October 6, 2006
by George H. Russell

Texas Governor Rick Perry is so blindly and stupidly obsessed with his Trans-Texas Corridor boondoggle that he apparently doesn't realize that he is playing into the hands of America's enemies by creating a target for terrorists so large that it would be visible from the moon.

Just think how strategically dimwitted it is to place all of our eggs in one big oversized basket.  A single strike against this "Highway to Hell" could knock out our electrical power grid, as well as our natural gas, oil, and water supply systems, and all forms of ground transportation.

It is sheer insanity to build 4,000 miles of highways at a time when the planet is running out of fossil fuels, and burning what is left at an even faster pace. This detrimental situation contributes to global warming and ecological disaster, which boggles the minds of intelligent people.

Only one part of Perry's feebleminded plan makes any sense at all and that is the high-speed rail aspect.  At 200 miles per hour, people and goods can be moved between major urban areas in less time and at much less expense than traveling by automobile or even by air.  The pollution level would be only a fraction of that caused by millions of cars and overloaded diesel trucks.

An elevated high-speed rail network with dual tracks could easily be built on a hundred foot wide right-of-way, rather than Perry's 1,200 foot wide gashes across Texas.   Perry's plan would sever hundreds of rural county roads, divide farms and ranches, fragment forests, destroy wetlands, and cause widespread environmental damage so severe that the quality of life of all Texans would be negatively impacted.

Half a million acres of Texas would be permanently destroyed so that Perry's overblown ego can be stroked to his satisfaction.  Billions of dollars would migrate out of Texas to bank vaults in Spain.   The Spanish would then have our own dollars with which to purchase and take control of our factories, farms, and industries.  Perry would trade the basic wealth of Texas in order to satisfy his obvious megalomania.

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Hundreds of rural families whose lives would be disrupted, and in many cases destroyed, would resort to alcohol and drugs in an attempt to cope with the inevitable depression that could lead to suicide.  In my opinion, their blood would be on Perry's hands, and all of the scrubbing in the world could never wash it off.

Much more innocent blood would also be spilled if Perry's dream, which is our nightmare, comes to pass.  No terrapin, deer, rabbit, armadillo, fox, beaver, river otter, frog, toad, or any other member of Texas' wildlife population could ever successfully cross a 1,200 foot wide series of highways and ground level train tracks.  The road kill slaughter would be horrendous. Eventually, it would virtually depopulate millions of acres of rural Texas of its wildlife.

An elevated high-speed rail system would impact only around 45,000 acres rather than twelve times that amount.  In addition, the environmental degradation would be only a tiny fraction of what Perry's scheme would cause.  Animals, farmer, ranchers, hikers, hunters and vehicles could all pass safely beneath the elevated railways at almost any point along the course of the lines.

Farms and ranches would not be fragmented, rural county roads would not be cut and blocked, and life for the residents of Texas could go on relatively undisturbed as multitudes of passengers and tons of freight stream past at 200 miles per hour.  In addition to the millions of animals that would not become road kill, the lives of hundreds of Texans who are killed each year by inefficient, and dangerous fuel-guzzling 18-wheelers would be saved.

If I were Osama Bin Laden or another terrorist leader, I would hang portraits of Rick Perry on the walls of my cave and thank Allah five times a day at prayer that Texas is being led down the primrose path by a dupe of the enemies of America.

I wouldn't be a bit surprised if it were discovered that some of the money being poured into Perry's campaign coffers by promoters of the "Highway to Hell" originated in Iraq, Saudi Arabia or Afghanistan.

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George H. Russell [send him email] an outspoken opponent of the death penalty, is a resident of Hunstville, Texas, which is known worldwide as "The City of Death."  His work can be found at http://www.patriotnetwork.org/ and http://www.salvationnetwork.org/