The Oklahoman

No, it’s the Republicans who are mostly using fear-mongering as part of a regimented political calculation this election season, not Democrats.

So remind The Oklahoman editorial writers, who support politicians such as U.S. Sen. Coburn, whose predictions of future financial insolvency for the nation are about as lacking in facts and logic as you can get.

The newspaper, in an incredible act of rhetorical deceit and omission—it has been screeching doomsday for months over what it calls “Obamacare”—has now accused President Barack Obama of using “the politics of fear” when it comes to protecting Social Security.

The editorial, “Obama employs politics of fear in Social Security debate” (Aug. 20, 2010), begins like this:

It's alive!

The politics of fear lives, resurrected by President Obama's strategy to shift attention away from Democrats' liberal/progressive policy agenda that has put approval ratings for the president and his party underwater as the election campaign season looms.

It goes on to argue that a recent weekly address by Obama played the “fear card” when it mentioned that Republicans are intent of dismantling Social Security. The address was given on the 75th anniversary of Social Security.

Here’s the deceit: It’s the Republicans who are using fear-mongering to try to privatize Social Security and hand taxpayer’s money over to Wall Street investors. Privatizing Social Security would be irresponsible. The recent Wall-Street debacle that led to the mortgage crisis and massive retirement financial losses is ironclad proof that Social Security accounts should not be entrusted to investment bankers.

The main GOP proposal is to allow younger taxpayers to invest their Social Security money in private accounts, an idea that’s been around for quite some time and is based on Chicken-Little claims that the program, as one leading privatization proponent writes, “is going broke.” The “going broke” claim comes from many GOP politicians, including U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan, a Wisconsin Republican. The editorial mentions Ryan as advancing the current GOP leading proposal. Some political leaders also want to raise the retirement age for Social Security.

But talk about fear-mongering. Even Ryan points out in his proposal that Social Security, if current predictions hold, won’t exhaust its funds until 2037, and then it could still pay 75 percent. How in the world is that going broke? Also, it’s only an extremely slight possibility and most rational people argue it’s highly unlikely. The government can do many things to solve the issue. It could raise the income level on which FICA taxes could be assessed, for example. Right now, it’s capped at $102,000. Most important, and by the GOP’s own admission, the government has 27 years to come up with a solution. That’s a lot of years. So why is the GOP playing the fear card, prompting Obama’s comments?

Paul Krugman, the Nobel Prize-winning economist, recently wrote in The New York Times:

Social Security’s attackers claim that they’re concerned about the program’s financial future. But their math doesn’t add up, and their hostility isn’t really about dollars and cents. Instead, it’s about ideology and posturing. And underneath it all is ignorance of or indifference to the realities of life for many Americans.

But let’s get back to The Oklahoman. The newspaper basically serves the interests of the rich elite in our community. For decades, it has exhibited what Krugman called “the ignorance of or indifference to the realities of life for many Americans.” The newspaper doesn’t allow substantial, dissenting voices to its opinions. Its editorial page is often deceitful, especially when it comes to political issues, both nationally and locally. Its recent editorial on Social Security is an example of deceit and a basic refusal to discuss the program rationally, beyond partisan politics. It does a grave disservice to many Oklahomans concerned about their retirements.

So for the record: It’s the GOP that’s doing the fear-mongering when it comes to Social Security, not President Obama.

The Oklahoman continues to deal in rhetorical demonization and deceit in its obsessive opposition to State Question 744, a proposed constitutional measure that if passed in November would simply fund state schools at the regional average.

No one can get a fair sense of what SQ 744 is about on the newspaper’s editorial page or in its news columns. At this point, The Oklahoman has forfeited any right to be taken seriously about the issue.

A recent editorial, (“NEA investing plenty in Oklahoma school funding initiative,” August 3, 2010), criticizes the National Education Association, which has apparently donated more than $3 million to help fund the Yes on 744 campaign. The editorial engages in fear mongering and omission.

Here’s the gist from the editorial:

Is there any organization more wedded to the status quo than the NEA? It bucks reform efforts at every turn — try getting rid of a bad teacher, for example. It sees the answer to every problem as nothing a little more money couldn't solve.

Note that it’s the NEA’s fault about bad teachers and it’s all about problems “nothing a little more money couldn’t solve.” Where is the quantifiable research supporting these claims? Are bad teachers the fault of the NEA? That’s nonsense. Does the organization only care about money? That’s nonsense, too. Please, cite the evidence. The editorial doesn’t even pretend to do so.

The NEA is a 3.2 million-member organization of educators in this country. It was formed in 1857.

Here’s the NEA history:

In 1857, one hundred educators answered a national call to unite as one voice in the cause of public education. At the time, learning to read and write was a luxury for most children—and a crime for many Black children. One hundred and fifty years later, public education and the profession of teaching are transformed. In 1966 we joined forces with the American Teachers Association. Since then, our voice has swelled to 3.2 million members, and what was once a privilege for a fortunate few is now an essential right for every American child, regardless of family income or place of residence.

Since its beginning, the National Education Association has been ahead of its time, crusading for the rights of all educators and children. Learn more about NEA's rich history, from welcoming Black members four years before the Civil War and electing a woman as president a full decade before Congress granted women the right to vote, to the 1966 merger with the American Teachers Association during the height of the Civil Rights Movement.

Is The Oklahoman going to dispute this information? Why doesn’t it bring up this history of NEA as it vilifies one of the most important educational organizations in the nation?

So, really, are “welcoming Black members four years before the Civil War” and empowering women before they were even given the right to vote bad attributes under the worldview of The Oklahoman, which the Columbia Journalism Review once claimed has a blatant history of racism?

The point here is The Oklahoman won’t engage SQ 744 on its basic merits or just its basic idea. The measure would fund schools here at the regional average. Do The Oklahoman editorial writers believe regional average funding for schools here is a bad thing? Why? Should we continue to fund schools here at some of the lowest levels in the country? Why? The editorial writers will never thoroughly address these questions.

Recent studies shows Oklahoma is dead last in a seven-state region, which includes Arkansas and New Mexico, in per-pupil spending and 49th in the nation. Should we all be proud about that because, well, that awful NEA, it stands against racism and supports empowering women?

It’s only in historical character that The Oklahoman editorial writers denigrate an organization that was on the major forefront of educating African-Americans and giving women positions of authority.

So here’s the bottom line: SQ 744 is not a Republican or Democratic issue. You can be a conservative Republican and support the measure or you can consider yourself a progressive, liberal Democratic and oppose it. The Oklahoman, as it attempts to politicize the issue with its bag of clichés, has lost this one.

SQ 744 is about average funding on a regional level for the state’s school children. If voters here want that average funding, then they do. Ultimately, the issue is not about the NEA or the corporate interests, such as The Oklahoman, which oppose SQ 744. It’s about doing the right thing for Oklahoma school children.

The Oklahoman editorial page’s recent spiteful “good riddance” to Wayne Rohde, who has fought intensely and bravely for a health insurance mandate here that would cover treatment for autistic children, is a new low in its pro-health insurance company agenda.

The editorial (Movin' on in: State loses some, gains even more July 13, 2010) also cites an article by two “Research Fellows” with the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs (OCPA), which makes dubious claims about population growth in the state.

OCPA is an ultra-conservative think tank that engages in faux, GOP-sponsored intellectualism that gives newspapers like The Oklahoman a way to attack decent Oklahomans and further its destructive, anti-middle class agenda. In the OCPA and The Oklahoman world, the rich can do no wrong and are the only group deserving of decent health care.

The gist of the editorial is that it doesn’t matter that Rohde has announced he and his family are moving to Minnesota so he can get treatment coverage for his son, Nick, because, well, the state is gaining more residents from other places than it loses residents to other places. The Oklahoma Legislature has declined to make insurance coverage available for autism despite Rohde’s intensive, articulate campaign.

The editorial included this little nasty paragraph:

Other families with autistic children may also leave. People move for a variety of reasons — jobs, cost of living, safety, etc. — and more people are coming to Oklahoma than leaving it.

The Oklahoman: Hurray, we’re only getting the healthy people now. Hurray, “families with autistic children may also leave”! Let’s just hope none of these new people have kids with illnesses, especially autism. Well, shoot-fahr, maybe we can just run them out, too!

There’s no discussion in the editorial of the real, pressing issue of providing insurance coverage for autism, only a crass, calculated overview of whether the issue will affect population growth. In other words, who cares about kids like Nick here? It’s population growth that matters, not treating illness, right? To take it further, given the newspaper’s hysterical response to recent health care reform, who cares about health coverage for anyone in Oklahoma who can’t afford it?

The short article the editorial cites claiming 56,000 people since 2005 have moved into the state from other places is filled with speculation and has an obvious political agenda to say the least. Written by J. Scott Moody and Wendy Warcholik, described in the editorial as OCPA Research Fellows and George Mason University economists, the article admits a lack of evidence for its overall thesis:

Unfortunately, the data do not provide any information as to the characteristics of these new residents. Are they empty-nesters moving to retire in Oklahoma? Are they young families moving for a better lifestyle (jobs, affordable housing, good education, etc.)?

Or are they people who have simply moved here during The Great Recession when Oklahoma’s economy was still resilient? And what about this 56,000 number? Is it really that significant? That’s five years at about 10,000 or so a year. Wow, astounding growth! We also lost residents as well.

In other words, there’s no evidence that people are moving to Oklahoma in big numbers because it’s a great state that does things like deny insurance coverage for the treatment of autism. But that’s what The Oklahoman and, by extension, the OCPA wants you to believe.

(I tried to find information on Moody and Warcholik at the George Mason University site, but only came up with this about Warcholik’s 2002 dissertation. Neither Moody nor Warcholik are currently listed as faculty in the Economic Department’s faculty listing on the George Mason site. They both have apparently been connected to The Tax Foundation, a conservative, anti-tax organization. It’s disingenuous for the editorial to list them as “George Mason University economists” unless they work at the university full-time as professors.)

Incredibly, The Oklahoman editor Ed Kelley just recently lamented the fact the state wasn’t growing fast enough, which directly contradicts Moody’s and Warcholik’s rosy assessment of Oklahoma.

So which is it? Are people flocking here from other states because of how great the state is to raise a family—just as along as no one is sick, of course, especially with autism—or do the 2009 U.S. Census numbers, as Kelley argues, show the state actually needs more population?

The newspaper’s editorial is supposedly attacking claims that including an autistic insurance mandate here could attract new residents, but its disingenuous approach reveals that the real agenda is merely to make sure Rohde and his supporters know who won out in the end, at least so far: Big insurance companies and the editorial writers at The Oklahoman. That’s about as ugly and nasty as it gets, especially when it includes a kid with an illness.