Op Ed

Gov. Rick Perry loves to tout the greatness of Texas. We’ve got no argument with that; the Observer has been celebrating the state for 55 years. But we’re disturbed and offended that Perry equates criticism of his long-running regime with trashing the state.

“It wears me out that we have two people on this stage that want to tear Texas down,” Perry said at the Jan. 14 gubernatorial debate after Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison and Debra Medina dared to point out, among other things, the state’s 300,000 job losses in 2009. Such behavior is his habit. On the campaign stump, he frequently claims credit for making Texas “the best state in the nation.” When people mention one of his many failings, he accuses them of being Texas-haters.

Samuel Johnson summed it up best: Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel. So governor, let us clear something up for you: your critics don’t want to tear Texas down; they want to tear you down.

We’re not surprised that the longest-serving gov- ernor in Texas history might be confusing himself with the land that he represents. “L’etat, c’est moi,” as King Louis XIV of France put it. Rick I, King of Texas, clearly feels the same way since he plans to rule indefinitely. Listening to his campaign rhetoric, we half expect His Majesty to take the next step and proclaim himself “Savior of the People,” as Zairian dictator Mobutu Sese Seko once did.

We believe a government should be judged by how it treats the least fortunate. By this measure, King Rick is hardly a savior. Texas ranks 49th in the nation in verbal SAT scores and 46th in math (so much for upward mobility). Our girls rank third in teen preg- nancies. We have the highest percentage of uninsured people in the United States. Hundreds of Texans die every year because of inadequate health care. While Perry touts his skills in seducing businesses to relo- cate to Texas with tax breaks, many of these indus- tries bring pollution and low-wage jobs. Texas busi- nesses emit more poisons than those of any other state. There’s a word for that, and it ain’t “great.”

Despite his claim to embody Texas, Perry’s cal- lousness does not reflect the state’s best values of compassion, charity, and stewardship.

So the next time King Rick accuses critics of wanting to “tear down Texas,” let’s remind him that outside of his own mind, he is just another elected official. Our great state deserves a great governor, not a monarch.

I know we’re a nation of inveterate consumers, but who would buy pollution in a bottle?

Millions of Americans do, to the tune of $11 billion worth a year. That’s the size of the bottled water industry in our country, dominated by such giants as Nestle and Coca Cola. But wait, shriek industry PR flacks, our product is pure goodness, not pollution, what are you talking about?

Start with the little-reported fact that bottled water can contain a toxic mix of industrial chemicals never tested for safety. Also, many tests of bottled water are done by the corporations themselves, rather than by independent, certified labs. Even when contaminants are found, the marketers do not have to tell consumers or public officials about them. Chances are that your city’s tap water, which is inspected several times daily, is at least as pure as the pricey stuff in bottles.

Speaking of bottles, the production and disposal of billions of tons of these throwaways is a pollution nightmare. The Environmental Working Group, a Washington-based nonprofit, has revealed a massive plastic water bottle dump in the Pacific Ocean twice the size of Texas. You can’t throw water bottles away because there is no “away.”

Then there’s the absurdly huge carbon footprint created by hauling  bottled water back and forth across our country, not to mention across oceans, bringing water all the way from France and Fiji. If you need a textbook example of energy absurdity, try this: New York water is trucked to California, and California water is trucked to New York.

The good news is us: consumers. Individuals, companies, restaurants, cities, states, and other entities are chucking the bottle, ending their silly addiction to an unnecessary source of pollution and waste. To join the effort, go to www.takebackthetap.org.

Find more information on Jim Hightower’s work—and subscribe to his award-winning monthly newsletter, The Hightower Lowdown—at www.jimhightower.com

America has the wrong approach for dealing with thieves. Rather than “looking backward” at their misdeeds and “punishing” them, we need to ask that they not misbehave in the future, then monitor their behavior.

Believe it or not, this is how congressional leaders are addressing the thievery of three little-known gangs. Congress’ compassionate approach is not meant for common robbers, of course. No, no—lawmakers are happy to punish them to the hilt. The kid-glove treatment is reserved for thieves named Moody’s, Standard & Poor’s, and Fitch – the Big Three credit rating agencies that evaluate the worthiness of corporate bonds, assigning a grade (from triple-A to “junk”) that helps investors know how risky bonds are.

But the Big Three run a rigged game that robs our pension funds and other investors. Moody’s, S&P, and Fitch are not independent public regulators, but for-profit firms that are paid fat fees by the very corporations whose bonds they rate. Yes, this is an inherent conflict of interest. It allows rating firms to profit by merrily putting smiley-faced grades on lousy bonds, deceiving (and robbing) the public. For example, the Big Three gave thumbs-up to subprime housing bonds that turned out to be worthless, leading to trillions of dollars in losses for the public and crashing our economy.

Yet, our soft-on-corporate-crime Congress critters have declared these finaglers “too big to jail.” Rather than taking the Big Three off the street, Congress is coddling them, meekly freeing them to continue their corrupt, for-hire, monopolistic system of credit-rating flimflammery.

The important financial responsibility of grading corporate bonds should be done by a public entity whose sole loyalty is to the public–not to the corporations whose bonds are being rated.

For more information on Jim Hightower’s work—and to subscribe to his award-winning monthly newsletter, The Hightower Lowdown—visit www.jimhightower.com

It’s painful enough to be injured on the job, but it adds insult to injury when your employer tries to keep it secret from safety authorities.

The failure of corporations to report work-related injuries is not a rare occurrence, says the Government Accountability Office—it is routine. In a review of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s policies, GAO investigators found that some two-thirds of job injuries are hidden from the agency, though the law requires full reporting on injuries that require more than first aid.

Why flout the law? Because corporate executives know a record of frequent injuries will increase the company’s worker compensation costs and will hurt its chances of winning government contracts.

Why do they get away with it? Several reasons. Get this—OSHA relies solely on employers to report worker injuries. Inspectors do not interview employees to determine if their bosses are being honest about job hazards and injury rates.

Second, managers pressure clinics, doctors, and others to limit treatment to first aid, thus requiring no report. This cold ploy includes taking the injured person to several medical providers to find one that will certify first aid is enough. More than half of medical providers surveyed by GAO said they’d been pressured by corporate officials to play down injuries. Finally, workers themselves are intimidated, fearing they’ll be punished or fired for getting a reportable injury.

As long as safety officials take a see-no-evil, hear-no-evil approach, corporate bosses have no incentive besides their own sense of decency to make America’s workplaces safe—and, as the GAO report makes clear, putting our trust in executive decency doesn’t seem to be working out.

For more information on Jim Hightower’s work—and to subscribe to his award-winning monthly newsletter, The Hightower Lowdown—visit www.jimhightower.com.

Good grief. Just when you think America’s prospects in Afghanistan couldn’t get any bleaker, the Obamacans get hammered by Hamid.

Hamid Karzai is president of that fractious, impoverished country, and his government is infamously corrupt, incompetent and despised by the people. So, naturally, our political and military leaders have been backing him.

Indeed, Karzai has come to be the key factor in deciding whether to spend still more American treasure and blood in the Afghanistan war. To “succeed” in stabilizing this inherently unstable land, we’re told we must first establish a legitimate national government that’s competent enough to manage an army and end corruption. A “reformed” Karzai was said to be our best hope, and the U.S. supported him for a second term in August’s presidential election.

Some reformer. In the election, he openly used government money to bribe tribal warlords to back him, his vice presidential choice was widely known to be a drug trafficker and his ballot-stuffing crew was so blatant that his own handpicked election commission tossed out nearly a million of his votes, forcing him into a runoff.

But the runoff election was so rigged that his opponent withdrew, refusing to sanction the charade. Yet our leaders continue to dance with Hamid, recognizing him as the election winner and bizarrely insisting that his “victory”—achieved only by massive corruption—is legitimate under the Afghan constitution.

Karzai-the-Reformed now asserts that he will clean up the corruption. How? No comment. Would some of the corrupt officials in his government be ousted? “These problems,” he responded, “cannot be solved by changing high-ranking officials.”

How can Obama and the generals even think of sending more Americans to die under the pretense that this guy’s “government” is worth saving?

For more information on Jim Hightower’s work—and to subscribe to his award-winning monthly newsletter, The Hightower Lowdown—visit www.jimhightower.com.