Category: Uncategorized

ITEM: “The Texas Democratic Party announced Wednesday it would hold a public drawing for tickets to next week’s debate between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton in Austin. The decision came after Wednesday’s announcement that the debate will be closed to the public and will be invitiation only.”

Wasn’t it Thoreau who said all voting is a kind of gaming — a vast lottery that should never be confused with an exercise of conscience?

To paraphrase a famous motto of cybernetics: “Lottery in, lottery out.”

Back when George Jones was a fresh-faced 59-year-old king o’ country, he did Zell Miller a favor and hosted a singing party in Atlanta to celebrate the Governor’s election. It was January, 1991 and the missiles were about to launch into Iraq. My friend and mentor Geri Allen was assigned to represent The King Center at the Governor’s inauguration party, and she took me along with her, since it was King Week in Atlanta and I did pretty much everything she asked. I remember that she wore an anti-war button which attracted a television camera or two.

Along with George came Marty Stuart, Alan Jackson, Dickey Lee, and I believe Ricky Skaggs. Was Randy Travis there, too? Anyway, it was quite a lineup.

What I remember clearly is that it was the first time I’d seen George Jones live and his voice was bigger than life. I simply could not believe the sound that came from that man’s living voice. I went home and scooped up every Jones cassette that I could find and listened to them over and over during my 90 mile commutes from Austin to College Station and back.

Some singers you need the recordings for, because that’s the best they sound. Not George. As great as he sounds in the studio, there is something about his voice that just doesn’t get adequately captured by any amount of electronic wizardry.

At the 2008 Austin Rodeo on Sunday, Jones was 17 years down the road from the Atlanta glory days, and who can take issue with the things nature does to a man. But still, there was a sweetness to the voice, and a slow-hand soul that still brings out the goose bumps, the tears, and the sheer joy of grinning at what’s beautiful to hear.

God bless you, George Jones, and the truck you rode out on. As you waved from the window of the official rodeo truck that spun you around the arena, we kinda wondered, did you get a call from Willie warning you not to ride in the back of that damned thing?–gm

NOTE: these reflections on George Jones were originally posted in the “announcements” section of the Texas Civil Rights Review. The reference to Willie Nelson should be better explained. At the March 4 Rodeo, after Willie performed an encore song with great-grandson Zach, “Take Back America,” the two Nelsons climbed into the back of the official Rodeo pickup truck for the usual lap around the arena. Only, what happened was that when the the truck came to the “speed bump” of wooden planks that was laid down over the concert wiring, the truck threw both Nelsons back on their backsides. Sure enough, they both jumped right back up, so the incident didn’t break the mood of jubilation that was alive in the crowd. But the more you thought about it later, the more it made you sore. And come to think of it, Willie was not able to focus his eyes very much on the people after that, although he kept waving and smiling to the cheering crowd. It was real rodeo work for the Nelson boys that night, and that’s for sure.

PS: What else would account for the fact that our busiest hour in history fell on Tuesday afternoon, March 11? It had to be the rodeo report that was added to the “announcements” section, with mention of two talented Texans, George Jones and Willie Nelson. We reported, you decided. After all, amigo, this is the Texas Civil Rights Review!–gm

To The Georgetown City Council:

It has come to our attention that the Georgetown City Council will vote on January 8th to consider enacting a new Hazleton style city ordinance that will require contractors and subcontractors to prove their employees are in this country legally.

LULAC Council 4721 requests that the Georgetown City Council table the creation of any anti-immigrant ordinance. Georgetown’s anti-immigrant ordinance is simply not needed. Immigration law is a matter reserved for the U.S. Congress and federal law. In fact, in 1986 Congress enacted sweeping legislation that makes it unlawful for businesses to employ illegal immigrants and expressly pre-empts states and localities from imposing their own civil or criminal penalties.

The ordinance that is being contemplated is fueled by a mixture of misinformation and fear, if enacted, it will foster discrimination and racial profiling in Georgetown. This ill conceived ordinance will create opportunities to discriminate against anyone who simply looks like he or she might be an undocumented worker, citizen and non-citizen alike.

Other states and municipalities across the country have unsuccessfully attempted to adopt similarly divisive, unnecessary and illegal measures. Court’s across this country have found Hazelton type ordinances unconstitutional because it encroaches on federal immigration powers, fails to provide procedural protection to people before they are fired and violates federal civil rights laws. The Supreme Court has already determined it was the exclusive province of the federal government to determine whether a person is in the United States lawfully or not.

Our Council urges the Georgetown City Council to avoid spending taxpayer dollars on an ordinance that will simply produce legal challenges that will burden the local taxpayer.

Jose Orta,President LULAC Council 4721

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From KXAN (Dec. 19, 2007)

The City of Georgetown is taking new steps to crack down on illegal immigration.

The council voted unanimously to have staff write a proposal for a new city ordinance that would require contractors to prove their employees are in this country legally.

That’s how Georgetown council member Keith Brainard came up with the idea to create an ordinance ensuring anyone working for the city in any manner, including sub-contracted, is a legal immigrant.

“People are tired of illegal immigration,” Brainard said. “They would like this country to police its borders.”

While some in Georgetown agree, some like Guadalupe Rodriguez don’t.

“When they come here they are willing to do anything, just as long as they can make enough money to support their families,” Rodriguez said.

She said one reason the council may support the idea is because there is no one on the council who looks like her.

“We have five men and two women,” Brainard said. “I don’t really think in terms of people ethnicity. As far as I can tell, they are all caucasion.”

“It’s just very hard, I guess, for a different kind of race to get on the board,” Rodriguez said.

Meanwhile, Brainard said the issue is not about race.

“If you are in this country legally than you won’t have a problem with this proposal,” Brainard said. “It really boils down to that. It really gets down to the issue of whether or not the City of Georgetown is going to support and encourage illegal immigration, or not support illegal immigration.”

Georgetown staff members are preparing the proposal for the city council to consider at their next meeting on Jan. 8.

Toleration and the American Pulpit

By Greg Moses

CounterPunch / OpEdNews

What happened to Rev. Wright’s religious freedom? Sen. Barack Obama’s ‘race speech’ continued to presume that Rev. Jeremiah Wright deserves no special consideration on grounds of religious freedom. On Easter Sunday, perhaps, Americans will want to consider whether the pulpit at church deserves any special respect.

A cable newscaster on Good Friday asked in a tone of voice that expressed her wide-eyed naivety: “What is liberation theology?” Having covered the news for many years, and having covered the Rev. Jeremiah Wright thunderstorm for two weeks, it was still a question that she had not bothered to research. And frankly, I don’t want to experience that learning curve as part of my continuing coverage of the Presidential campaign.

I doubt that the summer of ’08 will be the time to provide a sufficient, good-faith answer to the question of liberation theology or how the black social gospel is spiritual grandfather to these momentous American movements. Such an attempt at national education played out upon our contemporary media landscape would likely morph into witch-hunt.

Sen. Barack Obama appears to agree with this assessment. The Senator’s public review of Rev. Wright’s oratory during Tuesday’s ‘race speech’ did not mention either keyword, neither liberation nor theology. And yet, Rev. Wright has asked that these be the key words applied to any serious assessment of his work.

Because it would likely be a poisonous time and place for the adult discussion that liberation theology requires, I think Obama’s judgment call is valid as he tries to move public discussion around the issue of liberation theology rather than through it.

However, I think there is a stronger argument than Obama’s for going around Rev. Wright’s oratory as a campaign issue. The stronger argument is that the American unity that Obama claims to want will require some faith in the principle of religious toleration.

Since it is liberation theology that is required to understand Rev. Wright, and since theological agreement is precisely the kind of thing that should not be required in the context of public policy debates, then it is time to agree that when Rev. Wright speaks from a pulpit in a church, it is better that a tolerant society back off of his comments as a Presidential issue.

There is some sophistication in the careful wording of Sen. Obama’s speech, which hints that he knows the difference between theology and policy discourse, even as he confines Rev. Wright’s oratory upon a two-dimensional plane of public policy. The clues are in the repeated uses of the phrase ‘as if’: “he spoke as if our society was static; as if no progress has been made; as if this country . . . is still irrevocably bound to a tragic past.”

Sen. Obama has three times denied the truth of his own pastor with the phrase ‘as if.’ But is not the theological function of prophetic speech to talk precisely ‘as if’? Public policy may spend long hours concerning the need to ‘store up’ resources for long-term planning. But does that dismiss the value of the prophet who walks up and says: “You fools, not tomorrow, but today, your souls are required of you!” As if there is no time.

Although it is unlikely that the cable news cyclists would respect calls for religious toleration in behalf of Rev. Wright, I think that toleration is the better argument for moving on.

The argument from toleration has the benefit of refusing to flatten theological oratory onto the plane of policy-speak. And if we achieve this act of toleration for Rev. Wright, then we will strengthen the three-dimensional life of spiritual language for all theologies (or anti-theologies), and maintain a more healthy distance between church and state as a precious resource for everyone’s freedom of worship in a robust democracy.

Not only do the continued houndings of Rev. Wright exemplify racialized ignorance, as Sen. Obama argues, but they also tighten the bands of religious intolerance that have too broadly constricted our national character for at least the past seven years. On this issue, perhaps, another great speech needs to be written that would restore Rev. Wright to the dignity that any theologian deserves when his name is dragged through the galleries of public-policy clamor.

NOTE: Article revised for OpEdNews (Easter Sunday, 2008)