January 2009 Archives

As more jobs are cut, more companies' profits decrease and more dreams are delayed, the American people demand to know: Why is all of this happening? What piece of the economy broke and has lightened our wallets and weighted our shoulders?

Too often, free-market capitalism has been the scapegoat of choice. President Barack Obama espoused this view in his inaugural address: "This crisis has reminded us that without a watchful eye, the market can spin out of control." Blogger Arianna Huffington declares it "time to drive the final nail into the coffin of laissez-faire capitalism."

But if we put hammer to nail as Huffington and surely others would like, if we let history show that capitalism was incurably ill and needed to die, we risk repeating history yet again as the real culprit -- government intervention in the economy -- skates by. 

You see, all this has happened before. There was a time in this nation's past when the going got really tough. Jobs weren't cut, they were slashed. Profits didn't decrease, they plunged. Dreams weren't delayed, they were crushed. Nothing in peace time has ever afflicted as many Americans as much as the Great Depression. Who was to blame then?

President Herbert Hoover and his laissez-faire policies were at fault. Hoover's failure ran so deep that it took his successor nearly a decade to sort it all out. Or so goes the story, as told by historians who surely were influenced by the Huffingtons of the time.

But Hoover was lucky if he knew how to pronounce "laissez-faire." Unemployment in 1930 was 8.9 percent. It skyrocketed from there to 25 percent by 1933, the year of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's inauguration. And what did Hoover do in that time? He certainly didn't keep his hands off the economy.

First and most notoriously, there was the Smoot-Hawley tariff in June 1930, a piece of legislation referred to by some as the most protectionist in national history. The act strangled international trade and was so vast in scope that even clocks and sauerkraut were not safe from the government's outstretched fist. This incited a tariff war with America's trading partners. Then with the Revenue Act of 1932, Hoover jacked taxes up through the roof for the top bracket from 24 percent to 63 percent (a number FDR would raise at one point to 95 percent).

Hoover's interventionist policies didn't expire with his presidency. FDR, although initially accusing his predecessor of steering the U.S. toward socialism, continued his policies and thus the Depression until the next decade. "We didn't admit it at the time," confessed FDR advisor Rexford Guy Tugwell decades later, "but practically the whole New Deal was extrapolated from programs that Hoover started."

Now historians are poised to credit former president George W. Bush too with the legacy of a staunch free market proponent, despite his astronomical spending on the economic stimulus plan, the bailout of the financial industry and more.

But from Toledo, Ohio's 1933 unemployment rate of 80 percent to the 425-person layoff at the Springettsbury Twp. Harley-Davidson plant last week, it's not too little government interference that has, does and will hurt the economy -- it's too much.

It may seem fitting that the inauguration of the nation's first African American president will follow the observation of the nation's most revered African American icon, Martin Luther King, Jr. Their connection, we are told, runs deep.

Ekaterina Haskins, a professor of rhetoric at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, N.Y., said President-elect Barack Obama "clearly sees himself as a descendant of...Martin Luther King," according to BBC News.

Some have gone as far as linking their historical significance, summed up in a catchphrase featured in an op-ed piece by the Democratic Party chairman of Pittsburgh's 22nd Ward, Khari Mosley:

"Rosa sat so Martin could walk; Martin walked so Obama could run; Obama is running so our children can fly!"

But it disservices King's legacy to elevate the former senator to the same status. In the way each has contributed to American culture and politics, the two could not be more different.

King earned his fame by organizing wide-scale non-violent protests: the 1955 Montgomery Bus Boycott, which curbed discrimination in the city's public transportation system, and the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, which culminated in King's "I Have a Dream" speech and contributed to the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the National Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Obama ascended to fame by climbing the political ladder from state senator to U.S. Senate and eventually to president. Along the way, he impressed millions with his speeches and wrote two autobiographical books that made him a Grammy winner. But in his decade-plus as a politician, he failed to pen legislation that would have brought about significant change.

Risks didn't deter King. He often put his own freedom on the line, gritting his teeth through multiple arrests, while defending the freedom of others. His became the face of what began as a widely unpopular movement, and King didn't shy from the limelight. In his last few years, he also protested the Vietnam War, alienating his allies in the media including Life magazine and the Washington Post. He risked his own reputation and support in order to fight for his principles.

Obama hasn't taken a significant public risk to date. His VP pick in Joe Biden was safe, as were most of his cabinet appointments. Even his entire record in the U.S. Senate has been safe, with some media outlets reporting that he voted with his party as much as 97% of the time. The president-elect rarely appears to have principles at all, having voted for the renewal of the USA PATRIOT Act that he vowed to repeal in a 2003 questionnaire. And he backed out of his promises to vote against the FISA Amendments Act of 2008 and to run a publicly funded presidential campaign.

King led a revolution. Through peaceful means, he nobly brought about real change, regardless of what it cost him, and fundamentally altered the fabric of the nation. Obama talked about a revolution but has refused to stray off the path worn by thousands of politicians before him, with his skin color as his most noteworthy characteristic. 

Historians will mark Jan. 20, 2009 as a great day for equality in this country. But we need not let the glow of the flashlight that is Barack Obama eclipse the shine of the star that was, is and will be Martin Luther King, Jr.

On September 12, 2001, I remember speaking with a few of my neighbors about the previous day's tragedies. Some of us were sad, some of us were angry, all of us were appalled. "I know it's not their fault," a middle-aged woman named Liz said, "but if one of those Muslims wants to move here, don't expect me to welcome them."

We were all still in the heat of the moment. In our New York City suburb, many of us had lost a friend or a family member. People act irrationally when they're experiencing that level of emotional trauma. It's common, it's expected and it's forgiven.

But now it's 2009. All rashness should have faded away over the seven years and change that have passed. Why, then, was a Muslim family kicked off an airplane in a situation where no white family would?

Atif Irfan and seven of his extended family members were booted from an AirTran Airlines flight on New Year's Day because passengers reported overhearing a conversation that raised security concerns. But the family didn't use any words that would raise a red flag (like bomb, explosion or terror). No, they just discussed which seats would be safest.

It was just a general safety discussion, Irfan told CNN's Mike M. Ahlers.

The FBI cleared the family of all wrongdoing, but it shouldn't take a national intelligence organization to realize that. "Do you think it would be safest to sit by the wing?" isn't code for "Which seat gives us the best chance of survival if we blow this thing up?"

And when the FBI told the airline that the safety concerns lacked merit, the airline refused to rebook the family for another flight. "They told us that we can't fly their airline," Irfan told CNN.

Here comes the truly revolting part: Although 75% of respondents in an AOL webpoll agree that the family was treated differently because of their religion, 55% still say that AirTran acted appropriately. Essentially, respondents said, "This was an act of bigotry, and we applaud that."

Where does our nation stand when we accept this type of discrimination based on religion and ethnicity? Even the election of the first minority president doesn't cancel out the hatred that continues to flow through the veins of so many Americans.

"We are proud Americans," one of the family members said. "We decided to have our children and raise them here. We can very easily go anywhere we want in the world, but we love it here and we're not going to go away, no matter what."

Good. You shouldn't have to.