Freefall Nation

Students in the University of California system have begun a cycle of escalating protests against fee and tuition hikes and class cuts. Staff at the San Francisco City Hall have engaged in strikes against staff cuts. More labor and worker actions are surely on the way as the realization sinks in that the country really is broke and the problem is not "out there," but in the everyday lives of all Americans.

These conditions are intolerable and should be protested, but perspective is critically important. These problems did not come out of nowhere. The whole country is economically crippled, and that includes city and state governments and the institutions, like public universities, that cities and states operate. Why is this? There are a lot of reasons, but one stands out as most important. In the sweep of history it will be recorded that over the last thirty years, the United States freely decided, as a matter of policy, to relinquish and liquidate its economic engines and let all the hard-won historical miracles of the affluent American Century -- the broad-based middle class, the expanding tax base, the huge manufacturing capacity, the availability of higher education, the massive and cutting-edge infrastructure, the increasingly progressive social safety net, and many other attributes -- evaporate or find greener pastures in other lands. The escalating catastrophe in the economy and in public finances is merely the dropping of the other shoe of the globalist/free trade/neocon travesty that came to power with Ronald Reagan and Proposition 13. Protest specific budget cuts as long and as loud as you like, but as long as those policies hold sway, we are headed for the poorhouse.

The export of American jobs, wealth, income, and factories has hollowed out our capacity to take care of ourselves, much less pose as some kind of global role model. `In the glory days of the American Miracle, the University of California was lavishly funded by the State, awash in revenue from the expanding tax base and increasing revenues from taxes on steeply appreciating property. Now, the reverse gives us a double whammy, and there is no option for budgetmakers: everyone has to do with less, and less again every year. That kind of society is not what we are accustomed to. Therefore, these kinds of arguments and rancor are going to increase in number and intensity.

This is what Free Trade looks like from the inside, and it is exactly what the corporate elites want for us. They have paid well for the privilege of taking American wealth far out of reach of ordinary Americans, to places where things like union shops, environmental protection, civil liability and firm tax structures have little or no meaning. As America withers, their bottom lines set new records.

The students are finding out the hard way that when you let big companies sell the geese that lay the golden eggs, the golden eggs go with them.

The best political action they can engage is is to oppose and end free trade.

The Kennedys and church-state separation

Representative Patrick Kennedy (D-RI) is a pro-choice liberal and the son of Ted Kennedy and the nephew of John Kennedy. He recently made news by revealing that he had been told by his Church that he would no longer be welcome to receive Communion because his pro-choice position keeps him from being a good Catholic. There is apparently a more complicated story here, and there has been some back and forth in the press with Church officials, some of whom dispute Kennedy's representations about what happened. But what is striking is how his story rings true, and also the perverse contrast with a famous story about John Kennedy. In 1960, Kennedy encountered enough anti-Catholic prejudice that he felt compelled to make a major address to to a national Protestant convention in Houston. Among other things, he said:

I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute, where no Catholic prelate would tell the president (should he be Catholic) how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote; where no church or church school is granted any public funds or political preference; and where no man is denied public office merely because his religion differs from the president who might appoint him or the people who might elect him.

What happened to that America? How far have we come? It was a point of pride to separate Church and State in 1960. It represented an attribute of an increasingly civilized, stable, and friendly society. But today, when you see a religious figure on TV, don't you habitually expect to heat some sort of partisan, contentious, stemwinding harangue about public policy? For that matter, it seems like about half the time politicians talk they feel like they have to invoke religion in one way or another.

John Kennedy was concerned that voters might think that he would be influenced by the authorities in his religion on matters of public policy, and he went to pains to make clear that he knew that was not the American way. Now, fifty years later, priests who no doubt have studied that story felt empowered to throw their clerical weight around and pressure JFK's nephew on what is, after all, public policy. It is as cynical and dense a move as any public figures have made in a long time, and it is a bit embarrassing to watch.

As a child, I was taught that talking about religion in public was bad manners. I miss that kind of thinking.

ABC News is reporting that protesters showed up at the offices of Kennedy's priest saying that he should spend less time criticizing Catholic politicians and more time keeping pedophile priests away from children. Good for them.

Froma Harrop, as usual, has written a great blog about this here at RealClearPolitics. And the whole of John Kennedy's speech is below.

Rev. Meza, Rev. Reck, I'm grateful for your generous invitation to speak my views.
While the so-called religious issue is necessarily and properly the chief topic here tonight, I want to emphasize from the outset that we have far more critical issues to face in the 1960 election: the spread of Communist influence, until it now festers 90 miles off the coast of Florida; the humiliating treatment of our president and vice president by those who no longer respect our power; the hungry children I saw in West Virginia; the old people who cannot pay their doctor bills; the families forced to give up their farms; an America with too many slums, with too few schools, and too late to the moon and outer space.
These are the real issues which should decide this campaign. And they are not religious issues — for war and hunger and ignorance and despair know no religious barriers.
But because I am a Catholic, and no Catholic has ever been elected president, the real issues in this campaign have been obscured — perhaps deliberately, in some quarters less responsible than this. So it is apparently necessary for me to state once again not what kind of church I believe in — for that should be important only to me — but what kind of America I believe in.
I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute, where no Catholic prelate would tell the president (should he be Catholic) how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote; where no church or church school is granted any public funds or political preference; and where no man is denied public office merely because his religion differs from the president who might appoint him or the people who might elect him.
I believe in an America that is officially neither Catholic, Protestant nor Jewish; where no public official either requests or accepts instructions on public policy from the Pope, the National Council of Churches or any other ecclesiastical source; where no religious body seeks to impose its will directly or indirectly upon the general populace or the public acts of its officials; and where religious liberty is so indivisible that an act against one church is treated as an act against all.
For while this year it may be a Catholic against whom the finger of suspicion is pointed, in other years it has been, and may someday be again, a Jew— or a Quaker or a Unitarian or a Baptist. It was Virginia's harassment of Baptist preachers, for example, that helped lead to Jefferson's statute of religious freedom. Today I may be the victim, but tomorrow it may be you — until the whole fabric of our harmonious society is ripped at a time of great national peril.
Finally, I believe in an America where religious intolerance will someday end; where all men and all churches are treated as equal; where every man has the same right to attend or not attend the church of his choice; where there is no Catholic vote, no anti-Catholic vote, no bloc voting of any kind; and where Catholics, Protestants and Jews, at both the lay and pastoral level, will refrain from those attitudes of disdain and division which have so often marred their works in the past, and promote instead the American ideal of brotherhood.
That is the kind of America in which I believe. And it represents the kind of presidency in which I believe — a great office that must neither be humbled by making it the instrument of any one religious group, nor tarnished by arbitrarily withholding its occupancy from the members of any one religious group. I believe in a president whose religious views are his own private affair, neither imposed by him upon the nation, or imposed by the nation upon him as a condition to holding that office.
I would not look with favor upon a president working to subvert the First Amendment's guarantees of religious liberty. Nor would our system of checks and balances permit him to do so. And neither do I look with favor upon those who would work to subvert Article VI of the Constitution by requiring a religious test — even by indirection — for it. If they disagree with that safeguard, they should be out openly working to repeal it.
I want a chief executive whose public acts are responsible to all groups and obligated to none; who can attend any ceremony, service or dinner his office may appropriately require of him; and whose fulfillment of his presidential oath is not limited or conditioned by any religious oath, ritual or obligation.
This is the kind of America I believe in, and this is the kind I fought for in the South Pacific, and the kind my brother died for in Europe. No one suggested then that we may have a "divided loyalty," that we did "not believe in liberty," or that we belonged to a disloyal group that threatened the "freedoms for which our forefathers died."
And in fact ,this is the kind of America for which our forefathers died, when they fled here to escape religious test oaths that denied office to members of less favored churches; when they fought for the Constitution, the Bill of Rights and the Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom; and when they fought at the shrine I visited today, the Alamo. For side by side with Bowie and Crockett died McCafferty and Bailey and Carey. But no one knows whether they were Catholic or not, for there was no religious test at the Alamo.
I ask you tonight to follow in that tradition, to judge me on the basis of my record of 14 years in Congress, on my declared stands against an ambassador to the Vatican, against unconstitutional aid to parochial schools, and against any boycott of the public schools (which I have attended myself)— instead of judging me on the basis of these pamphlets and publications we all have seen that carefully select quotations out of context from the statements of Catholic church leaders, usually in other countries, frequently in other centuries, and always omitting, of course, the statement of the American Bishops in 1948, which strongly endorsed church-state separation, and which more nearly reflects the views of almost every American Catholic.
I do not consider these other quotations binding upon my public acts. Why should you? But let me say, with respect to other countries, that I am wholly opposed to the state being used by any religious group, Catholic or Protestant, to compel, prohibit, or persecute the free exercise of any other religion. And I hope that you and I condemn with equal fervor those nations which deny their presidency to Protestants, and those which deny it to Catholics. And rather than cite the misdeeds of those who differ, I would cite the record of the Catholic Church in such nations as Ireland and France, and the independence of such statesmen as Adenauer and De Gaulle.
But let me stress again that these are my views. For contrary to common newspaper usage, I am not the Catholic candidate for president. I am the Democratic Party's candidate for president, who happens also to be a Catholic. I do not speak for my church on public matters, and the church does not speak for me.
Whatever issue may come before me as president — on birth control, divorce, censorship, gambling or any other subject — I will make my decision in accordance with these views, in accordance with what my conscience tells me to be the national interest, and without regard to outside religious pressures or dictates. And no power or threat of punishment could cause me to decide otherwise.
But if the time should ever come — and I do not concede any conflict to be even remotely possible — when my office would require me to either violate my conscience or violate the national interest, then I would resign the office; and I hope any conscientious public servant would do the same.
But I do not intend to apologize for these views to my critics of either Catholic or Protestant faith, nor do I intend to disavow either my views or my church in order to win this election.
If I should lose on the real issues, I shall return to my seat in the Senate, satisfied that I had tried my best and was fairly judged. But if this election is decided on the basis that 40 million Americans lost their chance of being president on the day they were baptized, then it is the whole nation that will be the loser — in the eyes of Catholics and non-Catholics around the world, in the eyes of history, and in the eyes of our own people.
But if, on the other hand, I should win the election, then I shall devote every effort of mind and spirit to fulfilling the oath of the presidency — practically identical, I might add, to the oath I have taken for 14 years in the Congress. For without reservation, I can "solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of president of the United States, and will to the best of my ability preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution, so help me God.

We liberals are all so smart, aren't we?

Ronald Reagan won office in California after listening to three months of liberals making fun of his movies and his intelligence. He won re-election the same way. He was elected President in 1980 -- in a landslide -- and there the liberals were, telling each other how stupid he was. In 1984, he was re-elected pretty much the same way, but this time with a bigger landslide. 16 years in high office, and the liberals never stopped calling him stupid.

George W. Bush was called stupid nonstop for 8 years by liberals who could not be bothered to take a breath and figure out how to oppose him effectively. The results need not be elaborated here. But the liberals, presumably, are assured of their own intelligence, good intentions, and social hygiene.

Now they are calling Lou Dobbs and Sarah Palin stupid. Fill in the blanks for yourself.

Hey, liberals: Stupid is as stupid does.

Simple and plain: OUT NOW!!!

At this writing, President Obama has let it be known that his long-anticipated decision about new troop deployments to Afghanistan will be announced shortly after turkey day. As is his wont, he has, for months now, made things look as if he were delaying and dithering, just to allow himself to get out of the way while the pot boils out there in the country and some sort of out-of-Beltway consensus can form. He has followed this same strategy on health care and any number of economic issues, and it may very well in the end prove to work to his advantage. Obama has the most sophisticated and sensitive political antennae of anyone in Washington today and probably of any President going back to FDR. He is well aware the the country is looking inward, that the country regards every dime spent overseas as a dime not spent in Oakland or Boise or Peoria, that after eight years the end of the country's patience is well and truly in sight. And of course, he knows the arguments for staying and escalating. Many of those arguments are no doubt powerful and compelling. Nonetheless, if he escalates, without at the same time making some kind of irrevocable moves towards getting out, he will make a fatal mistake both for his Presidency and for the country.

There is no good choice but for America to get out, and get out now. What we are doing is plainly no good for anyone but overpaid pirate contractors and corrupt Afghans. All the cautionary horror stories of the consequences of a rash pullout -- that the region will be destabilized; that the Afghan nation will fail and fall into the hands of tyrants and genociders; that jihadis worldwide will be emboldened -- are valid(to the extent that they are true) whether we are there or not. The only difference is that if we are gone, we won't be not dying and paying to be there. If could influence events to our liking, we would surely have done so by now.

Does anybody have a satisfactory answer as to what we are doing there? Looking for Osama? Killing Taliban? Making a perfect nation in our image? If we don't have a clear idea of what our mission is -- and we do not -- we have absolutely no business being there. And certainly no reason to spend the money we are spending.

World War II ended in 1945, and our troops are still all over Europe. The Korean War ended in 1953, and we are still there. Is there any doubt that in the event of victory in Afghanistan or Iraq, our troops would be there for sixty, seventy, eighty years or more? Other than inertia, what the hell is going on? Why do always have money for this, but not for health care, student loans, or basic research? What are we doing, trying to be the world's cop? Are we trying to make the world safe for itself? How did the world get along without us? Who do we think is going to lend us the money to keep traipsing about to make things perfect? Are we insane? Suicidal? Psychotic?

This is increasingly the majority view in this country and Obama and every Member of Congress all know it. There is so little public support for our foreign adventures that it is almost politically dangerous to even bring the subject up for discussion.

The Soviet Union and Britain learned the hard way about overextending empire in Afghanistan. So are we. No amount of earnest study and careful thought will change the basic fact: they live there, and we don't. Kinda like Vietnam. It cannot reduce from that.

This is an opportunity for Obama to become the American Gorbachev. A principled and orderly withdrawal could provide a prelude to American Glasnost and Perestroika. Perhaps that is wishful thinking, but this much is certain: the end of the money is in sight, and no money, no adventures.

Most empires in history have ended when they ran out of money or military capacity. If we chose to walk away from an entanglement before we are chased off an Embassy rooftop, grasping at the legs of a helicopter, we will have done ourselves and the world a great favor.

Happy Effing Holidays!

The mood of the country at this point is hard to fully capture. Words like sour, exasperated, infuriated, bewildered, disillusioned, anxious, bitter and vengeful come to mind, but somehow seem pallid and inadequate. Retailers sense another weirdly tepid and morose gift-buying season, most likely a lot worse than last year. The real-estate industry is getting tired of its own happy talk. The investor class is coming to grips with the emerging reality of a double-dip recession, the second dip due pretty soon. Unemployment and the fear of unemployment continue to rise; the official jobless rate in Michigan, not so long ago the crown jewel of America's industrial capacity, is over 15%. Congress is starting to feel the heat in ways they have not felt it in a very long time, and a sense of dreadful worry -- about nothing and everything -- has settled over D.C. like a Scottish fog. Welcome to the New Normal, and enjoy it before it gets any worse.

Thanksgiving is today. We should all be thankful that we have everything we need to solve all these problems. Better get busy.

Those poor Republicans

Here is a prediction: after the election in November of 2010, the Republican Party will deeply, deeply regret letting some 30 Senators vote against the Franken Amendment prohibiting government contractors from forcing employees to settle sexual abuse claims in private arbitration rather than the courts.

There is a quiet rage in the country about this among the kind of women who might or might not vote Republican. My guess: almost none of them will, and it will hurt the GOP more than they can imagine right now.

Lou Dobbs

It is a great big mistake for establishment media lefties to crow too much about Lou Dobbs leaving CNN. Casting him as some sort of straw-man racist, and thereby dismissing what he has to say, is self-destructive and mechanical.

However objectionable some of Lou Dobbs' views, he may be the face of right-wing populism, and if the lefties want to win they had better start making coalition politics with all the populists they can find. Do the lefties want to be in the position of disputing Lou Dobbs on things like outsourcing, tax fairness, executive compensation, and free trade? Only if they want to lose.

To say it again: populism is surging on the left and the right and the two sides are finding more points of agreement all the time. The worst nightmare of Corporate America is a true coalition between people like Lou Dobbs, Pat Buchanan, and Ron Paul on one side, and Ralph Nader, Bernie Sanders, and Dennis Kucinich on the other. Such a coalition is increasingly possible and if it came to power about three fourths of our current grief would just disappear. Bickering between the right and the left wings of populism only feeds the current power structure.

Here is hoping.....

This may be wrong. I hope not

Two related news stories today look like signals from the White House. Raw Story reported that Colin Powell advised Obama to "take his time" on sending more troops to Afghanistan. There was also a leak of a memo from the US ambassador to Afghanistan strongly advising against sending more troops. As I say I may be wrong, but this looks to me a lot like Obama preparing the country for a decision to tell the Generals no and not send any more troops. We will see.....