Oklahoma Republicans Embrace Hate, Anger

Randy Terrill Leads Hate Frenzy

Oklahoma faces a myriad of challenges as it tries to bolster its economic base and improve its educational systems.

The state’s average household income, for example, is $35,129, ranking it 44th in the nation, and the state needs more college graduates if it wants to attract new jobs. Oklahoma has high rates of mental illness, teenage pregnancies, and children without health insurance. It has high rates of hunger and poverty.

You might think these issues, though daunting and omnipresent, would be the focus for any state legislator who really wanted to make a difference in our state. But not for state Rep. Randy Terrill (R-Moore), the archconservative legislator who is on a personal jihad against undocumented workers and the general Hispanic community in Oklahoma.

Terrill, using the politics of hate and anger perfected by presidential advisor Karl Rove and the Bush administration, is trying to win votes for the conservative cause by making the illegal immigration issue something that it is not. The issue is a federal issue, not a local issue. Terrill does not care. The bottom line is that his party on the federal level has failed to come up with any type of immigration reform because the country’s rich people—a Republican base group—want a cheap labor pool. He can pull as many publicity stunts as he wants, of course, but it is all hot air and hucksterism and freaky.

Terrill’s latest gambit is to decry the number of illegal immigrants in our state prison system. Before that, he wanted to deny the children of illegal immigrants in-state college tuition rates. Last legislative session, he failed to pass a bill eliminating state benefits for illegal immigrants. Again, every hateful gesture he makes is pointless on any real level.

All of Terrill’s initiatives are aimed at Hispanic people, and he is echoed by the Republican leadership up and down the political food chain, including its leader U.S. Rep. Ernest Istook, the religious extremist who is running for governor this year. What these hate mongers want you to do is join them in an orgiastic angry frenzy so they can subtly shift all the wealth in this country to a small group of elite, rich people, the same people who do NOT want immigration reform. Meanwhile, the Christian right stands idly by and allows this immoral shift of wealth.

Terrill and other Republicans attack Hispanic people relentlessly for political gain. Rove’s political playbook teaches Republican candidates to create anger against fictional scapegoats and then to instill fear in people. This is how the Republicans are winning votes these days, and especially in Oklahoma. Forget the real issues, they say, hate, hate, hate, and then hate some more. Last election season, it was gay people. This year, it is Hispanic people.

Meanwhile, energy prices skyrocket, wages remain stagnant, and our health insurance premiums and copays go up almost monthly. (I know someone who was paying more than a $1,000 a month at a state job to insure his family. He left Oklahoma for greener pastures.) Many people do not even seek medical help until it is an emergency because they do not have insurance. The state’s Republicans do not want you to think about these issues. If Oklahomans did focus on these issues, rather than fictional scapegoats in a failed Republican federal policy on illegal immigration, then there would be a Democratic sweep here in November.

The rest of the nation, according to recent polls, have realized what a mess the liar Bush and the Republicans have made of this country and their individual states. Let us hope Oklahoma wakes up soon, so we no longer have to endure the hate, anger and racism that now defines the Republican Party in this state. But the ultra-conservative media here, led by The Daily Oklahoman, will make sure people do not hear the truth.

Not all Republicans are immoral, of course, and many are now bailing on Bush and extreme right-wing platforms, but the foundation of the Republican Party in this state and in this nation right now is vile and disgusting.

Blair Government Lies Again

You are a rube if you do not question the news coming out of England about terrorists blowing up planes bound for America.

The British government, led by feckless Prime Minister Tony Blair, has not offered one fact that proves people and places were in imminent danger. What we have here could simply be a generic plot already described in an older documents dealing with the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. People should demand the British authorities provide convincing evidence about the so-called plot. Already skeptics are writing about their concerns, but, of course, the first legal hearing on the plot was closed to public scrutiny. It sounds like yet another ploy to give the Bush administration some political leverage for its botched war on terror.

What is so disconcerting about this is that people can no longer count on the American and British governments to tell their people anything even closely resembling the truth. In addition, the United States has its lost war in Iraq and its surrogate war in Lebanon. Does that make you feel safe?

Oklahoma Heat

The heat in Oklahoma this summer has been oppressive and depressive and repressive and excessive, and it serves as one reminder as to why our population growth continues to lag behind national averages. Who wants to live in a scalding hot place more than eight hours away from the ocean?

Landlocked Oklahoma needs help. State and city leaders need to come up with ideas for new lakes and pools, and especially in the Oklahoma City area. How about a new, huge park and swimming area—no motor boating allowed--in downtown Oklahoma City near Bricktown?

Could it be done? Okie Funk hereby decrees that, yes, it could be done. But it will take visionary leadership.