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There is, by now, a good deal of evidence that what Rick Perry has really done, from childhood on, is hustle. Governor Perry’s rivals have been slow to challenge his incessant bragging about Texas and jobs. In his speeches Texas is always held out as the last best hope for the jobless.
The state does in fact have an overabundance of natural resources and usually enjoys a robust economy. The New York Times reported that oil shale alone might bring two million jobs to South Texas—a report at which local oilmen scoffed: the jobs may be there, but try finding two million Texans who are willing to work. What was largely been unreported is that the Western work ethic is not what it used to be. My brother-in-law is a small oil producer; he has four rigs but can rarely find roustabouts to keep even two of them in operation. Meanwhile, in other industries, just this August the state lost 1,300 jobs and our jobless numbers are not that far below the national average.
Another problem never mentioned in talk about huge prosperity in the oil patch is the factor of crystal meth. Speed in one form or another has always been the drug of the oil business: workers who find themselves doing twenty- or thirty-hour shifts need a boost. But meth is virulent in its force, and hundreds of hamlets and small oil-patch towns bear its scars and will forever. Rid the oil patch of that drug and you’ll find a lot more takers for those two million jobs. Drugs, meth particularly, cast a long shadow over the Texas workplace today, a fact that, to my knowledge, is never mentioned by Governor Perry, though it’s at its most devastating in rural places, where he comes from.
As to jobs, Big Oil has long argued expensively that fracturing (or “fracking” as it is known), the technique that allows us to extract natural gas from oil shale, is totally safe and no threat to ground water. Guess what? Big Oil was wrong, and the threat is real. Which may in time limit job possibilities. Governor Perry’s opponents have not had much time in which to study his long record; neither has the press. When they get around to it I hope they’ll pay close attention to his appointments and his vetoes—273 and counting—of everything from forcing insurers to pay doctors more promptly to prohibiting the execution of mentally retarded criminals. Let them discover why our well-funded school system is now 47th in the nation. I believe the record will reveal that Rick Perry has no interest in moderation, or moderates. His affability should not obscure his intentions, which is to do for America what he’s done for Texas, and what he’s done for Texas, is to make it a far less tolerant and less generous place to be.
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http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2011/oct/01/larry-mcmurtry-rick-perry-hustle/
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