32 Comments
User's avatar
Virgin Monk Boy's avatar

Mark my word: if a billionaire figures out how to pipe East Texas water to the highest bidder, Tehran’s seven-year drought will turn that pipeline into a gold mine. People think this is about Texas ranchers. It’s about a thirsty planet and the vultures who know exactly how to profit from it.

Expand full comment
Karen Rodgers's avatar

I am ashamed to be a life long Texan. Our beautiful state, with all it has to offer, has become a billionaire's playground. They have bought the entire Republican party (and a few Democrats), are stealing land and water, oil and gas. And Abbott enables everything they want to do. From Musk to Leonard and others, they know they are unstoppable.

I remember 30 years ago. We were a proud blue state, with strong women leaders. It is more than time to bring that back. That's what Mary would do!

Expand full comment
Jaime Scudday's avatar

I’m from East Texas originally and I grew up believing everything they told me bc I didn’t know any different. It’s mind-boggling to me now, looking back on it, because I grew up in a literal cult. I thought I knew what brainwashing looked like, but I missed that part because it was sooooo insidious. You’re told from birth that the dems want to use abortion as birth control, rip perfectly good 8-month fetuses limb by limb out of the womb for the heck of it, take away ALL the guns etc. I bought into that ish till I went to nursing school (in Michigan) and quickly realized the best way to have the fewest abortions is through widespread eduction and the availability of multiple types of free birth control. I’d never believed in the bits about LGBTQ folx being bad; I think people should be free to love who they want as long as it’s between two consenting adults. But once I learned critical thinking skills in nursing school and I recognized the disconnect (untruths) in those two areas, I was able to expand out and realize they were absolutely LYING about the guns and all the other issues too. (I realized I could keep my gun AND become a democrat, gasp!🫨😆) And once I *SAW,* my eyes were opened and I was disgusted with myself for being so ignorant/gullible. I really hope this issue becomes to these East Texans what nursing school was for me. Come join us—we have a helluva lot of fighting to do! 🩵

Expand full comment
Amy Reese's avatar

Former cultish member here, too. I was “red” until by some kind of grace I started seeing everything differently. Abortion was literally the reason I was raised to vote Republican. My family still does for that reason and the facts you state they don’t believe. But I also am wary of moneyed democrats who also abuse power for gain. We need eyes wide open

Expand full comment
Jaime Scudday's avatar

100%! And that was the reason why I voted republican too. I was actually a one-issue voter for years bc I really believed abortion was mvrdering a baby. I can still hear myself telling my then-husband: “Abortion is mvrdering a baby, not if you like mustard on your French fries. You can’t be like “Well I *personally* wouldn’t be okay with mvrdering a baby, but if YOU want to mvrder one, that’s your choice.” Gah I was so clueless, I’d just bought into all the lies! 🙄😣🫤 So I was passionately FOR roe v wade being overturned. But then my husband turned out to be abusive and I was stuck with zero way out (bc financial abuse was part of it) to a guy who’d said I had to have seggs with him whenever he wanted to EARN MY KEEP. 🤢🤬 I was already starting to see the light, but that whole experience let me realize how horrifically TRAPPED women and girls would be if abortion wasn’t an option. Then nursing school—learning critical thinking skills and meeting loads of different folks from all walks of life and various socioeconomic groups—clinched it for me. I bawled the whole day roe was overturned and occasionally thought how ironic this was, since I’d been the staunchest advocate for it being overturned the first 25 years of my life.

Expand full comment
Amy Reese's avatar

Wow, those are tough experiences, tough lessons. I’m so happy to hear you are soaring, now 💖

Expand full comment
Jaime Scudday's avatar

Thank you! 🩵

Expand full comment
Amy Reese's avatar

Oh, and don’t be disgusted with your gullibility. Be kind to yourself. I’ve learned to understand that that was where I was, acting the best I knew at the time. Celebrate the grace that helped you see better.

Expand full comment
Jaime Scudday's avatar

Agreed. I do believe we do the best with what we know at the time, and I gave my parents a pass for joining a cult bc they were just vulnerable to it (side note this vulnerability still exists and let them join the cult of trump😣😞). I was just really annoyed at myself for buying into so much without asking questions! But once you SEE what happened, you by nature learn to question believing what you’re told subsequently. I will say, for me, I moved to Michigan when I was 21 and I think I would have made the shift earlier (full shift to vote democrat took a decade) if it weren’t for my husband watching faux news 24/7. I hadn’t realized how much I internalized even though I didn’t watch it myself.

Expand full comment
Cassandra’s Truth 🕊️🏳️‍🌈💕🇨🇦's avatar

I absolutely agree and Brilliantly said! ✨⛓️‍💥💕

To those who do not know History..

Now you are finding out what many of Us already knew…

And what we have tried to warn you about…

Repeatedly

For Years

😞⛓️‍💥🇨🇦

Expand full comment
michael's avatar

I do not know how long it will hold but the Great Lakes Compact just sank MicroSoft's Milwaukee AI data center. The amount of water they wanted to pull was bad enough, they weren't planning on precooling it, just dumping 90 degree water in 45 degree lake Michigan by the decaliter.

OH BUT THE JOBS....... said no resident ever.

Expand full comment
Kim Williams, M. Div.'s avatar

Poignantly written. 👏🏻

Expand full comment
Mark B's avatar

"A spiritual allergy to enough". Oh, I am so stealing this!

Expand full comment
Steve Boatright's avatar

I live a long way from East Texas, and a long way east from the east coast of the USA but I recognise an alien* when I see one. You know all the sci fi films where aliens come to steal our water, they were a warning, sort of, they probably didn't know it though!

The post is so clear and well written about a terrible situation caused by an individual of unimaginable greed riding the capitalist train and whooping for more speed as it approaches the buffers at the end of the line. The explosion will be devastating.

*not really, just a human who acts like a cartoon, villainous alien.

Expand full comment
Beth Ann Kepple's avatar

Maybe not really, Steve, but close enuf description & proper context to fool a lot of people

Expand full comment
Celia Abbott's avatar

I thought of Dune.

Expand full comment
Sherry Been's avatar

That is the most powerful article I’ve ever read. Well done…and thank you.

Expand full comment
Amy Reese's avatar

Thanking you for calling it so clearly and succinctly. Billionaires literally never feel like they have enough. Always looking for the next buck. And it’s really not about having enough money…it’s about a thirst to obtain more because they can. I’ve read about those confessions. And they’ll use whomever and whatever to achieve it. You’ve been hoodwinked, baby.

Expand full comment
Celia Abbott's avatar

So awfully true. Water is the next shortage and food.

If we could learn to manage resources and share.

I know...bleeding heart liberal...oh well

Expand full comment
Wendy Parker's avatar

This is different. And delicious. And terrifyingly true.

Expand full comment
Marty Schafer's avatar

This dynamic has been playing out in West Texas and the Panhandle for years. While there is technology to recycle oil & gas drilling water (lots of chemicals need to be removed,) it's still cheaper to just pump ground water, to which they will add chemicals for drilling and bringing up product.

The same ground water needed for crops, livestock and people.

I drove over the Pecos River today. All of eight feet wide. Even after heavy rains yesterday, the water level on Red Bluff Reservoir is still only 50% of normal and -11 feet below conservation level. https://waterdatafortexas.org/reservoirs/individual/red-bluff

Sure I own the water my house well reaches, but I share that aquifer with the City of Odessa and thousands of fellow county residents and property owners. And when (not if) my well dries up, I'll be paying premium prices to the city or local water district, who will have negotiated exorbitant prices from whomever still has water to sell.

Expand full comment
A HEART FOR JUSTICE's avatar

Thank you!

The “rocks” are crying out from every direction. Maybe we should learn to listen. And stop letting others think for us. And stop believing the things people tell us just because they tack God’s/Jesus’/Spirit’s name onto it. And read history books instead of burning them, listen to scientists who are just trying to educate us, and watch documentaries instead of dumb TV. And listen to Mother Earth who we depend on for existence - she’s been speaking extremely loud for some time. 🙏😌

Expand full comment
Don Quixote's Reckless Son's avatar

It's not the venture capitalists! The water shortage is because of those crazy environmentalists!

Expand full comment
Virgin Monk Boy's avatar

the ancient prophecy. When there is a drought, blame the people trying to keep the rivers alive. Never mind the billionaires buying aquifers like Pokémon cards, never mind the farms collapsing from heat, never mind seven years of no rain in places like Tehran. It is always the “crazy environmentalists,” right?

Expand full comment
Don Quixote's Reckless Son's avatar

Always. That or the gays.

Expand full comment
Jean's avatar

Much talk and writing about the fact that the worst thing for our Democratic Republic is that it has been replaced by corporations due to Citizens United making corporations “people.” It’s going to be an uphill battle to reverse it

especially with our current SCOTUS but if we don’t there will be no turning back for us unless there is national outcry and major citizen participation in turning things around. Zohran meets with Felon 47 today.

Expand full comment
Rick N's avatar

Nestle did something similar in California by getting control of the mountain springs.

Expand full comment