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TexasTowelie

(111,312 posts)
Fri May 22, 2015, 02:57 PM May 2015

Camus, the Texas Legislature, and Oberammagau’s Passion Play

By Carol Morgan

Thank God, this 84th session will be over soon. For the mathematically-challenged, you can count the days on your fingers. We’ll all breathe easier when they adjourn. No person, place or thing in Texas is safe from January to June while the Legislature is in session.

Such freedom! We can drill a fracking well in our own front yard, let a private company with ties to our Congressman steal municipal water wells in Hays County and sell it to the surrounding counties, and allow the official flag of Texas, plastic bags, to decorate our trees again. The Tea Party lawmakers will return home to their respective districts with the foolish delusion of being Odysseus making the last triumphant leg of the hero’s journey.

Unless…the Governor calls a special session. And he just might, because nothing substantial has been accomplished. Unless, of course, you believe that the freedom of deep fryers and cannabis oil trumps an educational budget and that hunting and fishing is a God-given right to be enshrined forever and ever in the Texas Constitution. If so…you must think the 84th has been just dilly.

This week has been the most absurd of weeks; so absurd, in fact, that only Albert Camus (“Shall I kill myself or have another cup of coffee?”) would approve. It’s so full of melodrama. At times, it seems as if a writer scripted all of it, but if that were so, the ending would be more satisfying. The bad guys would get punished, the hero would get the girl (or the money), and good would win out over evil.

But we’ll have none of that in the Texas Legislature.

This third week in May has been like a slow slide into fascism, with state house members allowing big government to dictate what can and cannot be deducted from state workers' paychecks. Teachers, firefighters, policemen and social workers will be forbidden from allowing their professional organizations’ dues or occupational-related PACS to be deducted via their monthly paycheck. It’s perfectly clear that this was meant to put out the fire for state employees to organize. In the law according to Joan (if we could read her mind, and sometimes that’s easy to do), state workers will do what they’re told and by God! They’ll like it.

This is Texas’ version of making political activism on the part of state workers illegal, just like the North Carolina Legislature did with educators. It’s a preventive measure for the future. Stamp out the unions—the Gilded Age redux; Texas version!

Governor Greg Abbott gleefully signed HB 40 which banned municipal fracking bans (and it seems quite absurd to put a ban on bans—doesn’t it?). To make the gesture complete, he should have ended with a Rhett Butler-like declaration to Denton: “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.” Or maybe even, “Frack you, Denton!”

And of course, there were attempts at educational reform stacked upon educational reform; all trivial and meaningless. Pearson was “out” for the testing contract and ETS was “in”, but for a smaller amount of money. A good investigative reporter would have a fine story by cross-checking ETS’ political contributions to lawmakers—but don’t count on any indictments. Look what has NOT happened to the King of the Kingmakers, Empower Texans. They like to believe they run the Legislature and they kind of do run the Legislature. I’ve learned that the term “education reform” is nothing more than code-speak for some legislator’s buddy making big bucks off the backs of Texas schoolchildren.

The Lege can make tax cuts and do away with business taxes, but STILL no education bill that addresses Judge Dietz’ ruling that Texas school funding is unconstitutional. If I were Judge Dietz, I would fine each and every Senator and House Rep $100,000 dollars per day out of their personal bank accounts (and no drinking in the statehouse either) until they came up with a viable education budget.

They can do it. If they can revoke the liquor license of Twin Peaks in Waco in less than 24 hours, they can come up with an education budget and fix the court ruling. What’s more important? Breastaurants and motorcycle melees or education?

Truth is, I'd like to file a class action lawsuit against all the low information voters in Texas who opened the door to these clowns, but a new bill in Congress, HB 1927, cuts the cord to our court’s protections. It makes it even easier for Corporate America to fool us and rule us with no hassle to them. And besides, the Texas Senate is doing away with Texans Right To Petition. We have no recourse, no safety net. They have us by the proverbial balls, with no way to escape…unless you want to lose your manhood. Unfortunately, that’s already happened. See? You didn't even notice you've been eunuchized.

It’s not sufficiently descriptive to portray the Texas Legislature as mere political theater. It’s more grandiose and decadent, like Oberammagau’s Passion Play. It was a deal made with God to get rid of a plague and it’s continued for almost four hundred years, until it became so bureaucratic, encompassing and expensive, devouring the lion’s share of time and money of the Bavarian village, that the decision was made to hold it only once every 10 years.

I’d be ok with the Texas Legislature only meeting once in 10 years, wouldn’t you?

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Carol Morgan is a career/college counselor, a freelance writer, and former Democratic candidate for the Texas House. She is the award-winning author of two books: Of Tapestry, Time and Tears and Liberal in Lubbock. Email Carol at elizabethcmorgan@sbcglobal.net , follow her on Twitter and on Facebook or visit her writer’s blog at www.carolmorgan.org

http://lubbockonline.com/interact/blog-post/carol-morgan/2015-05-21/camus-texas-legislature-and-oberammagau%E2%80%99s-passion-play#.VV9yrEby3SI

Permission granted to publish Carol's blog in its entirety.
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