From the Earth to the Moon

I am a child of the 60’s and 70’s. I was born on Long Island, New York and raised there during that turbulent era. It was a time filled with the desire for peace and the search for love. It was a time when the United States was at a crossroads. It was also the time of many of my fondest memories. In fact, the period from 1968-1975 was a time that shaped the future of the United States.

It was the last time the country was in great turmoil. We were deeply into the worst part of the Vietnam War. The country was split in two over many decisions made in that war. It was very hard to watch the news every night and see our soldiers dying in Vietnam and being ridiculed back home in the United States. The war demonstrations were happening and being televised daily.

It was also the last time there was a constitutional crisis in our country. It was the closest the country ever came to an internal revolution. The crisis peaked with the Watergate Scandal in which Richard Nixon was forced to become the first and only president to resign the office in August, 1974 (which by the way was the first year of Saturday Night Live). President Nixon abused power and paid the price.

However, the price the country was forced to pay because of Nixon’s indiscretions was the election of the worst president the country has ever seen, Jimmy Carter. When Mr. Carter left office in 1981, the economy was in shambles and our international policy was considered a joke. But, that is the topic of a possible future column.

For now, I want to talk a little bit about 1969. Forty-one years ago. Hard to imagine, but that’s how long ago it really was. 1969 was the year of many firsts. It was one of the greatest years to be a New Yorker. It was one of the greatest years to be an American.

It was the year of the first and only Jets’ Super Bowl win; the year of Joe Namath’s guarantee. It was the year of the first New York Knicks’ NBA title; the year of Walt Frazier, Willis Reed, and soon to be Senator Bill Bradley. And, it was the year of the New York Mets’ first World Series Championship: The year that those of us who are Mets’ fans will never forget.

The Mets won the World Series again in 1986, but it did not have the emotion and impact of 1969. 1986 was not the year of Tommie Agee, Cleon Jones, Don Clendenon, Bud Harrelson, Jerry Koosman and one of the greatest pitchers of all time Tom Seaver. It was a dream come true as a New Yorker for former Brooklyn Dodger first baseman Gil Hodges to lead the hapless Mets to that 1969 championship.

It was also the year of Woodstock; what some people call the end of the hippie era. The three day festival of music and love in upstate New York started as a simple rock concert and turned into a legendary event that has since become the Mecca that every rock extravaganza tries to emulate.

It was a truly wonderful year to be a New Yorker.

And, it was a wonderful year to be an American.

It was the year of Apollo 11. There is not one person alive on that July date that does not remember Neil Armstrong stepping his foot onto the lunar surface and uttering those immortal lines:

“This is one small step for man and one giant leap for mankind.”

And, it was. As most of you know, I am in Thailand prepping a feature film to be directed by Prachya Pinkaew. Just yesterday Prachya and I were talking and the Apollo missions came up. Prachya told me that in Thailand there was no school on that July day except for the students to watch the lunar landing on TV. It was truly an international event.

Since that July 1969 day, man has gone to the moon 5 more times. The last of which was Apollo 17 in December 1972. In the 38 years since, we have not returned. I often wonder why? It took us eight years to get there the first time. Why is it taking so long to get there a second time?

For those of us that were alive on that July, 1969 day, it will never be forgotten. Those under 40 were not there and cannot understand what I am relating. They have no recollection of the heroes that were the astronauts; of the great pride in being American; of the wonder of going outside and seeing the moon and knowing that we had placed someone there. We put men on the moon six times and returned them safely. No other country has ever accomplished it. No other country has ever tried. Tom Hanks came close to showing the emotion attached to that achievement in the HBO miniseries, “From the Earth to the Moon.” But, he only came close. You had to live it; to experience it. You had to be there.

Just last week, President Obama gave his State of the Union Address. A speech that was uninspired and really proves that this is a man without ideas: a man who was elected to a position that he is unqualified to hold. He is a man lost in the complexity of his vision and his ambition. Thus far, he is a failure.

Today, President Obama is releasing his budget for the next fiscal year. A budget that proposes the largest deficit in the history of the United States: 1.6 trillion. That’s right, trillion. According to Fox News, it is a budget that freezes discretionary spending, except for defense. It does not address the fastest growing parts of the federal budget; social security, Medicare and Medicaid. It leaves them to grow unabated along with the deficit.

However, it does address one issue. It scraps NASA’s plan to return to the moon. According to the cited CBS News article, http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/07/17/tech/cnettechnews/main5168126.shtml, NASA had planned to go the moon by 2020 and set up a permanent base there to be used for missions to Mars and beyond. Imagine that, we were going to bring that glory back to our country.

Upon hearing this last year, my childhood memories of the Apollo Astronauts and the entire space program came back. The national pride came back. The desire for scientific knowledge came back. We were going to continue our search to the stars.

The CBS article is a good primer for all of the reasons to go back to the Moon and to continue space exploration. I will not repeat most of them, but I will say that the expense is worth it. It is worth it in more than national pride. It is a real stimulus package. It will create jobs. It will create new technological advancements. And, it will do so over a number of states. The beginnings of the program are already active in 11 different states.

So, I say to President Obama, if you have any vision; if you want to be remembered for something other than your failures; if you want to do something right, then echo the immortal words of John F. Kennedy:

“We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win. . .”

The full text of Kennedy’s, September 12, 1962 speech at Rice University can be found at: http://er.jsc.nasa.gov/seh/ricetalk.htm.

So, President Obama, while you still have a chance to save your failing presidency, do you have the guts to challenge America in such a way? Do you have the guts to have such a vision? Do you have the guts to show any love for the country you lead?

© 2010 by Frank T. DeMartini. Permission to copy will be granted freely upon request.

Finding Waldo by Ira Schwartz

“YOU LIE!!” sliced through the Congress like a knife forcing everyone into stunned silence. “You lie”, two words that took Republican Joe Wilson less than two seconds to say but will haunt him for a lifetime. Two words that did more damage to a struggling Republican Party than Joshua’s trumpet did to the walls of Jericho. In those two seconds the Presidents Health Care Reform speech ceased to be the lead news story, now Joe Wilson was.

Republican John McCain on CNN’s Larry King Live said, “He (Wilson) was totally disrespectful for yelling out “You lie” and continued, “He must apologize for it immediately”. Shortly after the speech Wilson did just that and called the White House and apologized for his “inappropriate and regrettable comments”. The next day President Obama told the cabinet meeting he accepted the Congressman’s apology. End of story right? Well not quite.

Republicans and Democrats alike have said the apology by Wilson was not quite good enough. They wanted him to do it in the place where the crime occurred…Congress. Democrats delayed a House vote last Thursday so Wilson could issue his apology but none took place. No one in the Republican Party made Joe Wilson understand that his remark not only slighted the President but Congress and the Republican Party as well. The truth be told George W. Bush faired much worse than President Obama against his democratic opposition over the eight years of his term. But no one stood up before congress and the American people and insulted the president to his face. So my question is this….who’s running the Republican Party?

Margaret Thatcher said, “Consensus is the absence of leadership”. It appears today’s Republicans have taken that to heart. Since the election of Barack Obama to the presidency the Grand Old Party has become the Grand Invisible Party. Most of its members content at staying in the background and waiting for the Democrats to self destruct so they can fill the void. They hope the American people will have a very short memory; they hope the American people will forget the last eight years of Republican rule. They are making a serious error.

Lately GOP Chairman Michael Steele has stepped out of the shadows and into the light. His latest video, “Bill of Rights for Seniors” is aimed directly at the Democratic Healthcare Reform bill and has been getting a large number of hits on “YouTube”. This needs to continue…in spades. Though he is the party Chairman can he be considered the leader? Usually the party leader is the most viable candidate for the presidency. That being the case Mike Steele is out.

So let’s see if we can find Waldo in that consensus the honorable Margaret Thatcher was talking about. To start with there is Piyush “Bobby” Jindal, Republican Governor of Louisiana. Jindal was on the fast track to become the next golden boy of the Republican Party till his sad rebuttal to President Obama’s first speech to Congress was unilaterally panned by both Democrats and Republicans.

Next we have Ex vice Presidential Candidate and ex Governor Sarah Palin. Still in the news but the press she is gathering is more suitable to a game show host then any real viable candidate. He numbers have been dropping steadily. A CNN poll shows her popularity dropping from 46% to 39%. A new USA/GALLOP poll shows 19% of Americans would vote for her 41% would not. Among Republicans 35% said they would, 37% said “maybe”. Not good enough don’t ya’ know.

Third is Tim Pawlenty, current two term Governor of Minnesota. He managed to erase his state’s 4.3 billion dollar deficit without raising taxes in his first year. Since Governor Pawlenty has been in office Minnesota has ranked first in overall quality of life for its citizens, first in percentage of residents with a high school diploma, and first in residents over 25 with a bachelors degree. Minnesota is also ranked among the "Healthiest States in America." He was also in the running to be John McCain’s running mate in the ’08 elections.

Eric Cantor, a two term congressman from Virginia who was unanimously voted to the position of Republican Whip in 2008 is also on the short list. During his first term Cantor served as Chairman of the Congressional Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare. Later in his career he was a member of The House Financial Services Committee, the House International Relations Committee and the House Ways and Means Committee. Like Tim Pawlenty, Eric Cantor name was also tossed into the ring as a possible running mate for John McCain in ’08. Instead the Republicans picked Sarah Palin and lost the election.

But coming up fast on the outside is none other than Mike Huckabee, who managed to gather 29% of the votes in the latest straw poll taken this weekend. His closest competitors only managed a paltry 12%. At that same convention Mitt Romney had the quote of the week when he said, “I'll bet you never dreamed you'd look back at Jimmy Carter as the good old days." Sad but true.

At a time when the Republican Party is shrinking (AP polls indicate 42.6% of registered voters are Democrat, 32.5% are Republican and 24.8% are independent) someone needs to step forward and light a fire under the sleeping Republicans. Mike Steele is trying but he can’t do it alone. There needs to be one voice. A voice capable of silencing the shrill cries of Sarah Palin, a quitter and Joe Wilson, an embarrassed Congressman. If these are the true faces of the New Republican Party then I think most of us will continue to search for Waldo.

© 2009 By Ira Schwartz

Embers By Ira Schwartz

On January 20th, 2009, the 44th President of The United States was sworn into office on the lawn of the Capital building in Washington D.C. It was a proud day for most Americans, a day when the strongest democracy in the world elected its first African American president into office. For most of us this was a day long in coming. For most of us we hoped that the fires of racial hatred would finally be suppressed even if it was for a little while. Well that “little while” lasted a bit over eight months.

On Tuesday, September 15th, former President Jimmy Carter told NBC News “I think an overwhelming portion of the intensely demonstrated animosity toward President Barack Obama is based on the fact that he is a black man.” With that one statement the dying embers that had been smoldering just beneath the surface of this country for so long had been brought back to life. Reaction was immediate.

Mike Steele, Chairman of the RNC who is African American, responded:

"President Carter is flat out wrong. This isn't about race. It is about policy.” He continued, “Injecting race into the debate over critical issues facing American families doesn't create jobs, reform our health care system or reduce the growing deficit. It only divides Americans rather than uniting us to find solutions to challenges facing our nation. Characterizing Americans' disapproval of President Obama's policies as being based on race is an outrage and a troubling sign.”

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich told FOX News that it is "very destructive for America to suggest that we can't criticize a president without it being a racial act."

And as much as it pains me to say this, Newt is right. We have come a long way from those days in the sixties where smiling police turned fire hoses on black demonstrators. Where African Americans were forced to sit in the back of the bus or drink from a “Black Only” water fountain. Even though we’ve come a long way in dealing with racial prejudice, this incident also shows us we still have a long way to go. And to think that an African American President could get through his term in office without the ignorant rant of racism rearing its ugly head was a bit naïve on our part.

On the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, on that hot August day back in 1963 Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke to crowd composed of both African American and white listeners. In it he said, “I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal."

Most of us are still waiting for that day to happen. Most of us realize that day is much closer now than it was back in the 60’s or 70’s. So far the 44th President of the United States has handled these outbursts with dignity and intelligence. White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs told reporters, “The president does not believe that criticism comes based on the color of his skin.” End of story from his point of view, time to move on. But where do we move on to from here?

So far the fires of racial hatred are small, slightly more than embers but it wouldn’t take much to cause those embers to flare up and incinerate all the progress that has been accomplished in the last 45 years. Just look at the Los Angeles riots in 1992 that started over the Rodney King affair as an example. That’s why all of us need to be alert to racism where ever it rears its ugly head. Like a cancer in our society it needs to be eradicated before it has a chance to grow. We’re supposed to be better than this; if not we sure as hell should be.

©2009 by Ira Schwartz