ustxtxb_obs_1976_10_15_50_00015-00000_000.pdf

watch subsequent issues for . . . BILLIE CARR REPORTS Paid Pol. Adv. by Billie Carr Expense Fund 2418 Travis, Houston, Texas. 15 October 15, 1976 Fine Food Draught Beer Outdoor Patio when any industry has ceased to be competitive.” Nowadays, apart from planning to put John Henry Faulk’s Fear on Trial, when it comes out in paperback, into the state’s libraries, Brannin lives a quiet life. The newspaper before breakfast, then after breakfast biography, history, short stories, magazines like Nation, Progressive, Texas Monthly, Texas Observer, Newsweek=trips to the library to read other periodicalsbooks strewn about his room. Most of his time is spent at his home in Dallas in the small back room that serves as his living room, office, and bedroom. Bronson Harvard, a member of The Dallas Times Herald editorial board, suggests that Brannin, Sarah T. Hughes, and Erik Jonsson would be worthy nominees as “Dallas’ greatest citizens.” Payne told Porterfield, “Carl’s compassionate human instincts, . . . which he has never lacked the courage to follow, have been years ahead of time . . . . He’s been the ever-present social conscience of this communitywalking the picket line, organizing the poor, advocating compassion instead of hate, calling for racial tolerance, making speeches, writing letters and on and on.” When Sept. 22 came I remembered it was Carl’s birthday and phoned him. There wasn’t any good reason for the call, all I had to say to him was “Thank you.” But that, it seems to me, was what there was to say. On Jimmy Carter A good friend of mine, responding to my, remark here that I hope progressive people will work to elect Carter, says that the differences between Carter and Ford, and between the two major parties, are “too slight to provide a significant choice,” and he asks: “Are structural defects corrected within the system? . . . Do things have to get worse before they get better? Why not vote for McCarthy? Why stop playing the game?” Another correspondent, who is engaged in many good works, believes that, on behalf of our worthier work, “we must whole governmental apparatus.” Since small reforms won by various elections “never change the underlying system,” he asks, “why legitimize the charade?” These are the plausible sounds of chaos. They are predicated on two errors. It takes no time to votemaybe an hour. Nor does voting detract from trying to cause structural change outside the system. If my friend who asks, “Why not stop playing the game,” were causing there to be another real game to play, he’d make sense. But the net effect of his position is to discourage people from voting, while he is doing nothing extra to cause structural change. Don’t vote for Carterand help elect Ford? Vote for McCarthyand help elect Ford? Don’t vote at all, denying Carter your voteand help elect Ford? This is supposed to improve the chance for structural change? Nonsense; it will just plunge us further into inanition and reaction. There is no virtue in not voting. Helping elect Ford is too high a price to pay for an illusion of moral superiority. Hundreds of millions of citizens are so turned off by politics, they won’t vote. The Hart study predicts more than half the citizens who could vote will not. Those, then, like Shana Alexander on “Sixty Minutes” and my two correspondents, who imply both candidates are so boring, neither is worth thinking about, indulge a tone of superiority at the cost of encouraging people not to vote. The result of encouraging contempt for Carter is to help elect the most reactionary President How They Have Voted Means More Than What They Promise On key environmental issues, the League of Conservation Voters scores the votes of each member of the House and Senate on a non-partisan basis. From 1973 to the present, the average scores compiled were: Cong. Alan Steelman 70 Sen. Lloyd Bentsen 27 Scores are the percentages of pro-conservation votes out of the total number of votes checked. We urge you to vote for Alan Steelman for U.S. Senate. This ad is authorized by Steelman for Senate Committee and has been paid for by these Conservationists for Steelman: Allene Bachman, Beaumont Judy Clark, Edna Charles F. Crabtree, Fort Worth Sarah Jane Dodds, El Paso Edward C. Fritz, Dallas John Galley, Kerrville Polly Miller, Salado James F. White, Dallas State Campaign Headquarters, 3618 Noble Ave., Dallas, Texas 75204