Okie Funk Oldies

(Okie Funk will be updated on a sporadic basis this week because I’m traveling and taking time off. I will get back to my regular schedule next week. Below are some excerpts from posts published in 2004 to 2006.—Kurt Hochenauer)

Want a real eye-opener to what is really the problem with the Middle East? Want to know the real reason young American soldiers are dying in Iraq? Want to really understand the anger and mistrust many Arabs feel towards our country?

Then take a drive through Dallas down I-35 in a high-occupancy vehicle (HOV) lane. The Dallas HOV lanes, for those who do not know, allow vehicles with two or more occupants to use a special left lane to pass all those one-person occupied vehicles in the other five lanes.

I did just that a couple of weeks ago, and it was an almost surreal experience.

This is what I saw: truck after SUV after minivan after truck after SUV after car, with air conditioners at full blast, stuck in snail-paced traffic with one lonely driver at the wheel. Their zombie-like eyes stared vacantly at the bumpers before them.

Mile after mile, five lanes stuffed with vehicles, as I cruised passed in a tiny compact. Zombies staring into ugly highway space, stuck, idling, using gasoline but going nowheresville real slow. Meanwhile, I felt like a cheat and a fool, especially since I displayed Okie plates and a John Kerry for President bumper sticker.

---

How dare I actually have someone in the car with me so I could pass all these good, warm-hearted Texans who love our troops the most of everyone in the country? Was this right? Was I going to get myself . . . kilt?

I saw not one bus much less a commuter train or any other form of mass transit.
I did see big, big, big vehicles.—”Texas Tea Guzzlers,” June 10, 2004

A shameless editorial today (February 22, 2005) in The Daily Oklahoman attacks the American Association of Retired People for its logical opposition to George Bush’s plan to destroy the country’s Social Security system.

In one of those weird twists of logic unique to the newspaper’s editorialists, the editorial calls the AARP “hypocritical” because it offers deals on mutual funds for its members. Titled, “Hypocrisy? AARP straddles Social Security furor,” the editorial cites a right-wing columnist, James K. Glassman, who hands the immoral newspaper its GOP talking points for the day.

The editorial cites the columnist’s argument that “ . . . AARP is talking out of both sides of its mouth, because while the organization is busy trashing Bush's private accounts plan, it offers its members investment opportunities in 38 mutual funds from which it receives a financial cut from each sale.”

There is simply no logical disconnection between AARP trying to protect the country’s main retirement system and also encouraging a plurality of investments for its members. The AARP is not taking an anti-investment or anti-business position in the debate. It is not taking an anti-Bush stance. The organization simply wants to ensure the solvency of Social Security.
In addition, the person writing the editorial had to be aware of these two facts: (1) Glassman is connected to the conservative think tank, The American Enterprise Institute, and (2) a group connected to the mudslinging Swift Boat liars are planning a coordinated and highly funded campaign to attack the AARP. Undoubtedly, the editorial writer deliberately chose to omit these two crucial details because The Oklahoman will not argue its positions truthfully.—“The Daily Oklahoman Attacks AARP,” February 22, 2005

Proposed legislation that ties the budget of state government to population growth and the inflation rate is apparently still on the political table in Oklahoma. The Republican-sponsored bill, modeled after the Orwellian-named Taxpayers’ Bill of Rights (TABOR) legislation in Colorado, would gut Oklahoma education, especially higher education.

---

Oklahomans would make a tragic mistake if they vote for this legislation if it does make it to the ballot. (There are some indications the bill is losing support.) Oklahoma is a small state with limited population growth. We even lost a congressional seat after the last census because of limited growth compared to the country’s average population growth. Under the proposed bill’s provisions, even a small downturn in the state’s economy might lead to, among other things, massive teacher layoffs, school closings, and higher college tuition. In addition, its impact on our state’s disadvantaged would be immeasurable.—”TABOR Would Devastate State,” March 29, 2005

Ignored and neglected, then and now, by the state’s powerful people, and especially the conservative right, Okemah (like much of rural Oklahoma) is a particularly noteworthy symbol of the nation’s contradictions, its cyclical miseries, and its inspirational but sometimes fraudulent mythologies. It becomes even more symbolic when one considers it is the place where one of the nation’s most moral sons first created a music that provided the inspiration for a populist movement that seized the country’s imagination and brought about decisive change through Roosevelt’s New Deal.

That moral son, of course, was Woody Guthrie. But where was Woody? I couldn’t find him anywhere. Dusk descended on the town. A mangy mutt crossed the street in front of me. Was that a coyote I heard howling in the distance? Was that an armadillo or possum that darted under a huge rock and down into a large hole? Did the young man walking down the street look at me strangely or was I just imagining things? A redigitalized Guthrie sang out from my car’s radio and into surreal Okemah, Oklahoma:

One Sunday morning
In the shadow of the steeple
By the relief office
I seen my people
As they stood hungry,
I stood there whistling this:
This land was made for you and me.

Woody Guthrie, I thought to myself, where are you?—“Where’s Woody?” October 4, 2006