The Irony of the Texas Media Empowerment Project

I really like the idea of the Texas Media Empowerment Project. It purports to be “fighting for a fair media system”, “advocating for social justice”, “collaborating with communities”, and so on.

Here’s the thing: Although the Texas Media Empowerment Project has a well-designed web site with lots of pretty graphic elements, and there are photographs of a “benefit” social gathering with really groovy music in 2005 and of a “media producer training” in 2006, there isn’t anything on the web site to actually do to empower any media, in Texas or anywhere else.

The “Services” and “Action” sections, where there would presumably be some kind of activist resources to enable people to build empowered media, are empty. “Coming soon…”, they read. Coming soon since 2005?

Here’s the lesson I learned as a member of the Constructive Interference Collective in Memphis, Tennessee back in the 1990s: Talking about media empowerment doesn’t empower anybody. Having really groovy music is nice, but it doesn’t empower anyone either. Creating media, and using it for a social purpose, is empowering.

Seeing people complain that the media system in the USA is unfair, when those same people are not using the media opportunities that are always available to them, makes me skeptical of what those people have to say. It’s not that I don’t believe that there are injustices being done by the FCC, or that there are problems with the dominance of corporate media. Rather, I’m suspicious of people who passively complain about media problems without actually doing anything about it. Their complaints have little more substance than the whining of people who wish that there was something to watch on TV.

Media empowerment is actually accomplished in 5 very simple steps.

1. Turn off the media that seems corrupted and unjust to you. No, don’t look at it and complain about it. Just turn it off.
2. Make your own media.
3. Make your own media.
4. Make your own media.
5. Make your own media.

If the Texas Media Empowerment Project really wants to empower media for others, then it needs to start with itself. Use the web site, guys. Turn it on. Give it the power.

Texas Democrats Vote To Kill Energy Efficiency Legislation

Two Texas Democrats in Congress betrayed their constituents last week and crossed over to work with the Republicans in Congress to kill legislation that would have improved energy efficiency and independence. Representatives Gene Green and Nick Lampson voted against the Creating Long-Term Energy Alternatives for the Nation Act.

In doing so, Green and Lampson voted to preserve standards for fuel economy that have not been updated in over a generation. They voted to protect the dirty petroleum energy policy of George W. Bush. They voted in favor of inaction on global warming. They voted to keep money out of the pockets of Americans as well.

The Creating Long-Term Energy Alternatives for the Nation Act would have saved Americans about 40 billion dollars every year in reduced energy costs, would have strengthened the market for clean sources of electrical energy, and would have increased the fuel efficiency of American cars to an average of 35 miles per gallon.

In doing so, the United States would have become dramatically more energy independent – and have less need for deadly and costly military activities in the Middle East.

Yet, Gene Green and Nick Lampson were among the small number of Democrats to vote against these improvements. In their 2008 re-election campaigns, that betrayal of good common sense is something that they’ll both need to answer for.

Right Wing Poverty Ruins Lives For Texas Children

Ever since George H.W. Bush danced onto the national political stage with a silver foot in his mouth, Texas Republicans have been preaching to the rest of America about how great life is in Texas, and how we all ought to follow the Texas example.
One simple statistic pops the big Texas bubble: At 17.6 percent, the rate of poverty in Texas is well above the national average, and is even higher above the average poverty rate in blue states (states that voted for the Democratic president in 2008). Blue states have an average poverty rate of just 11.07 percent.
The child poverty rate in Texas is even higher: 24.9 percent. About one in every four children in Texas is living in poverty, and no matter what right wing ideologues might say about personal responsibility, it isn’t the fault of those children that they’re born poor.
If adults in Texas want to choose impoverishing right wing economic policies for themselves, I suppose that’s their right, but they ought to have the decency to spare their children from poverty. It’s going to take a progressive President to lift children in Texas from the economic misery that Republican politics has surrounded them with from birth.
(Source: Food Research and Action Center, State of the States Report, 2007)

Texas Republicans Fail To Rally Support For Straw Poll

The biggest news out of the Texas Republican straw poll, other than the stunning failure of Fred Thompson to defeat third tier candidate Duncan Hunter, is the shockingly low turnout.

The Texas Republican straw poll is supposed to be an event to rally the GOP faithful. The faithful, it seems, just weren’t interested in showing up this year.

Even the right-leaning Dallas Morning News admits the dramatic Republican Party failure to get Republican activists to attend the straw poll.“The turnout by 1,300 party activists fell short of the GOP’s initial hope of attracting between 10,000 and 20,000 Texas Republicans,” the newspaper reports.

Texas has been a stronghold of die hard Republican support. It seems, however, that even in Republican strongholds, Republican activists just don’t want to show up to support their political party any more.

Will War End If We Believe in Peace Enough?

I’ve got mixed feelings about an anti-war event taking place in Austin, Texas today. I know it’s well intentioned, and I certainly don’t think it will do any harm, but I wonder whether it will really do much to end the war in Iraq.

The event is entitled The War Is Over!, and it’s being held at the Texas State Capitol at 5:00 PM today. Head on over if you’re in the neighborhood if you’re interested in a good time. If you’re interested in helping to end the war, however, I encourage you to wait five minutes before going to the event, and spend that time thinking about how you can do something else.

It’s time that we anti-war activists do some critical thinking about what works and what doesn’t. Protests in the streets, no matter how big, are not helping to end the war. Neither is the blind optimism preached by many peace activists that, if we just think peace enough, war all around the world will end.

It’s that sort of thought that seems to be motivating the War is Over protest in Austin today. The following was written by the event organizers: “On August 17, 2007 we will have an End Of The War rally and formally declare the end to the war in Iraq and elsewhere. The event will be complete with a march, music and poetry mourning the loss and celebrating peace. This will be an effective and positive event addressing a government refusing to acknowledge the opposition within its own citizens as well as its own political parties. If the government won’t end the war, why not we the people?”

Will this work? Will war be ended just by a bunch of people coming together and declaring that the war is over?

We know it won’t. It’s a nice thought. Maybe it’s a useful psychological release for people dealing with a sense of powerlessness against the huge forces behind the war. Poetry and music might help people feel better, and there’s nothing wrong with that, but, no matter what happens in Austin today, the war will go on tomorrow.

War is brutally realistic. If peace activists are to be effective, they must not plunge into fantasy in order to escape the reality of war.

Texas Democrats Regret Supporting Nick Lampson

Now, in the aftermath, all we can do is shake our heads at the Texas Democrat Hall of Shame:

Henry Cuellar

Chet Edwards

Nick Lampson

Ciro Rodriguez

These Texas Democrats broke their oath of office. They failed to defend the Constitution. They ran like cowards from Alberto Gonzales and George W. Bush.

Everyone knows by now what Alberto Gonzales has been up to as Bush’s right hand man in the White House. Gonzales started out by helping George W. Bush and Dick Cheney craft a rationale for torture. Then he moved on and used his power to fire U.S. attorneys in order to protect Republican Congressmen from corruption investigations. From there, he oversaw the abuse of spy powers granted to the White House through the Patriot Act, and lied to Congress about the extent of the abuse. Alberto Gonzales has been caught lying to Congress on several occasions.

So, what did Cuellar, Rodriguez, Lampson and Edwards do in response? They gave Alberto Gonzales even more powers.

No kidding. That’s really what happened this weekend. George W. Bush, the least popular President in living memory, told the Democrats in Congress that Alberto Gonzales needed to be given the power to listen to Americans’ telephone calls and read their emails without a warrant, and without having to get approval from a judge at all. Bush told them to pass a law making it so, and allowing Alberto Gonzales to force other Americans to take party in these spy operations, and throw them in prison if they refuse to cooperate.

Most Democrats in Congress said no. Most Democrats pointed out the obvious, that the proposed law, given the ironic title of the Protect America Act, was in blatant violation of the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America. It is an assault against American freedom to give someone in government like Alberto Gonzales the power to spy on Americans’ private conversations at will, they said.

But these four Texas Democrats? Lampson, Edwards, Cuellar and Rodriguez caved in. Yes, sir, Mr. Bush, they said. Whatever you say, Mr. Bush. They wimped out, lacking the resolve to say no to the most unsuccessful President in American history.

This kind of weakness was to be expected from Chet Edwards and Henry Cuellar, feckless flip-floppers who are usually to be found on the most politically convenient side of any particular issue. But Ciro Rodriguez and Nick Lampson? More courage was expected from them.

Texas Democrats are especially disappointed with Nick Lampson. Representative Lampson replaced Tom DeLay, and was supposed to be a shining example of clean politics and a break with the extremism of the Bush Republicans. Sadly, on the bill to give Alberto Gonzales special new powers, Nick Lampson voted the very same way that Tom DeLay would have voted. One blog expresses the disappointment as follows:

“Last night, Nick Lampson voted in favor of a law that gives Alberto Gonzales the power, working with John Negroponte, to spy against Americans by listening to their telephone calls.

Alberto Gonzales has been caught lying to Congress, abusing the spy powers he already had, and using his position for political purposes. Alberto Gonzales ought to be fired. Yet, Nick Lampson voted to give Alberto Gonzales more power than ever, and to demolish the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution in the process.”

I couldn’t have said it better myself. If Nick Lampson is going to give away American freedoms to George W. Bush like this, I can’t think of a single reason to support his re-election in 2008.