Texans are well aware of the fact that their Republican politicians are remarkably vile. Somehow Ken Paxton has a chance of winning election, in spite of being quite possibly the most corrupt politician in America. Also in the running, though,is Greg Abbott, who has been actively undermining public education.
Schools in Texas are wildly underfunded, with hundreds having to reduce students to four days a week. This is very much by Abbott’s design. As Jessica Grose of the New York Times explained on Oct. 7, the governor signed into law a voucher program whose entire purpose is paying parents to take kids out of school and put them into unregulated “alternatives” — such as private schools or homeschooling — that have no real requirements to offer children an actual education. Since local school funding is tied to student head count, this has created a backdoor way to funnel money out of already-struggling public schools.
So don’t vote for Abbott. That’ll fix the problem, right? Get him out of office and everything will get all better.
Nope. The real problem is Texas billionaires.
Money is the likeliest answer. As Grose notes, Abbott’s war on education is backed by three powerful Texas billionaires — and major conservative donors — Tim Dunn and a pair of brothers, Farris and Dan Wilks. The trio made their fortunes in oil. But their single-minded hatred of public schools is rooted in evangelical Christianity.
“If you ever wonder why state laws and policies are more radical than most Texans would prefer, the answer has a lot to do with Dunn and his checkbook,” Russell Gold wrote in Texas Monthly in 2024. The same is true of the Filks brothers, who share Dunn’s dream of turning Texas into a far-right Christian theocracy.
As is familiar, billionaires are the problem, and especially Christian billionaires. Fundamentalist Muslim billionaires would be just as damaging, but the Christian billionaires would fight back.
You notice, the citizens of Texas don’t count. This would have to be a kaiju battle.
I voted today for what it matters. Fingers crossed.
That Texas oil money is mobile so it could be coming for you at some point.
When I read about Abbot, I think of “Reincarnated As A Slime”.
But the anime is better; the slime creature is helpful to the humans (and humanoids) in the story.
‘PZ titled this article: ‘Sorry, Texans, you are so screwed
While he is correct. If we look around, I suggest a broader, more accurate assessment is ‘Sorry, untied states, you’re all screwed.’ (misspelling intentional) And, so is Ukraine and Palestine, etc. ad nauseam !
PZ wrote: ‘The real problem is Texas billionaires.’
While he is correct. Again, if we look around, I suggest a broader, more accurate assessment is ‘the real problem is billionaires everywhere’. Even in Calif., with its 200 billionaires, people are trying to vote on a measure that would tax billionaires more fairly, but newsom has a poison pill counter-measure to stop that.
Only 13 days until November 3, voting day. 13 days! My how time flies when you are having fun. January 3, 2027 a new Congress will be seated. This could be brutal for the GOP.
I see these sort of stories all the time.
Apparently, the more money spent, the higher the probability garnering more votes.
To me, it says a lot about the electorate.
Citation needed on the Christian billionaires fighting back. I normally see them getting chummy with fundamentalist Muslim billionaires over in Dubai.
Voted today, all blue. I think there may be a good chance that Talarico and Hinojosa will win. And, PZ you spelled the governor’s name wrong, correct spelling AButt.
Remind me, please. Why aren’t we allowed to kill the people who so openly oppress us?
@ ^ Rich Woods :Because killing other people is wrong.
As, of course, is oppressing others but then two wrongs and all that.
@StevoR 11, 12. Trivially wrong. Self defence, unjustified wars etc etc. All times where killing is right, and I would include Rich Woods example. Arguable as it may well be.
It could also be argued, and I could be provoked into doing so I think, that some people deserve to be killed over a period of days with a blunt vegetable peeler. I won’t try to defend that here, but it could be squinted at for some truly evil people I could think of.
The best reason we don’t, @ Rich Woods and in my ‘umble, is because if it were made legal and became regulated and so on that we would then be required to employ killers to do the job. And being able to peel someone slowly over a period of days implies a kind of psychologically damaged individual that I don’t want in society. Someone who had not only done it once but was eager to do it again. I don’t want to sit next to that person on the train as they look forward to ‘Bring your daughter to work day’.
That there are people who deserve to die for openly oppressing others is fairly easy to establish. But I don’t want the job and I don’t want to live with people who want that job, and recruiting would be disturbingly easy I reckon, either..
[OT]
Because killing someone is the ultimate oppression.
(You oppress me? I kill you!)
Interesting that the conditions you describe in Texas are similar to the problems in France which led to the current student uprisings. It doesn’t sound quite in line with the cockroach movement in India.
Perhaps your president should be saying that if all y’all elect republicans, you’ll get French uprisings. (And he’ll tariff the hell out of importing anything, including those.)
Rich Woods @10: “Why aren’t we allowed to kill the people who so openly oppress us?”
The Powers That Be enjoy breathing.
Why you aren’t allowed to kill everyone else is more convoluted.
[Book] Judy E Gaughan – Murder was not a crime, Homicide and Power in the Roman Republic (2010)
Another book that came to mind was A fatal thing happened on the way to the forum.
I voted first thing Tuesday morning. Drove to City Hall, got my ballot, grumpily stomped over to the booth, held my nose and voted for every craven, feckless, capitalism-and-religion-pandering, might-as-well-be-a-Republican, coporate, DNC-approved, centrist Dem on the list.
There! Are you libs happy? Can I NOW complain about the Clintons, Obama, Biden, Harris, Schumer, Jefferies, Newsom, Talarico, Crowder, et al without being accused of aiding and abetting MAGA? Or does speaking ill of the lesser evil break the magic spell and Trump somehow wins another term in office?
Akira, kudos. The very act of at least trying is creditable.
Civic duty, really, but with the USA’s voting system, so many don’t even try.
@StevoR 11 and 12
Oh well, guess I’ll die then
Because asking nicely isn’t stopping them from trying to kill me
Yes.
@19. dangerousbeans : Shesh. No. Not my meaning there at all – there are other options y’know.
Sheesh natch.
Obviously I don’t want you to die or be killed. Of course NOT.
Self defence is an obvious case where you are allowed to kill in self defence.
Killing people just because they are oppressing you is a different thing. Thatwas the question as asked & answered in #10. It’s a last resort not afirst one and not the most desirable option if, IF better otions can be found. Try to find & use those better option first. If those don’t work wll, okay. But do try tofind and use tand get the better otions to work first.
I understand the temptation. I know there’s avery good case they deserve it – but as indianajones & John Morales & others elsewhre have noted there’s good reasosn why we don’t.
There’s been enough killing and carnage. It also has other negative implications and conseqeunces and harms. If we can find away to NOT kill people and still end oppression try to do that first at least.
(I really need to clarify this?) Sorry for any threadhogging PZ.
@17. Akira MacKenzie : Thankyou. Very much appreciated. Thankyou. Thankyou.Thankyou.
Its not just the USA that gets affected here. it is us all, the wholepale bloue dot we have to all liev inand share together and the only way to move forward is to vote blue no matter who.
That is the only ethical & rational choice and it matters far beyond what any words of mine can express.
( i know.. I just saw that coment and had to say this. Going to bed now.. )
@StevoR #23:
Oppression can and does include killing people, as Donald Trump has so eminently shown.
@ dschulz #2
Texas oil billionaire money is affecting California. They are allowed to poison the land and air of their home state in away that is not allowed here even though we have lots of oil. They shut down their refineries that they bought here in a snitch and ship the gasoline that we use from their home state instead. 6.25 USD gal -1
“quite possibly the most corrupt politician in America.”
Not while the Trump crime family remains active.
The French Revolution was pretty effective at ending centuries of oppression. The US constitution allows for the execution of traitors like Dumpster Don and his merry band of grifters. They’ve earned a date with a guillotine for endangering the entire world for personal gain.
The French are rioting right now, Tethys.
The rioters may not be oppressed, but they sure feel like it.
—
‘Twas ever thus.
“Have you heard the news?
The dogs are dead
You better stay home
And do as you’re told
Get out of the road if you want to grow old”
(Sheep, Song by Pink Floyd ‧ 1977, Animals inspired by Animal Farm)
I’m aware of current events in France, but they aren’t particularly relevant to the OP.
It’s likely very similar to our protests in the wake of George Floyd being murdered by Minneapolis police.
Dumpster Don calls those protests riots too, and claims that the locals destroyed the Twin Cities. Odd how the murderer and the out of state agitators are the ones in jail for burning down the police station.
So you hold that oppression was ended by the French Revolution, and current events bear no relation to that?
OK.
No, but they are most relevant to your claim about the French ending oppression back in the day by head-lopping techniques.
Johnny-boy, the French Revolution ended the oppression by the absolutist feudal monarchy and it was so successful at that that even when the Bourbons were restored to power they could not go back to the old ways without getting another revolution as happened in 1830 and then 1848 which then ended bourbon rule for good.
That has bupkiss to do with the current public unrest in France. You are just once again trolling.
Ah yes, the Reign of Terror it is named in the history books, but sure.
No more an “absolutist feudal monarchy.” (though Napoleon cleverly tried to skirt that by crowning himself ), but not the end of oppression per se and of ensuing citizen discontent.
(You clearly missed the significance of my musical allusion; the very point of Animal Farm ;)
Russia still had serfs until the 1800s, which is generally held to be far more oppressive than our current system.
I’m not in the mood to discuss Animal Farm. I merely offered a fairly dramatic historic example of killing people because they were oppressing the general populace actually having occurred.
Nobody said the French Revolution ended all oppression , but the guillotine was very effective in changing the social structures in France.
@ ^ & #28 Tethys & #32 AugustusVerger & #33. John Morales on the French revolution :
Yeah, I think we want to find better answers to Oppression than mass slaughter such as we saw historically in the Reign of Terror which ultimately end up destroying some of the revolutionaries behind it and tarnishing that Revolution turning the original good – the overthrow of tyranny and oppression into the evil of mass bloodbaths
Source : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reign_of_Terror
Similar applies for the Russain revolution when “Lenin”” (Ulyanov) seized pwoer and then began purging his political opponents and installing new tyranny to replace the Czarist one and the Cultural Revolution in China under Mao and other similar cases where old systems of brutal dictatorships and cruelty were replaced by other new forms of murderous dictatorship and sadistic forced conformity and totalitarianism.
The better models and examples for ending oppression would be things like Nelson Mandela’s successful fight against Apartheid in South Africa, Mahatma Gandhi’s freeing India from Colonialism using eg the Great salt march, the Civil Rights movement in the USoA, Feminist and Gay liberation movements, etc ..
Non-violent methods and results as much as possible please.
As I noted in #11. Killing without very good reason for doing so like self-defence is unethical – wrong – and should be avoided if that’s possible.
What Johnny-boy of course failed to mention was that the feudal absolutist monarchy removed any legal way for the third estate to be heard by basically giving the rich classes way disproportionally more say in the government than them and commoners were literally starving in the streets. And the Reign of Terror itself started after the king had covertly invited foreign countries to wage war on France so he could re-establish his absolutist power and the former moderate revolutionary Mirabeau had revealed himself as a traitor and collaborator with the feudal classes. So yes, the revolution was threatened on all sides and radical measures were to be taken. Whether the Reign of Terror was the right method to deal with and less bloody measures could have succeeded is another question, but there was a threat from both without and within that had to be dealt with.
StevoR
I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that each of those movements, certainly the South African fight against apartheid and the US Civil Rights Movement, had more violent factions that, arguably, made the peaceful movements possible.
Necklacing was a feature in the SA anti-apartheid and Robert G. Williams (“Negroes with Guns”) and the Black Panthers were major parts of the USCRM.
And without getting into how much of an oversight it is that a discussion about US politics and oppression didn’t, AFAIK, lead to any mentions of slavery (until now), slave rebellions, such as Nat Turner’s and the one liberated Haiti to just name two, tended to be deadly violent to oppressors.
StevoR @35:
LATimes – Nelson Mandela’s legacy: As a leader, he was willing to use violence
StevoR:
Wikipedia – Civil rights movement
Wikipedia – Long, hot summer of 1967
^ Property damage, not massacres. The King assassination riots came a year later.
Al Jazeera – Martin Luther King, Jr was radical
StevoR @35:
Time – Was Stonewall a riot, an uprising or a rebellion? Here’s how the description has changed (2019)