Citizens of Texas,the Nation’s second-largest State and a truly devout member of the Nation’s (“Pray it away”) “Bible Belt,” have historically and stubbornly adhered to a pretention to independence (“ The Lone Star State”). Yet, like other States, Texas sends State Representatives and Senators to the U.S. Congress, participates in the National Military Registration Law, pays Federal Taxes, participates in the National Vote, as well as in most National programs. The State has, nevertheless, persisted in its unique mantra of historically traditional independence; inclusive, unhappily, of its resolute self-determination as to the maintenance of its own singular power grid system, ( Texas Electric Reliability Act) “ERCOT”; rather than participate with other States in the giant National Electric grids, Eastern or Western.
The Texas song: “The stars at night, are deep and bright, deep in the heart of Texas…” has of late, been significantly showcased by a disabling and total electrical black-out. Due to an unprecedented and huge snowfall, accompanied by a dangerous descent to Arctic temperatures, the independent, “Lone Star State” has been inundated and completely crippled. There is, at present, an absence of power, indoor residential temperatures matching outside sub-zero conditions, incidents of poisoning from power generator fumes from attempts to garner a modicum of warmth, and frozen and burst pipes making water unavailable and polluted. Residents have been officially exhorted to boil their water before drinking, a mandate, impossible of compliance due to the absence of power. There are universal icy conditions and predictable bone fractures, a dangerously short supply of food, oversubscribed warming centers and considerable fatalities. It is indeed a tragic scene to contemplate, further complicated by the continuing ravages of the lethal pandemic. Little assistance has been forthcoming from the Texas Governor(Abbott) about whom, in the interest of saving negative adjectival vocabulary as well as epithets, sufficient to render an accurate depiction, we would simply label as manifestly, “Trump-like.”
Why this State, credited with the production of a substantial percentage of the Nation’s power, should now be helplessly cold and Luna like, is a question, the answer to which, in our view, resides in great part in the ignorant, reductionist persona of its State Government and, sad to say, much of its population. Despite the many decades of valuable and essential services rendered by the Federal Government, social and financial assistance, social security, disability and survival benefits, infrastructure improvements and maintenance, livable wage and working conditions and benefits, transportation (highways, autos, busses, railroad, airplanes, ships) postal services, meteorologic, environmental and citizen health services (as in the pandemic), protections of clean air, water, safe and effective pharmaceutical products and so many others, including military protection, there are too many stubbornly ignorant members of the country’s underbelly who, while, simultaneously availing themselves of needed federal entitlements, nevertheless unreasonably and ignorantly, assert that such Federal programs of assistance are besmirched with their ascribed, godless, epithet, “Socialist.”
We have found it frustratingly tiresome, to continue to remind those of our propagandized, flat-earth denizens, that our Nation’s federal programs, undertaken for citizen protection and benefit, have nothing to do with “Socialism.” Such poorly informed individuals are the preferred targets of choice for propaganda, by the anti-Regulation, atmosphere fouling, air-polluting, chemical hazmat, polluters, in their overriding, sociopathic worship of ill-gotten profits. It is to be noted, that the Federal government, in its contemporary acknowledgment of responsibility to furnish needed assistance to citizens, termed, “Compassionate Capitalism,” has, additionally, thereby effectively prevented arcane foreign economic theories, from securing a foothold in America.
To reiterate, the correct meaning of “Socialism,” is an economic-governmental theory encompassing the complete ownership and control, of industry and business, by Government. There has, indisputably, been no Candidate for high office in our Nation, with such a credo. Gratitude and thanks are appropriately due to a government, unique enough and willing to assist in making the lives of its citizens acceptable, many of whom ignorantly and ungratefully, are incited to “ bite the hand that feeds them,” by false, tactical, and unjust attribution ( from propaganda) to some irrelevant theory.
We have little confidence in any useful relief emanating from governor, Abbott, who publicly declared, in Trumpian, false fashion, that the meteorological holocaust is entirely due to the Democrat’s “Green New Deal; ”even though less than 10% of the power of this high- power producing State, is generated by windmills and solar panels. Clearly, ignorance and Trumpian- style alternate facts will not solve the problem and vital existential relief will need to be extended by the (allegedly “Socialist”) Federal Government; this is what federal governments do. It cannot be omitted, that Texas Senator Cruz publicly demonstrated equal public empathy and responsibility to his constituents by choosing to quietly escape from his frozen and waterless State, for a warm, family vacation in Cancun, Mexico.
It is generally known that many residents in this geographic area look to the King James Bible for guidance in times of trouble, rather than to rational solutions based upon modern science and enlightened reason. The Bible, which was invested by them, with, purportedly, the ultimate (God’s) truth, and therefore is irrefutable, nevertheless, states that the Earth orbits the Sun, rather than the reverse, that man is “born with sin” and must dedicate his life to its expiation, condones the enslavement of other human beings, declares that the World and its Universe was created in six days and that the “omnipotent” Deity had to “rest” on the seventh day( by good fortune, on a Sunday). It has been scientifically and objectively proven that the Earth was formed over a period of millions of years and that its flora and fauna took untold eons to form ( as shown by the plethora of serological, biological, chemical, geological, fossil, and other scientific proof.) The Bible offers miracles in lieu of Science and Reason and condones capital punishment, warfare, xenophobia, and the immoral institution of slavery. It rejects Evolution, the human predominance of Reason, and any matter deemed incongruent with fixed loyalty to the sacred and unamendable portrayals of its paleolithic mythology.
Notably, the proximate cause of our Nation’s recent weather abnormalities,(inclusive of Texas) is rationally and empirically, attributable to scientifically proven, global warming; in this instance, manifested by the recent, albeit, hopefully, temporary, emergence of an Arctic weather zone in an historically hot and dry, Southwest State. We are of the view that even this tragic enormity will not succeed in convincing the consummate Bible-belter. It was this same reductive, and atavistic thinking and colossal ignorance that gave us a Donald Trump, and exacerbated the deadly pandemic.
-p.
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