Texas Freedom Network

Texas Freedom Network’s 15th Anniversary Celebration

The Luv Doc Recommends

October 6, 2010

Bullock Texas State History Museum

In the world of politics, activism beats apathy every time. A small, well-organized group of complete nut jobs has a much better chance of forwarding its insane agenda than an unorganized multitude of like-minded, reasonable, uninvolved intellectuals. Don’t believe it? Consider Hitler. People are every bit as likely to vote with their guts as they are with their minds – even smart people. More importantly, intellectuals are much less inclined to do the dirty work of politics: the canvassing, the mailing, the sign posting, the cold calling, and the fundraising (which involves more knee pad work than most intellectuals are willing to endure). To be fair, intellectuals are also disgusted with the political process itself, which inherently undermines the integrity of its participants. Anyone who has campaigned for anything – be it PTA second vice chair or assistant county clerk – knows that politics involves a humbling amount of compromise, and very often the first thing that gets compromised is ethics. Politicians who start out on a march toward truth and light sometimes lose their way in the dark forest of financial necessity, public opinion, and political cronyism. What begins as a “means to an end” becomes all about the means with no end in sight. Politics can be very rewarding – especially for those seeking rewards. Thus the ongoing American fascination with “political outsiders.” The problem with political outsiders is that in politics, there aren’t any. Even if you want to somehow subvert the de facto plutocracy of the American political system, you’re still going to have to get on the cock of a whorish number of needy special interest groups in order to get elected. As the Bob Dylan song goes, “You’re gonna have to serve somebody.” Ideally it’s your constituency. Sometimes your constituency is a corporation that funnels millions of dollars to your campaign through a fictitiously named bank account in the Caymans, and sometimes it’s a group of senile, xenophobic old timers with nothing better to do with their time than show up at the polls on voting day. Feeling jaded? You should be, but that doesn’t mean you should abandon politics entirely. Far from it. As mired in bullshit as American politics may be, things are not going to get any better with you sitting up there on your high horse. You’re not going to get rid of Sarah Palin, tea baggers, or even Rick Perry’s spectacular head of exquisitely styled hair by simply bitching about it or wishing it away. You’re going to have to drop some coin … or if you’re financially strapped like most big thinkers, you might even have to do some shit work. Either way, you have to get involved, otherwise you’re going to wake up someday and find the lunatics are running the asylum – just like they were two years ago. Rest assured those crazy bastards always try to get the keys. Thankfully there are sensible, hardworking people like the folks at Texas Freedom Network who make it their daily mission to keep the crazies out. This Thursday TFN is celebrating 15 years of being Texas’ watchdog against the political far right with its Let’s Shake It Up! fundraiser at the Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum. Enjoy dancing, drinking, and silent and live auctions that include, among other things, VIP passes to The Daily Show With Jon Stewart as well as platinum badges to South by Southwest 2011.

Texas Freedom Network’s 13th Annual Celebration

The Luv Doc Recommends

September 30, 2008

It would be really awesome if Jesus returns to earth in a tricked-out intergalactic spaceship with chrome trim, rocking George Clinton party-colored dreads and sparkly, high-heeled, Funkadelic zip-up disco boots. That shit would be fly. Maybe throw in a little acid house woofing out of some wicked monster subs screwed on to the chassis – something like a skanky, bass-heavy remix of “Love Train.” Jesus shimmies down the landing ramp, throwing ass, thrusting crotch, flashing his godly white overbite, grooving like the son of the inventor of groove itself. Oh, and don’t forget the 18-carat diamond encrusted dollar-sign money clip. What would Jesus do? You have to think God would be whispering in his ear, mimicking the voice of Lil’ Wayne, rapping, “Got money, and you know it. Take it out your pocket and show it; and throw it, that a way, this a way … And of course G Junior would be flinging handfuls of hundreds to the unsoaped, outstretched hands of the poor, because really, what does God care about scratch? He invented that shit too – both denomination and devil. The poor will be all cheerful, patting themselves on the back knowing they were smart enough to stay meek so they could inherit the kingdom of heaven. After all, they’ve been holed up for years home-schooling with legions of other knuckle-draggers and slack jaws, learning creationism and how the hip bone connected to the thigh bone and all that, but mostly hoping Jesus shakes a leg and brings on the Rapture before they end up in the same dead-end, minimum wage shit jobs as their parents. After all, Jesus was a carpenter, so you’d think he would show up for the job early. He did the first time around, but (also like a carpenter) he knocked off early and left us to finish His work. At first it was all, just love each other and hope you don’t get slaughtered by the Romans, but then the Romans got hold of the Bible and plunged Western civilization into the Dark Ages, which sadly seems to be when most Christian fundamentalist textbooks were approved. Fundamentalist dogma is pretty much the same today as it was back then. It’s easy to cast aside a couple of thousand years of scientific advancement and social progress when you’re a dumbass, and fundamentalists seem particularly talented at churning them out – if only so succeeding generations of dumbasses can continue to make their way to textbook approval committees and school boards. In America, we attempt to be polite to hair-brained fundamentalist knuckleheads, mainly because our country was founded by them. That doesn’t mean we have to agree with them or adopt their simpleton textbooks however. Even if the Moral Majority really is a majority, it would truly be immoral of the immoral to let them set the educational agenda. Soon enough, we’d all be wearing pilgrim hats and buckle shoes and fucking through holes in blankets. Thankfully, here in Texas, we have the Texas Freedom Network, a watchdog organization that presents a mainstream voice to counter the regressive agenda of the religious right. This Saturday they’re having their 13th annual fundraiser at La Zona Rosa. You can nudge along the progress and enlightenment of Western civilization simply by eating delicious food, bidding in the silent auction, and dancing to Ian McLagan & the Bump Band and fiddle prodigy Ruby Jane Smith. Or, you could just sit around waiting for the Rapture.

TFN’s 12th Anniversary Celebration

Luv Doc Writings, The Luv Doc Recommends

OCT. 2, 2007

Texas is a really big state, especially in the minds of its citizens, whose heads, for the most part, are large enough to comfortably accommodate its immense geography. Nowhere else in America will you find a citizenry so convinced of their home state’s superiority, even and especially in the absence of any substantiation. Outside of Texas there are those who find this hubris entertaining (pride inevitably precedes the type of ass-crack-revealing fall that makes the finals on America’s Funniest Home Videos), but more commonly, unTexans just find it obnoxious. Sure, it might seem like Texans’ heads are big enough to enjoy a certain amount of open-mindedness, but that doesn’t necessarily follow. You cannot have an open mind if it’s packed full of bullshit, and to fill up a space as big as Texas, you have to start packing at a young age. Fortunately, the Texas legislature is up to the task. Back in May they voted 124-5 to put the words “one state under God” into the Texas pledge, presumably to let the ’tards in the other 49 know whose side God is really on. Apparently the “one nation under God” in the national pledge (the one that immediately precedes the Texas Pledge) doesn’t provide the amount of God coverage Texas needs. Only three other states have even adopted an additional pledge: Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana. That puts Texas in very select company – what some might even refer to as America’s brain belt – although to give ‘Bama credit, their pledge doesn’t double dip on the deity. Think about it. Texas is currently holding down a spot usually reserved for Arkansas or Oklahoma. Now there’s something to brag about. Admittedly, bashing the Texas lege for idiotic behavior is cruel sport – sort of like making fun of a first grader with a rat tail haircut: You know he wasn’t born with it, but it wasn’t entirely his choice either. Somewhere along the line someone gave him the idea that a rat tail was a perfectly acceptable hairstyle. What’s done is done. We can’t jump into a time machine and fly back to the Eighties or for that matter the Alamo. We have to fix things here in the present. Rat tails can be remedied by a sharp pair of scissors, but backward-assed legislation can only be remedied by sharp minds. One way to ensure Texas minds don’t get any duller is to support organizations like the Texas Freedom Network, a nonpartisan, grassroots organization formed to counter radical fundamentalist legislation sponsored by the religious right. This Saturday they are having their annual fundraiser at La Zona Rosa. This year’s celebration features a live auction, food from local caterers, and music by folk favorite Ruthie Foster and Austin celebrity cover band, Skyrocket. Tickets aren’t cheap, but ignorance is even more expensive.

Texas Freedom Network’s 11th Anniversary Celebration

Luv Doc Writings, The Luv Doc Recommends

MON., SEPT. 25, 2006

For several years now the current administration has been engaged in a pitched battle against fundamentalist extremists. Billions of dollars and thousands of lives have been spent in the war on terror, the result of which, it seems, is that the U.S. has buried its head in someone else’s sand rather than its own. This might seem like a good thing because America has a big head and Iraq has a lot of sand, but as the body bags pile up, the body politic is going to demand that the administration pull its head out and come up with a different strategy for the war on terror. Easier said than done, right? Still, there is no doubt that the $200 billion spent so far on the war in Iraq could have gone a long way toward winning hearts and minds were it spent on social programs rather than shock and awe. Of course, trying to get dirt farmers from the Midwest to sign off on something like foreign aid in the name of national security is political lunacy, but no crazier than the idea of bombing Pakistan back to the Stone Age. Unfortunately, the ideological climate here at home doesn’t exactly foster enlightenment and understanding. For all our complaining about the benighted people of the Muslim world, there are millions here in the U.S. who profess the belief that the universe was created in seven days and the entire human race descended from one couple, half of which was formed from the rib of the other half. Clearly, if we’re going to wage war on fundamentalist extremists, there’s still plenty to do here at home. One group doing just that is the Texas Freedom Network, an Austin-based grassroots organization that advances “a mainstream agenda of religious freedom and individual liberties to counter the religious right.” TFN has helped defeat religious right initiatives like school vouchers, textbook censorship, and faith-based deregulation. This weekend they will be celebrating their 11th anniversary with a fundraiser at the Austin Music Hall featuring hors d’oeuvres from several Austin restaurants, a silent Auction, and music by Guy Forsyth and Carolyn Wonderland. Tickets are $50, but you’ve already spent about $700 on changing the hearts and minds of Iraqis, so what’s a few extra bucks on the fundies here at home?