THE REST OF THE BALLOT Pg. 5 A JOURNAL OF FREE VOICES SEPTEMBER 18, 1992 • $1.75 Why .George ,llush can't. talk, Why 'ho-Von't win,;•-and why Ifs time to close ranks behind Bill Clinton DIALOGUE Ride That Horse A JOURNAL OF FREE VOICES We will serve no group or party but will hew hard to the truth as we find it and the right as we see it. We are ALL IT MID-L1PE, CRISIS. Call it my bifoc- 2. Bill Clinton is not the lesser of two evils, dedicated to the whole truth, to human values above all Cular political vision. Say, "What a falling off the triumph of money in the Democratic Party interests, to the rights of human-kind as the foundation there was." But I just can't help wondering, as I or the new face on the old Democratic order. of democracy: we will take orders from none but our own sit here in my South Austin living room look- He is a candidate who has the potential to be the conscience, and never will we overlook or misrepresent the truth to serve the interests of the powerful or cater ing at the most recent Observers, when you guys best President we've had since the early days of to the ignoble in the human spirit. are going to stop taking the political temperature LBJ and, beyond that, since FDR because he Writers are responsible for their own work, but not at the wrong end of the horse. is someone who will be as good as we push him for anything they have not themselves written, and in pub- It was the cover of your Aug. 21 issue that to be — or allow him to be. lishing them we do not necessarily imply that we agree with them, because this is a journal of free voices. finally set me off: "Mourning in America." Bill Clinton gets it. That's all we can ask for. You can't read that without thinking of Joe The rest is up to us. Whether he succeeds, once SINCE 1954 Hill's "don't mourn, organize." But I look elected, depends upon our abilities to organize through your journal and several other maga- and press our agendas. Sure, the Democratic Publisher: Ronnie Dugger Editor: Louis Dubose zines I read, and I come to wonder when you Party in many respects is not much more than Associate Editor: James Cullen pointy-headed intellectuals are going to come a shell. But if we can't take it and make it work Layout and Design: Diana Paciocco, Peter Szymczak around. What I'm reading about—when you for us, block by block, then let's create or work Copy Editor: Roxanne Bogucka talk about our side—is third parties and the through other mediating institutions. The cor- Mexico City Correspondent: Barbara Belejack Editorial Interns: Jubilee Barton, Jay Brida, Paula shortcomings of Bill Clinton. porate traders are up there every day, getting George, Lorri J. Legge, Kate McConnico It's a whiners' chorus that could smash us paid hundreds of dollars an hour to overwhelm Contributing Writers: Bill Adler, Betty Brink, Warren all on the rocks if we succumb to its siren song. our needs and everyone we put in office to serve Burnett, Brett Campbell, Jo Clifton, Terry FitzPatrick, So, since I hold you and your writers in such our needs. We've got to fight back. We've got Gregg Franzwa, James Harrington, Bill Helmer, Ellen Hosmer, Steven Kellman, Michael King, Deborah high esteem and would hate to see you end up to be working every block in this country every Lutterbeck, Tom McClellan, Bryce Milligan, Greg Moses, as George Shipley's dinner, I offer the follow- day so the people we elect don't get eaten alive, Debbie Nathan, Gary Pomerantz, Lawrence Walsh. ing observations for you to consider or reject: so they have to do the right thing. Editorial Advisory Board: David Anderson, Austin; 1. Elections are not the beginning or the I'm saying, throw away those precious lib- Frances Barton, Austin; Elroy Bode, El Paso; Chandler Davidson, Houston; Dave Denison, Cambridge, Mass; end, of politics. While you decry the current eral litmus tests and look at the way power is Bob Eckhardt, Washington, D.C.; Sissy Farenthold, round of elections, you seem obsessed with wielded in this country. In Bill Clinton, we've Houston; Ruperto Garcia, Austin; John Kenneth Galbraith, them. Stand back. Elections are merely a sig- got someone who understands power. That's Cambridge, Mass.; Lawrence Goodwyn, Durham, N.C.; nificant point in the process. A more signifi- better than we had with Dukakis and Jimmy George Hendrick, Urbana, Ill.; Molly Ivins, Austin; Larry L. King, Washington, D.C.; Maury Maverick, cant point, in terms of the daily lives of most Carter. Beltway insider Fritz Mondale seemed Jr., San Antonio; Willie Morris, Oxford, Miss.; Kaye people, is what the elected do once they are paralyzed by the corporate power that held him Northcott, Austin; James Presley, Texarkana; Susan Reid, in office. That is where politics are really played like a puppy dog. (Bill Clinton, at least, can Austin; Geoffrey Rips, Austin; A.R. (Babe) Schwartz, out. And that's where we've lost the war for the talk about taxing the rich so it sounds right and Galveston; Fred Schmidt, Fredericksburg. past 25 years. not like Mondale's "Oh, my goodness, did I This is a perspective the Industrial Areas say that?") Poetry Consultant: Thomas B. Whitbread Contributing Photographers: Bill Albrecht, Vic Hin- Foundation organizations have embraced. They Compare Clinton to McGovern? I will never terlang, Alan Pogue. are non-partisan. They determine to hold all offi- . say anything to denigrate George McGovern. Contributing Artists: Michael Alexander, Eric Avery, cials to promises made and to right action when He brought a good many of us back into the sys- Tom Ballenger, Richard Bartholomew, Jeff Danziger, they are in. office. Sometimes it works. When it tem, gave us our fundamental education in party Beth Epstein, Dan Hubig, Pat Johnson, Kevin Kreneck, Michael Krone, Carlos Lowry, Ben Sargent, Dan does, it produces change. Real politics, then, the politics. Some day the Democratic Party might Thibodeau, Gail Woods, Matt Wuerker. politics that affect people's lives, begin prior become brave enough to honor George at a to elections and continue through the terms of convention, declare us all, with the exception Managing Publisher: Cliff Olofson the elected. of Richard Daley, children of McGovern. But Subscription Manager: Stefan Wanstrom You want clean air? You elect the clean-air the fact is, Bill Clinton may have the mean- Executive Assistant: Gail Woods ,candidate and then you push, cajole, dog and ness to win this game that the circuit-riding Special Projects Director: Bill Simmons Development Consultant: Frances Barton praise her or him every step of the way. Why? preacher McGovern just did not seem to be Don't these people have the strength of their able to call on. And maybe he can bring back SUBSCRIPTIONS: One year 532, two years $59, three years $79<Nonc>. Full- convictions? some of that ward-heeling, mediating, local- time students 518 per year. Back issues $3 prepaid, Airmail, foreign, group, and bulk rates on request. Microfilm editions available from University Sometimes. But that's almost always not problem-solving substratum that got chased off. Microfilms Intl., 300 N. Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor. MI 48106. Any current enough. Politicians and officeholders do not Bill Clinton is not Hubert Humphrey, a man subscriber who finds the price a burden should say so at renewal time; no one need forgo reading the Observer simply because of the cost. navigate their way through a morally neutral bewildered by the forces swirling around him. INDEXES: The Texas Observer is indexed in Access.: The Supplententtny index to Periodicals; Texas Index and, for the years 1954 through I 981,Thc Texas field of pushing and pulling special interests. JFK. LBJ. While the Clinton campaign seems Observer Index. It's war out there. The land mines are set by to be trying to milk the JFK comparison for THE TEXAS OBSERVER (ISSN 0040-45 IWUSPS 541300), entire contents copyrighted, © 1992. is published biweekly except for a three-week interval the moneyed interests long before you arrive. all it's worth, I think—beyond the gimmickry— between issues in January and July (25 issues per year) by the Texas Observer Publishing Co., 307 West 7th Street, Austin. Texas 78701. Telephone: (512) Their gunners man the high positions. Rarely is it bears looking at. What we had in Kennedy 477.0746. Second-class postage paid at Austin, Texas. being right enough. was a mandate for change without a clear direc- POSTMASTER: Send address changes to TIIE TEXAS OBSERVER, 307 West 7th Street, Austin, Texas 78701. That's why a countervailing force is always tion. It's Bill Clinton without a real economic necessary...at all times. That's why a decent guy crisis, without guaranteed college tuition, with- A Member of the Association of • • like Jimmy Carter can be elected on a reform out a health-care overhaul, etc. Or early LBJ. Alternative Newsweeklies platform only to be delivered up on a platter four years later. Continued on pg. 14 2 • SEPTEMBER 18, 1992 EDITORIAL THET server TEXAS Censors on the Rise SEPTEMBER 18, 1992 VOLUME 84, No. 18 I AM NOT FAMILIAR with The Chocolate cantly broadened school officials' control over FEATURES War by Robert Cormier, but some parent student publications. A journalism teacher com- in Normangee did us the favor of objecting to plained that the new rules stifle creativity, Redistricting and the 'New Texas' its presence in the local high school library, for while a student editor added, "It sounds like By James Cullen 5 alleged "obscene language, lust, rebellion," and they're trying to avoid any issues that may George