The Texas chainsaw massacre (Salon Opinion)

http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2004/11/10/texas/index.html
With Bush's victory, the Lone Star State's right-wing ethos reigns supreme.
By Robert Bryce
With the reelection of George W. Bush, the Texanization of American politics is virtually complete. Ever since 1845, when the state was annexed by the United States, the Lone Star State and what it represents have been controversial. At that time, Ralph Waldo Emerson said the push to add Texas to the Union was an event that would "retard or retrograde the civilization."

Retrograde or not, Bush's convincing win over John Kerry means that America's identity has now been subsumed by the Texas worldview. American voters have chosen a government that is militarist, self-absorbed, piously Christian, dominated by big business, generally unconcerned about social inequality, and perfectly happy with regressive taxation. Those characteristics have defined Texas for generations. And now that Bush has regained the White House, the state will accelerate its export of these attitudes to rest of the United States, if not to the rest of the world.
(snip)


(snip)
It's all part of the Texas takeover. In 1962, John Steinbeck wrote that Texas "is a nation in every sense of the word." Four decades later, it appears that Steinbeck was right. It is a nation: the United States of Texas.
(/snip)
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Yep looking at ourselves in the mirror hurts. Bryce is a Texan writer.

Sonia

I thought I had escaped that nightmare for good.:(

Sorry

that argued that the Bush administration does not represent true cowboy values but the false hollywood ideal of those values. made a pretty good case imo..... too bad it's not online.

Do you remember what issue or the tile of the article was?

There's a good one they have up now called the "Frame Wars". It's a short piece and a good read
http://www.texasobserver.org/showArticle.asp?ArticleID=1790
In this struggle to control political reality through language, you don’t dispute specific words or rebut the facts; you don’t even attack your opponents’ frames. What you do is assert your side’s frame, making it so big, so omnipresent, so unavoidable that it’s as natural as talking about the roundness of the Earth. Disputing such a fact seems counterintuitive. Even heretical.
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We are losing the frame war.

Sonia

I remember that much. I'm afraid that's all.... and I can't go back and look, my cat threw up on my pile of Observers so they got tossed. :D

re: framing. Yep, agree totally. Got Lakoff? He is the master of all things framing.