“Men don’t get knocked out, or I mean they can fight back against big things. What kills them is erosion; they get nudged into failure. They get slowly scared. I’m scared. Long Island Lightning Company might turn off the lights. My wife needs clothes. My children – shoes and fun. And suppose they don’t get an education? And the monthly bills and the doctor and teeth and a tonsillectomy, and beyond that suppose I get sick and can’t sweep this goddam sidewalk? Course you don’t understand. It’s slow. It rots out your guts. I can’t think beyond next month’s payment on the refrigerator. I hate my job and I’m scared I’ll lose it. How could you understand that?” John Steinbeck, The Winter of Our Discontent, .

During a speech to the chosen, running for something, Gov. Perry, dismissed aspiration and dreams as he dismissed Barack Obama and his 85million voters with a silken wave of his hand, mimicking the taffeta gown Perry wore as a child, he said ” hope, or some such”. Said as though the specifics he was against didn’t matter as much as that he, Gov. Whosit, is against it.

The governor doesn’t think hope important. Maybe he is more comfortable rallying people behind hate.

Gov, why not try getting Texas to succeed, instead of sucking up to those who think you could secede.