Don't mess with, ah, the United States
BY JAN JARBOE RUSSELL
SYNDICATED COLUMNIST
Thursday, January 2, 2003
If the future of the world seems to you increasingly Texan in substance and style, then don't feel like the Lone Ranger.
You would have to be living under a rock to miss the fact that it is Texas -- not New York or California -- that is now shaping the major events of the world.
The evidence is all around us: TV images of President Bush chopping cedar at his ranch in Crawford, Tom DeLay preparing his return from Houston to Washington as House majority leader, plus the year-end reminders that it was the fall of Houston's Enron that triggered the 2002 white-crime spree.
At the Main Street Place, a souvenir shop in Crawford, tourists from all over the world came in droves during the holidays to buy Bush memorabilia. The best-selling item was a W-shaped ornament in the shape of the Texas Lone Star.
A story in the new issue of The Economist goes so far as to claim, "The future is Texas." The story argues that it was Texas that led the rightward drift of America's politics, the country's newfound nationalism, as well as its enthusiasm for religion and business. "Texas," argues The Economist, "is America on steroids."
Lord helps us, but I believe The Economist is correct. Power has shifted to Texas, as has population (we are the second fastest growing state after Florida, but as everybody knows, Florida can't count) and money.
The ideas that shaped Texas are now shaping the world. For instance, at the battle of San Jacinto in 1836, Texas became the only American state that won its independence by fighting a foreign power alone. To this date, any Texan confronted with an embattled situation around the world will immediately revert to this primal idea of going into battle alone, besieged on all sides, and emerging victorious.
During the first days of Lyndon Johnson's presidency -- faced with the fall of South Vietnam -- Johnson told the National Security Council: "Hell, Vietnam is just like the Alamo. Hell, it's just like if you were down at the gate, and you were surrounded, and you damn well needed somebody. Well by God, I'm going to go -- and I thank the Lord that I've got men who want to go with me."
So when President Bush goes on television and vows that "we shall not retreat" from the battle against terrorism, and will stand alone against the world -- if necessary -- he is reverting to Texas type.
Until OPEC assumed power in the 1970s, the Texas Railroad Commission controlled the price of oil around the world and forced independent producers to abide by rules designed to benefit the largest oil companies. A cynical way to view the coming war with Iraq is that Bush is simply identifying with his God-given right as a Texan to control the supply and the price of oil.
At any rate, now that Texans are speaking for the nation, it's important to pay close attention to what they say.
For instance, earlier this year, DeLay, the new House majority leader, spoke to the First Baptist Church in Pearland. After his talk, an audience member complained that Texas universities do not teach creationism and asked DeLay for his advice. DeLay's solution? He advised the crowd not to send their kids to Texas universities.
His remarks point to the dark side of the Texas boast. If Texas is the future, then the world must be put on notice: Over the years, we have invested much more in brawn than in brains.
Some of that is changing. High-tech companies are flocking to Texas, and the University of Texas has the second-largest endowment in the country, after Harvard. Now if we could only get some of those rich Yankees to invest some of their money in think tanks for Texas, along with some spare change for a few museums and publishing houses.
The hard truth is that many among us -- including the new House majority leader -- don't place a lot of value in book learnin'. As a result, our schools are in crisis, and our prisons are full.
Still, there is a lot to love about our state. If the future of America is Texas, then, as we never tire of saying, "Don't Mess With Texas."
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Jan Jarboe Russell is a columnist with the San Antonio Express-News. Copyright 2003 King Features Syndicate. E-mail: jjarboe@express-news.net
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