Oklahoma: More Than Just Ignorant Rednecks Thinking It's Someone Else's Fault That They're Not Banging Taylor Swift.

Really been laying off the blog lately.  Spending most of my time being called a socialist over at Stumpburners, a local spot I would recommend to everyone.

Being a liberal, or as they say now "progressive", in a state where a lot of folks value ignorance as a virtue can kinda give a person that lonesome feeling.  You know, when a good percentage of so-called Democrats are pandering to the dupes of the corporate special interests, some call them Tea Baggers, it gets a tad depressing to say the least.

But fortunately, I've found out that Oklahoma's not nearly as stupid as I have been wrongly accusing it of being.

As I've found out there is a thriving community of honest to goodness lefties/liberals/progressives in Oklahoma.  And they do this much better than I do.  So, I'm adding an Oklahoma Progressive Blogs widget to the top of Redneck Liberal to gladly show the world or the five or six people who actually read it that Oklahoma is not the intellectual wasteland (current politicians excepted) that it is portrayed on, well, pretty much everywhere.


Believe it or not, here in Oklahoma topics of conversation can go beyond our guns, our hunting dogs, our last deer kill, our pickups or our old lady's little sister is really hot, while drinking 3.2 beer and believeing that it's actual beer.  No, here in Oklahoma we have plenty of what the Right says is the "intellectual elite". 

The first Progressive Okie Blog that I hope everyone checks out is Okie Funk:  Notes From The Outback.  It's written by Dr. Kurt Hochenauer, a Brit Lit teacher at the University of Central Oklahoma, here's his bio.  Here's his mission statement:

This is a blog of populist and liberal information and ideas, advancing the cause of truth and justice while fighting the ugly tyranny of right-wing oppression in Oklahoma and its surrounding environs

This dude's got a clue.  Here is some of his blog.  The Oklahoman is owned by the Gaylord Family of Oklahoma along with the Grand Ole Opry, The Nashville Network and the Country Music Television.  Needless to say, they're good Republicans.

Here’s two questions the editorial writers at The Oklahoman will never directly address in any detail:


How does giving tax credits to the state’s big oil and gas companies represent true free market principles? If oil and gas companies cannot make it without special tax treatment not given to regular middle-class taxpayers, then shouldn’t they be allowed to fail under market fundamentalism ideology?

On Friday, The Oklahoman published an editorial (“Tax attacks: Incentive review revs up rhetoric,” May 7, 2010) that criticized state Rep. Scott Inman (D-Del City) for even suggesting tax incentives for oil and gas companies here should be reviewed given the state’s massive budget crisis, which has led to vital program cuts and could lead to massive teacher layoffs.

So here’s one key snarky paragraph in the editorial:

Inman will be the top House Democrat next year. He’s already matching the rhetoric to the responsibility. It’s expected. We hope that rational thought is also a job prerequisite.

Note the phrase “rational thought.” This is coming from a SERIOUS newspaper editorial page that refuses to speak out consistently and rationally against Republican extremism at the legislature, a SERIOUS editorial page that almost always labels recent health care reform “Obamacare,” a SERIOUS editorial page that rails against teachers and supports chronically low per pupil spending even as it argues good educational systems are vital to Oklahoma’s future.

The next Blog is the Grindstone Journal, it's written by a bunch of folks and from what I've read, the kind of folks that you'd want to invite you to party with them.  Example?  Sure!

Discussing a liberal view of democracy... with drinks!




Grindstone does serious stuff too.

In What's So Great About Christianity D'Souza opens with a discussion on why he feels Richard Dawkins, Dan Dennett, Steven Pinker, and E.O. Wilson, all Darwinian scientists, are wrong, but as we will see, D'Souza doesn't offer any scientific evidence for why he thinks their science is flawed. This is something I find amusing coming from a Christian apologist who already nurtures a preconceived bias towards scientific thinking in general, Darwinism in specific. In the second chapter of his book D’Souza quotes Pinker’s account that there may be Darwinian explanations for religious thinking and the very evolution of the idea of God, or at least, according to Pinker, the idea of God may be a byproduct of some pre-existing condition or human need, and may have a naturalistic and organic origin just as language does.[1] At least such a hypothesis as this must be ruled out before we can settle on a hypothesis which is virtually impossible to prove and entirely unlikely to be factual. Conjecture does not a good proof make, although D’Souza ignores such logic and sticks to his guns. Firing away another volley, without having even provided any dependable or convincing evidence, D’Souza immediately goes on to say about Pinker’s theory that, “This is another way of saying there is no Darwinian explanation.”[2]

So be sure to check out Grindstone Journal.

And last there's blueoklahoma and they are "...anything but sad...", what they are is this,

This is a community blog operated since 2006 by people dedicated to promoting and restoring progressive values in Oklahoma. A courageous band of patriots, we fight right-wing tyranny in one of the reddest of red states.

I wonder if their standards are low enough to let me post on there?  Anyway these are the first three Oklahoma based progressive blogs of the many that I plan on highlighting here.  And as lifelong Okie I want to thank them for their work in fighting ignorance in particular and the dark side in general.

Check 'em out.

Later.