Many friends are confused about the Right to Farm bill, State Question 777, and have asked me to explain it from my perspective. I'll try to do that now by examining the facts and then providing my opinion as to why I believe Oklahomans should vote NO on SQ 777. I'll do this from a public school official's perspective and also from a family rancher's perspective.
I've studied public schools for about 35 years now and have a Ph.D. in public school funding and finance, so I should know what I'm talking about (though that's debatable) when it comes to public school issues. Public schools have dealt with all kinds of issues over the years, but just recently have begun to experience the political side of education. The threat to destroy our public schools now comes from the east and is certainly politically motivated. (In the interest of full disclosure, my political philosophy is as a social conservative). By definition, social conservatism is a political philosophy which promotes retaining successful traditional social institutions in the context of culture and civilization.Our Oklahoma public schools are one such successful, traditional social institution - and I'll do whatever it takes to protect and preserve them. If this means I must call out those that seek to destroy our schools by directing resources to out-of-state and foreign education corporations, then I'll do just that. As an example, State Question 790, the bill that will allow the Ten Commandments Monument to be again placed at the state Capitol, is not really about moving the Ten Commandments to capitol grounds - it's a bill that removes Article 2, Section 5 of the Oklahoma Constitution. This clause states that no public money shall be appropriated directly or indirectly to any religious private school or purpose by any lawmaker. For example, what would stop a legislator from sending our public money to the ISIS School of Terrorism with no art. 2, sec. 5? If Art. 2, Sec. 5 is removed from the Constitution, it will allow legislators to send public tax dollars to any private or corporate charter school he or she pleases. The effect of allowing legislators to spend public tax dollars on potentially out-of-state religious and corporate schools, that public schools should receive, would be to choke us completely out of existence. The next obvious question that comes up is "where did this terrible SQ come from?" What conservative lawmaker in his right mind would mislabel SQ 790 by saying it's all about moving the Ten Commandments to state capitol grounds, when it's obviously not? It's misleading by intent, to fool Oklahoma voters into voting yes. To determine the motivation behind authoring bills such as SQ 790 - follow the money trail. The money trail in this case leads us to parts unknown. The place of origination of this bill and others like it changes each year. Remember, in the mind of corporations, a moving target is hard to hit - when following the money trail. I believe SQ 790 was provided to a state lawmaker in San Diego, California, last year. This was the destination of last year's National Conference of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). According to "ALEC Exposed", 2015, "ALEC has long been a secretive collaboration between Big Business and "conservative" politicians. Behind closed doors, they ghostwrite "model" bills to be introduced in state capitols across the country. This agenda - underwritten by global corporations - includes major tax loopholes for big industries and the super rich, proposals to offshore U.S. jobs, and efforts to weaken public health, safety, and environmental protections. Although many of these bills have become law, until now, their origin has been largely unknown. ... big corporations are changing the legal rules and undermining democracy across the nation." ALEC is made up of only two types of members - corporate entities and state lawmakers. The corporate member pays between $5000 and $25,000 in annual dues to retain membership while the legislative members only pay $50 per year. The legislative members often receive an all-expense paid family vacation to attend the annual conference. What a deal! For the high dues that corporate members pay, they receive face-to-face meetings with state legislators. ALEC Exposed states that "ALEC is a corporate bill mill. It is not just a lobby or a front group: it is much more powerful than that. Through ALEC, corporations hand state legislators their wishlists to benefit their bottom line.Corporations fund almost all of ALEC's operations. They pay for a seat on ALEC task forces where corporate lobbyists and special interest reps vote with elected officials to approve "model" bills."
"Dark money" groups also belong to ALEC. A dark money group has corporate members also, but the corporate membership tries to remain anonymous, so it can spend vast amounts of money on legislative campaigns without being traced. A specific example of a dark money group which belongs to ALEC is the American Federation for Children (AFC). It is a group that promotes the school privatization or voucher agenda. It is the 501(c)(4) arm of the 501(c)(3) non-profit group the Alliance for School Vouchers. It was organized and is funded by the billionaire DeVos family, who are the heirs to the Amway fortune. Former Wisconsin Assembly Speaker Scott Jensen, who was charged with multiple crimes (felonies) stemming from abuse of his office, is on staff at AFC as Senior Advisor to it's Government Affairs Team. Scott Jensen has been in Oklahoma many times, cheering on our state legislators who have proposed the school voucher bills. In the organizations own words, AFC is "a leading national advocacy organization promoting... school vouchers and scholarship tax-credit programs." (SourceWatch). The definition of "Fascism" is the merger of state and corporate power. As a matter of fact, according to Benito Mussolini, fascist dictator of Italy during WWII, "Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of State and corporate power." When Scott Jensen appeared at our capitol two years ago to promote his voucher bills, many public school officials took notice - and I wrote several news columns criticizing his participation in our legislative process. It's no small wonder that Mr. Jensen took offense at this criticism and directed approximately $24,000 in dark money to the effort to make sure I didn't win the primary election for House District 42 on June 28, 2016. It's a fact, if you received a card in the mail which told you how terrible I would be as a legislator, and how great my primary opponent will be - check the small print as to who it came from: the Oklahoma affiliate of The American Federation for Children. I don't think that AFC was just picking on me however, as it spent over $100,000 in making sure that 5 other public school candidates were defeated in Oklahoma. In addition to the $24,000 spent by AFC, another dark money group, America United spent approximately $9,000 to make sure I lost. These are documented facts, as I still have samples of the cards that went out to registered voters. Remember, in determining the origin of bad bills such as SQ 790 - follow the money trail. George Carlin (comedian and political analyst) hit the nail on the head in 2005, when he said "It's a big club, and you ain't in it." The "Big Club" he was referring to involve corporations and legislators only (ALEC). The big club, however, convinces everyone else that they too are in the big club. Yeah right... No education bill EVER originated in ALEC that would benefit our public schools, only corporate charter schools - such as the 230 U.S. charter schools run by the Fethullah Gulen, a Turkish cleric. By the way, the Fethullah's school board was arrested more than a month ago in Turkey for threatening a coup. Sounds like the type of charter school that ALEC needs to be passing bills for - NOT!
Now, why will I vote no on SQ 777, Right to Farm? For all of the above reasons, plus many more. After a little digging, I discovered that the Right to Farm bill was actually written in 1996 at an ALEC conference. I'm not sure who wrote it, but I heard the Oklahoma Pork Council take credit about a week ago. It's listed as a "model" bill on its "Model Legislation" site, verbatim. The only information left out is the Title, Enforcement date, Effective date, and other words that a state legislator must fill in for himself, like "Oklahoma" on the line for the appropriate state name. ALEC has evidently concluded that state lawmakers must be smart enough to only fill in the blank. But maybe not. There is only one thing missing from the OK Pork Council receiving credit for writing the bill - it is not an ALEC member. The National Pork Council (NPC) is a member, however, so it must be the original writer. By the way, the NPC contributed over $300,000 to ALEC, in order to encourage state lawmakers to take model bills back to their home states for passage. While I'm sure there are some Oklahoma hog farmers that belong to the NPC, I'm positive its major memberships are the International and foreign hog farms. Hog farms such as Seaboard in the panhandle and the Suanghui Group (Smithfield - I refuse to call them by their American name because it's owned by China) in Virginia. The giant industrial hog farms and chicken farms are the ONLY entities that will benefit from SQ 777. Many of my good friends are dead set against the United States Humane Society (HSUS) for the perception that it buys "bleeding heart legislators" in order to pass laws that infringe upon our rights. I don't know, but I do know the following facts about the HSUS: 1) HSUS has never infringed on my right to farm, 2) HSUS has only investigated and "shined a light" on Seaboard, Shuanghui, Tyson, and several other foreign and international corporate farm factories (it's well documented) for their high tech "farming" methods. High tech farming methods such as the dumping of chicken waste in the Illinois River and pig abuse (documented) by Shuanghui and Seaboard. I know of NO Oklahoma farmer or rancher who treats livestock like Seaboard and Suanghui does. Seaboard, Suanghui, and several more ALEC members have managed to convince many of my friends (I'm not friends with corporate entities) that SQ 777 is good for them. It's not for you (like George Carlin so eloquently stated), it's about the bottom line for corporations. They handed the bill to one of our state lawmakers (along with a campaign check) and said "get it passed". By the way, lawmakers' campaign donations may be accessed on the Ethics Commission website, as I've done many times. I'll state the obvious once again, follow the money trail. ALEC has never, ever advocated for ANY bill that does not affect the bottom line for corporations. Remember, "It's a big club, and our local farmers and ranchers ain't in it.
Most Oklahomans can't remember the "Dust Bowl" of the late 1920's and 1930's - the greatest man-made ecological and economical disaster the world has ever known. It wasn't really man-made though, it was corporate made (The Worst Hard Time, Timothy Egan). My grandfather and your ancestors did not cause the dust bowl. The dust bowl was caused by CORPORATE farming, not because it got hot and the wind began to blow, but because of what was cutting edge technology at the time - the one-way plow. Corporate farming entities called "suitcase farmers" in the 1930's received massive federal subsidies (no local farmers received), and swooped in from the east to buy up every square inch of Oklahoma prairie. The suitcase farmers, so-called because they rented hotel rooms and ran their farms from there. They plowed up all the land and planted wheat (my grandfather farmed cotton on 60 acres) in order to make what they thought would be massive profits. When the price of wheat dropped to 25 cents/bushel, they left Oklahoma and took our topsoil with them. This happened because corporate farms convinced the federal government that tax breaks and subsidies would be good for all farmers, big and small. Nothing could be further from the truth. My grandfather died at the age of 45 in 1933 as a result of corporate greed. This is another reason I'm voting no on 777.
The Oklahoma Conservative Political Action Committee (OCPAC), which bills itself as "about religion and politics, the only two things that matter" is probably the most conservative group in the state. The OCPAC believes that SQ 777 is unconstitutional and a veiled attempt to expand government, with which I agree. While I'm conservative on most issues (I believe in retaining our traditional social institutions, such as family farms) I'm not as far right as the OCPAC, because I don't refer to our public schools as "government schools". The OCPAC believes that bills such as 777 are nothing more than fascism (see earlier definition) with which I also agree. I also agree that SQ 777 will definitely result in attorneys and the courts determining the final outcome of the sure to follow constitutional lawsuits. In my opinion, the combination of government and corporate control of our farms is something we don't need in Okahoma. ALEC's own website brags about joint corporate / government law making!
In summary, I believe that God gives me the right to farm - not the government, so I don't need SQ 777. IT'S A TRICK QUESTION! I also don't abuse my livestock - that's also addressed by the Word of God, so PETA and the HSUS will never tell me how to farm. They may tell Tyson not to dump chicken waste in the Illinois River or tell Seaboard not to abuse pigs, but if 777 passes, corporate farms such as Swanghui will become more common. I'm voting NO on SQ 777.
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