Category Archives: Politics

Politics

Decide That the Ugly Side of Oklahoma Will Not Defeat Us

Those of us who live here know that there are two sides to Oklahoma: The pretty side and the ugly side.

The Pretty Side

There is one side to life in my state that is the good side, the side that we want the rest of the nation to see. It’s kind of like your only wanting one side of your face to be photographed because, well, it’s your good side — the pretty side.

Tulsa’s enduring sophistication and beauty matched with Oklahoma City’s 20-year run of progress in developing both its new downtown skyline along with the re-purposed Bricktown into a destination entertainment district has impressed many. The various parts of rural and town life Oklahoma are some of the best places to live anywhere considering resources and the cultural variety as you move around the state.

Here in Oklakevin_durant_wallpaper_by_thehoodgirl-d5gzmzwhoma City, where I live, the rise of various neighborhood mini-centers of activity along with the rustic Bricktown matched with the excitement of Oklahoma City Thunder basketball has been a true joy. I enjoy many of these events and enjoy living in this place. It’s an amazing thing to see, since I have spent most of my life here.

It’s not that side of Oklahoma that can defeat us, though. The ugly side surely will, if we let it.

The Ugly Side

Violence-prone, deep-seated racism against blacks left over from our segregation days has been flushed back out into the open by the election and re-election of our first black president.

Women are mistreated and disregarded on many levels and in many ways, especially by a legislature made up mostly of white, conservative men who are against “big government” unless it is controlling women’s bodies. Then it is magically a good thing.

Our Republican-dominated state government is so dysfunctional that legislators cannot even agree on how to fund repair of an aging Capitol Building that has the smell of sewage from rotting pipes throughout and has to block certain entrances for fear of falling pieces hitting visitors. Welcome to our beautiful state capitol, y’all!

The deepest parts of the ugly side are actually hidden, though.

The Difference Between Natural and Man-Made Disasters

Because natural disasters so shape Oklahoma life, we have developed a tendency to see all disaster as “natural”. That provides a large smoke screen for those who have sinister motives.

2014-04-19 09.22.09For instance, if you did not know that the 1995 Oklahoma City Bombing was carried out by domestic right-wing extremists, you might not learn that from our yearly remembrances at the memorial service. Speaker after speaker will focus on remembering victims and heroes, carefully navigating around the harsh realities of who perpetrated that heinous crime. It wasn’t a tornado that caused that disaster.

Another example of naturalizing the unnatural is how legislators frame the constant cuts as necessary because of not having enough revenue while passing new tax cut measures yearly. Just today in The Oklahoman there is one story about how new measures are being passed to increase education funding that is dependent upon revenues increasing each year. If they don’t increase, then the funding increases won’t go through. Then, just on the opposite page, there is a story about how concerned some legislators are at the impact of proposed tax cuts that are likely to go through.

The slow erosion of state government and the much-needed services that it provides is by design. With unwitting support by
ideologues on the libertarian edges of the Republican Party, big money interests that stand to gain much from lop-sided tax cuts push harder each year for even more cuts, which is the central goal. The benefits to them are easily seen in the chart below and explained here.

average-tax-cut-2

The result is that GOP legislators are so confidant in the security of their positions that they don’t even try to cover up the illogical bills signed into law even when public opinion is running in the opposite direction.  Examples are a ban on local cities and towns passing their own minimum wage, and empowering local traditional utilities to add a surcharge for wind and solar energy.

Our ugly side is making it into national news more and more, though. Recently Rachel Maddow featured Oklahoma’s redness as being at the very end — no, off of the end — of a blue to red scale. We were featured as a state that has gone that extra mile to lock down the state with right-wing ideology and favors for those wealthy donors to our Republican politicians.

The Rachel Maddow Show - Ok Red State Meter - 2
From the Rachel Maddow Show on MSNBC, April 21st, 2014.

See the whole clip at the MSNBC website here.

Avoid the Man-Made Disasters – Act Now!

This is no natural disaster. It is man-made by the designs of a small, wealthy, powerful minority in the shadows. If we allow this to go on, will we have a state made up of well-educated, clear-thinking people who value logical, rather than the most illogical thinking? No, we won’t.

It’s time for us to decide that we will not allow the ugly side of Oklahoma to defeat us!

Here are some action ideas:

1. Use social media to call out publications and various forms of media that do not report or consider any other view than that of the right wing.

2. Write, call, and visit the repeat offenders at the Capitol who continue to follow lockstep with the designs of ALEC to de-fund public services and public watchdog functions of state regulation. Here is a list of Oklahoma Legislators who are ALEC trained and resourced. Good resources to help you apply pressure: OkPolicy.org and OklahomaWatch.org

3. Research which corporations are the biggest donors to the leaders of the movement to de-fund public services in Oklahoma and write to their board of directors complaining that their sponsorship of particular politicians are causing a social and educational environment that will harm them in the long run if eventually there is a brain/income drain from the state. iCitizen is an app that is available on iPhone, and Android. It is resourceful in helping you find your reps from top to bottom and showing you their major contributors.

4. Support candidates in this year’s election cycle that challenge the dominant right-wing power structure in the legislature. And support those who are brave enough to run against our well-funded governor.

5. Challenge pastors – especially yours – when they support right-wing ideology as though it is the only Christian option. It’s not. The right-wing way is not necessarily the right way.  (I’ll write more about this in a future post.)

What are some ways that you have found to oppose the weight of the right-wing machine? Please comment.

Politics

Five Ways You Can Have a Progressive Influence on Your Red State

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The pattern of political action for liberals and progressives goes much like this: Get fired up about a particular candidate. Work hard and get emotional about the outcome. If the candidate loses, fade away, never to be heard from again. If the candidate wins, fade away, never to be heard from again.

It’s time for that to end. Too much is at stake in our future.
Campaigns are critical. However, turning over the long-term political discussion to voices on the right produces a political landscape where we only consider a narrow set of options from the right, none of which are good or remotely logical. For politicians on the right, the only logic is how to deliver power to their benefactors whose only logic is, of course, their power.

The irony with progressives loosing heart and relaxing the pressure between campaigns is this: Because of a lack of political muscle developed between campaigns, it is harder to elect the best candidates when the time actually comes to elect them. In Oklahoma we see this behavior repeated with agonizing consistency.

Case in point: Recently, there was a very good, necessary, and spirited campaign for mayor in Oklahoma City between progressive city council member Dr. Ed Shadid and incumbent Mayor Mick Cornett. As a part of Shadid’s campaign to raise awareness of too many shadowy machinations about a convention center idea, a petition was started to get more sunlight onto the studies that had been done. After Shadid lost an uphill battle against the strong incumbent, the petition drive fizzled so that it was never even delivered on the deadline.

It is clear that if progressive thought will have an impact in very red states like Oklahoma, there needs to be a constant commitment to progressive values and thought between campaigns.
How do we achieve that? Here are some ideas:

1. Support the candidates that represent your values and ideals whether you think that they have a chance of winning or not.

I hear too many people talk themselves out of helping with a good campaign just because they think the candidate won’t win. That’s not the issue. The public needs to hear what that candidate has to say, especially if they are challenging an incumbent that has been too much of a gofer for big money donors in the shadows. And, if the points the candidate is making are important now, they are important in between campaigns, too.

2. Support that candidate again if they want to run again.

Look at how many times influential office holders in U.S. history have lost before they won that influential position. Being a good, tough politician is about coming back from defeat. Like a good cage fighter, a politician has to be able to take several hard punches in order to stay in the fight. If your candidate can, they are worth supporting no matter how much of a long-shot others may think they are. One thing for sure, they will never win without your support, and those important ideas will never influence anyone without your being the carrier of them.

3. Learn as much as you can any way that you can about issues that concern you.

A part of influencing others between campaigns is knowing what you are talking about. People can tell if you do or don’t very quickly and will either listen or turn you off accordingly the next time you speak to them. In Oklahoma, a very good progressive think tank is the Oklahoma Policy Institute, which also has a good daily podcast to keep you up to date on legislative matters.

4. Learn from national news sources to compare with local ones.

There is now a large volume of information available to progressive thinkers about a number of issues that may affect your state. In central Oklahoma, The Oklahoman is usually read by we progressives with a side eye. The local TV stations also reflect a corporate media view that fails to ask the biggest, most important questions. Very strong state-wide sources like the Oklahoma Policy Institute and national sources are important tools for calling out local right-wing-influenced media. That activity will have an impact upon newsroom discussions.

5. Act locally.

  • Participate in your neighborhood association.
  • Accept a leadership position in your neighborhood association.
  • Organize your precinct or ward for your party.
  • Run for a school board seat.
  • Run for town/city council.
  • Run for a seat in your state legislature. (Yes, it’s yours.)

Oklahoma and other deep red states are starting to cause great suffering among common people because the political field has been left to right-wing radicals between campaigns which led to unopposed or weak opposition in the next round of campaigns. It’s time for progressives to stand up and join the debate for logical thinking and sunshine on all things public.

Politics

Five Ways in Which Oklahoma Can Move Forward

Populism is not just for the history books. It is a practical way forward for our state that resists the quiet rule of the wealthiest, tiny minority, which in Oklahoma is even smaller than “1%”.

It is necessary to resist, too: Oklahoma has not a better place now for ordinary people since we got the “right to work” or since we went from a one-party, to a two-party, and back into a one-party political system again, just with the other party now as the current single political power in the state.

The following is based on five points (in italics) for developing a Populist agenda nationally that were proposed by Jim Hightower, print and radio commentator from Texas, in a speech at the Strategy Summit held by the Progressive Congress and reported by The Nation Magazine .

These points are just as, if not more, applicable to potential Oklahoma Progressive/Populist influence as they are nationally.

1. Great Progressive movements have advanced not only by good organizing, but by a steady altering of the public’s perception. Cultural shifts produce political change. This truth is born out by how fiercely we see the current controlling conservative minority in Oklahoma working to control the print and broadcast media. If they can keep certain types of information from most of the people, or at least twist it enough, then enough people will believe their narrative and not rise up against a minority-rule system that has been developing for years. Truth published, spoken, aired by many different voices will have its effect over time.

2. Building a people’s movement requires taking the long view. Advancement takes place in decades, not months or years. Impatience is the biggest enemy of those who are progressive. That’s one of the reasons why progressive-minded people show up to vote for a particular candidate and then fade away until the next campaign. It requires little thought or effort to be all for a candidate for the last month of their campaign. In order to actually turn our state government toward that which will benefit a large majority of Oklahomans, progressives need to be a part of a movement year in and year out, not just individual campaigns. The best candidates that did not have enough support in this campaign will stay and return to fight another day if they have a convinced movement of people working for the same causes between campaigns.

3. Expand the movement by reaching out and connecting with other movements that don’t identify as progressive but are in fact populist and also are actually on the move. People who might disagree with a pro-abortion rights stance can be moved to act with others who are concerned about preserving life beyond the womb. People who might self-identify as conservative might be very moved by the ways in which unfettered strip mining and fracking are affecting the land that they love and want to protect and join with more progressive people who are concerned for what that does to our environment.

4. Do less issue-speak and policy dump and more talk about core values such as economic fairness, social justice, and equal opportunity for all. Van Jones has reminded us that MLK in his historic 1963 speech at the Lincoln Memorial didn’t say “I have a position paper”. Most people who I know in this state would be hard pressed to argue against those three values. Do we talk specifically about those values that most progressives have in common? I don’t hear it or see it much in print.

5. Get the hell out of Washington! The most productive politics are local, not national. Just look at any recent polls of the approval ratings of the Congress and you will see that most people of either party see Washington political piss fights as in-credible and not worth the time of anyone who lives outside of Washington, D.C. Recently our Republican Governor and Republican dominated legislature have blocked the expansion of Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act for no other definable reason except that it’s “Obamacare”. Right now, our state is not currently governed by Oklahomans, but by think tanks like ALEC and The Heritage Foundation.

Oklahoma has a great tradition of Populism. Currently, we see more signs of that in the workings of the Tea Party where there is a general appeal to the hard-working Oklahomans who believe that the economic system is rigged in favor of somebody else. They really don’t know who is rigging it, though. They believe it is that black man in the White House. But, they do only because they are hearing one narrative that sounds credible to them and not other counter narratives that more closely hold to the truth rather than racist, anti-abortion fiction.

It is time for people who advocate for common folks in Oklahoma to speak up, and in a constant way right here in our towns, cities, and state. We shouldn’t even worry that much about consistency. The persistence of our message is what will win.

What do you think?