Archive for May, 2006

More on Republican Hissy Fit. . .

Saturday, May 13th, 2006

Since the president of the NW Oklahoma City Republican Club is making false and slanderous statements about the religious tract he is referring to as a “threatening letter”, I thought I should put the document on the internet so that everybody can see for themselves what I had to say.  http://www.justpeace.org/immigration.htm has the full text.  Here is the mp3 file of the question about this tract asked by the president of the NW OKC Republican club and the answers given by four candidates for the Republican Party nomination for Congress in Oklahoma City.   http://www.bobwaldrop.net/GOP-debate-question.mp3 .

Posted in Social Justice | 2 Comments »

Discombobulating Republican Candidates for Congress

Friday, May 12th, 2006

It seems as though I’ve given some Republicans a minor case of heartburn.  In late March I sent all of the members of the State Legislature a “Woe to the Rich” broadsheet that focused on the immigration issue.  It quoted a lot from the Bible about our duty of hospitality to strangers in our midst.  Comes now the NW Republican Club, which apparently had a debate this week featuring the (then) four announced candidates for the Oklahoma City congressional seat being vacated by Rep. Istook.  Somebody who attended the event taped it and the last question had to do with the broadsheet I sent wearing my Catholic Worker hat to the legislature.  The way the question is asked, and the answers, are both a real hoot. http://www.bobwaldrop.net/GOP-debate-question.mp3 .

I certainly have been called worse by better, but it sure is interesting to see these supposedly religious conservatives distancing themselves from the plain and simple words of the Bible.  I guess they believe the Bible is God’s Word except for all the parts that disagree with the Republican Party platform.  

The Bible teaches clearly and without any ambiguity that the rich and powerful who oppress the poor are going to hell.  The Bible says “Blessed are the poor” and it also says “Woe to the rich.”  If people (such as the Republican party candidates for Contress) don’t like that message, they should take it up with God.  I’m sure He will be impressed by their opposition.

 

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Another stealth election!

Tuesday, May 9th, 2006

Today, Tuesday May 9, 2006, turns out to be another stealth election day.  This time it is a ballot proposition — authorizing a 25 year franchise agreement with OGE for supplying electricity to Oklahoma City.

I voted against it. 

If Oklahoma City is going to survive and prosper in the coming age of energy scarcity, we must control as much as possible our energy supplies.  Electricity is the most important energy used in Oklahoma City, it is more important even than gasoline.  As long as our electricity system is controlled by a for profit corporation, our electricity supplies will always be at the mercy of the national market.  At any moment, OGE could be subject to a hostile take-over.  The new owners could literally strip OGE of its assets, selling its generating facilities, selling its transmission lines, selling even the meters.  OGE under its new ownership would then buy electricity from the new owners of the generating plants and rent transmission lines from their new users, passing ALL of those costs on to Oklahoma City ratepayers.  Don’t scoff, this has happened elsewhere in the country.

Oklahoma City needs to own its electrical supply.  We need to own the generating plants, own the transmission lines, and own the coal mines that supply the fuel.   That’s called “energy security”, and it will be critical to our survival in the future.

 Alas for us, this is not on the local political agenda.  The Daily Oklahoman didn’t even mention today’s election.   Oklahoma City’s economic and political leaders continue to choose “collapse and failure” for our future.

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Politicians are conspiring to drive me crazy.

Monday, May 8th, 2006

Moan.  It’s election year.  And clearly the politicians are conspiring to drive me crazy.  It’s gotten to the point where if the headline says something about oil or gas or energy policy, I skip the article.

Sure, we call election years “the silly season”, but the year of grace 2006 has to be the silliest of the silly.  You would think that out of 500+ senators and representatives in the federal Congress, that there would be at least one or two with a brain, but that does not seem to be the case.

The commentariat isn’t much better.  Shills for oil companies are shouting “we aren’t greedy”, while shills for the various wings of the Government Party are touting the latest snake oil nostrums offered by congresscritters.  Amazingly, Cal Thomas is the only one I’ve read who dares to speak the truth.  The only solution to the present energy situation is CONSERVATION. 

 The situation here in Oklahoma is no better.  State government is rolling in the dough raked in from increased oil and natural gas tax payments, but there is not one single proposal on the table at the state legislature to do anything to promote conservation.  Oklahoma City continues to prefer funding Al Queda to doing something sensible like putting some serious money into commuter rail and bus service.  Meanwhile, the I-40 Crosstown Freeway boondoggle continues its merry way into financial excess and the destruction of the Union Station rail yard.

Nations choose to fail, this is evident throughout history.  And alas for us, our nation is choosing to fail.  Ash heap of history, here we come!

Posted in Environmental Sustainability | No Comments »

A new plot against the poor in Oklahoma City

Wednesday, May 3rd, 2006

Wealthy medical corporations are casting covetous eyes on the low income neighborhood south and east of the hospital/medical research complex in northeastern Oklahoma City. Below is a comment I sent yesterday to the officers of the Presbyterian Health Foundation in Oklahoma City, as well as to the politicians responsible for approving this injustice. RMW

To whom it may concern at the Presbyterian Health Foundation in Oklahoma City:

The proposal to destroy the neighborhood around the hospital district in northeast Oklahoma City using eminent domain and TIF funding is the latest “reverse Robin Hood” scheme of the rich and politically well connected to steal from the poor and give to the powerful. The constant destruction of housing by government for a wide variety of economic development schemes leads to higher rents and that causes serious economic problems for low income people, who are already suffering because of high energy costs. Economic stress is a well-documented driver of violence against women and children, drug and alcohol abuse, divorce, crime, and abortion. None of these costs will be accounted for by the medical research corporations that will profit from this expansion at the expense of low income housing, but the externalized costs will nevertheless be paid in full, the price will not be cheap, and it will be paid by the weakest and most vulnerable among us.

We are told that the glorious end of medical research justifies this unsavory means. These poor people that have to get out of the way of the medical research expansion are just, you know, collateral damage. It’s sad but somebody has to suffer so that the glorious end of big profits through industrialized corporation medicine can prosper. (Notice how it is always poor people who are the collateral damage in these economic development schemes, it is never the wealthy and the prosperous.) In any event, rich white doctors and their medical corporations have a long history of stealing land from the poor (and from African Americans in particular) in Oklahoma City, so we shouldn’t be surprised that the best idea they could come up with involved destroying even more low income housing.

Some people believe that economic development trumps all considerations of morality, but if that is true, perhaps we should legalize child prostitution and promote Oklahoma City as the pedophile tour capital of the world! That is a shocking and scandalous thought, but there is no moral difference between promoting sex “for economic development purposes” and destroying the neighborhoods of low income people “for economic development purposes”. Both actions are morally wrong, but we destroy low income neighborhoods all the time and don”t even think twice about the consequences. That moral carelessness is a measure of the demonic strength of the culture of death here in central Oklahoma.

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