You Can't Just Make This Stuff Up, Guys!

June 5 Editorial

In Today's editorial, "Obama opens the dialogue; Muslim world must answer" the typical "We hate this guy, and wouldn't mind if someone knocked him off..." (kind of like this guy I saw at the Tea Party at the Oklahoma State Capitol)

...attitude is presented. However, the writers do establish that Obama's speech (which they mentioned of course in yesterday's editorial "...was formatted for his teleprompter weeks ago". Important to note the teleprompter! Big points from the dear leaders on the far right that want you to reiterate that as often as possible!) was not really all that terrible.

One thing though that they point out was quite wrong for him to say was that "...Obama touted democracy but added 'no system of government can or should be imposed upon one nation by any other' — a straw-man argument since that was never U.S. policy."

Are you kidding me?

Whoever wrote this either does not know their history, or is giving us straight propaganda to try and make it appear if Obama is some kind of rotten liar. And there are countless examples out there of The U.S intervening in other countries, in numerous ways to try and impose systems of governance.

A recent example would no doubt be Iraq. Why did we force them to re-write their perfectly servicable constitution, especially at a time of war (We weren't even able to get ours out for ten years after we declared our independance)?

Naomi Klein points out on this issue:

The Hague regulations state that an occupying power must respect "unless absolutely prevented, the laws in force in the country". The coalition provisional authority has shredded that simple rule with gleeful defiance. Iraq’s constitution outlaws the privatization of key state assets, and it bars foreigners from owning Iraqi firms. No plausible argument can be made that the CPA was "absolutely prevented" from respecting those laws, and yet two months ago, the CPA overturned them unilaterally.

On September 19, Bremer enacted the now infamous Order 39. It announced that 200 Iraqi state companies would be privatized ; decreed that foreign firms can retain 100% ownership of Iraqi banks, mines and factories ; and allowed these firms to move 100% of their profits out of Iraq. The Economist declared the new rules a "capitalist dream".

There are countless other examples (Russia, Chile', Iran etc...), and a good place to look to understand these things would be her excellent book "The Shock Doctrine". I don't expect the writers at The Oklahoman to look into the facts on this issue, but I think people who read this paper should.

Troops Fight And Die For Our Right To Have Our Chicken Done Right And Nothing More, Claims The Oklahoman

May 31 Editorial

In their multiple short blurb Sunday opinion section today, two things stand out to me. First, in a short piece "States frown at smiles" the Editors once again show their disapproval on the fact that the Voter ID proposals were vetoed by Governor Henry. They conclude the piece with "...we wonder why there was such a fuss about presenting a simple ID when exercising the privilege of voting."

In another piece, "Victim upgrades" as is to be expected the Editors show their rage at the fact that even the idea of hate crimes exists. They conclude with the statement "...legislation pending in Congress would allow victimhood upgrades for victims based on sexual status in addition to race, religion and national origin — despite a lack of evidence that "hate crime” laws prevent violence."

I want to say a couple things about these editorials. For the first, once again The Oklahoman as they always do are refusing to look to the massive data on voter rights bills, most importantly that there are no cases of voter fraud in our state (primarily because the penalties are so high for committing fraud at the voting booth) and rely solely on ideological reasoning. They do this on a daily basis, and I think it is pretty disgusting. We are the freest country in the world, and have access to so much information, and when we sweep all the facts about issues to the side, and rely on what we want for the things we write about, we are telling the people who fought and died for our rights to these freedoms that what they did was for little more than to give us 24/7 access to the Fresco Menu at Taco Bell. It couldn't possibly be for anything important like having access to information that would create a just society for all, right?

And regarding the second piece, I do not know a lot about studies on hate crimes, but could easily find them if I took some time to look. And I know the Editors do and I know they didn't take that time. But I do have one thing to contribute to this discussion. A few years ago, I was at a party and this punk was there. He was a guy who'd been in and out of jail, a couple times for violent crimes. I don't know how this came up, but someone started talking about hate crimes, and this guy said and I quote "Man! Don't ever be hittin' no gay person...I would never do that man....I know this guy, he beat up a gay #$%^$# and he got way more time than if he'd beaten up a normal dude..man, I swear I would never..."

The reason I heard this conversation, and know that there probably is likely studies that show hate crimes laws do prevent crimes, is that I have life experience, I've been all over the country, I've seen enough to know some things. The Oklahoman preys on people who haven't seen much, don't know much, and put faith in "leaders" (yes, some people see these people who write this garbage as leaders, and people they should trust).

I think I've made it obvious that this newspaper is a disgrace, and as Columbia Journalism has said, the worst newspaper in America. Thank goodness. If there was a worse one, who knows what shape our country would be in.