Perpetuating lies -- sadly no surprise

I have often either quoted or paraphrased the late Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan about opinions and facts: “You are entitled to your opinion. But you are not entitled to your own facts.”

So, once again, the Amarillo Globe-News has decided to ignore facts to twist an editorial position into its own perverted worldview. The editoriallaments that Congress didn’t show the same stupidity and crassness that the right-wing propaganda rag does on a daily basis. Look, the publisher, Les Simpson, and his main editorialist, Dave Henry, are entitled to their puritanical ignorance. They are even entitled to impose their retrogressive views on their readers. But here is the important part:

Those of us who do a far better job of critical thinking and are far better educated than these two intellectual lightweights have a right to call out their reprehensible behavior. In fact, we have a moral and ethical duty to do so. In the case of the Mondayeditorial, the Globe-News continues its attempt to give legitimacy to the Center for Medical Progress’ videos. Those videos have been roundly discredited and, somewhat surprisingly, some of the anti-choice propagandists have admitted as such. I recently deconstructedthe Globe-News’s prior propaganda piece, so I won’t do so here.

What I will say is attempt to perpetuate the lies has a dishonorable link to history ¾ the techniques of Josef Goebbels. Yes, I am playing the Nazi card because it fits in this case. I suppose if that is what people here want to believe, no amount of factual information is going to change their minds. The area is, sadly, the poorer for it.

Why the downtown cartel isn't interested in Route 66

Many may have wondered why the city of Amarillo and those pushing the Bajjali-Downtown Amarillo Inc.-Amarillo Globe-News plan for downtown have given such short shrift to Route 66 as an economic driver. And my interest in this matter came up because an advocate of the Wallace Bajjali plan spread some false information on Facebook.

Here is the text of the post and linkto Facebook:

There are limited uses for HOT, which Lissa apparently doesn't understand. Demerson is right about San Jacinto, but he's fighting an uphill battle, and that is a battle against the way the city promotes and supports development. The city in general does not proactively manage growth here, mostly it sits back and watches development happen and capitalizes on that by instituting lots of silly building ordinances and collecting building permit fees. I can't imagine the city becoming proactive about development planning; it would seem far too "liberal" and interfering for the locals. But maybe he will draw attention to our city's need to maintain its historical neighborhoods. We'll see.

Well I have a theory. I just did a PRAD search of Southwest Sixth Streetand not one of those properties is overtly owned by the downtown development cartel members like the Wares, ANB, Joe Bob McCartt or Alan Rhodes. Some of the owners along that stretch of the Mother Road (that’s what it is) are clearly non-Anglo, non-Panhandle pioneer names. That should explain a lot about why the power elite in Amarilloaren’t promoting Route 66.

The assertion that the city doesn’t “proactively manage growth” here is so false on its face that I can hardly respond. The entire rationale of the downtown development debacle and the Wallace Bajjali-Downtown Amarillo Inc.-Amarillo Globe-News plan is to “proactively manage growth.” Unless, of course, economic development isn’t growth. Oh, wait, it is growth for the insiders’ bank accounts who knew what the then-City Commission and prior City Council had planned.

The city has been overtly picking winners and losers for at least the last eight years — with nothing but a cascade of lies falling on more lies. And, Colin Cummings, your post above is a good example of the lies, disinformation and propaganda the Wallace Bajjali-Downtown Amarillo Inc.-Amarillo Globe-News cartel continues to spread, Goebbels-like, including throwing down the “L” word in order to paint the resistance to the Wallace Bajjali-Downtown Amarillo Inc.-Amarillo Globe-News plan as bad for Amarillo.

If you want to throw down the “L” word, thrown it at the then-City Commission, prior City Council and the city administration who bought the prostitute services from Wallace Bajjali with the Globe-News and DAI serving as main pimp and madam.

Resignation and honor, an example to follow

One of the reasons I’ve not attacked Paul Matney about his support for the Wallace Bajjali-Downtown Amarillo Inc.-Amarillo Globe-News ballpark is that at the base of it, I judged him an honorable man. And, he proved himself that today by resigning from the DAI board.

However, DAI still has a major problem with its executive director and board treasurer. Melissa Dailey, I believe, continues to violate state election laws, her organization’s own by-laws and city conflict of interest rules by doing all the advocacy for her Wallace Bajjali-inspired plan. This conflict has arisen since the City Council placed the advisory vote on the ballpark on a city ballot for a Nov. 3 vote. Dailey should have immediately and radically modified her behavior.

As for the DAI board treasurer, Les Simpson, he is in a similar position to Matney. Either he has to leave the DAI board immediately or he must henceforth restrict any mention of the Nov. 3 election to the outlet’s news pages. Any advocacy of for the Wallace Bajjali ballpark must stop forthwith. Otherwise others should, and likely will, file formal complaint with the proper authorities. Given the Globe-News’ track record for journalism ethics, I don’t hold out much hope for either of those events to occur.