The Big Texaass Meltdown Is Coming To Your Town
What is happening in Texas is more important than politics
This article at first glance will seem about the United States and in particular Texas politics — but it’s not. It’s about your life.
We Texans are blowing a Golden Opportunity. We have the skills, labor, pro-business attitude and universities to be “knocking it out of the park” economically. Instead, we are focused and in a fight about the big lie of the USA election fraud that did *NOT* happen. The few mostly old white males that control the state legislature want to spend time and energy to make a laws such as:
1) Put a “watcher” in every voting poll who can do anything they want. In theory by law they could dress in camouflage wear a “MAGA” armband (whatever) and behave intimidatingly with no accountability to election judges.
2) Eliminate mail in ballots unless proof of disability, AND, combine this suppression by reducing voting hours and closing polling offices in the cities so that voting time waiting in line goes from 6 hours in line to 10 or more hours in line. It’s intimation, it’s messaging, it’s wrong. It’s oppression/anti-democracy and it’s totally unnecessary — *BUT* it accomplishes the goal of getting attention and energizing the voting base. This environment is toxic for democracy, freedom and the well being of all humanity.
If the Texas political issue was truly about “election integrity”, [one legal voter:one vote] ID process and technology, ability to audit and verify — there would be no controversy…everyone is for that. In contrast, the post-Trump/post-information deluge era the objective is attention seeking. Left and right politics compete to incite greater fear, anger, division, emotionalism … “stir up the base” . The goal by Amazon, The Weather Channel, politics and celebrities alike — is to create dramatic emotional energy (especially repressed or unconscious bias, fears or feelings). It’s part of the information “attention wars” — grasping to get attention in a deluge of information.
The problem in governance is that this behavior happens at an expense. The expense is of time and energy, meaning actual policy NOT getting accomplished. This post-Facebook/Twitter, post-Trump, post-Housewives of Wherever that spends attention getting energy on acrimony and emotionalism for grabbing attention means real opportunities and issues languish. In Texas we have issues of infrastructure, water, educational, healthcare, budgets, tax rates, sunset reviews, energy, universities, Gerrymandering, the list goes on. But, dull adult policy work doesn’t help legislators get attention for the votes to keep their power and jobs. So, hot button issues get ratcheted up further and further and we, the public, the persons in the mirror, are responsible. As long as a two year old gets what they want by throwing fits … the two year old will keep throwing fits. Meanwhile the planet is environmentally stressed, refuges pour across borders at great risk and countless people suffer unnecessary hardships and in horrifying numbers exploitation and death.
There is frightful cost to playing the attention competition ratchet up fears and egos game — and it’s coming to a location near you. The solution is simple and documented in 10,000 articles on Medium: personal responsibility, reflection, meditation, emotional awareness, self aware objective behavioral choices, focus, openness, compassion and search for growth and enlightenment. The whole planet and each of our lives and those around us is at stake … so, no pressure. It will be interesting to see this unfold.
