Killing for Votes

by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist

There was a moratorium on executions in the United States back in the sixties and early seventies while the Supreme Court studied the constitutionality of the ultimate punishment. The Court bent to the public bloodlust in the mid-1970's, and the greatest, most honorable country in the history of the planet resumed the barbaric practice of executing some people convicted of murder in 1976. Since that time, 1,176 people have been executed in the United States, and over one-third of those have been in the state of Texas.

Texas has executed 441 people during the past thirty-three years, over four times as many as second place Virginia which has killed 103 killers. Oklahoma is third with ninety-one. In fact, over 82% of all executions in America since the moratorium ended have occurred in the south, a region known for its strong fundamentalist Christian belief system.

(If executions were a deterrent, would these numbers be so high?)

Texas has executed over two hundred individuals (nearly half of its total) since December of 2000, the month that the state's current governor, Rick Perry, assumed the office when his predecessor, George W. Bush, resigned and moved off to Washington, DC.

Rick Perry is a vainglorious politician who is constantly preening his image - both physical and political. The late caustic Texas columnist Molly Ivins tagged him "Governor Goodhair." Perry's political instincts told him early on that a good execution generated as many boners among the good ole boys of the Lone Star state as a winning football team.

But now Governor Goodhair is suddenly having to defend his penchant for killing. The governor is locked in a tight Republican party primary fight with Kay Bailey Hutchinson, the senior U.S. Senator from Texas who wants to become governor - and both candidates are slinging dirt faster than a Juarez gravedigger.

The controversy revolves around the 2004 Texas execution of Cameron Todd Willingham, a young man who had allegedly murdered his three small daughters in 1991 by means of arson. Prior to his execution new and credible evidence surfaced that concluded that the house fire in which the little girls perished was not an act of arson. Governor Perry supposedly reviewed the new evidence and chose to ignore it, not wanting to risk the wrath of the voting public during an election year. Willingham went to his death declaring that he was an innocent man.

More evidence has emerged since the execution of Willingham that clearly shows that the fire was not an act of arson. Not only did his children die a brutal, horrible death, but the bereaved father was accused of killing them and then executed. And Rick Perry ran a comb through his great hair and smiled at the cameras!

It is cold comfort for the Willingham family, but the wrongful execution of the girls' father may be the deciding factor in finally removing Rick Perry from the governor's office.

Right now it is a real Texas horse race between Perry and Hutchinson - and those are just the Republicans. There are several Democrats seeking the chance to take on the Republican candidate - hoping that the GOP will be mortally wounded by their rough and rowdy primary. The most colorful Democratic contender is country singer and band leader (and mystery novelist), Kinky Friedman. Mr. Friedman, who runs with the likes of Don Imus and Willie Nelson, describes himself as a "Jew cowboy."

Texas politicians can be a lot of fun - when they aren't out killing for votes.

Texas Shenanigans

by Pa Rock
Tourista

I'll be flying out of Texas in the morning, and I hated to leave without taking a swipe or two at the Lone Star State. So here goes:

First of all, I miss Molly Ivins - I really, really miss Molly Ivins. The late Texas newspaper journalist had a well-earned national reputation for telling it like it was. When Miss Molly sat down at her keyboard, Texas politicians would start diving for cover. But Miss Molly has been gone for a couple of years now and the Texas political snakes have begun crawling out from under their rocks and are once again making their state look extremely foolish.

The Texas School Board, which controls - really controls - school curriculum in the state, has recently set up a committee of six typical Texans (they call them "experts") to review the curriculum for social studies. It seems that the good ole boys on the Board feel that there is currently an over representation of minorities in the state's social studies books. David Barton, one of the "experts" appointed to the curriculum committee, said that Cesar Chavez, founder of the United Farm Workers Union, lacks the "status, impact, and overall contributions of so many others." (Translation: We don't want our kids reading about no union organizing Mexican!)

Evangelical Minister Peter Marshall, also on the Board's social studies curriculum committee, said "To have Cesar Chavez listed next to Ben Franklin...is ludicrous." He went on to say that Chavez "is not a role model who ought to be held up to students as someone worthy of emulation." The good reverend is also wound up about Thurgood Marshall, the late Supreme Court Justice who was also the attorney in Brown vs. Board of Education - the case that desegregated America's public schools. Marshall said that Thurgood Marshall was "not a strong enough example of an important historical figure to be presented to students." (Translation: Our kids don't need to be reading about no uppity nigra who probably got into law school because of a quota!)

The curriculum controversy in Texas is important to the rest of the country because Texas is a huge purchaser of textbooks, and its goofball curriculum guidelines literally become the tail that wags the dog. The publishers don't make a Texas edition, they make a national edition that meets the Texas standards. As Texas slides, so slides the nation.

Another bit of Texas political nonsense came to light today when Governor Rick Perry, whom Molly Ivins used to refer to as "Great Hair," announced his belief that the states should be responsible for health care policy - not the federal government. Unsaid by the pretty-boy governor was the fact that Texas has the lowest rate of health care coverage in the country with a full 25% of the state population completely uninsured. Apparently health care costs in Texas are among the very highest in the nation. Governor Perry has been in office for nine years, health care in his state is a complete and total joke, and he thinks fixing health care needs to be left to the states? What a bozo!

Rumor has it that there are some intelligent people in Texas. Apparently they live in El Paso and Austin - but the Austin group does not include the state legislators!

The Tea Party Mentality

by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist

Today marks the deadline for paying 2008 income taxes, and the public citizenry from coast-to-coast marked the occasion by holding symbolic "tea parties" created to form some link with the American patriots who dumped the British tea in Boston Harbor over two centuries ago. The original protesters were defiant because they were being taxed without representation in the British Parliament. While today's rabble are represented in Congress, many feel powerless to stop government from engaging in practices and programs that they personally oppose. The way to defeat the beast, they figure, is to starve it by not paying taxes - or at least by calling attention to their concerns through dramatic action - like tea parties. The mobs were intense and vocal.

And they also had a lot of fun mugging for the cameras - and Fox News was absolutely giddy putting up wall-to-wall coverage of their political antics.

And then there was poor Texas! First Chuck Norris threatened to run for President of the Republic of Texas, and today the Lone Star's crackpot governor, Rick Perry (the one with the great hair!), played the enabler to Norris's egomaniacal ambitions by talking about leading the state into secession! Even Texas deserves better than those two bozos!

I am old enough to remember well when Ronald Reagan was President. Most of today's protesters revere Reagan as somewhere to the right of God. Reagan "lowered" taxes several times, and each time that he did, my taxes went up. He was lowering taxes, just not mine. The business classes and the very rich did very well under Reagan, but their tax windfalls never did trickle down to those on the bottom rungs of the economic ladder.

My take home pay has actually increased with Barack Obama's tax cuts. His new tax cuts really do cut taxes - for everyone making less than a quarter of a million dollars a year. Tax cuts that cut taxes - what a concept!

In fairness to democracy's foot soldiers and their tea bags, they are also fired up about the zillions of dollars going out of the treasury to try and help pump up the economy. I don't like it either, especially when monster banks like Bank of America take the free money while raising interest rates on credit cards (even to their good customers) - and while plotting the overthrow of America's unions.

Yup, that sucks. But know two things: 1. We are in this mess because America put George Bush in the White House (kinda sorta), and he spent eight years deregulating everything. The result was an unfettered economic system that overdosed on its own greed and avarice. 2. We have a much better opportunity of surviving the Bush mess with the powerful intellect of Barack Obama at the helm of the ship-of-state. I may not like the plan, but I am willing to give it a chance.

A good portion of today's protesters probably are genuinely concerned about the massive debt that we are piling on our grandchildren. I certainly am. But I have been concerned for a long time. I was concerned when we went charging off to Iraq without provocation. I was concerned when stories started making the news about pallets of currency being moved around in Iraqi warehouses by forklifts, and those forklifts were operated by private companies with names like Blackwater, and Kellogg, Brown, and Root. I was concerned when Dick Cheney clearly showed us the arrogance of the executive branch by running the war and the economy in secret, revealing the identity of a CIA covert agent for political payback, and telling an inquisitive and respected member of the United States Senate to "go fuck yourself." That wasn't my America.

I voted for Barack Obama to get my America back. It was once a decent place that stood out as a bright and shining example of democracy and civility. The Bush administration of crooks and liars threw our greatness into the crapper. The rich got richer, the poor got much poorer, and hate became the order of the day. That must change, and suddenly there is hope that it can change.

But I came of age in the sixties, and I appreciate a good national protest as much as anyone!

Make tea, not war!