- were still too close to call.) In the said in Iowa, "...the vast majority of aged to win even though he had only Senate, Democrats gained six seats and Democrats voted against giving the about $300,000 with which to compete. control of the upper chamber. professionals the tools necessary to Democrats eked out victories against And in Texas, while Republicans protect you." well-financed opponents in districts in once again swept all statewide offices, a Fear has been a potent GOP weapon Corpus Christi, East Texas, and West majority of voters made it clear they'd in Texas as well, with House Speaker Texas that normally would have gone prefer someone other than Rick Perry as Tom Craddick using the party's intimi- Republican. governor. In the Statehouse, Democrats dating financial superiority as a cudgel Nationally this election means real picked up as many as five seats, a solid to enforce legislative majorities and oversight of the Bush administration start to a future takeover. to win elections. Legislators knew for the first time. In Texas, perhaps The Observer will provide more cov- that if they didn't follow the speaker, most significantly, it has left behind a erage of the consequences from the Republican sugar daddies Bob Perry, much weaker Speaker Craddick—per- election in its next issue, but if there Jim Leininger, and Texans for Lawsuit haps fatally so—and a state Senate that was one immediate message that voters Reform might not support them, or nobody—least of all David Dewhurst- seemed to be sending on Election Day, worse, use their nearly unlimited funds will be able to control. it was that anger had finally triumphed to back an opponent. But this cycle, But before Democrats get carried over fear. with anger boiling over against the rad- away in their euphoria, they would do President George W. Bush and Vice ical policies of the Republican right and well to understand the limits of anger. President Dick Cheney barnstormed the emergence of organized opposition It provides the adrenaline to get off the country promising every calam- like the Texas Parent PAC, the money the couch, but it's not a plan or a strat- ity but frogs and locusts if Democrats didn't seem to matter as much. In the egy. They need look no further than took the reins of power. "If the 34 contested House races, Republicans Perry's re-election to be reminded of Democrats take control, American outspent Democrats by $4 million, but this. Instead of being smart and coor- families would face an immense tax not one Democratic incumbent lost, dinating, the opposition splintered the increase, and the economy would sus- and the GOP failed to win a single seat. vote and guaranteed the re-election of tain a major hit," Cheney predicted in The sugar daddies tried to bully an unpopular incumbent. ■

THE TEXAS OBSERVER I VOLUME 98, NO. 22 I A Journal of Free Voices Since 1954

Founding Editor Ronnie Dugger James K. Galbraith, Dagoberto Gilb, Cliff Olofson,1931-1995 Executive Editor Jake Bernstein for foreign subs. Back issues $3 pre- Steven G. Kellman, Lucius Lomax, The Texas Observer (ISSN 0040-4519/ paid. Airmail, foreign, group, and bulk Editor Barbara Belejack James McWilliams, Char Miller, USPS 541300), entire contents copy- Managing Editor David Pasztor rates on request. Microfilm available Debbie Nathan, Karen Olsson, righted ©2006, is published biweekly from University Microfilms Intl., 300 N. Associate Editor Dave Mann John Ross, Andrew Wheat except during January and August Publisher Charlotte McCann Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, MI 48106. Staff Photographers when there is a 4 week break between Associate Publisher Julia Austin issues (24 issues per year) by the Indexes The Texas Observer is indexed Circulation Manager Lara George Alan Pogue, Jana Birchum, Steve Satterwhite Texas Democracy Foundation, a 501(c)3 in Access: The Supplementary Index Art Director/Webmaster Matt Omohundro non-profit foundation, 307 West 7th to Periodicals; Texas Index and, for Investigative Reporter Eileen Welsome Contributing Artists Street, Austin, Texas 78701. Telephone the years 1954 through 1981, The Texas Poetry Editor Naomi Shihab Nye Sam Hurt, Kevin Kreneck, (512) 477-0746, Toll-Free (800) 939-6620 Observer Index. Copy Editors Rusty Todd, Laurie Baker Michael Krone, Gary Oliver, Texas Democracy Foundation Board E-mail [email protected] POSTMASTER Send address changes Staff Writer Forrest Wilder Doug Potter Lou Dubose, Molly lvins, Susan Hays, World Wide Web DownHome page to: The Texas Observer, 307 Administrative Assistant Stephanie Holmes D'Ann Johnson, Jim Marston, Gilberto www.texasobserver.org West 7th Street, Austin, Editorial Advisory Board Ocafias, Bernard Rapoport, Geoffrey . Periodicals Postage paid at Austin, TX and at addi- Texas 78701. Editorial Interns Jennifer Lee, David Anderson, Chandler Davidson, Rips, Sharron Rush, Kelly White, tional mailing offices. Kelly Sharp Dave Denison, Sissy Farenthold, Ronnie Dugger (Emeritus) Lawrence Goodwyn, Jim Hightower, Books & the Culture Is funded in Contributing Writers Subscriptions One year $32, two years part by the City of Austin through Kaye Northcott, Susan Reid In Memoriam the Cultural Arts Division and by a Nate Blakeslee, Gabriela Bocagrande, $59, three years $84. Full-time stu- Robert Bryce, Michael Erard, Bob Eckhardt, 1913-2001, grant from the Texas Commission dents $18 per year; add $13 per year on the Arts.

NOVEMBER 17, 2006 THE TEXAS OBSERVER 3

• POLITICAL INTELLIGENCE Hot Air Rising

THE DOOMSDAY CROCK Christian Zionists flocked to San Antonio's Cornerstone Church the weekend of October 20 to rally around the Israeli You PEOPle Agt, flag and express their undying love for 5 0 00- 0F:7P4ICR _ wrni *WOW T1 1T Jews. The 25th-annual "A Night to Honor .44,11/41.1111411414. YOU' Israel" is now a three-day extravaganza Witte* Morg. WAR tzAQi MOW A= *NJ that includes a fireworks display; an 6r(,),Na 'TO pax.. virrfi "Israel Marketplace" with vendors hawk- nig PROW.* -1cAl 1001‘ jr4 Ti 4C Ailp-7tRi4t ing books like Dangers of a Palestinian agC110/44.57 State; and a "Middle East Intelligence Briefing" led by hawks such as former CIA Director Jim Woolsey. Eager to move beyond his working-class con- gregation of 17,000 and a TV audience of millions who tune into his Sunday sermons, Pastor John Hagee—a porcine man who sits in a wooden throne during church services—launched a lobby organization earlier this year called Christians United for Israel. Quickly dubbed the "Christian AIPAC," after the powerful pro-Israel lobby, the group aims to tap into a growing movement to its feet and drowned Bauer out with weighed in on global warming. He's of American Christians who see Israel roars of approval. dubious. and Jews as keys to fulfilling biblical What of the Palestinians who lay "There is great debate in the scien- prophecy. Christians United for Israel claim to Israeli land? Their existence tific community about whether we are will "speak up and stand up for the was hardly acknowledged, although experiencing man-made global warm- state of Israel," Hagee said at the final each speaker hinted at a "common ing," Perry wrote in a recent Dallas service of the weekend as the collection enemy"-radical Islam. (Hagee claims Morning News op-ed defending his plates circulated. there are 200 million "Islamics" who October 2005 order to "fast-track" Friday's packed event featured the are radical fundamentalists.) On Sunday, permits for most of 19 new coal-fired evangelical leader and wannabe politi- former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin power plants. cian Gary Bauer, who ran for presi- Netanyahu appeared on videotape at Perry also pilloried the environmen- dent in 2000, and Mac Hammond, a Cornerstone and spoke darkly of a "tri- talists providing organizational and megachurch pastor from Minnesota. umphant Islamic empire in which the scientific muscle for the coalition of Hammond reminded the audience of the West would be vanquished." He thanked ranchers, rural homeowners, city offi- biblical basis of their support for Israel, Christian Zionists in America for being cials, and clean-air agitators opposed the "only nation founded by God." more fervent about Israel than most to the coal plants in their current form. "If you bless Israel, you're going to be Jews. Netanyahu didn't discuss the idea An "extreme element of the environ- blessed; if you curse Israel, you're going that a pan-Islamic military force led by mental community," he called them, to be cursed," he said matter-of-factly. Russia's high command is set to invade who "want to return us to the era of Later, Bauer criticized the Israeli gov- Israel. Hagee believes this scenario is horse and buggy—except they would ernment for not recognizing the divinity the biblical Gog and Magog that will probably complain about the methane of its country. Rather than bother with soon hasten the end of time and the gas from horse manure, too." Amusing, the niceties of diplomacy, "I yearn for a rapture that will take the true believers perhaps, but coal critics insist that they prime minister of Israel to simply stand to heaven. are the ones trying to drag Texas into up and say, 'You know what, this land is the 21st century. ours because God gave it to us.'" At this, NOXIOUS EMISSIONS In case you If built, the 19 proposed plants in the racially diverse audience jumped missed it, Gov. Rick Perry has finally Texas would add 120 million tons of

4 THE TEXAS OBSERVER NOVEMBER 17, 2006 global-warming gases to the atmo- outcome-one that science is pointing Mart announced that it would join the sphere annually, the equivalent of put- to more strongly every day-is that Chamber of Commerce "in order to ting 20 million cars on the road. Texas global warming is indeed occurring, strengthen [Wal-Mart's] commitment is already, hold your breath, worst in and if we stick our heads in the sand, to advancing diversity among all of the nation in contributions to global we will pass a point at which we cannot its associate, supplier, and customer warming. correct it. " bases." Benham also castigates Wal- "People are waking up to health Mart for offering Plan B, the contra- issues, they're waking up to global BEELZEBUB-MART It's official: Wal- ceptive morning-after pill recently warming, cities are waking up to the Mart can now lay claim to the title of approved for sale. The Evangelical impact [the plants] will have on their World's Most Hated Retailer. Those activist is instructing Christians to air quality," said Wendi Hammond, on the left have long seen Wal-Mart "come out of the closet" on one of the an environmental attorney. Case in as evil for its abysmal wages, strident busiest shopping days of the year, the point: 21 local governments have anti-unionism, and mistreatment of day after Thanksgiving, to protest at joined the Texas Cities for Clean Air female employees. Communities from Wal-Mart stores. Coalition, including such bastions of California to New York have fought the In fact, there appears to be an over- environmental extremism as Dallas, company, the nation's largest private lap between the right and the left on Houston, Arlington, and El Paso. The employer, because it lays waste to the issue of Wal-Mart's Great Satan coalition wants the Texas Commission mom-and-pop businesses. But now it's status. Recently, a group of foreign on Environmental Quality to require apparently run afoul of God, too. workers, who toil in the sweatshops power plant companies to use the The leader of Dallas-based Oper- that supply Wal-Mart its cheap goods, best available antipollution equipment, ation Save America, Flip Benham, a visited the University of Texas-Austin. which could cut key emissions by 60 to man who this past summer oversaw The workers said that they are forbid- 90 percent. Newer plant designs could the burning of a Koran and a pub- den to unionize, that they are exposed also include, or be retrofitted with, lic memorial service for a formalde- to hazardous chemicals, and that preg- devices that capture carbon instead of hyde-soaked fetus in Mississippi, has nancy is a firing offense. According to releasing it into the atmosphere. The launched Operation Save Wal-Mart. Kate Chen, a former Wal-Mart worker coalition is building up a legal fund to According to Benham, Wal-Mart found- from China, this policy leads young intervene in the permitting process. er Sam Walton once "applied biblical women to get back-alley abortions lest "Skeptics will say that we could be principles to run his business," but they lose their jobs. wrong about global warming and that now his legacy is under attack from we will waste resources and time trying "the radical homosexual agenda." Proof KINKY TO THE LAST Kinky Friedman to correct it," Arlington Mayor Robert of this devilish conspiracy can be bounded to the stage a little after 10 Cluck writes on his Web site. "But found in Wal-Mart's new "partnership" p.m. on election night. His supporters that's actually the best possible with the National Gay and Lesbian had packed Scholz Beer Garten outcome because the worst possible Chamber of Commerce. In August, Wal- —continued on page 29

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NOVEMBER 17, 2006 THE TEXAS OBSERVER 5 FEATURE The Spies of Texas Newfound files detail how UT-Austin police tracked the lives of Sixties dissidents

BY THORNE DREYER

-14

An undated photo shows Allen Hamilton, ormer campus police chief at UT-Austin on the left.

"Even a paranoid can have enemies." — Henry Kissinger of Texas spied on its nonconformist and dissident students. The records—covering a period from approximately 1963 to lien Hamilton kept his files secret until his 1970—show the extensive efforts that campus police made death in 2005, long after his retirement as to identify, watch, and follow students and faculty members campus police chief for the University of whom it found suspicious. Texas at Austin. His son discovered them The files include more than 500 pages of department while cleaning out his father's office. The memos, some from student informers; lists of names of boxes of documents and photos from the campus "dopers" and activists; and photocopies of newspaper A1960s included records of the most horrific event in Chief articles and leaflets. Also included are over 250 surveillance Hamilton's tenure—the August day in 1966 when Charles photographs. The documents reveal that among the subjects Whitman perched atop the UT Tower with a high-powered campus police were monitoring at the time were Janis Joplin, rifle, killing 15 and wounding 33. Graphic photos from the Jerry Jeff Walker, and Richard ("Kinky") Friedman. Whitman archives were made available to newspapers to Some notes are jotted on torn scraps of paper. Others are mark the 40th anniversary of that bloody day. typed memoranda to the chief and reports from Hamilton to But Hamilton's files also provide valuable links to the com- campus administrators. And there are names, lots of names, plex political and social currents that were washing over the probably close to a thousand. Some typed, some scribbled, campus four decades ago. These documents—made public some photocopied from petitions and sign-in sheets collected here for the first time—tell the story of how the University at meetings and rallies.

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Chief Hamilton's files, discovered after his death, include hundreds of photographs and documents detailing surveillance of campus dissidents.

NOVEMBER 17, 2006 THE TEXAS OBSERVER 7 These materials provide a window into a unique era, a for- photos, names are scrawled in the margins; in others, arrows mative period of creativity, iconoclasm, and growing political point to individuals. consciousness that would evolve into a major social move- The files on campus radicals include a list of over 250 ment, one in which Austin played a significant role. They show names of people "associated with SDS" with addresses, phone how the authorities reacted—often overreacted—and how numbers, hometowns, high schools attended, and other back- little they really understood about what was happening in the ground information such as fathers' names and occupations. streets. Much of the material focuses on SDS (the Students for Sometimes they include physical descriptions: Vicky Kirk is a Democratic Society), an organization that became a force a "colored female;" Gary Chason is "growing a beard." There on campus and was the heart of the antiwar and New Left is similar information on the campus Committee to End the movement in Austin and throughout the country. War in Vietnam and other groups. The files on SDS reveal the names of two student inform- Highlighting the administration's somewhat compulsive ers: one, Jeff Gardner, was a treasurer of the local SDS chap- interest in students' sexual activities, there is an entire page ter, though not a significant of background on Thomas leader in the group. The sec- Lee Maddux, "white male... ond, John Economidy, was As a service to readers, the Observer has subject is allegedly heading the Texas Student League for editor of the Daily Texan, indexed and posted online the entire archive the UT student newspaper. Responsible Sexual Freedomf There are signed memos to of former UT-Austin campus police chief Allen The file includes member- Chief Hamilton concerning Hamilton's files. The photographs, surveillance ship lists and other informa- SDS activities from both reports and other records can be found at tion about this group, an insignificant and short-lived of them. Gardner provides www.texasobserver.org detailed accounts of SDS organization. meetings and functions, fac- There are clippings and tional splits, national policy, notes about The Rag, a pio- and the comings and goings of members. neering member of the underground press. They document Economidy was an archconservative. Kaye Northcott, a for- conflicts between Rag vendors and campus police and the mer Observer editor, recounted Economidy's initial appear- administration's move to ban distribution of the underground ance at the Daily Texan in the first issue of the Austin paper on the UT campus. (The Rag sued and eventually the underground paper The Rag in October 1966. He "made a U.S. Supreme Court upheld the paper's free speech rights.) grand entrance into the (Texan) office wearing an Air Force Much of the material in Chief Hamilton's files centers on ROTC uniform and carrying a makeshift swagger stick. He early Austin countercultural figures, musicians and liter- marched to the copy desk, banged the stick on the table rim, ary types, especially those associated with the "Ghetto"—an and announced, 'General John is HERE!'" Economidy ran the old wooden Army barracks in the 2800 block of Nueces on Daily Texan—a newspaper that rabble-rousing editor Willie the west side of campus that was home and/or home base Morris had transformed into the conscience of the university to much of the hipster cognoscenti. The police also seemed a decade earlier—as something resembling an administration focused on the activity of the staff of the Texas Ranger, the PR sheet. campus humor mag that incubated a number of major artistic In one note found in the files, informant Economidy says, and literary talents. "Chief Hamilton---- Here is the list of persons which I prom- Janis Joplin numbered among those that the police asso- ised you" and adds "I'll get you the negatives of the shots I ciated with the Ghetto. In one entry, beside her name are took Tuesday at the latestf In another, he alerts the chief to scribbled the words "...suspected of bringing in amphet- two upcoming rallies and offers further help, providing his amines, Dexedrine, etc." Other members of the Ghetto crowd phone numbers. mentioned in the files are musician Powell St. John, who Today, Economidy lives in San Antonio, where he is a crimi- would be a pioneer of the San Francisco psychedelic rock nal defense attorney specializing in military cases. Reached by scene; cartoonist Gilbert Shelton, who was to create the iconic telephone, he volunteered that he had provided information Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers strip that appeared in The Rag and photographs to Lt. Burt Gerding of the Austin Police and other underground papers all over the world; and the late Department—who worked closely with Chief Hamilton—as William Brammer, a former Observer editor whose book The well as to the campus police. Asked if, in retrospect, he saw Gay Place would be recognized as perhaps the finest novel this as a conflict of interest with his position as editor of the about Texas politics. Daily Texan, he said, "No doubt about it. As a journalist, it Visiting poets Allen Ginsberg and Lawrence Ferlinghetti- definitely was not appropriate." invited for poetry readings—are cited in handwritten notes. Photographs contained in the files appear to be surveillance (Ginsberg is identified as the "hippies poet." About Ferlinghetti, shots of individual activists as well as antiwar and civil rights they haven't a clue.) Other names that pop up in various lists: demonstrations and "happenings" like Gentle Thursday, a (now U.S. Rep.) Lloyd Doggett; former Texas Observer edi- peaceful campus event organized by SDS. On many of the tors Ronnie Dugger (spelled "Deuger") and Kaye Northcott;

8 THE TEXAS OBSERVER NOVEMBER 17, 2006

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This office received information as a result of an article in the /watt* aew*P*Per coaceratag * group of students and nonstudentst (Petsons hanging

around the 'University area), statement, ettri- pomp efl;w call themselves "Deacons fot Defense andpnblic Justice" are tryingis thet to 11,1e7fo.nse organieed,,,Aw"PAs!!4- in Informat on ratite otonty to *pa gesreet in thethat Austin ar**. student, "we believe *trended to a bindsassier to racial tolerance", was supposedles, vase received that a meeting vas held by the following

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wereUtional trying 'Mobilization on 10/21/00 There *rare norepor ted 20.25 students enough to charter bus, SCOTT PTT4Atl, TROOB DtalEIA. and DI\VII) GAAY to partioiPate lu the car. ShNDDA \tiII,B011 has Indicated the le going SIIIkKON POPB euPPosedlY left by Lind to have lett on 10/18/b7 her, 134.10Et 10E bs andin onew3,11 car, take A.e 5 ofp op1 this with date about 9 students r persons hanging around 11100E DRagg are on their whySeveral are reported to identity unknown at this time* camptls such as but their leavlag I0/20/o7 ,19 1/4I't)be . ,... -1() 67 ., Gee to Znd the War in Vietnam At a recent meeting or the a L61 bYCHALIS CAlliiS• above or anization which it was frcm South Waleet LAMaNCE PERLiGdeOlde d to invite was presided CTL;61 1Uhr bRIDJEJ'T URTI from bROPR Y to speak before laosses In Pranclsco Campus, GIIVSBUI4 and ALLEN is known the terse University on The UnIveraity as of the "RIPPiee the Texas at Poet" and a and discussed LSD. No Austin campus PPeared on DicOPHY or nformation la during the Spring' Of FERLICHEM) available at thli

UT-Austin police kept tabs on the political activities and travel plans of students. Contemporary poetry was apparently harder to master.

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Students for a Democratic Society was of a particular interest to campus police, who compiled lengthy lists of supposed members along with detailed biographical information.

Spencer Persian and Kenny Parker of the classic Austin rock heighten when drugs were added to the mix. Yet the fascina- group Shiva's Head Band; folklorist Tary Owens; musicians tion of the police stood in stark contrast to the attitudes of Mance Lipscomb and Jerry Jeff Walker; civil rights leader B. T. these precursors of the counterculture to come. For them, sex Bonner Jr.; numerous lawyers and professors; two rabbis; and was seen as open and natural and no big deal. But that wasn't Yale University Chaplain William Sloan Coffin. the only aspect of the scene that the cops got wrong. As for the Ghetto group in general, the files read that they The Ghetto is characterized on a scrap of notepaper in "float from place to place. Start and end at times at Gilbert Hamilton's files as "a haven for Jews." There are several typed Shelton's, (or the) Unitarian Church?' In another notation: pages of historical analysis of the ghettos in World War II (the "Peyote and drugs used in wild parties on Fri and Sat night. Austin Ghetto was in fact a nondenominational operation and Most of the wild crowd members of the Ranger staff." was in no way related to the history of the Jewish people) and The files contain a photocopy of an April 18, 1963, article a psychoanalytical take on the Ghetto's denizens, calling them from the Austin American-Statesman that perfectly relates "individuals lost in the world" with "egocentric impulsiveness," how clueless the authorities really were. The story describes "deviant sexual patterns," and a "rejection of authority and a "shakedown of local beatniks" (this one by the Austin police discipline:' It also grumbles that they were, well, just "irritat- vice squad) in which "they spotted several, spoke to a few and ing and distressing." bagged zero." It reports that "several girls, spotted leaving one of the apartments tagged as a beatnik hangout, scattered in all was in Austin during this time of ferment, active with directions?' The article adds that parties were thought to be SDS and a founding editor of The Rag. My name and pic- getting out of hand and informs that, according to the dean ture appear more than once in these files. I had friends of student life, "local beats are currently getting their kicks who lived in the Ghetto, and also had friends shot by CharlesI Whitman. Sandra Wilson survived, as did Claire from peyote cactus;' which, as one officer observed, "makes you dream in Technicolor?' Wilson (no relation), but her unborn child did not. One document in the collection describes a female student So when friend and former colleague Alice Embree for- thought to "use peyote ... and other drugs, very sexually pro- warded an e-mail from Steve Leach in the Half Price Books miscuous and believed to have nymphomaniac tendencies;' corporate office in Dallas offering first access to Chief and another woman is also labeled as "sexually promiscuous:' Hamilton's surveillance files, you can bet I was interested. The authorities' apparent titillation with sex appeared to After discovering the files, Hamilton's son arranged to sell

10 THE TEXAS OBSERVER NOVEMBER 17, 2006 The documents include typed and handwritten notes referring to suspicious characters like Janis Joplin, Jerry Jeff Walker, and Richard "Kinky" Friedman. them to Half Price Books, which specializes in buying and Scott of People's History in Texas filmed the activity for a reselling used books and other printed materials. The com- documentary being produced on the history of The Rag. pany is itself a product of the sixties ferment, founded in a converted Dallas laundromat in 1972 by Ken Gjemre and Pat here were so many different groups that came togeth- Anderson. The operation has grown to 90 outlets in 14 states, er during that time: artists, writers, activists, musi- but in many ways it retains the spirit of its founders. cians, motorcyclists, humorists, dope fiends, cavers, "Our buyers recognized that this was not an ordinary buy chemists—iconoclasts who came together on civil and that its historical value trumped any monetary value rights, the war in Vietnam, and their right to be themselves," it would have as merchandise," said Leach. "We felt that the remembers Pepi Plowman, a part of the Ghetto crowd whose appropriate action was to return the papers to UT." name appears in the files. "The UT cops just saw all this as a The owners of Half Price Books arranged to donate the threat." files to the Center for American History at the University of The police used this notion of a threat to justify constant Texas at Austin. They immediately delivered those related to harassment, much of which involved drug busts and rumors the Whitman shootings but decided to hold off on delivery of drug busts. Because many of those targeted were nonstu- of the additional materials documenting surveillance of dents and lived off campus, it was often the Austin police who campus activists. They felt that, according to Leach, these did the dirty work. And sometimes perceived harassment was papers had special value "as a representation of an early era more creative: According to Clementine Hall, who was mar- in a movement that has had a great influence on politics and ried to lyricist and jug virtuoso Tommy Hall of the legendary culture ever since." And they worried that the papers would, in Thirteenth Floor Elevators, "at least twice, city fumigation essence, be buried at the library if donated immediately. trucks pulled up to the back of the Ghetto and sprayed pesti- So the management of Half Price Books decided to locate cide directly on us." a representative of the activist movement in Austin and to Nicholas Hopkins, who taught in the UT Anthropology provide access to the materials prior to delivering them to the Department, learned from a friend who worked in the cam- university. They found Alice Embree, former SDS leader and pus police office that he was suspected of being a dope dealer Rag staffer. Alice contacted me and I made arrangements with because of his "frequent trips to Mexico?' His jaunts south Leach. We then took a crew to Dallas, where we spent several of the border were, in fact, for academic work. "That was my hours scanning and photocopying the entire collection. Glenn area of research." He still believes that this speculation created

NOVEMBER 17, 2006 THE TEXAS OBSERVER 11 ykf,ivt" 5c4NQAttA,

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Activist Alice Embree sent this facetious postcard to Hamilton, knowing her activities were often tracked by police. a cloud over him and was a factor in his not being granted remembers moving into a new ground-floor apartment on tenure at the university. Rio Grande with low windows opening onto an alley in back. The tall, balding Hamilton—who was police chief until "It was our first day there and we were sitting around on the 1970 when he went to work as a security consultant for the UT floor talking when, lo and behold, we see Gerding's face float system—was called a "happy-go-lucky campus cop, friend of slowly by in an unmarked police car, his face craning up so he the athletes and pretty girls," by Southwest Scene magazine, but could see into the room." After Gerding cruised the alley twice the Whitman shootings are said to have had a sobering effect more, Gary went outside and asked him what he was doing on his personality. there. "Well, everybody has to be somewhere," he chuckled. Hamilton's campus cops worked intimately with the Austin Former Austin radical Scott Pittman remembers a Texas Police Department and other agencies. In return, Lt. Burt Ranger commenting to him: "Burt Gerding plays you guys Gerding, Austin's "red squad" cop, coordinated closely with like a fiddle." When the members of the psychedelic rock band Chief Hamilton but, as one activist recently observed, also the Thirteenth Floor Elevators were busted in January 1966 looked on him with a dash of condescension, viewing him as for possession of marijuana, rock historian Paul Drummond something of a greenhorn. Gerding, a wry, lanky gent with a recalls that band founder Tommy Hall just couldn't believe it. winning style, is an Austin legend. Omnipresent, with a con- "He thought Gerding would tip him off." tinually amused look and an almost "aw shucks" demeanor, he Gerding, now approaching 80 and in failing health, lives was the town's one-man "Good Cop, Bad Cop:' in the Delwood section of east Austin. In an interview, he Gerding was at every meeting and event held by campus boasted that he always had informers in SDS and other activ- radicals, always with his ironic smile, greeting everybody by ist groups. "If you had a meeting, I had a quorum there. They name. He loved to startle people with the information he had lived among you," Gerding recalled. He looked upon us as about them. He would offer tidbits of inside scoops or warn "the enemy" because "you started the cultural revolution, and of impending dope raids, always implying that he was really I felt strongly about my culture?' on their side. Former campus activist Robert Pardun, author He still blames us for the breakdown of traditional American of Prairie Radical: A Journey Through the Sixties, remembers values, but added "I don't consider you the enemy any more:'. a late-night SDS group skinny-dip at Hamilton's Pool, an One reason the campus cops and the city police were so historic swimming hole near Austin. "A few days later, Lt. sensitive about dissent in Austin, and collaborated so closely, Gerding approached (participant) Alice (Embree) and, with may have been the political climate of the time and the desire a wink, announced he had some real nice infrared photos of to avoid potential embarrassments for President Lyndon the event:' Baines Johnson. "The Chairman of the UT Board of Regents, Campus SDS leader Gary Thiher, now a philosophy professor, Frank Erwin, was also a honcho in the Democratic Party,"

12 THE TEXAS OBSERVER NOVEMBER 17, 2006 reflects Alice Embree. "I think the UT police had such a close agencies had significant overlapping domestic surveillance relationship with other agencies—DPS, the FBI, the Secret programs. According to former military intelligence officer Service—because of the presidential spotlight. There we were Christopher H. Powell, who now teaches constitutional law in the streets, protesting Lyndon's war and trying to integrate at Mount Holyoke College, U.S. Army Intelligence had a net- the dorm where his daughter lived." work of 1,500 agents dispersed throughout the country and One case that brought Austin and campus police together, maintained files on more than a million American citizens. but also threatened to drive them apart, was the murder of The IRS was involved in "counter-subversive" intelligence militant activist George Vizard. Respected and well liked by operations, had massive files, and shared them with other those who knew him, Vizard had a genuine dedication to agencies. The CIA conducted significant domestic spying, social change and a ready sense of humor. He was also prob- targeted SDS, SNCC, the Black Panther Party, and a number ably the most visible and volatile of Austin's radical activists, of other organizations and had a substantial campus presence proudly proclaiming his membership in the Communist with agents among the faculty and administration. Texas was Party. He was arrested several times and was in a number of no exception. altercations with authorities. If one were to have picked some- The big kid on the block, however, was the FBI, with its one in the Austin left to target as an example, he would have secret Counterintelligence Program (COINTELPRO). Set been the likely choice. up in 1956, its mission was to "expose, disrupt, misdirect, Vizard worked at a convenience store, and it was there, in a discredit, or otherwise neutralize." The prime target of this frozen food locker, that his body was found on July 23, 1967. activity became the New Left and the black power move- He had one bullet in his left bicep and another in his back. ment. In War at Home: Covert Action Against U.S. Activists, It would take 14 years for a former employee of the store, a Brian Glick says the four main methods of operation were: mentally unstable campus character named Robert Zani, to infiltration; psychological warfare from the outside; harass- be convicted of the killing. ment through the legal system; and extralegal force and Vizard and Chief Hamilton had a confrontational relation- violence. "They resorted to the secret and systematic use ship, and according to Democratic political consultant Kelly of fraud and force to sabotage constitutionally protected Fero's The Zani Murders, Hamilton was alleged to have threat- political activity." ened Vizard's life. Initially, Austin police considered Hamilton The FBI's far-reaching program was, in many cases, extreme- a suspect in the case. Hamilton's papers reveal that Robert ly effective and is credited with being a substantial factor in Zani had a relationship with the police and was an informant the collapse of SDS, the underground press, and the New Left in at least one narcotics case (information previously revealed as a whole. These activities became public after the passage of in Fero's book). Questions about what motivated Robert Zani the Freedom of Information Act of 1974. to kill George Vizard linger to this day. In the documentary film Rebels With a Cause, former SDS George's widow, Mariann Wizard (she changed the "V" to national secretary Mike Spiegel recounts what he learned a "W") puts it this way: "The memo in which Chief Hamilton after obtaining his FBI files: J. Edgar Hoover had specifically describes Zani's volunteering as a narc raises the enduring instructed agents to follow him 24 hours a day and further question: was Zani a 'lone nut' or a missile aimed at the heart ordered them to "promptly furnish your suggestions as to of Austin's antiwar movement?" how Spiegel might be most effectively neutralized." Alice Embree called Lt. Burt Gerding's house the morning "What was frightening," said Spiegel, "was that the term neu- that George Vizard's body was found. She recalls the lieuten- tralize could mean anything ... all the way up to killing me." ant saying to her, "I always told you this kind of thing was dan- Glick points out that "close coordination with local police gerous?' "Gerding may have just been rattling cages," she says, and prosecutors was strongly encouraged" by the FBI. "but [his] message was that George's politics had put him in Indeed, the Hamilton files documented visits to Austin by danger. And that that would apply to the rest of us as well." movement activists from elsewhere in Texas and contained numerous references to national leaders such as Spiegel and he spying on Austin radicals revealed in the Hamilton Austin's own Jeff Shero (later Jeff Shero Nightbyrd), who was files was hardly isolated. Over the years we have a national vice president of SDS. learned the magnitude of surveillance efforts by local, In the Sixties, we looked over our shoulders a lot. Even T state, and federal agencies—the IRS and CIA and when we weren't on drugs. military intelligence—against those of us involved in the anti- We always thought we were being watched, followed, wire- war activism and countercultural lifestyles of the Sixties and tapped, photographed. We were certain that there were infil- Seventies. And we discovered the mind-boggling work of the trators and informers and provocateurs. FBI, with its coordinated efforts not only to keep tabs on the We just didn't know how right we were. ■ New Left, but also to destroy it by whatever means necessary. We learned that in addition to campus radicals, the increas- Thorne Dreyer was a founder and editor of the Sixties ingly influential underground press movement became a fre- underground newspapers The Rag and Space City! and quent target of the authorities. managed Houston's Pacifica radio station KPFT. He is a During the Sixties and Seventies, a number of government freelance writer and lives in Austin.

NOVEMBER 17, 2006 THE TEXAS OBSERVER 13 COMMENTARY I BY MOLLY IVINS Start With Basics

he sheer pleasure of getting lessons in etiquette from Karl Rove and the right-wing media pass- eth all understanding. Ever So after 12 years of since 1994, the Republican MirParty has gone after Democrats with tolerating lying, the frenzy of a foaming mad dog. There was the impeachment of Bill Clinton, not to mention the trashing of both cheating, and corruption, Clinton and his wife—accused of everything from selling drugs to murder—all orchestrated by that paragon of man- the press is prepared ners, Tom DeLay. Media Matters, a national Web operation that analyzes misinformation in to lecture Democrats the news, collected some gems of fair- ness. For instance, Monica Crowley with MSNBC, in the wake of John Kerry's on how to behave with botched program, astutely observed "how lucky we are that he was not elect- bipartisan manners. ed president ... The Republicans remain the grown-ups, the responsible ones on national security?' How many dead Americans has this grown-up war caused? labor agenda is dependent on him? I have noticed that when Republicans And how darling of Fox's Juan These people are not only dishon- are forced to talk about how to end this, Williams, upon learning polls showed est—they're not even smart. Not that I they tend to announce it's all hopeless: the people favor Democrats on taxes, to recommend nailing them at every turn, They have no ideas at all. Thanks, guys. say, "To me, that's crazy?' but I wouldn't be surprised if they try to Of all the options, I would say splitting And how many times did Chris do it to Democrats. If what Republicans Iraq into three states is least advisable. Matthews use the Republican tallcing have been practicing is bipartisanship, First, it puts us in the position of screw- points about Nancy Pelosi? Extremist, West Texas just flooded. ing the Kurds again. Second, Turkey has uncooperative, incapable, unwilling to OK, here's what the D's have going serious objections to a Kurdistan. Third, work with the president. for them. New kids. Easy, popular first Turkey is not a militia. Fourth, you give So after 12 years of tolerating lying, moves—for example, increasing the Iran and Saudi Arabia a pawn apiece. cheating, and corruption, the press is minimum wage. Republicans so inept And there'd be an unimaginable amount prepared to lecture Democrats on how that it's painful. You want to look at of future hassle. to behave with bipartisan manners. some really, really basic legislation, try Do I have any good ideas? Yes, but not Given Bush's record with the truth, fixing the Medicare prescription-drug a solution. this bipartisanship sounds like a bad bill. Or the bankruptcy bill. Or the We need to start the Middle East idea on its face. Go back to the first nation's dollar and trade policies. peace process again. Because it's the year of the administration, when Bush Then we get to the real meat of this right thing to do. Because it's what Bush double-crossed Ted Kennedy in the No election. There are all manner of shuffle should have done to begin with. Because Child Left Behind Act. Think about it: steps and politically shrewd things for we have to start somewhere. ■ You've said at the outset of your admin- the D's to do. But now is not the time istration that you need cooperation to to be clever. The Democrats won this Molly Ivins is a nationally syndicated get anything done. Then you double- election because we are involved in a columnist. Her most recent book with Lou cross one of the senior senators of the disastrous war. We know how to do this: Dubose is Bushwhacked: Life in George other party when your re-education and Declare victory, and go home. W. Bush's America (Random House).

14 THE TEXAS OBSERVER NOVEMBER 17, 2006 COMMENTARY I BY JIM HIGHTOWER Heartsick in Bangalore

ust when you think that Republican leaders passed a bill to erect in-chief is clueless about the culture globalization can't get a 700-mile wall along the Mexico border . of Islamic people. That's no surprise, any more ludicrous— That'll slam the door on the problem, because George W has the intellectual and that America's won't it? curiosity of a butter bean. But what'll health-care policies can't No. First of all, the border is 2,000 really give you gas is realizing that most get anymore ridiculous— miles long, not 700. Did it not occur to of the Bushite counterterrorism offi- along come corporate profiteers with our stalwart leaders that the "coyotes" cials also don't know beans about their a cockamamie scheme to globalize our (the border-crossing guides who hire enemy. health care! out to escort Mexicans across the bor- Jeff Stein, the national security editor Already, X-rays and medical tests are der) will merely move into the gaps? at Congressional Quarterly, has recently being offshored to India, but this scheme Second, while our Congress loudly been asking these officials a rather fun- goes farther, taking a flying leap into the crowed about passing the bill, it pro- damental question: "Do you know the surreal. Instead of sending your tests vided no money to build the wall. Not difference between a Sunni and a Shiite?" to India, they want to send you there. a dime! Nor did lawmakers deal with Because the Sunni-Shiite culture clash Corporations are now asking workers such touchy problems as having to con- is a 1,400-year-old conflict that is now who need serious operations to fly 7,000 demn private property for the fence playing out in a civil war in Iraq, with miles for treatments in low-cost Indian and coping with rough terrain that's our soldiers trapped in the middle, an hospitals. I've heard of doctors being not suitable for sustaining such a mas- understanding of this difference is cru- distant, but this is absurd. sive structure. Also, they didn't actually cial to the war. Let's say you have a heart condition mandate that the thing be built, instead The head of the FBI's national secu- or need a back operation. Your com- delegating that decision to the home- rity branch agreed that it is important pany can get your surgery done in India land security czar. for a man in his position to know the 80% cheaper than your local hospital Third, and most significant, a fence difference ... but he didn't. He could will do it—but do you really want to be does nothing about the root causes not even tell whether neighboring Iran loaded on a plane for a 20-hour flight of immigration. "They'll either go is Sunni or Shiite—a rather critical to Bangalore? through it, over it, or under it," says a distinction. And, what if something goes wrong? South Texas rancher with long experi- Likewise, Rep. Jo Ann Davis, who Who is responsible, and what are your ence watching people cross the border. heads the subcommittee overseeing rights under Indian laws? That's because the combo of staggering much of the CIA's work in Islamic Like it or not, however, corporations poverty and innovative human spirit countries, was stumped by Stein's ques- are pushing the offshore option. The will propel people to seek a better life. tion: "The Sunni are more radical than U.S.-India Business Council exults that Until that poverty is addressed, no fence the Shia. Or vice versa," she said. Also sending patients abroad promises to and no amount of congressional hot air stumbling was Rep. Terry Everett, head "deliver big advantages for both Indian will make a difference in the desperate of a subcommittee on tactical intel- and U.S. business?' Well, now, isn't that flow of immigration. ligence: "I thought it was differences just dandy for business? But—hello- Indeed, all along the border area, the in their religion, different families or what the hell about patients!?! very idea of the fence is so despised something," he answered. Then Terry Luckily, the steelworkers union has by Anglos and Mexicans alike that it's said: "Now that you've explained it to geared up to block the exportation of angrily referred to as the Berlin Wall, me, what occurs to me is that it makes workers to hospitals in India or else- designed to keep Mexicans in and divide what we're doing over there extremely where, calling the scheme a "shock- friends, family, neighbors, and trading difficult." ing" abuse. It's time to fix America's partners from each other. Meanwhile, Golly, Terry...really? Shouldn't you sick health-care system—not ship our local folks are doubly riled by the bitter have thought about that 2,800 lives and people abroad to get care. irony that if the fence ever is built, the $373 billion ago? ■ job will probably go to Halliburton and GOOD NEIGHBORS, BAD FENCE be constructed by illegal Mexican labor. Jim Hightower is a speaker and author. By gollies, our Congress critters have To order his books or schedule him for a finally done something about ille- OUR CLUELESS WAR LEADERS speech, visit www.jimhightower.com. To gal immigration! Just in time for A major reason that Bush's Iraq war is subscribe to his newsletter, the Hightower November's congressional elections, the such a disaster is that the commander- Lowdown, call toll-free 1 - 866- 271 - 4900.

NOVEMBER 17, 2006 THE TEXAS OBSERVER 15 OPEN FORUM I BY ERNESTO CORTES JR. Habits of Democracy

ur recent quadrenni- dynamic economic growth, but histori- at providing the data that will enable al electronic plebiscite cally these were buffered by corpora- the gurus of information technology to for gubernatorial and tions, which shared risks; by the gov- overwhelm us with images that activate other statewide offic- ernment, which created a social safety our impulses. es registered a new net; by unions and churches, which Properly understood, democracy is wrinkle that is unfor- helped mitigate the costs of change; a set of practices. It requires skills that tunately a bit of a throwback to "Two and by the neighborhoods in which enable people to engage one another 0 about their experiences, their hopes, Governors for the price of one" or "Pass all these institutions were imbedded. the biscuits Pappy." This time, Texas Today's changes and disruptions are their dreams, and what they expect from voters were subjected to debates about much more cumulative in nature, and their government. The word democracy nicknames on the ballot, ads featuring are compounded by a lack of institu- comes from two Greek words: demos a candidate as a giant walking through tions willing or able to help absorb the (the people) and krotia (to rule). Krotia town, Gov. Good Hair protecting Texas costs. Rather than strengthen the safety means to rule, not to select, to choose, from terrorists, racism disguised as net, our government leadership focuses or to merely cast a ballot. Democracy humor, and, by the way, "Can I sell my on ensuring that corporations are assist- presumes the existence of both reflec- merchandise at your event?" ed in their efforts to keep heads above tion and context among its practitioners. My critique is not about a particular water. Coupled with the misdirection It expects people to reflect on their candidate, but rather about the climate from campaign experts, this increas- own experiences in the light of those and culture we have created around ing sense of dislocation and frustration of others, rather than rushing to judg- our political process. What passes for with the turbulence of the marketplace ment based on instinct. Democracy pre- campaigns today are nothing more leaves people disoriented and vulner- sumes that people are clear about their than marketing strategies in which able to the demagogues of hate who interests, rather than operating based the approach is the same as when we tell them their struggles are the fault of on impulses. The very notion of inter- are trying to convince consumers to immigrants, homosexuals, high taxes, ests comes from the Greek word inter- choose Coke over Pepsi. or terrorists. When the media choose resse—to be among and between. So to Both major parties (as well as inde- to parrot these messages and call them really know our interests, we must be pendents) are increasingly contract- (( news," they exacerbate the problem. engaged in relationships and embedded ing out their voter-education and get- To the extent that issues are addressed in communities. Unfortunately, these out-the-vote strategies. Technology in campaigns, the emphasis is on what skills of "public life," of conversation, has taken the concept of mass mail the "experts" tell us. Do economists of debate, and of compromise are no and applied it to prerecorded phone think we can afford this program? What longer widely taught in our institu- calls and e-mail blasts. Polls and focus do the successful business leaders say tions and our neighborhoods. It was groups determine a candidate's "mes- about how we should run our schools? in our mediating institutions—schools, sage" demographic group by demo- Studies show... Statistics indicate... The unions, settlement homes, houses of graphic group with razor-fine distinc- more politicians rely on technology worship, and other community cen- tions. and experts to chart their paths, the ters—that we were taught the habits and The campaign experts appeal to our less engaged, the more complacent, the practices requisite for active citizenship pre-politicalness: to our anxieties, our more apathetic, and the more depressed and a vibrant democratic culture. fears, and our insecurities. They focus voters become. Or maybe that's just me. These same institutions also helped us on mobilizing us around our impulses, There is nothing inherently wrong understand how our interests were con- which are disconnected from our inter- with experts. We have to think about nected to something larger than our- ests and our values, and even from our them as Arthur Okun described the selves, what Walt Whitman and Ralph needs—particularly from the needs of market: Both the market and experts Waldo Emerson referred to as public our children, our families, and our have their place, but they must be kept piety. This recognition of a larger vision communities. in place. and reality requires courage and imagi- Increasingly, the volatility of the mar- Democracy should not be a system nation. It requires an awareness and ket is leaving low-income and mid- in which we periodically express our understanding of cultural and historical dle-class families trying to navigate preferences to experts who then imple- contexts. turbulent waters on their own. There ment their own agenda. Nor should Today the habits of democracy are have always been costs associated with it be a series of focus groups aimed developed, and our vision is expanded,

16 THE TEXAS OBSERVER NOVEMBER 17, 2006 only when institutions can revive their of labor. Three hundred leaders then requisite for the flourishing of human- narratives of traditions and of peoples returned home with curricula outlines, ity. Saul Alinsky used to say that people who have done great deeds and spoken transcripts, and compact discs so they who have the capacity to understand great words. Properly understood, this could conduct training sessions in the both the issues and their own interests is what we mean by traditions: the liv- context of stories from their individual will make the right decision the vast ing ideas of the dead. Without context communities. They began organizing majority of the time: creating a demo- and interpretation, there is no narra- sessions in their local public schools, cratic culture that makes possible the tive, and no opportunity for people to houses of worship, and other compromise of American life. ■ develop the skills of public life and the munity institutions. Their goal was to trust necessary for collaborative action. counter the anti-public sector rhetoric Ernesto Cortes Jr. is the executive director The bits of stories that people think of the far right by identifying and link- of the Southwest Region of the Industrial they know are void of meaning, and ing people from all political parties Areas Foundation. become the dead ideas of the living, or who identify themselves as moderates traditionalism. Traditionalism leaves us and knitting them together in con- with words and pieces of stories used versations about the interests of their to mask agendas and realities that have families and communities. been fabricated to serve the interests Two subsequent sessions in Texas were of oftentimes selfish power brokers. In organized in January and September contrast, when we operate and act with- 2006, preparing an additional 1,200 in our traditions of faith and democracy, leaders to teach civic academies tai- we can create our own reality and fulfill lored to issues of concern to families in the democratic promise. Texas—with a particular emphasis on One of the tenets of the broad-based tax systems and property appraisal caps. Industrial Areas Foundation network At the September session, the former of community organizations in Texas chair of the governor's Commission has always been the Iron Rule: Never Austin's Largest Selection of on Tax Reform praised the leaders for International Folk Art, ever do for others what they can do for teaching the commission the intricacies Silver jewelry and Textiles themselves. The Iron Rule isn't social of tax structures during hearings in the Darwinism; it isn't root hog or die. The spring of 2006. He credited their work Iron Rule says that we have to help for helping dissuade the commission FOLK ART & OTHER TREASURES FROM AROUND THE WORLD 209 CONGRESS AVE•AUSTIN 512/479 - 8377; 0 people develop good judgment and the from a sales tax increase in favor of a \OPEN DAILY 10-6 ,www.tesoros.comZ12,4 competencies and skills requisite for broad-based business tax. effective participation in public life. In For these community leaders, the the spirit of the Populist Party in Texas, experience of developing their own we always believed that ordinary citi- expertise was transformative. They are Sale zens have the capacity to become their no longer willing to passively accept the am ale own experts, to understand complex messages of the experts, the media, and issues, and to develop an understand- the politicians. What does that experi- ing of their own interests. Our leaders ence have to say to the rest of us? The Manos de Cristo refer to their organizations as "uni- real question is whether we, as people TAMALE SALE 2006! versities of public life," in which they who care about children, families, com- not only develop the skills of negotia- munities, and a dignified workplace, We are a mission that provides tion, debate, and collaboration, but also have the patience to create opportuni- service to the working poor. analyze issues related to public policy ties and investments in the capacity Help someone today - and the role of government, educate of ordinary people. Will we invest the themselves, and then go out to teach time, energy, and money to re-create eat tamales! A tasty way to the issues in their neighborhoods and our democratic institutions: our schools, support your community. communities. our unions, our congregations, and our Order hot tamales now In the fall of 2005, more than 300 community organizations? The univer- through Dec.4 people from foundation-affiliated sal that "all politics is local" shouldn't Pick up on Dec.8 community organizations throughout be translated into NIMBYism (Not In Texas and its neighboring states con- My Backyard). We should accept the 4 flavors - $9 per dozen vened in Dallas to develop training challenge of engaging our local political sessions on topics such as taxation; the institutions—our school boards, our Call 477-7454 or email role of the public sector; understanding city councils and our county commis- [email protected] markets; and globalization and the role sioners—with a global vision of what is

NOVEMBER 17, 2006 THE TEXAS OBSERVER 17 LAS AMERICAS Let Them Eat Microcredits BY BEATRICE EDWARDS

1111 his may be hard to believe, microloans, in amounts from $50 to affordable way to send a pay-cheque but in the dreary masculine $200, to groups of borrowers, typi- home, can make all the difference to world of Third World eco- cally five women. Two of the five women a poor or low-income family. With nomic development, fash- use these initial loans to improve their access to microfinance, they can earn ions come and go with the microbusinesses: microkiosks, micro- more, build up assets, and better pro- frequency and hype of ris- gardens, microrepair, micro-etc. Bank tect themselves against unexpected ing and dropping skirt lengths. We've staff and other members of the group setbacks and losses. They can move seen import substitution, export pro- keep a sharp eye on the way they use the beyond day-to-day survival towards motion, rural integration, and priva- money. If they begin to repay the loan planning for the future. They can invest tization burst onto the scene, explode, over the next six weeks, at an interest in better nutrition, housing, health, backfire, and then fizzle. Usually not rate of 16 percent (or higher), the other and education for their children. In quite fast enough though. Inevitably, three women in the group then become short, they can break the vicious cycle each craze lives on well past its use- eligible for loans. Peer pressure, in effect, of poverty." Kofi adds, inaugurating fulness—if in fact it ever had any— becomes collateral. Grameen reports the "UN Year of Microcredit." Paul until the next fad comes along. But astounding repayment rates—upwards Wolfowitz chimes in, addressing the after a number of lackluster seasons of 95 percent. Thus the polite applause Father of Microcredit: "It was with with few appealing new styles, this year from the approving rich people. great joy that I learned today that the we're all celebrating the fabulous new Unfortunately for the promoters and Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to Muhammad Yunus collection, featur- the clients of Grameen, however, the you and the Grameen Bank. Your coming Grameen Bank, microcredit, and bank has had little impact on poverty. mitment to microcredit and poverty "development from below." Yunus, the With nearly universal coverage of the reduction in Bangladesh has had an founder of Grameen, received the Nobel villages in Bangladesh, the country still enormous impact. Likewise, Grameen's Peace Prize last month as the Father of has the highest poverty rate in South strong support for the role of women Microcredit. Asia—nearly 138 million poor. Fifteen and poor people in the economy and Actually, our excitement for the percent of the population are seriously society over the past 30 years is now Grameen Bank has been building for malnourished, and Bangladesh still global best practice." some time. This institution, based in lacks even rudimentary social services However, the Grameen method is Bangladesh, provides collateral-free throughout most of the country. simply not all it's cracked up to be. microloans to poor people (usually Of course, it isn't realistic to expect Microcredit, as others have pointed women), allowing them to improve their that a single nongovernmental orga- out, does not break "the vicious cycle microbusinesses and lift themselves nization, or even a large commercial of poverty." Rather, it allows people out of the macropoverty that currently bank, could single-handedly address to subsist in it a little better for a little engulfs them. Grameen helps "the poor- and diminish poverty on a national longer. This, in itself, is of course a est of the poor" and this year has 6.67 scale over a couple of decades, is it? major achievement, but let's be honest. million borrowers and 2,247 branches, But astonishingly, this is exactly what Grameen does not actually address the covering nearly 90 percent of the vil- Grameen and boosters such as Kofi needs of "the poorest of the poor." The lages in Bangladesh. Grameen micro- Annan and Paul Wolfowitz, the UN poorest people do not have microki- credit has become a true trend, with Secretary General and the World Bank osks, bamboo businesses, or bicycle replicated banks in Uganda, Zimbabwe, President respectively, claim for it. The repair shops. They have the clothes on and Bolivia, among other places. The hype is amazingly grandiose: "Lasting their backs and a handful of mealie- bank has also attracted the endorsement peace cannot be achieved unless large meal if they're lucky. There are roughly of USAID, the World Bank, Monsanto, population groups find ways in which a billion of them, according to the UN Johnson and Johnson, Citigroup, the to break out of poverty. Microcredit and the World Bank, and Grameen Gates Foundation, and the Rockefellers. is one such means. Development from never gets near them. Holy cow! If you're poor and you get below also serves to advance democracy In addition, if you are a microbusi- a look at a lineup like that, you would . and human rights," states the Grameen ness owner, a $50 loan is never going be well advised to read the fine print. Web site. to make you a macrobusiness owner. It Here's how it works: Grameen makes "A small loan, a savings account, an isn't even going to make you a normal-

18 THE TEXAS OBSERVER NOVEMBER 17, 2006 Something is wrong when a few individuals are able to appropriate wealth equivalent to that of a micronation, dole it out in $50 dribs and drabs to the deserving poor, and then collect interest. Sounds too much like Marie Antoinette also in style this year.

sized business owner. You are stuck vides no services: no marketing help, should they pay them to tacky middle- being a teeny business owner forever, no education or training, no infra- men in beat-up trucks when they could and here's why. Let's zoom in on, say, structure. Why not? Because that stuff pay usurious interest directly to People rural Guyana, an unfortunate former costs real money. Like Us? English colony on the north coast of This is not to say that the Grameen Jackpot! Half a billion people with South America, where a group of about method is worthless—only that it is $100 loans, paying annual interest at- five women stands in a sand pit outside a stopgap measure, useful until real say-50 percent. Admittedly, these are a village. Between them, they have change comes about. Mr. Yunus fully cocktail napkin calculations, but this a couple of five-foot-square tattered deserves recognition for helping a lot looks like a pantload of money to me. screens tacked to wood frames and of people live a little more comfort- It's not surprising that one of the advo- propped up with sticks. It is about one ably. The harm comes when the idea of cates of microfinance is Pierre Omidyar, hundred degrees, and the women don't microcredit is misapplied and appropri- founder of eBay. This is a man who fig- have much food or water because it no ated as a panacea by those who ought ured out that the rubbish in your attic longer rains when it should. They do to be responsible for really reducing is worth something and, using info have a shovel or two with splintered poverty— like the World Bank and the tech, turned it into money. When he handles and loose, rusty blades. Using world's rich. Predictably, this is exactly took eBay public, he got $10 billion. this equipment, they are mining for what has happened. The Internet and information tech- gold. They spell each other pitching As rich people became aware that nology generally are turning up great sand at the screens. The sand itself goes you could lend to poor people and they huge pots of money that were previ- through the screens and the small gold would pay you back at high interest ously unreachable. Loans to the poor nuggets drop to the ground. Once a rates, they became increasingly inter- were not, shall we say, interesting 10 week, a man comes out in a truck and ested in Grameen. You could almost years ago because we couldn't keep track buys the gold crumbs for a pittance. A hear their mental calculations, as the of them—the paperwork alone was $100 loan is going to get the women slot machines in their heads turned up worth more than the loan. But with low- some new shovels and screens—it may matching fruits. The obvious question cost high tech, we can now keep Miss help them through a couple of bad formed: If poor people pay back their Lakshmi and her depressing cousin, Miss weeks when one or two of them are loans, why not make money from them? Vandaniya, in our sights all week long. sick—but it's not going to get them out This is a fashion whose time has come: We can even pay some poor people to of the pit. Microcredit doesn't train If microcredit works, why not microfi- keep track of the rest of them by giving you to do anything else or even to do nance? Just think of it! We could make them cell phones. Whoops, 'scuse me. what you're doing more efficiently. It bigger fortunes than we already have! Lending them cell phones. According to smoothes over the rough spots in what After all, poor people are used to paying the New Yorker, Stanley Fisher, former you're already doing. Grameen pro- exceedingly high interest rates. Why —continued on page 29

NOVEMBER 17, 2006 THE TEXAS OBSERVER 19 POETRY I BY NAOMI SHIHAB NYE

FOR MOLLY IVINS

Well, sometimes we just grew desperate MOLLY MOLLY MOLLY. For a simple word like True. So few people embodied it anymore. Wherever I go I say When you found one who did I'm not from the state of GWB, You wanted to circle round, like a campfire, I'm from the state of MOLLY. In the dark, in the very very dark, And listen till the coyotes wrapped their cries And people cheer. In Minnesota they cheer. In sleepy sacks and went to bed. In California, Oregon, DC, all over the whole place. It's like, we still have a few treasures left down here. The sound of True reminded everyone What a Brain and mouth was supposed to do. Molly — her voice pokes through the swirling malaise -- No one could ever have guessed Stakes out the territory. Lights it up with We would be so lonesome for it, right about now. Sense. Sentences. Brevity, beauty, kick in the ass Uplift, she The doubts some of us had At the crack of the 21st century Rescues the days. The century that started with so many zeroes So many empty eyes staring back at us Restores Had quickly been confirmed. Clarity.

What had we learned in all those years? Says, Uh, wait a minute, I wouldn't be so sure...

This is not an easy job. Molly lays out facts Everywhere we listened, forests of With a neat hand and calls us BELOVEDS HAKI FAWTHI — empty talk, in Arabic — On the way. such a useful phrase -- And something shines in the near distance again. were springing up. Like a pond we dreamed of reaching. Something sparkles. It's not gone. Despite the drought. She's a beam on a miner's cap. Whole acres of Haki Fawthi surrounded the cozy home Even when the miners aren't doing very well. places we once knew. She's the beacon in the tunnel. Made it hard to see where we were, Even when the tunnels fall. where we could possibly be going. What could we lean on? She's the clear note the symphony tunes to -- Shadows fell upon families. We do, we do. Never once have I read her words Haki Fawthi blurred what we took for granted And felt worse. back in second grade — Separation of church and state, for example. We had thought some things were taken care of. She stakes out the territory. Tells us where we are. Had never guessed She creates the gate in the giant wall How many ways reality could be tipped. That's all around us right now. Except where it should be — in New Orleans.

She reminds us the word called TRUE used to be so big BUT FOR a few people, a raft it felt like a future Like THE TEXAS OBSERVER And we believed in it. Her blade of TRUE cracks right That might look thin but could carry through the gibberish, the forests of lies, Half the population more than two weeks, And takes us back where we can laugh again. The voices of intrepid bravery and especially

20 THE TEXAS OBSERVER NOVEMBER 17, 2006 Not an easy task, gang. Fury is easy but laughter... Molly finds it. Levers the tanks wide open, Changes weather better than a norther Kicks the bricks off our brains And says Stop waiting. Try this on for size. Put these bits together, brethren. Make a picture, Find yourself in it, figure out who drew it and how. And what you need to do and say about it. NOW-!

She gives us fuel for the next move.

Your little self and your big self (actually, the title of the sex manual my mother gave me when I was 12) mixed in a brew of state and country honor. Molly gives our honor back. Oh, beloveds!

There is no one we would rather have WELL forever.

We pledge allegiance to her voice Her giant smart horizon Her vast heart that lets us all in -- Restoring us to sanity Wit and our own citizen skins.

THANK YOU, MOLLY.

Naomi Shihab Nye reading at the Molly Roast on Oct. 8. photo by Alan Pogue

NOVEMBER 17, 2006 THE TEXAS OBSERVER 21 BOOKS & THE CULTURE Stand and Deliver BY JAMES E. MCWILLIAMS career was assassinated by ballot stuff- the fabric of democracy might go a ing. In his new book, Deliver the Vote, long way toward convincing editors at a Deliver the Vote: A History of he provides an exhaustively researched, commercial press that the book can be Election Fraud, an American but often droning, account of election profitably marketed. In this case, there's Political Tradition-1742-2004 fraud in the United States. Everywhere a hitch: Campbell's own evidence does By Tracy Campbell he looks, Campbell finds fraud, corrup- not support such muscular assertions. Carroll & Graf tion, and scandal. The problem with this Part of the problem has to do with 448 pages, $26 otherwise informative book is not with Campbell's unrefined presentation of the fraud he finds, but with his uncon- his ample material. With a ham-handed ven before the first absen- vincing assertion that it has rotted out touch, he states the argument about tee ballots arrived, the the core of American democracy and, the pervasiveness (and effectiveness) of nation's legal guns were relatedly, his failure to place the pres- electoral fraud and then dumps 10 years cocked in anticipation of ent mess in more meaningful historical of research on us without packaging the a volley of lawsuits after perspective. The Help American Vote data for consumption. Granted, literary this November's mid- Act, for example, gets an obligatory nod elegance is rare in works of political his- termE elections. While in most respects on page 326, but only to mention that tory, but when the only glue binding the there's nothing surprising about liti- states did a poor job of spending the evidence is chronology, the narrative and gious reactions to recent elections, money quickly enough. The cursory the polemic quickly disintegrate. The there's a fresh irony to consider: Many mention, though, is somewhat emblem- reader is yanked across the surface of eligible voters are basing their assertions atic, as Campbell is more interested in history from "bleeding Kansas" in 1856 of injustice on overzealous interpreta- compiling than analyzing. Instead of a (the colonial and early American peri- tions of state and federal laws passed narrative, we get a laundry list. And a ods are basically not included despite since 2000 in a supposed effort to elimi- laundry list doesn't get irony. the subtitle), to primary elections in the nate voting fraud. Under the legal guise Campbell has, by his own account, Jim Crow South, to a referendum on the of such laws as the 2002 Help America spent 10 years scaring up cases of elec- building of the St. Louis Gateway Arch, Vote Act, several states have thwarted tion fraud at every level. The effort to the notorious tactics of "landslide the ability of unions, churches, and shows. Scouring hundreds of second- Lyndon," to the Bushwhacking of 2000 nonprofits to undertake voter registra- ary sources and a smaller number of without a sense of how these compelling tion drives. Voting machines purchased primary sources, he has compiled cases cases reflect electoral life as a whole. As with funds provided by the federal act of the rankest and most galling elec- these conspicuous examples of electoral do away with "hanging chads," but are toral dishonesty. Campbell assumes a fraud speed by like frames of a film in highly vulnerable to hacking and other stance of innocence-lost outrage—how fast-forward, the realization slowly sets security issues (80 percent of votes on could this happen in the Land of the in that this cinder block of a book is November 7 were tabulated by com- Free?—and the openness and ease with little more than a dutiful compendium puter). In sweeps of felons and deceased which fraud happened leads him to of election scams. The scams, moreover, voters from registration lists, eligible some overwrought conclusions. He taps might hold inherent individual interest, voters have been removed as well. It's his cache of evidence to argue that poli- but they speak to each other through hardly fair to seriously expect the gov- tics in America "was deeply corrupted nothing more than tightly turned anec- ernment to eliminate all voter fraud, and [has] been so for over two hundred dotes and strings of brash quotations but these unexpected consequences are years." from the mouths of vote-stealing moral clear indications of how perverted the "Deeply embedded" within American reprobates. ("We didn't steal as many interaction of technology, justice, and political culture is the recognition that counties as you think... to hell with the democracy can be. "cheating is fully justifiable?' The "culture Constitution... "[t] o get fifty percent If any historian could reasonably dis- of corruption" that evidently permeates of the vote, you've got to buy itf ) In entangle this knot, it would be Tracy American politics "has demonstrated an other words, Deliver the Vote is a clip Campbell. An associate professor at the unwelcome civics lesson: Election fraud job—one that's heavy on the examples University of Kentucky in Lexington, is a crime that usually pays?' Fraud, he and meticulous in its documentation, Campbell is the author of the well- writes on the last page, "is a fundamen- but still a clip job. received Short of the Glory: The Fall tal threat to our democratic birthright?' Perhaps aware that his material fails and Redemption of Edward F. Prichard, The seething claims that fraud per- to collectively sustain an all-out assault Jr., a gripping tale of a politician whose vades elections, pays off, and threatens on the foundation of American democ-

22 THE TEXAS OBSERVER NOVEMBER 17, 2006 A bunch of bullies stuffing ballots in a small-town election ... seems amateurish next to the fact that throughout most of American history, women and blacks were denied the franchise.

racy, Campbell frequently overstates the doesn't. Another example: The presi- of the rubber never hitting the road. larger impact of electoral fraud or draws dential election of 2000 notwithstand- "If the game is perceived to be rigged," weighty connections that are plausible ing, contemporary "vote-buying and writes Campbell, "many will opt not to enough, but lacking in efficient evi- vote-suppression" are rarely as blatant play?' Like so many of the claims made dence. His discussion of the 1805 New as they were throughout earlier peri- in this book, it sounds reasonable. But York mayoral race through the lens ods of American history. This unstated, without evidence, it falls into an abyss of local gamblers and their odds, for and slightly inconvenient, point leads of speculation. example, seems peripheral to the larger Campbell to indict the fact that "the Perhaps the underlying reason that issue of how money and campaigns American electorate has been seg- Campbell's impressive collection of interact. His subsequent assertion that mented into easily identifiable groups" fraud cases fails to do much more than attractive long-shot candidates motivat- as the newest source of well-targeted remind readers that a streak of electoral ed urban thugs (who had their money fraud that's so infectious that "no mat- corruption has always run through the on the dark horse) to get out their vote ter how many reforms are implement- democratic process is that his emphasis through arm-twisting and ballot-stuff- ed," the fraud will inevitably persist. on conspicuous cases downplays the ing is a reach. Sure, it's possible that Sure, politicians probe special interest legal fraud that characterized voting for such small-time skullduggery happened, group-thought to court the loyalty of most of American history. A bunch of but Campbell's decision to offer no evi- voter blocs, but to say this courting is bullies stuffing ballots in a small-town dence supporting a connection between the precondition of inevitable fraud election—a recurring theme in this gambling odds and voting-day corrup- requires—yet again—evidence if the book—seems amateurish next to the tion is as surprising as his near-com- critical reader is going to make the leap fact that throughout most of American plete neglect of much more apposite into paranoia. history, women and blacks were denied issues—like campaign finance. Campbell ends his litany with the the franchise. If anything cuts to the Unsupported blanket claims appear exceptional election of 2000. His core of our supposedly democratic her-. too often and too casually. When a recounting of Bush's purloined victory, itage, this is it. Campbell's decision, in 1933 general election in Harlan County, based largely on Washington Post sto- a 452-page book, to mention the Voting Kentucky, turned bloody (with frustrat- ries, is riveting, and his insistence that Rights Act only once and dedicate a ing vagueness, Campbell writes that absentee balloting was rife with fraud, mere three pages to women's suffrage ‘`countless... people were stabbed or as well as the claim that technological seems to be, in the end, a bit, well, beaten"), the local paper "reported the "solutions" only spawn more opportuni- fraudulent. ■ killings on page four in a single column." ties for fraud, is generally convincing. This blurb is enough for Campbell to But once again his conclusion—that James E. McWilliams' new book, Building conclude, "This made clear to what "the steady persistence of election fraud the Bay Colony, will be published next extent violence and even murder had helps explain some of the declining par- spring. He is currently working on a book become an accepted part of an election ticipation levels among American vot- about the history of insect control in the culture in the mountains." Well, no, it ers"—is another disappointing example United States.

NOVEMBER 17, 2006 THE TEXAS OBSERVER 23 BOOKS & THE CULTURE True Grit BY CHAR MILLER billion a year, the Boston Globe has by magic, bank loans and commercial reported, "and about 4,000 villages credit fueled speculation in crops and The Worst Hard Time: have been swallowed by the encroach- acreage, wind-powered pumps sucked The Untold Story of Those Who ing desert and wordlessly stricken off up water out of the Ogallala Aquifer, Survived the Great American maps." and land agents drove up property pric- Dust Bowl Americans know something about es. As long as the rain fell, the wheat By Timothy Egan being blown off the charts. Unfold a grew and the markets swelled. Houghton Mifflin map of the High Plains and then head You know what happened next: annu- 320 pages, $28 off through its unending sweep; stop at al precipitation evaporated, shrinking any of the four corners, get out of your harvests and escalating foreclosures; in- n China, the dust is flying. car, and listen. Chances are you will town businesses began to shut down Stinging sandstorms have hear the wind, watch dust devils swirl and farm families began to drift away. been billowing up from Inner and dance across nearby untilled fields, The land started to move, too: With Mongolia and the Tibetan and maybe even catch a tumbleweed its ancient sod stripped off and its Plateau and are sweeping east to as it rolls along. But a human voice, an drought-baked soils calcified, the ever- blot out the skies over Beijing; engine thrum, a child's laugh—these are present wind spun the ground up into so powerful are these night-dark surges much harder to come by. The ground, the sky, a fine-grained and dangerous that they snarl the capital city's ground hardened by yet another multiyear atmosphere. "Dust clouds boiled up, and air transportation and compro- drought, no longer yields a rich crop or ten thousand feet or more ... and rolled mise its public health, pounding it with much hope. There are fewer people in like mountains—a force of their own," upwards of 500,000 tons of sand a year. western Nebraska today than there were Timothy Egan writes in his stunning Blanketed too are the Korean Peninsula a century ago, a situation paralleled in new book, The Worst Hard Time. What and Japan; even stretches of western Dallam County, occupying the north- goes up must come down: "When the Canada and the United States have west corner of the Texas Panhandle; its dust fell, it penetrated everything: hair, been hit with the storm's residue. population peaked at a touch more than nose, throat, kitchen, bedroom, well. A The origins of this environmental 7,800 in 1930 and by the 2000 census scoop shovel was needed just to clean disaster, which began in the late 1990s, had slid to 6,200. This once-vibrant the house in the morning. The eeri- are many. As China's coastal cities swell land is baked, cracked, and empty. est thing was the darkness. People tied in population—Shanghai is now over What you encounter there—or themselves to ropes before going to a 20 million people—and absorb once- don't—is the aftershock of the crush- barn just a few hundred feet away." As productive farmlands for housing and ing drought that coincided with the Isaac Osteen remembered: "There'd be industry, they are required by a 1994 Great Depression. No one at the time days, you couldn't see your hand in law to pay other provinces to increase had seen it coming, and they cheerfully front a' your face." acreage devoted to agriculture. The assumed that the good times that had Even breathing proved deadly. Cattle result has been devastating: Ever-more led them to settle the fertile grasslands and horses, blinded by the swirling marginal lands have been put to till; would carry on. Their response was clouds, suffocated as their lungs filled more sheep, cattle, yaks, and goats are understandable. They had been lured with sand; gagging kids died of dust herded onto already overgrazed terrain to the region by low-priced, Homestead pneumonia. Nearly joining their num- so that an estimated 340 million her- Act lands just before World War I; ber was Jeanne Clark. On Black Sunday, bivores are mowing down its formerly thanks to robust federal subsidies to April 14, 1935, the single worst duster (and famously) verdant plains. As log- expand agricultural production during of all screamed down the Plains bearing gers clear-cut mountain forests and The Great War, farms began to replace "twice as much dirt as was dug out of do little to regenerate these watershed ranches as the economic mainstay of the earth to create the Panama Canal." woodlands, as a decade-long drought the Plains states. This was especially Upwards of 300,000 tons "was airborne parches the land, and as groundwater true of the arid and little-inhabited that day?' Although braced indoors as pumping escalates at a dizzying pace, region where Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, the storm blasted her home and wearing the land is rapidly converting to scrub. and Colorado come together. There, a homespun filter over her face, Jeanne The Chinese EPA calculates that the the rapid conversion from muscle to inhaled so much matter into her eight- Gobi Desert alone has increased by machine—with tractors leading the year-old lungs that she was hospitalized over 25,000 square miles since 1994. way—transformed the human presence with little hope of recovery. She sur- Desertification is costing China $7.7 on the land. New towns appeared as if vived but was scarred for life.

24 THE TEXAS OBSERVER NOVEMBER 17, 2006 So was Don Hartwell. In August that blasting TNT in the sky would the punishing Black Sunday storm, 1937, his remaining herd consisted of produce rain, as crazed a response as obscures, though not completely, the "three lame horses and a single hog," was the club's die-hard pledge—"to be hardcover color photo of two males and he recounted their collective hard the Last Man to leave this country, to staring straight ahead. Like Barn life in his diary, a laconic document always be loyal to it," and to do so until White, who "had a face with the hard that Egan uses skillfully to reveal the "hell freezes over." years, heat and gusts etched into it," withering away of people and place. "I This insane resilience, and the brittle their pitted, cracked, and sun-burned cut down a dead tree W. of our house," humanity with which it was paired, are visages embody the land and its deep Hartwell noted on Nov. 8, 1937. "I set on full display in Egan's work, setting pain. And like the landscape, these out this tree more than 20 years ago, it it apart from the other iconic docu- men are off center, their faces broken was a Norway Poplar & it seemed that ment of the Dust Bowl, Pare Lorentz's in two by the book's physical contours, when it turned green that spring had film "The Plow That Broke the Plains" its spine and edge. On the Great Plains really come. But the drouth of the last (1936). While The Worst Hard Time rep- during the Dust Bowl, everything was few years got it—the same as it has us." licates Lorentz's pathbreaking analysis sheared off. ■ Without money for seed and far behind of the catastrophe's origins and adopts on his mortgage payments, he knew he its apocalyptic vision of this End of Char Miller is director of urban studies and his wife Verna could not last long Times—a borrowing that goes unac- and teaches environmental history at in Inavale, Neb. By the next April, his knowledged for 250 pages—it gives the Trinity University; he is author of Gifford situation, if possible, was even worse: documentary's many weathered faces Pinchot and the Making of Modern "With only 2 horses, not a cent to our a name, its wind-savaged towns a spot Environmentalism and Deep in the name, not a cent of income for the last on the map. Barn White, an old cowboy Heart of San Antonio: Land and Life in four years I just don't know exactly "with a handlebar mustache who lived South Texas. where to turn." His wife found work in a two-room shack with his family" in Denver, but her absence only made on the edge of Dalhart and who had an his life on the farm that much more "old plow, which was covered by drifts," excruciating. By the next winter, he earned $25 to hitch up his horses and LETTERS TO THE EDITORS felt cornered, buffeted by a "cold mean let Lorentz shoot him turning over the wind," and friendless, his neighbors infertile soil; "silhouetted against the having "vanished like last year's crop blowing sand, [White] became the last- 307. W 7th Street of turnips." By then, the Federal Land ing image of the film." Austin, TX 78701 Bank had warned that it was foreclos- The book's first image is its most [email protected] ing on his property, leaving Hartwell enduring: The translucent jacket, on to wail: "Those who coined the phrase, which is a terrifying photograph of `There's no place like Nebraska' wrote better than they thought. In Nebraska, you don't have to die to go to hell." Egan captures Hartwell's destitu- tion—"Everything is a reek of dust. It is in your clothes, you taste it; feel it"—and gives it, and by extension so many others' brutal experiences, an intensely human dimension. That's what makes The Worst Hard Time so powerful. Like John Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath (1939), its characters come alive, revealing and reveling in their many flaws. But unlike Steinbeck, Egan is focused on those who held their ground: Hartwell could have fled as axIMAIN. had the fictional Joad family, but did not until the bitter end because he did not know what else to do. Just as stub- KLRU-TY, Austin NM creates innovative tatevision that inspires and bornly rooted were the members of the educates not just in Austin, but throughout all of Texas. KLRU explores Last Man Club, established in Dalhart, politics with Texas Monthly Talks; makes learning fun with The Biscuit klru Brothers and Central Texas Gardener and showcases live music with tv and beyond Texas, by the town's quirky newspaper Austin City Limits. Look for these KLRU programs on your local PBS stations. klru.org publisher John McCarty; he thought

NOVEMBER 17, 2006 THE TEXAS OBSERVER 25 ROOKS & THE CULTURE Rediscovering Elroy Bode BY MARIAN HADDAD me of Whitman in his attention to light." Here is an author whose voice the grass, to the animals, and to the is quiet, almost reverent, as he writes In a Special Light sky. Of Thoreau in his search for quiet of simple pleasures, driving to Harper, By Elroy Bode places and the exploration and habita- looking up at the Big Dipper with his Trinity University Press tion of the natural world, the Earth. Of son, Byron; walking to Juarez and back 160 pages, $24.95 Steinbeck in his sense of place and time, over the bridge to El Paso, the plaza, and his renderings of home. And of the alligators. His near-holy rendering everal years ago I was no one else but Bode in his own Bode- of the small things reminds us that it is meeting with a San amazement: precisely these small things that hold Antonio teacher named the greatest mystery or pleasure. We Deborah McInerney to I kept thinking, each human baby, begin to think of them as miraculous discuss a poetry work- born complete with its skin, is a and wonderful: shop when I coinciden- phenomenon beyond comprehen- tallyS discovered she was from El Paso. sion, more amazing than The Milky The clothesline stretched across the Having grown up there, I asked Deborah Way. Each created anything—cricket, bare slope of our backyard... from what her maiden name was. "Bode," weed, sequoia, dinosaur—is beyond mid-morning to hot summer noon- she replied. The name was familiar, explanation, but here we are, by time I played in and out of the shad- though I still had not read the work of the millions, acting as if miracles ows of the cup towels and my father's her father, Elroy Bode. Deborah and I were events that happened in Olden khaki shirts... I looked at the red ants became friends, and when I later asked Times. crawling in the sun... I sat for long if she had any of her father's books, she stretches... quiet, watching, absorbed piled all eight volumes into my arms. Ever since that lunch with Deborah, I've in being next to the ground. And that's how I became acquaint- urged my students, family, and friends ed with the work of one of the most to immerse themselves in Bode. "Read Juxtaposed with the observation of remarkable writers Texas has ever called him!" I say, as I stack his books in their things small and wondrous is a more its own. arms. To those who respond that they socially conscious and politically inquis- I began immersing myself in Bode's already have, I have just one response, itive voice heard in pieces from the observations about downtown El Paso "Read him again!" Thankfully, Trinity 1960s and 1970s—a voice that questions in the late 1960s, when alligators waded University Press has provided me with the U.S. government's role in Vietnam in the fountain at the central plaza, another: They've recently published In and bears witness to the painfully slow where Bode would watch preachers a Special Light, Bode's first collection integration of Texas schools. wave their arms under the hot sun. I of "sketches," as he calls the pieces, in For nearly 50 years Bode taught in began to listen closely as he spoke of nearly 10 years. Many of these pieces El Paso public high schools. A liberal Hill Country rivers: first appeared in The Texas Observer. in the midst of conservatives, he was In this fine gathering of prose, Bode teaching at Austin High when he wrote I walked near the river that went is doing what he does best, slowing "Requiem for a WASP School," [TO beside our town... I was there in down the world for us. Here we walk June 12, 1970], which received the 1970 that place... I was alone in the two with him through plazas, barbershops, Stanley Walker Award for Journalism o'clock silence of the world—It wore diners, and deserted streets: "I gravi- from the Texas Institute of Letters. In a groove in me as deep as memory... tated toward the side streets the way this essay, he chronicles the school it was the heart of my childhood... other people are attracted to indirect administration's response to an influx and the moment would be so good lighting or shag rugs. Mariscal Street of Mexican-American students and the and deep and so very much ours–our on a September day: ... half-a-skyful rise of the Chicano movement. Students family's–that it was as if time had of clouds." We drive with him through had been stopped and we were fixed there for- Hill Country roads and small, out-of- ever: the eternal familiar... the-way towns outside El Paso (Clint, . . .forced into the halls of Austin High Canutillo, Fabens), all the while not- last September even though they Those Hill Country rivers somehow ing the light, the shadows, the Hill wanted to go elsewhere... Here they became universal for me as they began Country peppergrass, the oak and came, the slow-walking girls of the to point to my own experiences growing cedar trees. Like a good photographer, freshman class. They moved along up by the Rio Grande. Bode reminded he always sees things in that "special sidewalks toward a building they had

26 THE TEXAS OBSERVER NOVEMBER 17, 2006 06server readers are SMART PROGRESSIVE INVOLVED INFLUENTIAL GOOD LOOKING

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Elroy Bode photo courtesy of Trinity University Press IN THE OBSERVER! always considered 'the gringo school open your mouth." As a result, "the stu- on the hill,' the snob school with dents finally end up believing, what they REASONABLE RATES • GREAT EXPOSURE its fancy golden dome, the school really, at first, do not want to believe: that—so rumor had it—didn't really that the administration doesn't really Call 512-477-0746 and ask for Julia Austin like Mexicans. care what they are trying to say... doesn't or e-mail [email protected] care about the quality of people's lives if Bode goes on to detail "a grim little war those lives are led by blacks or browns." concerning censorship of the student Despite the power of "Requiem" and Rey, 06server reciaersr newspaper." As one student explains, other more politically charged pieces, Consider advertising your business "They say their doors are always open— what distinguishes In a Special Light or non-profit in the Observer. yet every time you go to see them their from Bode's previous collections is the GOOD FOR YOU • GOOD FOR THE OBSERVER minds are always closed. You can just omnipresence of Byron. We first find see No staring at you before you even the beloved son in "Byron and I" as

NOVEMBER 17, 2006 THE TEXAS OBSERVER 27 Bode celebrates "my son's feet freed to the countryside to die... I loved Byron's death and on the other side from shoes and upraised in the air... like him uninterruptedly, constantly... I everything else, that his death would white undersea flowers that had joined try to accept the fact that he did not so completely out-balance the rest of together in the hatchback light." Beer ask me to try to save his life. All I his life." in hand, he watches Byron out in the can do now is put these words—like This is the resonant and compelling country: "[He] called Duchess, and they blood—onto paper in an effort to finale of In a Special Light. On one side raced down into the valley... I watched provide for him a kind of wholeness, is "Looking for Byron"—on the other is them a long while, the way you look at a a justification. everything else. ■ painting?' He remembers Byron asking, "Tell me again about the ranch... when After reading that last piece, I closed the The daughter of Syrian immigrants, you came out as a boy. What did you book and sat there, stunned, unable to Marian Haddad was born and raised like best?" think story by story anymore, able to see in El Paso. Currently residing in San In awe of the natural world, Bode the work only as a combustion of parts Antonio, she is working on two collections seems to have etched each word that into a whole. of poetry and a collection of essays about Byron spoke as "the first pale star that "I did not know it would be this way," growing up Arab-American in a Mexican- appeared... the sound of the windmill Bode writes, "that one side would be American border town. turning—slowly, easily, as if it would keep turning forever... The stars. They Leaving New Buffalo Commune were there. My God, they were there?' by Arthur Kopecky Byron, his father reminds us, "knew about starlight?' Follow-up book to New Buf- There is also the beauty of riding falo: Journals from a Taos to Harper at 10 p.m., the windows Commune. Both are based on down, Byron's hands out in the air. I the author's journals about life find myself reading about that camping at one of the most famous com- trip as slowly and deliberately as Bode munes of the "back to the remembers it. I want to be there with land" era. them that summer night—and I am. "It was a moment of pleasing darkness," Bode writes. And it's one we don't want to leave.

he book culminates with UNMPRESS.COM • 800.249.7737 "Looking for Byron," Bode's poignant account of his search T for his troubled, 30-year-old son. "For hours I drove aimlessly, dog- gedly," Bode writes. "[L] ooking into driveways and backyards for a green truck... maybe if I yell out as loud as I can, `By-ron!' ... "Maybe somewhere, wherever he is, he will hear me, and he will know I am out here in the night, looking."

I was not with him. I do not know what he thought about, where he went... where he bought the plastic hose... He drove the San Antonio streets, not sure yet what he was going to do... He drove past Boerne and Comfort and Kerrville... He drove on through the cabin lot... deep into the pasture... I think of the deer that came along the fenceline the next morning... He had returned

28 THE TEXAS OBSERVER NOVEMBER 17, 2006 —Ns, continued from page 5 —Las Americas, continued from page 19 he says. You have to make the world a in downtown Austin for an election- World Bank official, then president of little more livable now. night shindig, but were fast growing Citigroup International, told his cronies But this could be done more effective- disappointed. Kinky was running a that the Citigroup microfinance divi- ly without microcredit, microfinance, distant fourth in the governor's race sion would try to earn "a reasonable or revolution. It could be done with at a mere 12 percent of the vote. Few rate of return." Some companies, he said, fairer tax systems, honest government, supporters at the party had expected were making 40 to 50 percent on their and a final abandonment of the clap- Kinky to actually win, but most thought microfinance investments. Now that is trap about markets solving everything. he would reach at least 15 percent, reasonable, don't you agree? That particular fashion is just plain ugly. and many said they hoped he would In a casual conversation one afternoon Governments of "developing" countries top 20. at the Inter-American Development need to tax their rich, tax international By the time Kinky took the stage Bank, Enrique Iglesias, then bank presi- capital transactions, exact fair payments in a small auditorium behind the dent, let drop, "Around here, it's a lot from foreign investors who extract bar's patio, Democrat Chris Bell and easier to talk about fighting poverty their resources and exploit their people, independent Carole Keeton Strayhorn than it is to talk about redistribution." and use the resulting public money had already conceded to incumbent Unfortunately for Enrique, Stanley, Bill, to fund public social services decently. Rick Perry. Kinky's ride was coming to and Melinda, if anything is going to be Governments of "developed" countries an end. But he was intent on soaking done about poverty, we are going to need to eliminate the morally corrupt up every last second of it. Facing have to talk about redistribution—of means that allow corporations and the a dozen or so news cameras, Kinky their money. Something is wrong when appallingly wealthy to escape taxes and began, "I've been trying to get down a few individuals are able to appropriate move capital so easily from Mumbai the Iraqi dance–the dance they did wealth equivalent to that of a microna- to Malta to the Caymans to New York when they found out Saddam was tion, dole it out in $50 dribs and drabs undetected and untaxed. going to be hanged." He then did to the deserving poor, and then collect That's how the citoyen toppled the the dance: a little bounce with hands interest. Sounds too much like Marie royalty. They taxed the feudal lands out over his head, palms up. Returning Antoinette—also in style once again this from under the feudal lords. Then, of to the mic, he offered, "Allegations year. Please notice, however, that the real course, they did—perhaps in a moment that I had sex with a male masseuse queen is extinct. She got hers. of irrational exuberance—cut off the are entirely false." So much for the Speaking of getting theirs, the aca- queen's head. gracious concession. demics, unavoidably, have also rung in. I'm so sorry, darlings, but someday, Kinky got serious long enough Jonathan Morduch, professor at New when the fashion shows are over, we will to thank his campaign staff. "The York University, acknowledges that crit- simply have to sit down for a little chit- campaign inspired a lot of people, ics of microcredit and microfinance chat about who deserves to get what. ■ and it certainly inspired me," he said. have a point. This kind of lending is not Judging from the result, it also may going to end poverty, but you can't just A native of Houston, Beatrice Edwards have inspired enough Democrats sit around and wait for the revolution, now lives in Washington D.C. to defect from Bell, who earned 29 percent, to ensure another term for Perry with just 39 percent. But Kinky and many of his supporters wouldn't TheTexas Observer would like to remind you that: buy the spoiler argument. "There was no way we should have gotten out of this race," Kinky said. "We gave DISSENT IS Texas a choice... [the campaign] may be significant for that thing we call the EDUCATIONAL. future." He didn't say how exactly. A few minutes later, Kinky stepped SUPPORT PUBLIC LIBRARIES off the stage into a throng of and the Observer by donating a tax-deductible Observer subscription to the Texas public library supporters for one more marathon of your choice. autograph session. In the back of the room, they were still selling Kinky T- Visit our website www.texasobserver.org, or shirts, hats, CDs, and the like–the kind call us at (512) 477-0746 or toll-free at of merchandising that had fueled the (800) 939-6620 for a complete list of campaign. It was getting late, though, Texas public libraries and to order a subscription. and, like a store going out of business, everything was being discounted. ■

NOVEMBER 17, 2006 THE TEXAS OBSERVER 29 AFTERWORD I BY LEWIS LAPHAM A Salute to Molly Ivins

ary Margaret Mark Twain. Twain thought of humor, ted for college application, the Princeton Farabee asked me especially in its more sharply pointed Review lists, in no particular order— to introduce some forms of invective and burlesque, as war, drugs, sex, alcohol, tobacco, junk sort of serious note a weapon with which to attack pride food, divorce, religion, socio-economic into the evening's victorious and ignorance enthroned. He class distinctions and Halloween. The festivities, to place placed the ferocity of his wit at the ser- handsomely illustrated cover stories in Molly Ivins in her proper relation to the vice of his conscience, pitting it against Time and Newsweek read like advertise- founding of the country and the best the "peacock shams" of the established ments for cosmetics or detergents, the uses of the First Amendment. Given order, believing that "only laughter can words deserving of the same labels, the weight of the assignment, I'm prob- blow away at a blast" what he regarded "risk-averse," "salt-free," "baby-soft." ably well advised to begin with James as "the colossal humbug of the world." The air-brushed vocabulary shores up Fenimore Cooper, the well known So also Molly, a journalist who commits the interests of oligarchy with the com- author of The Deerslayer and The Last the crimes of arson, making of her wit forts of cynicism. of the Mohicans who in the 1820s aban- a book of matches with which to burn As we know from any reading of the doned his political allegiance to the down the corporate hospitality tents of morning papers, liberty is never at a loss New York monied interests and cast empty and self-righteous cant. Molly's for ambitious enemies, but the survival his lot with President Andrew Jackson's writing reminds us that dissent is what of the American democracy depends Western notions of popular govern- rescues the democracy from a quiet less on the magnificence of its air force ment and free expression. Cooper in death behind closed doors, that repub- or the wonder of its fleets than on the the 1830s published The American lican self-government, properly under- willingness of its citizens to stand on the Democrat, arguably his finest book, in stood, is an uproar and an argument, ground of their own thought. Unless we which he made the point that among all meant to be loud, raucous, disorderly try to tell one another the truth about the country's political virtues, candor and fierce. what we know and think and see, we is the one most necessary to the health Never in its history has the country might as well amuse ourselves—at least and well being of our mutual enter- been more in need of voices capable of for as long as somebody in uniform prise. We can't know what we're about, engaging such an argument. Over the allows us to do so—with fairy tales. or whether we're telling ourselves too last twenty-odd years it has become Several years ago on its editorial many lies, unless we can see and hear embarrassingly obvious that we have page the New York Times issued the one another think out loud. produced a corporate news and enter- complacent announcement that "great Which is what I take to be the purpose tainment industry distinguished by its publications magnify beyond measure of the First Amendment as well as its timidity, by its deference to the wisdoms the voice of any single writer." As often embodiment in the life and times of in office, by its subservience to the price happens in the New York Times, the Molly Ivins. The working of her mind, tags of economic privilege; the solo sentence employed the wrong verb. The like her writing on the page, speaks to voices of dissent have been smothered instruments of the media multiply or the principle named not only by Cooper by a choir of nervous careerists, psalm- amplify a voice, serving much the same but also by Archibald MacLeish, the singing and well behaved, happy to purpose as a loudspeaker in a ballpark poet and once-upon-a-time Librarian oblige, eager to please, careful to say or a prison. What magnifies a voice is of Congress, who identified the dis- nothing disrespectful or uncivil. its humor, its wisdom and compassion, senter as "every human being at those In concert with the Bush adminis- opposing the colossal humbug of the moments in his life when he resigns tration's increasingly abrupt seizures of world's injustice with the imaginative momentarily from the herd and thinks arbitrary power, the increasingly polite labor of trying to tell the truth. Not for himself" Molly has had so many interpretations of the First Amendment an easy task, but the courage required of those moments that by now I think have cleansed the news media of strong of the writer, if he or she seriously we can accept her resignation from the language and imperfect hair, inocu- attempts it—and the response called herd as permanent. lated the Washington talk show circuit forth in the reader, if he or she recog- The country was founded by dissent- against the infection of caustic adjec- nizes the attempt as an honest one— ers, and if as a doubter of divine author- tives and the suspicious movement of increases the common stores of energy ity Molly inherits the skepticism of subversive nouns. Among the topics and hope. That is what Molly Ivins Tom Paine, as a satirist she springs, full currently ruled inadmissible on the does, who she is, and why we're here to blown like Minerva, from the head of roster of essay questions to be submit- say a not-so-simple thank you. ■

30 THE TEXAS OBSERVER NOVEMBER 17, 2006 Former Harper's editor Lewis Lapham reads "A Salute to Molly Ivins" in Austin on Oct. 8. photo by Alan Pogue

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