Aiight, y'all. I'm here to address the Texas issue. there's been a lot of talk about Texas, and Texans, lately. Mainly because our current President is the fourth out of the last ten Presidents to be a Texan. So, what is it about that state that people either love or hate?

Texas, I mean, The Great State of Texas, is something else. I'm from Texas. Born there, lived there on and off for years, my family roots remain there. I'm not certain that I know exactly what it is, but there is a close relationship between that state and the state of insanity. A significant number of those cult leaders that have induced large numbers of people to kill themselves and/or others have spend time in Texas, if they're not from there in the first place. Jim Jones' church, The People's Temple, while based in San Francisco, was closely related to the fundamentalist, apocalyptic organization, Disciples of Christ, a church based in - where else - Texas. Of course, there is David Koresh and the Branch Davidians and, more obscurely, Marshall Applegate - called Do - of Heaven's Gate fame, was born and lived in Texas before moving out to California to fulfill his infamous destiny. Even Charles Manson of The Family spent some time in Texas, fleeing there and spending some years in jail after one of his many encounters with the Law.

The strain of religious fundamentalism that marks two of the above three groups finds its expression in more mundane ways, exemplified by the apocalyptic Christian beliefs of our "duly-elected" President, George "Dubya" Bush, who fancies himself the Herald of the Apocalypse, the one to expose the Antichrist and his minions who are - no surprise here - the scions and leaders of the United Nations, the IMF, World Bank and other instruments of the Global Power Elite. He is not alone, being urged on by such luminaries as Billy Graham and other Evangelicals who see these times as the true End of History. They see themselves as the American cure to the Globalist disease culminating in One World Government. The One Thousand Points of Light living in the Shining City on a Hill in the Promised Land of the New World Order is the American version of Old Europe's ancient, Illuminatus conspiracy.

And yet, even Dubya's daddy seems to fear the son that he has unleashed upon the world. Perhaps because he knows the consequences of disobedience to those Powers That Be, who are even now cobbling together a counter-conception of the envisioned New American Century, half a world away. But that is but a side-bar to our Texan drama.

Maybe because I didn't live there my whole life, I have been spared the more dangerous side-effects of being a Texan, in spite of my own propensity toward apocalyptic beliefs. But I will admit that I do have a fascination with guns, and sometimes feel the urge to buy a fancy, leather holster, go home to San Antonio and take a 2 hour class to get my personal pistol license so I can wear a holster and 6-shooter on the streets. And I really do want to go back and live in that land of red dirt, horny-toads, primeval forests and stark, geological landscapes of moon-like sterility.

There is something about Texas. Of that, there is no doubt. See, even though I didn't vote for him, I understand George Bush Jr. I know the Hill Country that he calls home and the type of people that reside therein. I spent a summer driving through that harsh and beautiful landscape delivering Airborne Express packages to hermits, naturalists and millionaires, passing through small, beautiful hamlets of Patriots, listening to G. Gordon Liddy and Rush Limbaugh as they railed against the Government and the excesses of the Liberal elite.

I saw other Blacks and Mexicans as I journeyed through that surreal world, living their lives the best they knew how. But never did I experience any overt form of racism, contrary to my expectations. There, it is insidiously embedded, like the War Reporters of Gulf War II, and barely noticeable, because it is such an integral part of the cultural landscape.

The type of landscape - both political and social - that exemplifies the Texan frame of mind, is one of stubborn self-reliance. It is the state's legacy and the birthright of all born there, no matter what ethnicity or social status. Texans like to consider themselves rough and tough, and remain frontier people for some inexplicable reason. Whether they live in large, urban agglomerations or small, country towns, there is what can only be described as a Texan Way, that draws upon the state's rich history of external and internal conflict typified by extremely aggressive tendencies and myopic self-absorption.

And yeah, in case you were wondering, I do wear cowboy boots. Proudly, when my wife lets me. During that summer I mentioned earlier, I was wearing worn, dusty shit-kickers and one of my pop's nice, woven panamas over my then-budding locks, which helped me to blend in with the local populations. My father wears them almost every day, being from a small, country town in west Texas where Whites and Blacks were divided by railroad tracks late into the 70s, and where we Black children swam in a milky, white chlorine-flooded pool on Saturdays-Only - White children swam there the rest of the week - because it was taboo to believe that Whites, Blacks and Mexicans could mix that closely, sharing bodily fluids, no less, despite what that damned Fed'ral Government had decided back in the 60s.

But that's crazy Texas.

The Mexicans, being the majority in the state, seem to have achieved a wary state of parity with Whites, proof of which can be found in the inclusion of a Mexican strain within the extended family of our current President. That's off-topic though, and not really important, since ethnic issues are only a peripheral issue to the solidarity of Texans of all backgrounds.

If I ever make it back home to Texas, I don't think I'll ever live anyplace else again. Don't ask me why, but The Great State of Texas is truly the heart of America in the best and the worst ways. All of the battles that I could conceive of fighting elsewhere are right there in Texas. Race relations are contentious, as they are in most of the country, the economic situation is dire - the gap between rich and poor being astronomical - as it is in most of the country, and there is a cultural war going on between the three, primary American ethnic groups - Black, Mexican and White - as it is throughout the country, in varying degrees.

I guess it is fair to consider Texas as a state that exemplifies the American Dream, because it was once a country in and of itself. Back during slavery times, the Whites didn't even let Blacks know they were free until a couple of months after the end of the Civil War, on the 19th of June, now called Juneteenth across the country. Yes, that holiday originated in Texas, and if you celebrate it, the people in your state who brought it there were poor, indignant ex-Texans who would not be accepted back in the fold today if the lives of their descendants depended upon it.

This is a crazy editorial, don't you think? From an admittedly crazy, aboriginal Texan. But perhaps by sharing some of the parameters of the Texas mystique, I can help those of you who are foundering right now, watching Dubya and his own, personal Axis of Evil - Cheney, Rice, Powell and Rumsfeld - lay claim to the world's oil, understand the true scope of the world situation; to understand that he, Dubya, coming from where and who he came from, is only doing what has been bred into him since his birth, from his Texas-transplanted daddy to the environment within which he was raised.

Texans are raised to rule the world. No more, and no less. To answer to nobody and to go after what they believe is theirs by divine right.

Once when I was in Bloomington, Indiana, this young, obviously-rich white guy drives by me in a nice, cream mustang. He sees my Texas license plates and shouts out of his car window, "Don't Mess With Texas!" Which is, of course, the state motto. Surprised, I could only yell back the same, automatically, as I have done upon numerous occasions when meeting other Texans far from home. George Bush Jr. is living up to that motto to the best of his ability.

That look that he gets - the half-smirk half-glower - is recognizable to all Texans, and no matter what words are coming out of his mouth, we know by his very expression that what he is really saying is, Don't Mess With Texas. Because if you do, you're going to be on the receiving end of a very big and deadly stick called the United States Military. Perhaps coincidentally, the high presence of African Americans currently serving in the Armed Forces reflects the Texas origins of the celebrated warriors known as the Buffalo Soldiers, who fought a war of colonization against the Native Americans - their brothers and sisters - much as their descendants are doing against other Brown and Black peoples this very day.

Again, Don't Mess With Texas. Especially if your messing has to do with the products that the indigenous, white Texan elite consider their lifeblood: oil.

Texans are a crazy bunch, that's for sure. But, I submit, no crazier than any other American or group of Americans, because we're all implicit within this conflict, whether we admit it or not. Peace and War mongers alike. So perhaps that saying should be adapted to the larger reality, which we all share:

Don't Mess With The United States Of America. Yes. That is the motto we're all responding to, and Dubya's the Cowboy with the gumption to back it up.