Oklahoma’s Got Poverty Trouble From Right Wing Governmental Neglect

Oklahoma’s got trouble with a capital P, and that stands for poverty.
I truly believe that the right wing political leaders of the Oklahoma state government mean well. They want to do do right by the people that they represent. Unfortunately, wanting to do right and being able to do right are not at all the same thing.
Oklahoma politicians have tilted to the right, ideologically speaking, for a long while now. Part of their rightward political bias is the belief that government programs to help people living in poverty don’t accomplish much – that poor people will only lift themselves out of poverty once the government stops trying to help them.
That’s a shame, because Oklahoma state government never really has made a fair effort at helping Oklahomans living under the poverty line. Thanks to the right wing presumption that government can’t help, and ought not to try, the many poor people living in Oklahoma have been mostly on their own. Right wing politicians in control of the state government have withheld support, and waited for things to get better.
They’ve waited, and waited, and waited, but now it’s become clear: Poverty in Oklahoma just isn’t getting any better, not with the right wing keeping its do-nothing agenda in power.
Poverty is higher in Oklahoma than it is in states that apply a more progressive economic policy. Over 16 percent of Oklahomans live in poverty, and a very large number of those poor Oklahomans are children. 23 percent of children in Oklahoma live in poverty.
Those children are not to blame for their own poverty, and the right wing’s lecturing and preaching about how important it is for those kids to fend for themselves hasn’t made things worse.

Oklahoma’s higher-than-average poverty is an important reminder of the perils of right wing government. There is a silver lining to this dark lesson, however. Oklahoma can do better, if it follows the progressive alternative that’s been successful in so many other states.

The United States as a whole can do better too, if we take care to elect a progressive President in 2008.
(Source: Food Research and Action Center, State of the States Report, 2007)

Yes, But is Kucinich in Oklahoma?

There’s no question that Dennis Kucinich is, ideologically, a solid progressive candidate for President. But, the question has been nagging in the back of my mind for some months now – is Dennis Kucinich, organizationally, a solid progressive candidate for President? That is, does Dennis Kucinich have the operational wherewithal to turn his progressive ideals into progressive action?

Tonight, I thought of a practical test for that question: Is Dennis Kucinich in Oklahoma?

California and Vermont are all very well and good, but they’re liberal states, and one expects Kucinich supporters there.

Oklahoma, on the other hand, is traditionally a red state, where the presence of progressives has been much less strong. If Dennis Kucinich has any campaign presence in Oklahoma, then that would be a good confirmation of an adequate operational ability for his candidacy.

I checked, and…

lo and behold, Dennis Kucinich is in Oklahoma! The Kucinich for President campaign has two grassroots groups affiliated with it in Oklahoma: Okies for Peace and Oklahoma for Dennis.

One of Kucinich supporters in Oklahoma, acknowledges the long odds for a Kucinich for President campaign, saying, “If we have a hope left, it is Dennis Kucinich. The obstacles to getting him elected are significant but the conditions he will be thrown into are dire, at best.” Yet, people are turning out in Oklahoma to give Dennis Kucinich their support.

If there’s a stronger testimony to the resilience of hope, I can’t think of one.

Tennessee Broils Under Climate Change

It’s a bitter irony this summer that many of the Republican politicians who have been the most stubborn opponents of the idea have come from the South and the Midwest, and those same regions have been hit this summer by a record-breaking heat wave that has killed scores of people and crippled local infrastructures.

Tennessee has received particular attention, with Nashville’s 12-day streak of temperatures above 100 degrees, heat days shutting down Tennessee schools, and a Tennessee Valley Authority power meter registering such a surge in power usage for air conditioners that it literally burst into flame.

The most infamous opponent of global warming reality in Congress has been Senator James Inhofe. I wonder if he would call the the special heat advisory, and heat-related hospitalizations and death across Oklahoma a “hoax”.