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Primary begins.
(Picture courtesy of flickr.com.)
The Götterdämmerung that is the Republican Party’s campaign for the presidency in 2012 has been wild enough to give hope for a round of presidentin’ to everyone who’s enjoyed a few minutes in media’s glare. That includes TX gov. Perry, recently much touted for offering to secede, and throwing court challenges against EPA’s right to protect TX citizens from the polluters that fund his campaigns.
It is no secret that this state has a lot of business pleasing qualities, such as a total lack of state income tax and of environmental protections. Famously, we were the first to give industry self-regulation. Now while reported pollution of air and water is significantly improved, actual figures from the field show our cities are unlivable. Of course, we knew that. Texas leads the nation in shunting back any potential services for the working people that it lives off of.
What this nation really doesn’t need is another TX governor exporting the wild and wooly creations of this corporate welfare haven to the national level, at great cost to public interests.
Those celebrating him as the architect of our low-tax state would be forced to acknowledge that this is nothing new, and that Texas is also an extreme low-services state, with serious consequences for Texas families.
Education? We’re 50th in the nation in kids with a high school diploma by age 25, and 43rd in high school graduation rates. We’re 42nd in the nation in high school graduates going to college, and of those, only half earn a degree within six years.Health care? We’re first in the nation in folks without health insurance and 49th in our low-income population covered by Medicaid.
Relative wealth? We’re fourth in the nation on the percentage of our residents living below the poverty line.
The environment? We’re first in the nation in cancer-causing carcinogens released into the air, first on toxic chemicals released into the water and first in the amount of hazardous waste generated.
The state is now consumed by the wildfires and drought that are so much part of life in the west. There will be no improvement in emergency services we rely on, but rather a big whine about how much they cost precious ‘job creating’ industry, from Perry. The governor who claims to refuse Stimulus funds actually used them to bolster up the big gaps in funding for services that his budget produced. Like most TX politicians, his total disregard for the truth rivals the worst of the rest of the field, but at least we have his works to judge him by. The verdict; run for your lives!
Only by total ignorance of facts could voters choose to worsen the conditions we have now. That will the choice if Perry’s name is on your presidential ballot in 2012.
60 Comments
Great post, Ruth!
Thanks. The sad part is, all this stuff is actually happening.
“Only by total ignorance of facts could voters choose to worsen the conditions we have now”
So you’re saying Perry has a pretty good shot?
My GOPer neighbors have figured out how to fix this budget problem:
1) End all foreign aid, except to Israel. They feel this would be about 20% of the budget.
2) Stop spending so much money on arts and parks. About 10% of the budget.
3) End welfare. Another 10%.
Reality doesn’t figure into it. If I tell him real numbers, I’m part of the conspiracy.
Boxturtle (Perry will do well with his demographic)
What I really don’t want is another 4 years of that craven cowardly corporatist and proto-Fascist Barry O. Given a choice between the crazy assclown Republican and the smooth talking “democrat” trying his hardest to be a Republicna like his hero, ronnie raygun, I will go with he crazy. In the end, either will brings us further into Fascism and the same dismal oppressive enslaved future so perhaps the crazy just might help bring abut a Wisconsin awakening at the national level and put a wrench in the global oligarchs plans for us, and the world.
Ruth–
Thanks for the article. I (a non-Texan) printed it and mailed it to my Mom . . . maybe she’ll share it with her small-town-Texas newspaper.
Of course, they include social security, medicare/medicaid, and unemployment insurance under welfare? All of these are financed by non-governmental contributions for the most part, so would not affect the budget, but as you note, these folks are fact-free, or, ignorant by choice. I suppose I should have said something about willful ignorance.
Thanks. I hope so. The state Texas is actually in gets very little coverage by our press.
Oh no. They mean the welfare that Reagen killed decades ago. Clinton brought it back, that’s why we’re in so much trouble.
They’re seniors, so medicare and SS are good REPUBLICAN programs. And the Dems are trying to kill medicare.
Essentially, they believe anything an elected Republican says.
Boxturtle (It’s not that they have no grip on reality, it’s that reality has no grip on them)
Ya know how an alcholoic has to hit rock bottom before they can begin to recover? Well, Mr. Perry would be just the person to take this nation down to that rock bottom. With Governor GoodHair as President, America would be the 14th century serfdom that conservatives long for. Sewage flowing through the streets, babies starving in the refugee tent cities, roving mobs of youths taking what they want, criminal gangs acting as local governments, the military imprisoning millions to ‘protect the citizens’. All while the rich and powerful live in their gated palaces protected by Blackwater and Triple Canopy. It is my firm belief that this distopian nightmare will be what it takes to finally wake up the Tea Party types to what their heros really stand for. Perry/Palin 2012.
Great post Ruth! You got that right! THE LAST THING THIS NATION NEEDS IS RICK PERRY. Believe me, being from Texas I speak from first-hand knowledge.
The Dallas area where I live, however, is Democratic and one of the few citadels of relative sanity in the state–although we do have the Hunts, George Bush, Ross Perot and a few other right-wing nut jobs of our area to deal with. They generally keep to themselves.
I could write for days about Perry and still not cover all there is to say about why no one in their right mind should vote for Perry. In Texas there is a joke about Perry’s enthusiasm for privatization of our roads: “If Perry has his way, Texans will be paying a toll charge just to back out of their driveways.”
Let me say this: If the Democrats were not so damn dumb as to run candidates against him whose personalities have all the luster of day-old dishwater, the Democrats could have won in 2006. That was the year we had four candidates on the ballot for governor. But what did the Democrats offer up as a candidate? A church mouse at best. Perry won the governor’s seat with 39% of the vote. We don’t have runoffs for Gov in Tex. It’s a winner take all, regardless the percentage of vote.
They didn’t do much better in 2010 either with Bill White. If a candidate is going to win in Texas, they better have a fire in their belly that rivals that of and evangelical preacher at a tent revival. That’s what Perry has and so far that is what NONE of the Democratic candidates who have run against him have had.
Worse than I thought, then. Yep, reality is another librul plot.
Actually, I prefer not to hit rock bottom, and think intervention is called for. Also, the life on the edge you are foreseeing would provide all too many imprisonables for the privatized prison system Perry is intent upon.
Thanks, and indeed, Dallas is an island of sanity with much positive going on. Do not know where to find a good opposition candidate, I guess some one like Martin Frost has taken so many beatings already, he might not leap at the chance.
It’s fine to vent here at FDL about hitting rock bottom, but people are already suffering and/or just hanging on by the skin of their teeth. I don’t want to see the country go that route.
Agreed.
Sanity???? Not the Dallas I know (Plano!). What’s worse than POTUS Perry? VP Palin. Coming soon to a ballot near you. (been saying this since early 2009)
Plano is white flight city. What’s left in Dallas is growing better every day. imho
Neither do I but that is where we are headed with either party, and Obama is just cementing further into place all the para-military and welath robbing policies required to go there. So,the choice I see is the slow boil of ‘Bammie and The Corpro-crats or the fast boil of the crazy CONservative teabagging assclowns. I’ll choose the fast boil. The frog (us) has a better chance of jumpoing out and saving itself.
Newsflash, whether ‘Bammie or Rommie gets in, or some other CONservative assclown, it is going that way. Might as well get into it and wake enough up to get engagued. Alas, all our “leaders” are either Hitlers, like the Republicans, or Musolllini’s like Obama. Regardless, trying to vote the lesser of two evils becasue of “the suffereing” masses is simply doomed to failure. You need to have something GOOD to vote for and we do not have that. So, I say, let’s get it on and pluck it out.
I am from Texas. Dear “whatever deities you believe in” do NOT elect Perry as President. He and his religious zealots are killing my state.
Hey, I’ll take an in-your-face ruthless neocon fundamentalist conservative piece of shit like Perry over a smooth-talking, back-stabbing, ruthless neoliberal fascist homophobis piece of shit like Obama any day.
Hey, I’d take Ross Perot over Obummer any day. At least Perot was right about NAFTA.
I think it might be better to have someone like Perry to hasten our slide into oblivion, as opposed to Obama, whose half-assed efforts only slow down the inevitable.
Nice to know there’s a piece of shit you’d be happy with.
Didn’t say I’d be happy with Perry, only that he’s preferable to a sellout Repuke-in-Dem-clothing POS like Oblather.
Sadly, as with the Perry and other wingnut contingent, there are self-described liberals who are perfectly capable of promoting the misery of economic distress rather than rational discourse.
Kick-ass, Ruth! Rec’d!
thanks.
Thanks for the preview of the Democratic Party mantra. I’ll make a prediction right now–keep the faith, folks, I’ve been wrong before–Dick(oops, did I say that?) I mean Rick Perry will be the nominee of the Republican branch of the Fascist Party in 2012. The Democratic wing of the same party will have President Obama.
Cue talking points: You don’t want another governor from TEXAS, do you? And Obama will win in an electoral college landslide, and Wall Street will toast his victory with more taxpayer bailouts and taxpayer-subsidized martinis. Either way, the systematic dismantling of what is best about America will continue in the name of corporate profits.
Bah! I will not vote for Obama. Period. Of course, I’d never vote for Perry, either, but he would be no worse as far as my economic conditions go, so I really don’t care.
I’m with the New Progressive Alliance on this one, come what may.
One can tell the ones who have never had to live in a deep red state like Texas. They’re the ones who think that making the whole country red would wake people up.
If it hasn’t woken up Texas or Alabama or Mississippi or Idaho, why the heck does anyone think it would wake up any other state? Even a lot of midwestern states are still slumbering. Only Wisconsin, where the governor is a neophyte, has roused… and, even so, they re-elected the SC Justice who can make all their misdeeds legal.
Bolsters my current theory that the GOP Establishment is encouraging every single insane person in the party to run for President so as to dilute the lunatic vote in the primaries.
Allowing a dullard like Mitt or T-Paw to slip through.
Fine post, Ruth.
The ones still living on the social supportive system inherited from the New Deal are still voting, and they aren’t involved because they’ve never been threatened before. Did they elect a SC justice when votes suddenly appeared at the last minute? I don’t think so.
Excellent point.
It is really remarkable that Dallas can claim that sort of turn around….for so long it was the citadel of the rabid right….Good work; and yes, the white flight was huge. Good riddance, as some would say.
Sad for Plano, because it was a half decent place before, kinda country.
Governor GoodHair
Boy, I miss Molly Ivins
We really need Molly Ivins, indeed.
‘”Next time I tell you someone from Texas should not be president of the United States, please pay attention.” Molly Ivins
Research topic: The Articles Of Confederation
I love Texas with all my heart. I am a Texan through and through. I’m even one of the very rare Texans who has lived in Lubbock and Beaumont and attended both iconic Texas universities — Texas A&M and The University of Texas. I play golf and attend Eeyore’s Birthday bash. So, when I say that my Governor Rick Perry has either been body snatched by Glenn Beck or he has, sadly, pandered to Glenn to pay back a political favor — I do so with a very heavy heart. ‘
http://www.opednews.com/articles/BECKWATCH-On-Rick-Perry–by-Kevin-Tully-101116-756.html
No, we don’t want Perry in the White House, but we don’t want Dubya’s fourth term either. Aaaakkk!!!! I’m staying home on election day, unless a presidential alternative to the Dems or GOP makes it onto the ballot.
Enjoy the deluge, then.
Perry will not escape his current term as governor without being investigated and charged with fraud. He is a parasite on the rich. Under his leadership, Texas is exactly like the way Ruth Calvo describes it. It didn’t seem possible to find a bigger hypocritethan Romney but Perry is right there with him. Many of us in Texas just despise Perry. He represents all that is wrong in politics today.
Proud on ya, Ruth. Zounds!
I agree with you all the way.
Thanks, and hope so. That he is selling the state off to his supporters has provided, I am sure, an example to the takeovers of WI, MI, OH and others.
Wish it were better news.
Been around too long not to recognize the strategy. Destroy the country’s prospects for any rescue from corporate welfare by Staying Home. And Gore wore earth tones, not a dime’s worth of difference.
Gotterdammerung (twilight of the gods) –the Big Lie and the Awesome Truth. History is evolving into a new era, proceeding nicely, things taking care of themselves. Note that “twilight” is the shadow and haze of both dawn and dusk, beginning and end. The Big Lie is the apotheosis of man, god in man’s image –since Gilgamesh slew the cedars. The consequences of hubris are its own nemesis. Nietzsche was more to the point with his pun, Gotzendammerung, the twilight of the idols.
It always seems to work — guilt. Play on that guilt about how the few here at FDL who refuse to go quietly into BHO’s good night will be responsible for Fascism in America by refusing to vote for the corporate sell-out, torturer, endless war-maker, BHO.
What if instead of working to tamp down people’s enthusiasm for real change, we focus on a primary challenge to Obummer, or an independent candidate who is a real progressive, or a third party challenger, or, my favorite, whip up enthusiasm for tens of thousands to show up at Freedom Square in DC in October to say we intend to take our country back, peacefully, non-violently?
I don’t think the Repub nominee will be Rick Perry, but if it is, rest assured, almost everyone to the left of Atilla the Hun will go to the polls and curse as they vote for Obummer. Only a few of us left libertarian types, sick to death of being sick to death, will stay home or vote Green.
So why continue to change the subject when the number one reader-submitted diary states the obvious: we have to act now to oppose Obummer, to mount a primary challenge (I know, pissing in the wind), get an independent, third-party or go to DC in October and stay day after day to protest in Freedom Square? Can’t we on the left, for just once, act on principle sans the fear, guilt and self-defeating “pragmatism?”
So what if we don’t vote for Obama; at least we can look ourselves in the mirror because we have some self-respect. We will know we are not sheep calmly letting ourselves be led to the slaughter as we allow our civil liberties, jobs, education and the rest of the social safety net disappear.
Fear. Fear. Fear. Right or left, our electoral politics are full of fear. Cringing, mind-numbing fear. Some inconsequential diarist or commenter talks about something, you know, radical, like opposing the ruling monarch who has a D after his name so we can tell him from the one with the R, and the diaries start coming to instill the terrible fear and guilt of what might happen if we step out of line.
I know how I will approach this Presidential election. And this time, for the first time, I will either vote for a party or person I respect, or I will not vote at all. And I won’t. feel. guilty.
Oh, I think the vote that was found for real, Ruth. Maybe not, but they did an audit of the vote. If it was cooked, it was cooked somewhere else, like in Milwaukee.
The county clerk of Waukesha, Kathy Nickolaus, was so incompetent that she was using formattable Excel spreadsheets with precinct vote counts and importing them into her database. I think that one town altered their format, the import went bad, and the town’s votes disappeared. She didn’t notice. It could happen to anyone as stupid as that county clerk.
No, the real problem is the number of people who voted for David Prosser after it came out that he was verbally abusive to his peers and hyperpolitical.
‘It always seems to work — guilt.’
actually, think how much better off we’d be if it or anything else had worked in 2000.
“It is no secret that this state has a lot of business pleasing qualities”
It is no secret that Rick Perry is a close case.
Willful ignorance is a sub-set of stupidity. It can’t be fixed.
I don’t think it really matters who our next Fascist president is. He/She will be reporting to the same Oligarchy that owns George The Lessor and Clarence Thomas Obama. The only declared Democratic/Republican candidate who is not a Fascist is Ron Paul. The rest are all the same.
Wrong. I’m not staying home. I’ll work for, contribute to, and vote FOR some candidate with whom I actually agree most of the time.
You’re touting the old “lesser of two evils” argument that has brought my country to its current deplorable condition. It is a false argument and a dangerous one. For more, I refer you to Liz’ excellent post:
http://my.firedoglake.com/iflizwerequeen/2011/06/11/few-have-taken-the-first-step-understanding-why-nothing-changes/
Because of what he’s done as Gov., you’re right – I certainly don’t want Rick Perry in the White House. BUT, because of what he’s done & what he didn’t do as President when he could have, I want “Clarence Thomas” Obama out of the White House more.
If this is my choice for President in 2012, I’ll vote for Perry & make NO apologies. If the Dem. Party refuses to Primary Obama it is challenging us all to choose between bad Gov’t. that repeatedly acts against us and potentially bad Gov’t. Personally, I’ll always act to hold accountable those who had the opportunity to make a critically needed difference but refused to.
OBAMA MUST BE PRIMARIED!
Are you really so naive as to believe that the President of the United States runs the country?
Not me. BUT, a President with control of BOTH the Senate AND House certainly has the ability to severely punish those in his party who challenge him. AND, he has the enormous clout of his bully pulpit to take his agument directly to the people. Obama showed us he’d rather lose Lincoln’s Arkansas Senate seat than support the polls & give Halter a chance!). It’s flat out embarrassing to the Dem. Party how much time he’s spent pandering to the most Republican of Democrats. In short, Obama’s accomplished what he’s wanted to & left undone what he’s chosen to. 2012 is a referendum on “Clarence Thomas” Obama, nothing else. Personally, I’ve had enough of him.
Fine, Don’t apologize to the hundreds of thousands of women and children who would be actually hurt even more than they are now if a nasty hack such as Perry gets into the White House. Access to health care and education in Texas have decreased under Perry’s watch. He’s in bed with religious hacks who are working to make a joke out of public education in the state, handpicking zealots for the state education authority.
Many people in this country are scrounging to get by in a bad economy, and I think Perry and the crew of scoundrels he would bring would be even worse than what we have now. Just my thoughts.
If Obama took it directly to the people (assuming, only for the sake of argument, that he isn’t a party hack*), the party oligarchs would punish him by dumping the 2012 election.
*Obama would never have been given the support of his party had he not first convinced the party leadership that he would not use the presidency to harm the oligarchy: they don’t give weapons to those they can’t trust.