The Loneliness of a Lonestar Liberal

[Robbien]

It's not easy being a progressive activist in Texas. Not only are the state's progressives up against a conservative majority and completely ignored by national politicians, they're also stuck with the media's label of "red state voters" who have completely different values from "blue state voters."

"I'm a redneck. I was raised Pentecostal and listen to country music. So what?" says Diane Wilson, 51, a member of Code Pink and author of the forthcoming book, An Unreasonable Woman, about her battle to save her hometown from industrial chemicals. "Redneck progressives are capable of a lot more than the media would have you think."

. . .

The activists I've met over the past month and a half in Texas are dedicated and determined. Unlike progressive-leaning places like San Francisco, New York and Washington DC, activists here face strong and often hostile opposition. When Texas Governor Perry signed anti-gay and anti-abortion legislation at a church in Forth Worth last month, a few hundred activists stood in the hot sun waving signs and chanting slogans to 1,000 Perry supporters as they drove by in air-conditioned cars.

"We are beginning to learn that we have to speak out," says Mike Herrington, a sixth-generation Texan and member of Soulforce, an organization devoted to changing the minds of religious leaders who engage in anti-gay campaigns. "I'm also standing up for my own rights and I didn't used to do that. I think we're beginning to spread the message here in Texas. We have to be willing to take risks."

. . .

Texas activists say support from national politicians and progressive activists living in liberal cities would give them more power and influence. "It's pretty scary down here. We're sitting in one of the most conservative Bible Belt areas in the country," says Madeline Crozat-Williams, a Code Pink organizer in Houston. "We feel like we hear shreds of the conversation about where to go from here, but we're struggling. We could use all the help we could get."

http://www.alternet.org/story/22254/

[damntexdem]

1. So that's what's going on! I wondered after a year in Denton.

LOL! Actually, I moved from Kansas, so there wasn't all that much difference: sort of like going to the buckle of the Bible Belt from one of the holes.

But some of the support from 'liberal cities' can already come from Austin, TX; and there is some evidence that that will in future be true of Dallas, TX. There are bluespots around here, too.

[wurzel]

2. I just don't understand Texas.

To me it seems to be the most corrupt state in the nation. Every idiot in the Bush Administration comes from there. So do our most crass Representatives and Senators. Yet so does, Molly Ivins, Jim Hightower, and Bill Moyers. It is a mystery.

[cap]

3. there's more Dems than what you think

the Demographics are set to nominally tip Dem soon. That's why Texas was redistricted...to buy more time for the Republicans.

[wurzel]

4. Amen to that!