Batting for OG&E

Every once in awhile, the Oklahoman will run a letter that expresses a more progressive viewpoint. This is usually done so they can point-counterpoint where, after the progressive viewpoint is published, they'll run two or three letters ranting about it. This is a pretty standard tactic now and it's not particularly interesting.


What is interesting, though, is when they editorialize on a letter. We've seen this before. Strangely, one the paper did so to correct the writer's premise, which makes one wonder: WHY EVEN RUN THE LETTER IN THE FIRST PLACE? In the case of David Grow of Edmond's letter, however, there is no mystery as to why it ran or why their editorial comment was added.


We have seen letters from Mr Grow before-- it seems to be the paper's resident progressive on issues of science. So them running his letter on climate change is not out of the ordinary. He starts:

A poll cited in "Obama, public at odds over warming" (Our Views, July 7) is a sad testament to the effectiveness of the fossil fuel industry’s misinformation campaign to climate science. Those who have profits to protect are spending millions manipulating the public’s perception of the science of climate change.

Again, why the Oklahoman can't just link to articles cites is baffling. But fine. The important point is that the editorial clearly says: "New national polling by the Pew Research Center finds a substantial majority of citizens don't buy environmental doomsday prophesies." Pew Research Center. For anyone who cares, Pew is obviously a non-partisan organization funded by the Pew family (ironically in this case, the Pew family got rich from Sun Oil). So when Mr Grow is referring to this poll, he's not making any insinuations about its origins.


Nevertheless, the rest of his point is clear: the results of this poll show the power of the fossil fuel industry in pushing anti-science propaganda when it comes to the climate change issue. Indeed, the entire rest of his letter is about this very thing. It's a pretty basic and straightforward point. (It's also very compelling, but that's a different story.)


So what happens at the end of the letter? After signing off, the Oklahoman adds this statement:

The poll by the independent, nonpartisan Pew Research Center found broad skepticism among the public about anthropogenic global warming. The poll was not funded by the fossil fuel industry.

HOLY SHIT. So, the Oklahoman ran a letter expressing a progressive view, and then immediately tried to undermine it by stressing the impartiality of the poll. Obviously the poll was impartial: Mr Grow never said otherwise. Indeed, it strengthens his point that this is the case! But the Oklahoman will do anything it can to help Big Energy (like OG&E) and so it throws this little bit out there-- hey, guys, even though he said there is a lot of misinformation put forward by the fossil fuel industry, that poll we cited was non-partisan. The conclusion it wants you to draw is clear: Obviously Mr Grow is not telling the truth.


It's a wicked little rhetorical trick. Mr Grow wasn't saying that the poll was part of the misinformation campaign, but the Oklahoman responded as though he was doing exactly that. You know you're dealing with a real propaganda machine when you get this from your newspaper. It's disgusting, and the people of Oklahoma deserve a LOT better than this.

Mike Jones wants you to know...

After Mike Jones' last letter (the paper publishes them all the time), I wrote, "at this point the paper should save everyone the time and trouble and just put a notice in the opinion section every six weeks or so saying 'Mike Jones of Oklahoma City wants you to know that he thinks communism is bad, capitalism is good, and liberals are ruining America'."

Well, it's been about six weeks and instead of saving us all a lot of time, the paper has indeed run another Mike Jones letter. It's completely stupid-- so stupid that it's not even worth repeating here. But I will paraphrase it so you can have a general thrust of its ridiculousness:

Let's say you found a lot you'd like to build a house on, but there was already one on it. Because that's how those things work. You're just like "Hey, guys, I just bought this awesome lot I'm going to build a house on wait what the fuck there's already one ON it??" So you go to this lot and check out the house. That you just bought. Or something. So you might want to make some minor improvements to it because what the hell, it's your house, right? OR, if you hate the house, you can always just raze the whole fucking thing and build a new one.

Stay with me here-- I have an important point to make.

So NOW, after wasting your time with that house thing, let's just pretend that you found an ENTIRE LAND MASS. Just like you're out on a fucking boat and are like "Whoa-- is that a gigantic continent?!? Holy shit! How did no one ever see this before?!?" But then-- OF COURSE-- there's already a country on it. A COUNTRY. It's already on the land mass.

You see why I brought up that house thing before? The land mass is like the lot you just purchased, and the country is like the house! Because, you know, a house is a physical construct that people build with raw materials and remodel or expand or raze (depending on zoning rules and what the homeowner's association allows). And a country is.... well, not even close to that. BUT IT DOESN'T MATTER because I have important things to say.

So anyhow, if you sort of like the country, you can remodel it. Like, it's your country, right? You found it and are all "I claim this in the name of Spain!" and so, Boom! It's yours. And you can begin to remodel. Because THAT IS WHAT YOU DO TO COUNTRIES. But if you HATE the country, you know what you can do? You can just destroy it.

That's right, I said destroy it. And not with some army or something. No, no. You somehow just decide to become the boss of the country-- it's YOURS after all!-- and you're like "Well, what sorts of things have been shown-- I mean SERIOUSLY PROVEN-- to destroy a country, and I'll just do those until it's destroyed. And then, I guess, I'll make a new one? I don't know how that even works, but BEAR WITH ME I AM MIKE JONES.

So what sort of shit would I do? Well, I hate taxes, so I assume that raising those would go and destroy it. And I know what you're thinking-- you're all "Hey, taxes have been way higher before and THAT didn't destroy the US! And there are countries in Europe with much higher tax rates than the US and they haven't been destroyed, so what do you mean?" And to that I say SHUT UP! I don't want to hear that shit from you.

Anyhow, what else? Oh, god. REGULATIONS. I'd add a bunch of those. Because if there's one thing I know helps a country, it's shitty air, unclean water, and people just eating sawdust and thinking it's a hamburger. Sam Seller, folks. It's all about Sam Seller. And did I mention taxes? OK. And obviously people that aren't like me ruin everything-- OBVIOUSLY-- so I'd make sure that we encourage brown people and non-evangelical Christians to, well, sodomize each other and steal high-paying jobs. Because that's what they do, right? RIGHT?

God, this is awesome. I am totally listing things that I'm sure would destroy a country. That I found on a land mass and didn't like. So I will build a new one. So what else? Did I list taxes and regulations? If I did, maybe I'll use some synonyms. So, uh, fees. And rules. Those are bad for a country. And also, we can't have healthy people. So I'd introduce universal health care. And stop with this "Oh, in Europe they spend way less on health care and have much healthier people in general" crap because I DON'T WANT TO BELIEVE IT. Did I mention brown people? I think so. We all know that if you aren't from Western Europe and maybe Poland then you are going to ruin the country. So yeah, we need more of them for my plan to work.

Anyhow, that's about it. I have pretty much shown how to destroy a country. And HAHAHA! The joke is on you because what I am REALLY saying is that this stuff is that I think is happening now and it's all being caused by liberals and I hate liberals because I am pretty fucking sure they are destroying our country! Man, wow, I am the best writer ever. Who can out-think MIKE FUCKING JONES? Answer: nobody. BOOM.

And there it is. Mike fucking Jones. I'm not sure which is the bigger embarrassment: Mike Jones or the Oklahoman. Tough call.

Made-up hit job

It's difficult to express how horrible today's letter from David Osborn of Yukon is. It's a "zinger" type letter that the Oklahoman runs from time to time. Here it is, in its entirety: 

Women rights advocate Kate Kelly was excommunicated by the Church of Latter-day Saints for the 'public advocacy of positions that oppose church teaching.' Following this reasoning, one would think the same step would be taken against a Mormon of much higher profile who systematically lies, deceives, slanders, advocates for same-sex marriage and supports the killing of unborn babies (including partial-birth abortion) — all of which are contrary to God’s word and contrary to the teaching of the Mormon Church. 

Unless, of course, he happens to be the majority leader of the U.S. Senate, Harry Reid.

Got that? So this is a typical Oklahoman-type letter: if you insult high-level politicians like Nancy Pelosi, the Clintons, and President Obama, there's a good chance that your letter will get run. Frequently, these insults invoke the S-word-- you know, "socialist"-- and have little other substance. Moreover, they often tend to be apropos of nothing. 

In this case, though, the letter is in reference to an actual event. (Naturally, because the editors are technologically inept, the Oklahoman doesn't bother to link you to the article Mr Osborn is referencing.) Moreover, it tries to make a compelling point: If the Mormon church is going to kick Kate Kelly out, why wouldn't it kick our Harry Reid?

To see how compelling it is, we should first see why it kicked out Kate Kelly. From this article, we see that she was kicked out for founding the group Ordain Women,

an organization that wants equal standing for women in Mormon church, which reserves its top leadership positions for men and does not permit female lay clergy.

Yikes. OK-- well if you're going to challenge direct church leadership not just on a particular issue but on how its leadership should change, you're taking a risk.

Now, what about Harry Reid? Well, Mr Osborn has a different list of reasons for thinking he should be excommunicated. First off, he argues that Harry Reid "systematically lies, deceives, [and] slanders." That's pretty bold! Can we back that up with some evidence? I mean, fine, it's easy to say that a politician is a liar-- they often make bold claims ("I will lower your taxes!") that don't come true, or that seem at odds with past or future votes. But voting for Congressional legislation is often not black and white and it would be difficult (if not completely boring) to nuance all of the issues that went into a seemingly duplicitous vote in a speech or interview.

OK, but what about "systematically" slandering? Slander is kind of a big deal-- if Reid is "systematically" engaging in this, there is probably a record of lawsuits and legal action against him. Of course, it's really all just overblown hype from the right-wing noise machine. "Oh no! Harry Reid called the Koch brothers some names! They should sue for slander!" Please. Just stop.

So, so far, all this letter has done is manage to associate Harry Reid with some negative words-- lies, deceives, slanders. It's all baseless, and a church isn't going to go excommunicating someone for baseless hyperbole.

What's next? Oh-- "advocates for same-sex marriage." OK. Indeed, that's a complicated situation, but as one paper (one in Salt Lake City, so we are clear) notes,

Reid, D-Nev., is the highest-ranking Mormon in the U.S. government and up until now has said he agrees with his faith's opposition to gay marriage, but on Wednesday, Reid aligned himself with Obama's newfound embrace for the legalization of same-sex unions.

On Thursday, reporters asked Reid if he would vote to legalize same sex marriage if it was on the ballot in Nevada and he nodded yes, even though he previously voted for the state's constitutional ban on gay marriage.

Reid's stance is far from the stated position of the LDS Church, which considers homosexual behavior a sin and has repeatedly campaigned against attempts to sanction same-sex relationships, though in recent years it has supported political efforts to provide some legal protections to gay people. 

On more than one occasion, Reid has found his views on issues surrounding gay marriage departing from those of his faith, not that this would in any way threaten his standing in the church. LDS leaders regularly point to its statement on relationships with government, which says public officials who are Mormon make their own decisions and may not agree 'with one another or even with a publicly stated church position.'

The key things we can get from this is that a) Reid's position is evolving, which happens; b) it's not like the church actively hates gay people; and-- most importantly-- despite Reid's beliefs on this, he is not as risk of being excommunicated.

Right now, Mr Osborn is betting zero. Perhaps his last point will stick: "supports the killing of unborn babies (including partial-birth abortion)." OK, so this is also pretty compelling. Right? Oh, wait. Can this be correct? It seems like Reid has positions on abortion that are the opposite of what Mr Osborn has said. I mean, here are his votes!! Note this one:

It's hard to say that he "supports . . . partial-birth abortions" when, in fact, he voted for the bill that bans them. Right?

So at this point, Mr Osborn actually is just, well, lying and engaging in slander. Since we can make the assumption that Mr Osborn is probably a Mormon himself, we might wonder if HE should be excommunicated!!

A real newspaper would refrain from running letters that include made-up attacks on a politician-- particularly those that assert things that are the opposite of the truth. But the Oklahoman isn't a real newspaper. It runs propaganda pieces-- in this case, it wants you to associate Democratic leadership with certain words: liars, deceivers, pro-gay, pro-abortion. The facts are different, but that doesn't stop the Oklahoman.