The Beating Heart of Texas, a short story, parts one and two

Lampasas County, Texas, 1875

“Where are you goin’ Daddy?”

“I’m goin’ to a meeting, Sissy.”

“That meeting like the one you go to late at night?”

“How you know about that, girl?”

“Oh, Daddy, I lay in bed awake when the dogs carry on, and I hear you leavin’.”

“How you know it’s me then?”

“Oh, Daddy you think Mama’s goin’ sneakin’ out? Or Bubba and “Charley? You sayin’ that?”

“No, honey they wouldn’t sneak out. Your Mama’s too good a woman and your brothers know I’d tan their hides and hang ‘em in the smokehouse with the other hams.”

“Oh, Daddy, go on.”

“I’m goin’. And honey, I won’t be goin’ to those late meetings any more. They got too silly for me. Anyway, this meeting’s way more important. We farmers are going to ban together into one great Union.”

“But we’re Rebels, Daddy.”

“ ‘Course we are. No, all us white farmers are goin’ to fight the big boys who don’t work, but sit around all day thinkin’ a ways to steal our money.”

“You mean the banks, Daddy?”

“That’s good Sissy. Yes, banks, railroads, combinations, and those ranchers with their gun-totin’ killers they pretend are cowboys.”

“I know, Daddy. I’m more scared a them than I am your n…ers.”

“Sissy, I’ve done changed my mind about them boys and I’m through usin’ that word and you are too.”

“Why, Daddy?”

“There’s no use in stirrin’ up the hornet’s nest, Sissy. We lost the damn war. Old Sam Houston warned us and we didn’t listen. Now the Republicans and their government paid boot-lickers are the enemy.”

“I heard you say the other night you’d vote for a yaller dog before you’d vote for a Republican.”

“That’s right, honey. They don’t work. They just use our taxes to pay for the army and railroads and banks. They let the ranchers use thousands of acres of land that ain’t theirs. And the damn ranchers own the water. Water put on this earth by God Himself! And they think they can own in and kill us for bein’ thirsty. I’d like to take their big war hero General Grant and stick him down here in Texas on a dry land farm.”

“He’d try to grow tobacco for his cigars. Cigars make people sick.”

“I hope they make him sick, Sissy. I surely do.”

And Daddy went out into the clean air of Texas, the beating heart of Texas where people work for their money and stand by their beliefs. And, by God, did not their beliefs make eternal sense? That night he and his neighbors formed the Texas Alliance, the first of the Southern Alliances, the precursors of the National Farmers’ and Laborers’ Union of America. In 1889 a convention in St. Louis formed that one great Union which, in turn, evolved into the Populist Party.

                                                     ...

The present day, Austin, Texas

“What are you readin’, Daddy?”

“Why, Sissy, I’m reading the Cross of Gold Speech.”

“What’s that?”

“It’s a famous speech in American history, Sissy. We studied it in high school back in my day, but it’s probably illegal to teach it now in Texas.”

“Are you kidding?”

“Only a little. You don’t know it, probably, but Texas has outlawed a lot of history. At least the teaching of that history. It’s like they passed laws against ideas the damn Republicans don’t believe in. It’s not just like that; that’s exactly what they did. They passed laws against the teaching of the truth!”

“Really?”

“Oh, yes. The truth. Just like in China or the old Soviet Union or Cambodia. Texas is not the same place I grew up in. It’s not a free country anymore.”

“My teacher says Texas should be a country again. Could we drop out of the United States?”

“It feels like we already have. But, seriously, no Texas would be crazy to try it. This country fought a Civil War the last time. And Texas lost that war just like Sam Houston warned we would.”

Sam Houston was against the Civil War?”

“Oh yeah. Your granddaddy taught me that.”

“The one who named his daughter Sissy?”

“Yep, you know. That’s why we call you Sissy.”

“You loved your granddaddy.”

“You better believe it. Why I grew up thinking all old Texans were like him. There’s so many things he believed in that have changed since George W. was governor. The old Texas died is what it feels like. You know, Granddaddy was against carrying guns around. He didn’t like gun racks in pickups and he’d never believe that a Democrat, a woman, a mother, no less wants to bring back the Wild West days and let people walk around with guns.”

“You mean Wendy Davis?”

“Yep. She is for something that your granddaddy once bragged was a sign of Texas’ growin’ up – that a man could walk anywhere in the state without facing down some gun-toting thug.”

“But I thought she was the great hope of Democrats winning back the state.”

“Honey, if that’s what Democrats want to do, I’m through voting for Democrats.”

“Who would you vote for?”

“Hell, I guess I’ll have to write in names, probably Jim Hightower.”

He’s funny.”

“Yeah, and he’s right on, too. No, it’s another thing your granddaddy wouldn’t believe. That I could not bring myself to vote for a Democrat. He was a yellow-dog Democrat.”

“What’s that?”

“Someone who would vote for a yellow dog before even thinking about voting for a damn Republican.”

“That’s pretty funny.”

“Thing of the past. There ain’t a dimes bit of difference between a damn Republican and a Democrat like Wendy Davis. Sure she’ll get votes from some folks because of some things she says she's for, but she’ll sell us all down the river just to win an election.” 

Old-fashioned Populism is the all-American answer to defeat the Corporatist Two-Party System ruining the U.S.

Here is a link to JimHightower.com. It will open in a new window and I encourage you to read: SEEDS OF A MOVEMENT: A 21ST CENTURY POPULIST RENEWAL IS FLOURISHING AT AMERICA'S GRASSROOTS

So you thought Texas was full of yahoos? Think again. This man was elected Texas Commissioner of Agriculture in a state-wide election in 1982. Texas was a hotbed of the old populist movement and it was farmers who led the way against the railroad and banking interests. Jim Hightower is the living embodiment of an old Southern tradition.

Nothing convinces me more that the Democratic Party is not going to lead us out of our moral decline in this country than the fact that it was the Democrats who failed to recognize the populist revolution that elected President Obama. Back-stabbing Republicans were predictable. Back-stabbing Democrats are the enemy and I don't cry when they are defeated. 

I have not heard Democrats take a solid stand against the perverted use of eminent domain that must be if the Keystone Pipeline is to be built. I have not seen the Dems protect the innocent children of America from gun violence even though a simple, literal interpretation of the Constitution clearly indicates that regulation is allowed.

I've blogged on these issues before, so I'll end now, leaving you time for Jim Hightower.

it's time to break the CIA into a thousand pieces!

Well, the Republicans finally managed to score points in the only way they know how - the smear. They lied enough, of course with the media's help, to prevent Susan Rice from becoming the next Secretary of State. Now a report from the State Department points a finger at itself. Don't worry it'll come back in an attempt to bite candidate Hillary in the a.. if she indeed runs for president. That's what it's all about, power for the Party.
No word about the other governmental agency who had a major presence in the Bengazi tragedy, the CIA. Oh yes, they were there, a whole houseful of them. The CIA did not stop the attack, predict the attack, or change the situation. You see, that's not what they do. I think there is a good CIA and a bad CIA. Of course neither you or I can PROVE anything beyond a reasonable doubt about the CIA because it's SECRET. It has to be SECRET. They protect us so we allow their secrecy, right? Wrong! Did they protect us from 9/11? Did they play a role in preventing the war in Iraq - that morally bankrupt war that, I think, was designed to bankrupt the nation? Did they provide any SECRET guidance that has led to success in Afghanistan? No, and why not? Is it just because the bad CIA is dominant? Well, that doesn't hurt their incompetence, but I put to you that the very concept of an on-going SECRET agency is anathema to any free democracy. Remember that the CIA and the NSA and their ilk were created at the end of WWII  from the war-time secret agencies, created indeed at the most secure moment for America in the entire 20th century. No country in the world could challenge the U.S. at that moment and yet the populace allowed its government to expand in a manner that began all the self-fulfilling prophecies that have led us to believe we can't do without their continual dominance. They became more powerful than the Presidency in November of 1963 and have grown ever since. They create murder and mayhem on such a scale that we may never truly be safe again.
And the CIA did nothing to prevent the Bengazi attack, but bear no blame because no one is safe from them. They worked with the Mafia in the 60's; what makes you think they don't work with the Mafia today? Indeed, we have allowed the creation of private SECRECY companies to work the famous "dark side." So, now the link between money and SECRECY is out in front of us. Who can be surprised that Blackwater, by whatever name, left the U.S.? They are a criminal enterprise who wrongly thought they might get caught except that no one dares go after them. No, they are now based in an oil-rich Arab country and remain available to work the dark sides for them too.
Why did we fall prey to uncontrollable SECRECY at the time of the greatest strength our nation ever had? Simple, they wrapped themselves in the flag. And now that they, and American politics, are wrapped in both the flag and the Bible they think they are untouchable. Are they? Only as long as We the People behave like sheep who have gone astray. The government will not do this for us. If a politician or public figure was powerful enough to threaten them they have two routes to go. One, they discredit that person until s/he loses all credibility, or two, they kill them. This is only one major reason why our nation's dependence on "the President" is wrong-headed. No President since Dwight David Eisenhower will ever be again be powerful enough to stop them. And he tried to rally the People to stop the Military/Industrial Complex, but we didn't heed him.
Now we must add SECRECY to the complex: the Military/Industrial/SECRECY Complex is not on our side. They are on their own side. They flourish only as long as We the People allow perpetual war and fear to dominate. They are on the side of the 1%. They are mostly on the Republican side, but have the Democrats effectively bottled up.  And the wealth and power of the 1% are now tied to international big money in such a way that putting America first is a near impossibility. Peace would mean their demise. Evil must be turned around so our children can live. We must have a nonviolent orange-style revolution in America and it can't come from the top down. Those at the top are either part of the problem or their hands are tied. The two-party system in the U.S. cannot live without them and is becoming ever more entrenched. The two-party system will never fix America. The Republicans want a country with a federal government that does nothing except fight wars and perpetuate SECRECY. The Democrats try to do this and that without the nerve to tell us that the best way America could save money is to shrink the Military/Industrial/SECRECY Complex. They will forever be liable to the notion that they are the big wasteful party of spenders because they want to have both guns and butter. Lyndon Johnson couldn't do it and he had more control of his party than Obama.
And who, I ask you was the only candidate during our last presidential election cycle who spoke out about these issues and the "blowback" they create? You know, the one who said we should treat other countries the way we wish to be treated? (Sounds like, and is, another way to quote Jesus Christ.) And where was the audience who laughed aloud when he said it? Why it was Ron Paul in North Carolina, the Republican/Bible Belt!
We need Ron Paul's voice in the national debate. We need his Campaign for Liberty to leave the Republican Party because it cannot be reformed any more than the Democratic Party can. Left and Right mean nothing anymore. There is a Wheel of Life and if you travel far enough in any direction you will meet your opposite. While I do not support all Ron Paul stands for, he who confronts my biggest enemy is my friend! Applied common sense on the Wheel of Political Life would show that there is a great commonality between two apparent opposites, both of whom are capable of speaking great truths - Ron Paul and Jim Hightower! I'd like to see that debate in the open sunshine of true Democracy!!