I am a Texan and I love Texas. For me, Texas is not about politics, business, secession, or Rick Perry’s miracle. For me,Texas
is where I grew up. Texas is the summer trips to Big Bend, Guadalupe Mountains, Garner State Park, and Enchanted Rock. For me, Texas is hiking in the Sam Houston National Forest, cliff diving at Lake Travis, wade fishing in Galveston Bay, swimming at Barton Springs, and relaxing in the sand next to the Galveston Sea Wall.
Texas is not a political statement. Texas is not a piece of propaganda. Texas is not a tool to profit off of. Texas is the people who live here and the natural wonders we love.
And the Texas we love is under attack by people who see Texas as only a means to an end. Texas is under attack by Republican politicians who want to capitalize off of our Southern traditions. It is under attack by people who want to manipulate our religion and turn it into something ugly. And Texas is under attack by people who are willing to destroy our environment if it means that they can turn a quick profit.
Small farmers have worked the fields of this state for generations, but they have been sold out to big agriculture tycoons who buy the land, use the farm subsidies, genetically modify the food, and put farmers out of business.
Fishermen have fished the waters for generations, but they are currently prohibited by an oil industry that has bought out government and put lax regulations in place, dumping hundreds of gallons of heavy crude into Galveston Bay, putting fishermen out of business and destroying entire species of wildlife who have lived in that area for centuries before big oil money showed up.
Anti-tax lobbyists have manipulated our lawmakers into closing down state parks and underfunding national forests so that the places we take our children hiking, fishing, camping, and hunting have become overcrowded and off limits, if not shut down entirely.
Housing developers have sent their waste into the Edward’s aquifer, polluting precious swimming holes like Barton Springs, leaving future generations with nothing pristine and nothing beautiful to cherish and enjoy.
Texas politicians have fought the EPA and used corporate welfare to give kickbacks to the oil and coal industry while stamping out alternative forms of energy and public transportation. They have sped up the process of global warming so that our state is in a drought that is destroying family farms and evaporating rivers.
In the name of profit, the Texas Legislature has turned parts of west Texas into a nuclear dump, where the entire country can send its radioactive waste, and its looking to expand the program to bring in even more dangerous radioactive destruction.
Instead of a state of beauty, wildlife, and a pristine natural world, we have wrecked havoc on everything we ought to hold dear, and why? Because we don’t want the federal government to tell us what to do? Because we want people in the oil and coal industry to make a larger profit? Because we were too lazy to go out and vote?
When do we say that enough is enough. Texas politicians do not own our air, water, and natural resources, and the oil, coal, and big agriculture industries don’t either. The air, water, and natural resources of the state of Texas belong to the people, and until we get back to the voting booth and let the state’s politicians and business leaders know that enough is enough, we will fail to see tax-dollars funding state and national parks and forests, we will fail to see advances in clean energy, and we will fail to see high tech public transportation programs that will bring us into a cleaner, more modern, world.
Politicians like to make this a partisan issue. They like to pretend that only tree hugging, hippie, democrats support a clean environment, but I grew up around wonderful, Christian, God-fearing Republicans who love nature just as much as any Democrat. I grew up around Republicans who take their children to the same natural wonders I grew up going to. I grew up around Republicans who love to hunt and fish as much as Democrats do. We can’t let the politicians fool us, and we can’t stay home. Texas is a wonderful place, but it is in constant danger, and if we do not protect the natural wonders we grew up with, who will?