Big Beat

If you don’t understand what the Occupy Wall Street movement is about, you’re not alone. A paradigm shift like this one, which seeks to ban partisan bickering and relies on basic human respect as a catalyst for change, is not a political strategy to which modern-day Americans are accustomed. We haven’t seen this kind of attempt to unify political opponents since the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s.

Martin Luther King, Jr. believed that segregation was wrong, but that segregationists were human beings just like him, deserving of love and respect. “Through nonviolent resistance we shall be able to oppose the unjust system and at the same time love the perpetrators of the system,” he once said. How far we have strayed from those principles in our modern day media flame wars. Myself most woefully included.

As a vocal liberal in the media, I was struck by the discouragement of partisan signs and slogans at Occupy events. (It’s a democratic movement, so they won’t stop you from doing it.) Comment trolls on the various Occupy Facebook pages are greeted with patience and understanding. In Austin, at least, police officers are lauded for their professionalism. Public figures clearly associated with one party or another, such as Geraldo Rivera from Fox News or Representative John Lewis (D-Georgia), are kept at arm’s length lest they try to co-opt the Occupy movement in the same way the Republicans co-opted the Tea Party, perpetuating the broken system in the process. And then there’s the Occupy movement’s unique view of the regular, old “liberal” media.

I was present at the initial planning meeting for Occupy Austin, which took place at Ruta Maya coffee house on September 29. There, about 300 people—many of them under age 30—gathered to express a desire to work together for change.

The first order of business was to decide whether the group would adopt an official cause by October 6, when they were to begin their Occupation of Austin City Hall.

“If we don’t have a cause, the mainstream media won’t cover us,” some said.

“Screw the mainstream media,” came the response, which caused the room to erupt in applause.

History’s most media savvy generation is shunning the use of traditional media because of the belief that it’s just another arm of the corporate world. A fact that was reinforced last night when I visited the Occupation at City Hall, where I was mostly ignored for the more important business at hand—figuring out what the heck they are doing next.

Instead, the Occupy movement leaders are relying on their own personal social media pages on Facebook and Twitter, their own websites designed by volunteers, their own donated fliers and hand-painted signs, to appeal to people’s innate sense of what is right and wrong.

As a result, the mainstream media calls them “un-focused”, “lazy”, “hippies”, “commies”, “un-American”, “unemployed” and anything else they can say to discredit this thing that is happening that they simply cannot wrap their heads around. 

Tonight, outside Austin City Hall, a group called Creation Flame, which has a “Church of Awesome” outside town, is holding a group meditation to “bring a HUGE dose of love, positivity, and creative solutions to the movement.” Yes, these people sound a little crazy.

Unless you consider that the United States is still involved in (at least) three wars after we voted a man into the White House who said bringing troops home was his first priority, not one banker has paid for crimes of fraud perpetrated against the American people, and the undocumented immigrant issue goes unresolved. Meanwhile the Obama administration  announced Friday that its current priority is hassling the landlords of legalized marijuana dispensaries in California.

They say the definition of crazy is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. So, you tell me. Who’s crazy now?

There’s no doubt the world is in a crazy place right now, and Texas is no exception. It seems we’re entering a whole new era in the history of the Lone Star State. Here are 10 recent developments that seem to signal the end of Texas as we’ve known it.

1. The end of UT-A&M.

With Texas A&M football’s move to the SEC (that’s the Southeastern Conference to all you non-football people) this year, comes the possible end of the annual football game between the Aggies and the Longhorns. This would mark the end of a rivalry that began in 1894. I’m not even sure what happens on Thanksgiving weekend without this game, but I think next year we may well find out.

2. The end of rain.

As we learned from this recent Observer story, we are in a bad way when it comes to rain. This latest drought—already one of the worst in recorded history—could extend well into 2012, and perhaps beyond, says state climatologist John Nielsen-Gammon. Remember tubing? Remember when the state wasn’t on fire? Me neither.

3. The end of the Space Shuttle program.

This summer marked the official end of the NASA space shuttle program, which was housed at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. We won’t be sending anyone into space for quite a while. You have to wonder how many kids will even be interested in space. It reminds me of a bit British comic Eddie Izzard does about what his teacher told him when he announced, as a child, that he wanted to be an astronaut one day. “Look, you’re English, so scale it back a bit.” I never imagined we’d have to say that to American kids, but with the cutbacks to the Texas public school system this year, we’ll have little money for trivial things like “science” class.

4. The end of US-Mexico border relations.

When I was growing up in Brownsville, I used to go to Mexico for lunch during high school and make it back in time for Spanish class. (Shhh, don’t tell my parents.) Gone are the days when border-dwelling Texans could safely make the five-minute drive to Mexico for low-cost haircuts and orthodontist appointments. Add to that the dang fence, and the symbiotic relationship between Texas-Mexico border communities seems a thing of the past.

5. The end of Bastrop State Park.

This summer, due to the extreme heat and unprecedented drought, 95% of Bastrop State Park’s 6,500 acres, were destroyed by wildfires. With the forest floor burned bare, park Superintendent Todd McClanahan told the Austin American-Statesman, “We call it a moonscape.” Adding that he has no idea how or when the park will recover since, “We don’t have a lot of historical data on something this tragic.”

6. The end of the Democratic winning streak in Hidalgo County.

Last year, state Rep. Aaron Peña (R-Edinburg) announced mid-term that he would be running next election season as a Republican in a district that he says has never before elected one. No matter, the Republicans just drew him up a new GOP-friendly district. Could this mark the GOP’s foray into the Rio Grande Valley, a long-held Democratic stronghold?

7. The end of Lloyd Doggett?

Democratic congressman Lloyd Doggett has been annoying Texas Republicans since before Rick Perry was one. But with this year’s redistricting-palooza, the GOP has given him a new district that could spell trouble for Anglo, liberal Democrats in Central Texas. The Austin native will be running in a mostly San Antonio, mostly Hispanic district against wonder-twin Joaquin Castro. It’s our very own version of the Obama-Clinton showdown. Who will win is anybody’s guess, but Doggett is certainly not in his comfort zone.

8. The end of political apathy.

Recent political upheaval has begat two popular movements on the right and the left. The Tea Party came first and, though it was sometimes populated by racists, it managed to get some real voting power at the state and national level. Now comes Occupy Wall Street and folks with similar movements taking off in all major Texas cities. Occupy Dallas, Houston, Austin, San Antonio and Lubbock begin tomorrow (Oct. 6). Though critics complain the Occupy movement lacks focus, protesters in New York City have already gotten the support of some veteran Labor activists and uniformed military. I have a feeling this is the beginning of a sea change in the way Generation Y uses its political clout. Though Gen X and the Baby Boomers were seduced by money, Gen Y has no choice but to fight for their share of the American Dream, which, as witnessed by the above list, is going up in smoke.

9. The end of white majority.

If Texas changes in none of the other ways I have predicted, there’s no denying that the face of Texas is browner. The 2010 census informed us of that fact months ago. When the death rattle of the conservative Anglo power structure that has defined this state for so long is over, what will be left?

10. The end of Rick Perry?

There are those who say that Rick Perry’s bid for the presidency is losing momentum with every GOP debate. Between his support of providing discounted in-state college tuition to children of illegal immigrants, his poor debate skills and his unfortunately named family hunting lease, Perry may be witnessing the end of his presidential dream. If that happens, is he really going to find support in Texas? Can he successfully run for reelection in 2014 after so much controversy? And if his long reign as governor finally comes to an end, let’s take this opportunity to make some changes that help everyone and leave the cronyism behind.

The End.

The state of Texas is currently tied up in two legal challenges seeking to prove that newly drawn congressional districts leave minorities no more voting power than they had in the early 1990s. That’s despite the fact that minority populations are responsible for 89 percent of the state’s growth during the past decade. Districts are redrawn whenever the U.S. Census Bureau figures come in. It’s always contentious, and both political  parties try to draw districts to their advantage. Yet when Republicans are in charge, minorities seem to get screwed.

In this latest instance, Latinos earned Texas four new U.S. House seats and still somehow got the shaft.

One suit in a San Antonio district court was brought by a long list of minority advocacy groups, as well as Travis County, the City of Austin, and several politicians. They charge that new district maps drawn by the Legislature discriminate against minority voters.

A second case in Washington, D.C., was filed by the State of Texas to get pre-clearance of its redistricting maps under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson, the Voting Rights Act prevents minority communities from being divided and diluted. Due to a history of discrimination against minorities, Texas and eight other states—all Southern with the exception of Alaska—are required by federal law to get federal approval of any changes to their voting procedures.

Several minority-interest groups have also intervened in the D.C. case.

Deputy Texas Attorney General David Schenck, defending the maps before a panel of three federal judges in San Antonio on Sept. 6, argued that the new districts don’t drain power from people of color. “Whites are voting for and electing African-American and Latino candidates at record levels,” Schenck told the judges. “[The candidates] just happen to be Republicans.”

Of course, when it comes to this country, “record levels” still amount to scraps. (How many female presidents have we had again? And would we still want one if she’s Michele Bachmann?) Especially when you consider that none of this redistricting would be happening if it weren’t for the four new congressional seats Texas earned due to Hispanic growth recorded in the 2010 census.

“From almost five million population growth, 90 percent was due to minorities and 66 percent of this growth was Latino; the remaining was black and others. Yet we didn’t get a single congressional district,” said Brent Wilkes, National Executive Director of LULAC, during a meeting with the Department of Justice on Sept. 1.

The new maps create no new minority districts, but they do have one  “minority-opportunity” district in which Latinos could partner with other voters to elect their candidate of choice. That’s District 35, which includes Bexar County, a largely Hispanic, largely Democratic population. The district was drawn, however, to oust Austin congressman and Democratic lion Lloyd Doggett.

The big clue that gerrymandering is going on can be found in the awkward appendages on some of the newly drawn districts. Dr. Morgan Kousser, professor of history and political science at the California Institute of Technology and an expert witness for the Mexican-American Legislative Caucus, testified in San Antonio on Sept. 6 that appendages like the one on Congressional District 26, which dips down from Denton County into Tarrant County, almost splitting Congressional District 12 in half, are red flags.

That appendage is 71 percent minority, Kousser said, but when it’s included with Denton County, those minorities get diluted by a 61.9 percent Anglo, and largely Republican, county.

University of Texas law professor Steve Bickerstaff, author of Lines in the Sand, about the 2003 congressional redistricting controversy, said he thought the Department of Justice would object to the new maps.  Bickerstaff was right. On Sept. 19, the Justice Department announced it wouldn’t pre-clear the new map. If no easy fix emerges from the San Antonio court, Texas will try the suit in D.C.

If all else fails, the state could go to the U.S. Supreme Court to challenge the constitutionality of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, knowing that the conservative court may be open to that argument.

A possible court challenge to the Voting Rights Act presents a dilemma for opponents of the plan and for minority voters who are facing the brunt of the conservative party’s last-ditch effort to keep control of a changing Texas.

Texas Representative Aaron Peña (R, but formerly D–Edinburg) is in the hot seat this week after testimony in San Antonio federal court last week proved inconsistent with Peña’s description of his role in the recent redrawing of Texas voter district maps.

The proposed new map for state House districts includes a specially created conservative district for Peña. That district surfaced mere months after he switched political parties, helping give the GOP a supermajority in the Texas House.

Peña stated on the House floor during session in April that he told the redistricting committee, “I will not draw this map because one, I did not want to be involved. And two, that I didn’t want to be involved in pairing or being involved in affecting my neighbors districts.”

But that doesn’t square with what House redistricting committee counsel Ryan Downton testified in a San Antonio federal court last week. Downton said he worked directly with Peña on the district lines after the first draft of the map was released. Specifically, Downton said that Peña told him which neighborhoods were favorable to the lawmaker so that Downton could include them in Peña’s proposed district. This is according to Texas Democratic Party deputy executive director Anthony Gutierrez, who posted the report of court proceedings on Monday on that party’s blog  The Party Insider.

Apparently, it proved awfully difficult to carve a conservative district for Peña out of Democratic-leaning Hidalgo County. Compared with surrounding districts—all Democratic— Peña’s HD 41 is   under populated by about 7,000 people. Downton testified that including more voters would have made the district too Democratic as Hidalgo County is largely populated by Latinos who have never before elected a Republican. This process of putting more voters in neighboring districts is a method of gerrymandering known as “packing” where minorities are packed into surrounding districts to create a non-minority district for interested parties.

A call to Rep. Peña’s office got me this quote from Peña:

“I did not physically draw the map, did I make suggestions to the map drawers, sure just like 149 other members did. I have always been forthright that I communicated with staff and legislators as is my duty as a member of the committee.  These sort of petty personal attacks by hyper-partisans are not constructive.”

The same day Gutierrez released his report, the Department of Justice filed legal briefs announcing that the Texas House and congressional redistricting maps violate the Voting Rights Act of 1965 because they don’t protect the electoral power of the state’s minority populations. This means the case will go to federal court in Washington D.C.

The Voting Rights Act is a landmark piece of legislation that outlawed discriminatory voting practices especially prevalent in the American South. Texas is required by federal law to get pre-clearance on any changes to voting procedures because of its history of disenfranchising minority voters. (More on this and the various court proceedings in my print column in the upcoming October issue of the Observer.)

As of this writing, the San Antonio federal court proceedings have wrapped, but the panel has not issued a report. It’s waiting for the decision to come down from D.C. courts that are allowed to make the final decision on this case. That could take as long as November. Meanwhile, Peña has a very tough reelection fight on his hands, even if his friendly district is upheld.

This year, we’re kicking off Hispanic Heritage Month with the disheartening news that Latinos, for the first time in American history, comprise the majority of inmates in federal prison. One reason for this, according to the  Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University, is the unprecedented amount of undocumented immigrants being arrested and charged rather than deported. The trend is a tactic on the part of the Obama administration, (and the Bush administration before them), says Walter Ewing, senior researcher at the Immigration Policy Center, to butter up conservative litigators for immigration reform.

“It’s a losing strategy because it’s never going to be enough for them,” Ewing told political watchdog site Colorlines, referring to members of Congress who demand “a secure border” before they can consider immigration reform.

Meanwhile, those sneaking into the United States to willingly perform labor for minuscule wages are finding themselves involved in a far more diabolic system than they bargained for. Namely, privatized prisons motivated by profit.

Corrections Corp. of America, (it sounds like something out of a  Monty Python skit, but it’s sadly very real), runs more than 60 prisons and immigrant-detention centers across the country. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan organization that tracks the effect of money on U.S. politics, CCA has spent more than any other corrections company–$17.6 million– lobbying politicians, contributing to their campaigns and hiring their former staff. They also lobby the Department of Homeland Security and its Immigration and Customs Enforcement division which just so happens to contract with CCA and other private companies for immigration-detention centers.

Though CCA says they only lobby to educate policy makers, one can’t help but notice that what they lobby for is tougher prison sentences. After all, it’s how they make their money.   

As for the claim that private prison companies run a more efficient ship, one only has to do a cursory search online to find their records rife with incompetence that has cost many inmates their lives. The country’s second largest private prison company, GEO group, formerly called Wackenhut, which runs a facility at Guantanamo Bay, has been involved in numerous scandals across the country, including here in Texas. One of note resulted in a teenage inmate at a Coke County facility committing suicide after she was repeatedly raped by a guard. A court investigation found that some of the guards Wackenhut hired had criminal records themselves.

“There’s a lot of room for improvement in state-run prisons, but at least they’re not in it to make money,” says Alexia Rodriguez, VP Immigrant Children’s Services and Legal Counsel for Southwest Key, a non-profit that provides alternatives to incarceration for youth. “When money is your motive for providing this kind of service, the results are never good.”

What kind of heritage are we creating with a culture that’s willing to make money on the backs of poor immigrants? Let’s take this Hispanic Heritage Month to seriously consider the consequences of our actions.