America's Religious Identity -- Boom, Shocks, and After-shocks (Part 3 -- First Aftershock)

I graduated from high school in 1976, and we were by most measures a rather religious bunch.  My principal told my mother that my class was the most religious he'd ever seen come through the school (and he'd been there a long time).  Back in the mid to late 70s we saw Jimmy Carter ride a wave of evangelical support into the White House.  Being a Republican at the time I had to defend Gerry Ford's Christian faith.  The Moral Majority was active, Pat Robertson was popular, and Bill Bright sponsored his "I Found It" campaign, wherein blue bumper stickers got placed everywhere imaginable.  Oh, and I left my Episcopal church home for the excitement of the local Foursquare Church, along with a lot of other mainliners, who were attracted to the Jesus People message, and the Christian rock and roll (Love Song, Larry Norman, Barry McGuire, Keith Green, et al). 

According to Robert Putnam and Dennis Campbell, I was part of a conservative aftershock.  The excesses of the 1960s, which had been accompanied by major social/cultural changes, including the Civil Rights Movement and the Sexual Revolution, led to Richard Nixon's election in 1968 as voice of the so-called "Silent Majority," the "majority" that had not come of age in the 1960s.  As I came of age, I was caught up in this reaction that stemmed for a time, at least, the attendance decreases in the churches -- only the more liberal mainline churches continued to empty out -- in part due to a lower birth rate -- but also because many young adults, like me, chose to move over to the more conservative evangelical churches.  My cohort, which came of age in the late 70s and early 80s even saw an increase in attendance.  

Putnam and Campbell write that conservative religiosity in the 1970s and 1980s was most visible in the same niche as was the radicalism of the 1960s -- the college age group.  They note that while student radicalism peaked around 1968, by 1971 a new quietism had hit the campuses.  Interestingly, a more liberal view of sex continued through this era (we didn't go back to the 50s in this area).  What is interesting is the change in religious identification.  Whereas the number of college freshman who rejected a religious identity doubled between 1966 and 1971, it went up just as quickly in the following decade (my decade).  

But, again the key component here is not just that they returned to church, but the churches to which they turned.  

Just as in politics, many Americans of all ages were deeply troubled by the moral and religious developments of the Sixties.  For the next two decades, these people -- conservative in both religion and politics -- swelled the ranks both of evangelical Protestant denominations and of the rapidly growing evangelical megachurches that disavowed denominations and termed themselves simply "Christian." (American Grace, pp. 102-103). 

Thus, we can see the evangelical boom as a conservative reaction to the 1960s, but like all things, booms tend to come to an end, even if their after-effects continue long afterward.  One of the explanations for evangelical growth has been higher birth rates and more effectiveness in retaining one's young people.  

But as important as this growth in evangelicalism, Putnam and Campbell note that this evangelical rise began to dissipate in the early 1990s, and that over the past two decades the number of evangelicals has actually declined.  In fact, without the increases in non-denominational churches, the evangelical decline would have been even greater.  Therefore, and here is the kicker, "In twenty-first century America expansive evangelicalism is a feature of the past, not the present" (American Grace, p. 105). 

What this leads us to is the current cohort, and another aftershock -- a response to the aftershock of the Carter/Reagan era!  But that's for Part 4 of this series.  What is clear, and what Putnam and Campbell want us to understand is that the aggregate picture changes, gradually and slowly, but it changes none the less.  The 1960s provided clear change, especially in reaction to the perceived political radicalism of the age and the moral excesses (but even then a more permissive attitude persisted, even if tempered by a more conservative religious perspective).  But, as the Greatest Generation dies off, their conservatism will dissipate, and the early Boomers (those who came of age in the 1960s will see their influence grow), and on we go until we reach the current cohort, my son's cohort. 

Where will the political and religious trends take us?

1980: Not A Kid Anymore

All this year at my Facebook page, which you can view from the link in the sidebar here at my website by joining up yourself and 'friend'-ing me, I am taking a daily trip back in time to the 1980's. Each month I am highlighting a different year chronologically, and this month have been featuring the music, tv, movies, and important events of the first year of the decade: 1980.

In 1980 the world changed, both in my own individual life and the world at large, in some of the most important and influential ways it ever would. Just one year earlier, as 1979 dawned, I was a 17-year old high school senior living in an apartment in South Philly with my dad and brother. Little did I know how much a life could change in less than a year.

I had been dating a girl, Anne Jacobs, ever since meeting her down at the Jersey shore in Wildwood, New Jersey during the late summer of 1976. We overcame the fact that I lived in South Philly without a car and she lived out in the Delaware County suburb of Prospect Park to become high school sweethearts.

Anne was a year behind me in school, and so while I was finishing up my senior year and preparing to graduate from St. John Neumann high school in South Philadelphia during the first half of 1979, she was still just a junior at Archbishop Prendergast high school out in Drexel Hill, Delaware County.

It was at some point in the late spring of '79 that we began to realize something big might be up. There were increasingly unmistakable signs to us that Anne had become pregnant, and by the early summer we knew it was true. We told our parents at the end of that summer, and I put my LaSalle University plans aside to go out and find a job.

In the fall of 1979 I landed a job as a messenger clerk with the old First Pennsylvania Bank, beginning a decade-long career in the banking world. Anne and I, with the necessary permission from our parents since we were still under 18 years old, got married on November 7th that year, and I moved in with her family.

This is where 1980 opened for me, vastly different from a year earlier. Married at just 18 years of age, living in the suburbs, taking a train in to work everyday in downtown Philadelphia. And then in early February, a day before my own father would turn 40 years old, Anne gave birth to a beautiful baby girl who we named "Christine", adding 'Dad' to my new roles in life.

There is no way that I will ever encourage any teenager to get pregnant. It is one of the most difficult things to go through, trying to properly raise a child while you are still very much one yourself in so many ways. But I also cannot deny the love and joy that Chrissy brought into my life beginning on that day. In a few days from now she will turn 30 years old, and is now a 2-time mother herself. Where has all that time gone?

That would not turn out to be the last major domestic change in my life during 1980, however. We tried to live with Anne's family, but trying to make your own way as parents and a couple is difficult enough without having the dynamic of living under the same roof as people who still treat you like kids. By the fall we had gotten our own apartment at the corner of American and Ritner Streets, and thus began trying to give it a go out on our own back in my old South Philly stomping grounds.

One of my favorite little life stories comes from February 22nd of that year. Just as this year, 1980 was a Winter Olympics year, and the American hockey team made up of young college kids had been stunning the world by slipping through the tournament undefeated. Looming ahead of them was a date with Cold War destiny.

On that Friday the American kids were poised to take on the goliath hockey juggernaut from the Soviet Union in an Olympic semi-final game at Lake Placid, New York. Just two weeks earlier, the Russians had blitzed the U.S. by a 10-3 score in a pre-Olympics exhibition. Then they rolled over five opponents by a combined score of 55-11 to reach this point in the tournament.

The day before the matchup, New York Times columnist Dave Anderson wrote: "Unless the ice melts, or unless the United States team or another team performs a miracle, as did the American squad in 1960, the Russians are expected to easily win the Olympic gold medal for the sixth time in the last seven tournaments."

No one really believed that miracle was likely, but the young American team had captured my and the nation's hearts and imaginations with their dramatic play. The game against the Soviets was going to take place during the day, but would be televised that night in prime time by the ABC network. Remember, these were the pre-ESPN domination days with no 24-hour news coverage of events.

I resolved to stay away from any radios or television during my work day at the bank, which in those days proved easy. I went home with no knowledge of what had happened in the game and was prepared to grab some dinner and then settle in to watch the drama of the U.S.-Soviet hockey game.

While I ate, excited about the upcoming game, Anne walked in to the kitchen of her parents house on 11th Avenue and said matter-of-factly "How about the Americans beating the Russians in hockey today?!"

I'll leave it to your imaginations the phrase that immediately raced through my stunned mind at the revelation of the game result that I had been successfully avoiding all day. Ouch. Priceless.

With my excitement ruined and my enthusiasm tempered by the knowledge of what was going to happen, I settled in that evening to enjoy the spectacle of what has become known to history as the 'Miracle on Ice' in the American squad's 4-3 epic upset of the Soviet hockey team: "Do you believe in miracles? Yes!"

In the larger world during the first year of the 1980's, the Carter Presidency continued to deteriorate as the Iranian hostage crisis droned on and on. His candidacy for the Democratic Party nomination received a serious threat from Teddy Kennedy, who I stood just a few feet away from during an early spring campaign stop in Philly that year.

Kennedy would receive my first-ever vote in a Presidential primary, but would lose a hard-fought nomination process to Carter. Later in the year, the Reagan Revolution began with the election to the Presidency of Ronald Reagan, the greatest American President of the past century, but one who I simply did not appreciate or support at the time.

During the year of 1980 we Americans would become introduced to or more familiar with people and topics such as Abscam, Voyager, Ayatollah, Olympic boycott, Rosie Ruiz, Mt. Saint Helens, Yoda, CNN, Solidarity. We would all end the year sobbing over the murder of John Lennon while asking the question "Who shot J.R.?"

Philadelphia was the capital of the sports world in 1980. That spring, the Flyers were beaten in overtime of the 6th game of the Stanley Cup Finals on a controversial goal by Bob Nystrom of the New Islanders. The Isles appeared to be clearly offsides on the winning play, but the refs blew the call. Had the Flyers won, they would have tied the series and sent it back to the Spectrum for a decisive 7th game.

Also that spring, the 76ers advanced to the NBA Finals before succumbing in six games thanks to a herculean performance from Lakers rookie Magic Johnson, who filled in for injured all-star center Kareem-Abdul Jabbar and single-handedly kept the Sixers from sending that championship to a deciding game.

The Philadelphia Eagles had a season to remember that fall and winter, finishing 12-4 and winning the NFC East under coach Dick Vermiel. The Birds finished tied with the Dallas Cowboys, who beat them in the regular season finale by a 35-27 score, but won the tie-breaker for the division title. They would advance to make the franchise' first-ever appearance in the Super Bowl in January of 1981.

And then there were the 1980 Philadelphia Phillies. One of the best teams in baseball since 1975, the Phils were repeatedly disappointed and disappointing in making playoff appearances in 1976, 1977, and 1978. The 1980 team was considered by some to be getting a little old-in-the-tooth, but the veterans fought to yet another division title.

In what many still believe to be the greatest NLCS in baseball history, the Phils edged past the Houston Astros and advanced to face the great George Brett and the Kansas City Royals in the World Series. In the dramatic finale to the 6th game at Veteran's Stadium, Tug McGraw struck out Willie Wilson to preserve a 4-1 win and give the long-suffering franchise' it's first-ever world championship.

I remember clearly watching the game in our little South Philly apartment that was full of friends for the game. We spilled into the streets after the victory, and I headed up to Broad Street with some to enjoy the victory celebration. We worked our way towards the Vet, and it was in the midst of that joyous celebration of the championship just won by Mike Schmidt, Steve Carlton, Larry Bowa and crew that my life very nearly changed forever once again.

I was standing on Broad Street just north of Snyder Avenue in the middle of what was a sea of celebratory humanity, and at the same time there were vehicles still trying to leave the area as well. Somehow I got squeezed by the crowd into the small space between two cars slowly edging their way along. Trying to avoid the crowds, one of the cars kept edging towards the other, pinning my legs between the two.

I started to bang on the hood and windows of the two cars as my legs got squeezed tighter, and just in time felt the release of pressure as the drivers realized what was happening and eased off me. That close to getting my legs crushed while celebrating a life long dream of a World Series victory!

1980 was absolutely a year of change for me, for the country, and for the world. It was a year of beginnings and challenges, of frustrations and celebrations, of defeat and victory, and of joys and sorrows. It was a year that not many others to follow would be able to equal for it's quantity of high drama. And it was ultimately the first year of my life in which I was not a kid anymore.

BORN 1980: Christine Veasey, Erin Mooney Bates, Justin Timberlake, Elin Nordegren, Zooey Deschanel, Robinho, Nick Carter, Gilbert Arenas, Albert Pujols, Eli Manning, Adam Lambert, Francisco 'KRod' Rodriguez, Natalie Gulbis, Andre Iguodala, Joe Flacco, Mischa Barton

DIED 1980: Jimmy Durante, Paul Lynde, Paul 'Bear' Bryant, Ray Kroc, Johnny Weissmuler, Jackie Wilson, Donna Reed, L. Ron Hubbard, Ray 'the Scarecrow' Bolger, 'Pistol' Pete Maravich, Hirohito, Ted Bundy, John Lennon

Predictions for 2010

I don't own a crystal ball, nor do I have any special psychic powers or connections to the Almighty that would grant me privileged insight. But I do understand a little bit about what is going on in the world, and it's a challenge to look ahead and try to figure out what a new year may bring.

The following are 10 predictions that I am willing to make for the new year that we just began. Every year brings with it major news developments, exciting sporting accomplishments, political intrigue, public scandals, celebrity gaffes, natural disasters, and other headlines. We can take a look back at the end of 2010 and see how I faired with these:

1) Israel-Iran War: There is just no way that Israel can allow Iran to develop nuclear weapons. If the mullahs are not overthrown and Ahmadinejad kicked out on his apocalpyse-desirous can in the first few months of the year, Israel cannot wait much longer. It's a bit of an upset that the Israelis have waited this long. This will be huge.

2) American Congress: The Republican Party will make major inroads in both Houses of Congress in the 2010 mid-term elections. Probably not enough to take over either House, unless of course the Obama administration continues to bury the U.S. in debt and continues to take over private industry. My bet is the Dems up for election will paint themselves moderately enough to salvage a slight Dem majority.

3) Terrorism in the West: There will be a moderate-to-major successful Islamofascist terrorist attack somewhere in either Great Britain or the United States this year. The radical Islamists have sworn to keep coming at us, they continue to make actual attempts, and we keep getting lucky most times. Our luck will run out somewhere, some time.

4) American Financial Debacle: Unemployment will continue to rise, credit will continue to remain tight, the housing market will continue to stagnate. The policies that the Obama administration is utilizing simply do nothing to spur ongoing economic growth. There will be calls for more stimulus, just what we need (sic). At some point in the year the Fed will raise interest rates to stave off inflation, worsening many areas of the economy. The stock market will end the year lower than the final 2009 levels.

5) Natural Disaster: The world has been rocked in recent years by major tsunamis, floods, hurricanes, earthquakes, more so than at any time. Or does it just seem that way because we now have 24-hour news coverage? In any event, the U.S. got away without a major hurricane striking the mainland in 2009. We won't be as lucky in 2010, and look for at least one other major event elsewhere in the developed world this year.

6) The Sports World: Predicting champions is the longest of long shots, but here goes. The Super Bowl will see the Philadelphia Eagles defeat the New England Patriots. How's that for a homer pick? Want another one? Okay, the Philadelphia Phillies will defeat the New York Yankees in a World Series rematch. The Chicago Black Hawks will win the Stanley Cup by downing the New Jersey Devils. The Cleveland Cavaliers will upend the LA Lakers for the NBA title. Kansas wins the NCAA men's basketball tournament.

7) Olympics Incident: The Winter Olympics are being held in Vancouver next month. The largest sporting event on earth remains the greatest attraction for television, athletes, fans - and terrorists. Watch for some attack or attempted attack at some venue. If Vancouver lucks out, or makes it's own luck with tremendous security, the real challenge is next. London hosts the 2012 Summer Olympics, and that one should be a real security challenge.

8) Celebrity Deaths: We all know there will be some. The usual suspects this time around include Billy Graham, Nancy Reagan, Jimmy Carter, Dick Clark, Elizabeth Taylor, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Kirk Douglas, Betty Ford, Nelson Mandela, Jerry Lewis, Fidel Castro, Osama bin Laden and Abe Vigoda, who I personally think may never die. But the real challenge is predicting the younger folks who really shouldn't go, but who end up in accidents or overdoses or as homicides/suicides. Put me down for a couple on the longshots: Charlie Sheen and Lindsay Lohan.

9) Science and Sci-Fi: There will continue to be no proof of intelligent life on other planets. No flying saucers or other beings will visit/invade the earth. The H1N1 virus will fade from the headlines amid warnings from the medical community that some major disease will eventually break out among humans that will indeed cause a worldwide crisis, and they will be right - eventually. By the way, your life can already be tracked via things like GPS on your cellphone and via your debit/credit card usage. This will become even more invasive in the coming year.

10) Weight Loss: Okay, here is the biggie. Yours truly will lose weight, a great deal of it, and get in the best shape that I have been in since my police academy days two decades ago. This is the one that I hope actually comes through for me. Well, this and the Republicans making strong Congressional gains. I am starting the effort this coming week. Wish me luck.

So there go ten areas where I am willing to go out on the limb with some general and specific predictions. It will be a great year for some, a terrible year for others, the last year on earth for some, the first year for others. In short, in the end it will be pretty much like any other year. It's all ahead of us right now. It will be interesting to take a look back in 11 months or so and reflect on this article with the knowledge of the reality of what actually occurred.

The Lion Sleeps Tonight

At some point when I was a young boy, I learned that Bobby Kennedy and I had shared the same birthday. This was in the early 1970's, when I was about 11 or 12 years old. At that point I really had no idea who he was, or that he had an older brother who had been an American President who had also been assassinated.

I actually do have a childhood memory of the 1968 U.S. Presidential election. I have a memory of living on American Street in South Philly, and most of the families that lived around us rooting for the Democratic Party candidate, Hubert H. Humphrey, to win the election against Republican Party candidate Richard M. Nixon.

While I didn't understand politics on any level, I sensed a strong 'vibe' from the adults both in my own family and my friends' families that this was a big deal. It was important in some way. It mattered. And since my people were rooting for Humphrey, well then, so was little soon-to-be 7 years old Matt Veasey.

As history tells us, Humphrey lost. I actually remember having the feeling for the first time in my young life of disappointment. I had no clue how all of the people around me could possibly be rooting for someone and expecting them to win, and then having that person lose. It just did not compute in my young mind, and I was disheartened.

Of course, as I said, I was about to turn 7 years old in just a few weeks. Between my birthday coming up, then Christmas, and the early months of 2nd grade at Our Lady of Mount Carmel catholic school with the gorgeous Ms. Sarah Hillock as my teacher, there was plenty to distract me in short order and take my attention away from a silly election.

Despite having that impression of the 1968 election, I have no first-hand memory of the vital national events that had happened earlier that same year with first the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. and then of Robert Kennedy. It was only by somehow randomly stumbling upon the fact of our shared birthday a few years later that I began my own infatuation with the Kennedy's that would last for decades.

I began by going to my local library, and taking out and reading a book on RFK's life. I honestly don't recall which book it was, just that the impression left on my pre-teen mind was that it was a substantial book, a 'hardcover', which I had not read many of to that point, with lots of pages and pictures.

That book was also the likely beginning of a love affair that continues to this day, one that I have with non-fiction books, especially histories and biographies. I read and learned about both Bobby and his life and assassination, but also about his brother John, who had actually been President, and John's own assassination

This initial reading of the Kennedy brothers led me to become interested and pursue reading about JFK, Jackie, and 'Camelot', the nickname given to his brief Presidential term. Much of what I read made heroes of the two men, and I took on a popular belief of the times that JFK had been the victim of a conspiracy. No way could a single gunman, Lee Harvey Oswald, have pulled off the murder alone.

All of this pursuit of knowledge about the lives of JFK, RFK and their families and times came over the course of my later grade school years and through my high school years. I had also, of course, learned that they had a younger brother, Edward 'Ted' Kennedy who had followed his brother's paths into politics.

In November of 1979 I turned 18 years old, and so the following spring, in May of 1980, for the first time ever was allowed to vote in a Presidential election. I was a Democratic Party loyalist and socially liberal idealist in those days, and so I was registered with and would be voting in the primary for the Democratic Party candidate.

The leading candidate for the Democratic nomination was the current President of the United States, Jimmy Carter. A peanut farmer and former Governor of Georgia, Carter had a largely disappointing first term, and was being considerably weakened by a foreign affairs crisis in which radical Islamists had taken American citizens hostage in Iran.

Incredibly for me, especially considering my now fully developed admiration of the Kennedys, his leading opponent would be that younger Kennedy brother Ted. Just weeks before the Pennsylvania primary, Kennedy actually came to Philadelphia and made a downtown lunch-hour speech right near my workplace. I was able to slip out of my office at First Pennsylvania Bank and attend the speech in person, standing just feet from the stage.

When the date of April 22nd, 1980 rolled around, I slipped behind the curtain of my local polling booth where I was then living in suburban Prospect Park, PA and pulled the lever for Edward 'Ted' Kennedy. I remember being excited to have the opportunity to vote, but also of being completely satisfied by the experience thanks to the Kennedy factor.

On that day, Kennedy was indeed the winner, easily taking the Pennsylvania primary. He would also count wins in New York and California for his column. Unfortunately, it was Carter who would easily take the Dem Party nomination, eventually defeating Kennedy by a 51-38 margin in the popular vote and easily receiving the Party nomination at the convention.

Carter would go on to be crushed under the weight of a perceived weak response to the Iran-hostage crisis and by an economy crippled by oil shortages and inflation. Ronald Reagan swept into office and began what became known as the 'Reagan Revolution', with Republicans taking charge of Congress for the first time in decades.

As for me, I continued as a card-carrying liberal Democrat throughout the 1980's and into the early 1990's, and even after fully transforming into a conservative Republican while riding the wave of the Newt Gingrich led 'Contract With America', I still held the view that the JFK assassination was likely a conspiracy.

The beginning of the end of my Kennedy fandom had come some years earlier when I first began to learn about and read up on the incident at Chappaquiddick island. On July 18th, 1969 in the so-called 'Summer of Love', Ted Kennedy attended a party held on the small island which was attached to Martha's Vineyard in Massachusetts.

The party was a reunion for some female members of his brother Bobby's campaign staff, including Mary Jo Kopechne who was just about a week shy of her 28th birthday. As the married Kennedy went to leave the party at around 11:15pm, he agreed to give Kopechne a ride back to her hotel. An off-duty sheriff saw them over an hour later stopped on a dark road. When he approached to see if they needed help, the car suddenly took off.

A short time later, Kennedy drove the car off a small wooden bridge and into Poucha Pond. He escaped the sinking vehicle and walked back to the party as Kopechne remained trapped inside, clawing at the inside of the roof of the sinking car. He later returned to his hotel room and went to sleep, never reporting the accident. A couple of fishermen discovered the submerged car the following day.

I had never heard of this incident as a child, and never researched it as a young adult. It was only further along in my adult life that I learned of all the details in what amounted to a drunk driving episode in which Kennedy's female passenger, with whom he was likely engaging in some type of extra-marital sexual conduct, had been killed.

His culpability in the incident was largely covered up by his family's wealth and power, though the incident did derail expected 1972 and 1976 runs for the Presidency. It wasn't just Chappaquiddick, but numerous other Teddy drunken transgressions that emerged in my consciousness. During the 1990's I also became aware of numerous chinks in the 'Camelot' armor as well, as sensational stories of John and Bobby involving Marilyn Monroe and others emerged.

When the motion picture 'JFK' was released in 1991, I saw the Kevin Costner vehicle as proving, at least reinforcing, all of my Kennedy assassination conspiracy theories and beliefs. Those would be quickly dispelled as reports came out refuting much of the film's historicity. The final nail in the coffin of those conspiracy theories was my reading of the Gerald Posner book 'Case Closed', which completely dismantled all of those theories and leaves you understanding with no doubt that Oswald did indeed act alone.

The bottom line is that the Kennedy's had evolved, or perhaps devolved, in my consciousness. From childhood and adolescent heroes they had become political icons in the idealism of my young adulthood. Finally, my own political conversion and intellectual development had led me to see them for what they truly were: flawed men.

There is nothing wrong with being a flawed man. Heck, I'm one, and so is any man or woman who is reading this piece. But when Edward 'Ted' Kennedy passed away last week at the age of 77, I felt little remorse for the man for whom I had cast my first-ever Presidential vote. I did not share even a little in the remembrances and platitudes being publicly heaped upon him in the media.

To me, Teddy Kennedy at the time of his death had become a bloated, pompous, lying, cheating, drunken jerk who kept his political power due to his family's fortune and power and by cow-towing to every liberal group that came down the pike. Worse yet, one who had gotten away with drunk driving and negligent homicide. And even worse yet, the vast majority of those feting him knew it and still applauded his life.

I will never dance on another man's grave. But for me, Ted Kennedy is no loss. What I can look back on as a true loss is that vote that I gave him nearly three decades ago. A vote that he got because others led me to believe he was something that he was not, as well as because I was willing to listen to those talking heads and misleading journalists and scribes.

The man who had become known over the years as 'The Lion of the Senate' will roar no more. The 'Lion' sleeps tonight. RIP, Ted Kennedy. RIP also to my own personal political innocence and naivete.

The Castrated States of America

In just 100 days Obama has moved us from a war footing to a wuss footing. Yes sir, from a foreign policy/national defense standpoint, Barack is making Jimmy Carter look like a full-on badass. The President is dead set on taking off our rowdy body armor and replacing it with a petite glittered bustier; he's insisting that our General Pattons become generally passive. A one-eyed, myopic circus freak can see this.

Yep, forget the G.I. Joe, Johnny Get Your Gun image America used to tout. Obama would rather us morph into a chatty Jiminy Glick before those who want us dead.

You just know Osama and his boys are in some Pakistani cave smoking a hookah piled high with blonde Lebanese hash as they praise Allah and laugh their butts off at how stupid and soft we've become in just a few months while they plot their next "manmade disaster," as Janet Napolitano would call it.

I'm certain that this recent transition from bold to bland is making all the "progressives" feel smarmy as they imagine in their warm and fuzzy heart of hearts that they have just climbed up a couple rungs on the evolutionary ladder.

However, no matter how chuffed the daft Left feels about our metamorphosis from strength to slop, millions of implacable Muslims and rogue dictators around the planet will continue to abhor us regardless of whether or not we go metrosexual. They do not believe in evolving and are currently fetching some C4 to blow up the ladder the Left pretends we are ascending.

Can you say, naïve? I knew you could.

Conservative commentators are taking Obama to task, stating that Barack is putting us in a pre-9/11 mindset. A pre-9/11 mindset? I think you boys and girls are being too nice. Forget pre-9/11... this is pre-7/11. And from a security standpoint, sooner or later his policies are going to make life in the US, let's say, really inconvenient.

Now, should Charlie Gibson ever interview you non-Kool Aid swillers on TV and in the course of the interview lower his tortoise shell reading glasses and contemptuously ask you with that oleaginous look on his face, "So, Mr. or Ms. Conservative, exactly what is the Obama Doctrine?" From what BHO has said and done in the last 100 daze, you can tell Chuck's tacky backside it's this: The Obama Doctrine is the systematic emasculation of those aspects and entities that, heretofore, have kept us safe. It is the politically correct castration of our nation's cojones, or tomatoes, or testicles or whatever you want to call 'em.

Yes, according to our Gelding-In-Chief, everything is our fault, our strongest allies are to be dissed, bows are to be given to Saudi Kings, high fives go to Hugo, Ahmadinejad gets a bromance vid from BHO via YouTube, and talks are conducted with Cuba about burning a Cohiba with the Castro brothers. In addition, Obama's administration says Israel is the pain in the middle east, the US should throw billions at rogue nations, we ought to nuke our nukes . . . all the while blaming everything on GW, telling the world Islam doesn't spawn terrorists, and forbidding our interrogators to interrogate those who wish us dead. What's next, BHO? A détente with el Diablo?

Yeah, what I've deduced from Obama's teleprompter is this: The Obama Doctrine is, essentially, that America sucks. Everything is our fault. And to go forward, we must castrate everything that has kept us secure, because, y'know, we wouldn't want to continue to be safe and strong anymore, right?

WRITTEN by Doug Giles and posted at ClashRadio.com on May 4th, 2009

Will April's Showers Bring May Flowers?

April was a pretty rough month in any way that you want to size it up. Record spending, debt, unemployment. A major shift towards socialism by our government. Increased attacks on the sacrament of marriage by homosexuals and liberal thinkers. And then finally ending with an attack by a Swine Flu pandemic. It's all a bit much for a normally happy soul such as mine to take in for one big reason. There is no end in sight. President Obama was only recently elected, and just took office three months ago. He still has more than three years at a minimum in office, and if the magnitude, scope, and pace of his 'Change' continues as it has thus far it will be an agonizing three years. One thing that I have come to appreciate over the course of these past three months is the utter joy and euphoria that Obama elicits in his followers. It makes me jealous, because frankly I have never, ever had that feeling for a President of the United States. Forget Kennedy and Johnson, I was just a baby. As a young child, Nixon and Ford certainly were not high on my priority list. I liked Jimmy Carter at first. He spoke to my youthful desire for progressivism. He was a minister and brought a certain amount of credibility and morality to the office, which was important to the country after the dishonesty of Nixon's Watergate. And he was intelligent too, a genius, at least that's the rep that the media was passing around. It was Jimmy Carter that began to ruin things for my early liberalism. By the end of his term he was proving to be a major letdown, and I'm still trying to figure out that whole 'genius' thing. His and liberalism's weaknesses were on full display in the face of the emergence of radical Islam, Soviet aggression, and America's energy problems. But still, politics and these major issues at this point were still only news stories to me, fleeting images on the TV set, and I would quickly change the channel to a ballgame or a comedy and go back to my own inner liberal feelings. During the 1980's, Ronald Reagan was king, but I didn't support the kingdom. I didn't vote for 'The Gipper' either time. Here was the first time in my lifetime where it was obvious to me that a large portion of America was feeling something for a President that I just wasn't getting. It was disconcerting to me, because I was beginning in my 20's to actually pay more attention to national and world affairs. I was a liberal Democrat and became a joiner, with paid memberships in 'Greenpeace' and 'Amnesty International', and with subscriptions to 'Rolling Stone' and 'U.S. News & World Report', and enjoying anti-establishment music videos on the new media outlet of MTV such as Genesis' "Land of Confusion". But something began to change. The optimism of the 'Morning in America' days that Reagan led, the return of outward signs of American patriotism, the general feelings of positivism were creeping into my psyche a little at a time. His demand that the Soviets "Tear down this wall!" followed by that event actually happening was a watershed moment, the moment when I began to think to myself "Why are there so many millions of people seeing what I am not?" and I began to realize that these folks couldn't possibly all be evil or idiots, and I actually began to open my mind to thoughts and ideas outside of my previously grounded liberal thinking. But it still wasn't a transition. I still voted for Dukakis in 1988, because I simply was not ready to vote for George H.W. Bush for President. He was as establishment as you could possibly get, and a former head of the C.I.A. to boot, and I simply did not trust a former head of a spy agency to be my leader. When he eventually led us into the Gulf War, all his faults were on display in my mind. I didn't understand the whole Iraq issue. My naive liberalism still had me being sold by those talking heads and celebrities who lamented our 'going to war over nothing but oil' and other such talk. In 1992, with my own life going through major changes on many fronts, I remained a liberal thinker for the final election. When Bill Clinton was elected, it was the first time in my life to that point that my candidate had won, and I was excited. His youthful exuberance was infectious, and I genuinely believed that he would make things better. But I also by this time was already in the habit of looking at issues deeper than the surface, reading and researching major issues beyond just what I was being sold on what I increasingly was noticing was an obviously biased mass media in newspapers and on television. I hated the idea that these folks seemed more like cheerleaders whenever a Democrat was involved, and like antagonists when a Republican was involved. It was all so obvious, and it was turning me off. When I realized that all of the positive economic turns of the early Clinton years were going to happen no matter who was President, that they had actually begun in the final months of the Bush administration, and yet the Dems were trying to take credit, I began to experience my first bit of cynicism towards my party and its politicians. By the end of Clinton's first four years the transition was complete. My own personal scales had tilted towards conservatism over liberalism, and as Newt Gingrich led the 'Republican Revolution' of 1994, I was amazingly in tune with their message and supportive of this man who just a couple years earlier I would have viewed as a negative influence. I was still a Democrat, but I did not vote for Clinton in 1996. The second Clinton term was what fully shoved me over to the conservative side, and my final flip to an actual change of party to the Republican side. Still, even with the election of George W. Bush in 2000, I was not excited. Seeing Al Gore for the quack that he has turned out to be, I was simply unbelievably relieved with the narrow outcome in Bush's favor. Bush was not the conservative that I was becoming, but he was much more tilted in that direction than Gore and his followers would have been. The attacks of 9/11 and President Bush's outstanding leadership in the following months and years cemented my support for him, and helped cement my conservative beliefs. But he never elicited that outright joy as a follower or supporter. And obviously Obama will never elicit those feelings for me. And yet I look around at his followers and I realize something. His supporters are every bit as enthused and enthralled as Reagan's were back in the 1980's, and I was on the outside back then as well. I don't get it, but I am trying to learn more about Obama's programs and ideas beyond what the media on both sides is trying to feed the public. So far, the more that I learn the worse it looks to me, but I am going to try to keep learning and stay open. The showers of April turn to flowers in nature in May. We can only hope that the showers brought on our nation by the early Obama actions in April will bloom into flowers in May, but I don't hold out hope. May has not started well, with an announced SCOTUS opening and the specter of the likely appointment to the Supreme Court later in the year of what will almost definitely be its most liberal member ever. The Swine Flu is still advancing, with a possible retreat for the summer but a return in the fall. Chrysler joins the growing list of formerly private businesses in the auto, banking, insurance and other industries now controlled by the government. It is still raining. But I won't let it get to me. One thing that age and experience teach you is that if you wait, the sun will indeed come out tomorrow. There are signs of hope. We have rid ourselves of Senator Arlen Specter, a RINO (Republican In Name Only) who saw the writing on the wall that we were going to dump him in the upcoming primary and who then ran for the Democratic cover like a coward. And I still hold out hope that one day I will have that President come along who inspires me and elicits that passionate adulation of feeling to go along with a support for their policies and direction that Obama's supporters feel today. Someone like Newt Gingrich, Bobby Jindal, or Sarah Palin. You gotta keep that smile on your face and in your heart, and keep your own dreams alive.

The Good Old Days

Do you know that weird sensation of connection to your roots that you often feel when you see an old family member, friend, lover, teammate, or co-worker for the first time in years, maybe even decades? Depending on the circumstances of your meet, it sometimes doesn't hit you until later. But almost always we go through that exercise in mental nostalgia which carries us back to those younger days and the experiences that we shared with this individual. The innocent memories of childhood. The fun times of high school or college. The struggles and amusement involved in our early work years. The thrills of victory and the agonies of defeat on sporting fields. The life, death, and love of family. Sometimes the person is linked to another or a group of others, and our memories will branch off towards those folks. Well these types of memories and feelings have been happening to me more and more lately thanks to the social networking website called Facebook. I have stumbled across more family members and old friends on the internet thanks to this popular behemoth than I could ever have imagined. People who I worked with years ago. Those who I hung out with on the corners of South Philly as a youth. Some who I played ball with as an adult. And being a police officer for the past 19 years there are cops, both old and new acquaintances. Lots of cops. The site allows you to mentally catch-up with these people. We share small biographies of what we've been up to, photos of our family members and friends, videos of some of our life experiences, music and other media that we enjoy, and conversations with one another and each other. These meetings of late have also driven home another point to me, that my own memories of what is classically referred to as 'the good old days' are truly long gone. For me those days would take me back to my childhood and teenage years growing up in the Two Street neighborhood of South Philly during the 1960's and particularly the 1970's. 'Two Street' is that section of 2nd Street that begins around Washington Avenue and continues south to Oregon Avenue, about a twenty block stretch, and which is bordered on the east by the homes on and around Front Street and on the west arguably by somewhere around 4th or 5th Street, depending on how far south you are. The area is a Mummers kingdom, the home to these merry men and women who star in Philly's iconic New Year's Day parade. Many of the clubs have their headquarters on 2nd Street or just off it, and you can't walk a half block without tripping over any number of residents who participate in the parade in some way. The times when I grew up there were the days of Vietnam, Woodstock, Watergate, Apollo, SNL, Nixon, Ford, Carter, drugs, disco, gasoline rationing, and the ever-looming threat of a nuclear exchange between the U.S. and Russia that was known as 'The Cold War'. But when your age is still in the single digits, and even into your pre-teen and early teen years, most of these big stories are simply not affecting your life as you know it. Your life at those ages is filled with things like family and school, sports teams and friends, movies and music, and eventually as we emerge into puberty becomes pre-occupied with the opposite sex. In my life, family was big, and there was a simple reason for it: geography. My grandparents were all raised in South Philly, and in those days you pretty much settled and raised your families in the same neighborhood where you started. Thus my parents and their siblings, my aunts and uncles, were all raised there as well. And most of that living and raising took place in a small stretch of no more than a half mile. Within those five blocks or so lived my own little family of myself, my younger brother Mike, my mom Marie, and my dad Matthew. We lived on the tiny 2300 block of south American Street which would star decades later in a scene in the film 'Invincible' about former Philadelphia Eagle Vince Papale. Those scenes where Papale plays a rough version of schoolyard lot football? They were real. I can't tell you how many dozens if not hundreds of such football games that I participated in over the years on the school yards, playgrounds and rec centers around Two Street. From 'touch' football to 'rough touch' and even tackle football on grass or when it snowed heavily. My dad had two sisters, and my mom had one brother, and they and their families also lived in South Philly. The LoBiondo family of my Aunt Bobbie lived just two blocks away. The Piernock family of my Aunt Pat lived about five blocks away. The Gilmore family of my Uncle Ray lived a bit further away but still in South Philly. My Uncle Ray Gilmore, my mom's brother, was a DJ with the old AM radio king WIBG which was known in those days as simply 'Wibbage'. His career opportunities in radio eventually saw him become one of the first to leave the old neighborhood, first for the New York area, and then eventually on to Boston. But my mom stilled had many other family members, aunts, uncles and cousins, living all along Two Street. One of the regular joys in those days was on New Years when most of the parade groups returned to their clubhouses along Two Street and would parade down the length of the street, serenading their fans and family members. The tradition remains today as a mini version of the full-scale parade that took place along Broad Street, and has a 'Mardi Gras' feel with costumed revelers jamming the streets. In my own good old days we had two family spots along the parade route that gave us a front row seat to these festivities. My mom's Uncle Bill and Aunt Helen lived right on 3rd Street at Cantrell, where the parade came right past their front door, and my dad's sister Bobbie lived just off 3rd & Jackson (pictured). Both families always had open house parties on those days, and we got to enjoy the parade, family reunions, and good food and drink. These gatherings were like familial glue in my youth, allowing my dad's family at Jackson Street and my mom's family at Cantrell Street to be together in a fun setting year after year. My brother Mike and I would jockey back and forth between the two houses, saying the requisite hello's to our aunts and uncles and then hanging out with our cousins. This was the essence of Two Street: sitting on the front porches and stoops, hanging on the corners, family, friends, Mummers, and all of it made possible, or at least far easier, by the simple geography of proximity. In future postings I am going to talk much more about the particular people and events of my childhood and teenage years, allowing my self to revisit and you to enjoy my own memories in a regular series that I will be simply calling 'The Good Old Days'.

President Barack Oblah, blah, blah-ma's First News Conference

Ladies and gentlemen, fellow citizens of the United States of America, what you saw last night on the occasion of President Barack Obama's first-ever televised news conference was simply one of the most incredible displays of stammering ineptitude in the Chief Executive's office since it was occupied by Jimmy Carter. The President tried to take his case directly to the people in an attempt to make them come around to his position that in order to help resolve an economic crisis that took place thanks to over-spending on the part of politicians we need even more spending by these same politicians. I believe that on the classic television comedy show 'Seinfeld' it went something like this: sex to save the friendship. Of course that direction didn't work for Jerry and Elaine, just as the Obama 'stimulus' sham has no hope of working for America. During his speech that precluded the press conference, the President stated that his plan was "not perfect" and that it may not in fact "work exactly as we hoped." He went on to say that the counter was that "a failure to act will only deepen this crisis." Uh, perhaps Mr. President. But since you have no idea how your imperfect plan is going to affect us, perhaps it will in actuality turn out even worse than doing nothing, or doing something different. The President then began to take questions, and during a lengthy answer to AP reporter Jennifer Loven he stated that his plan to "save or create 4 million jobs" would instead result in "some net job loss. But at least we can start slowing the trend, and moving it in the right direction." So which is it, Mr. President, are we creating 4 million new jobs, or saving currently existing jobs, or some combination, or suffering a net job loss? Mr. President? Okay, that economics stuff is tough for you, let's move on to diplomacy. The President responds to a question as to how he will handle Iran by initially summing it up pretty well by speaking of "their financing of terrorist organizations...the bellicose language that they've used towards Israel, their development of a nuclear weapon or their pursuit of a nuclear weapon." But he then begins more of that 'blah, blah, blah' as he speaks of "reviewing our existing Iran policy" looking towards having "constructive dialogue" and towards moving "our policy in a new direction." The only policy that is going to stand a prayer of working in Iran is deposing their President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, possibly the single most dangerous man on the planet at this particular moment. And even then we would have to ensure that the mullahs and other religious leaders don't set up in power someone who is just as bad or even worse. Without showing military and economic strength until the Iranians change their ways, no 'dialogue' or 'policy' of appeasement is going to be effective. The President is then asked about the bipartisanship that he promised would highlight his term in office, and if it was unlikely now that his 'stimulus' received no Republican votes in the House and only three potential Senate supporters from the Right. He responded that "there have been a lot of bad habits built up here in Washington, and it's going to take time to break down some of those bad habits." Excuse me, Mr. President, but what are "bad habits" exactly? You mean that when you present some plan, program, or nominee that is fundamentally against what the vast majority of Republicans believe in, we should just blindly support you against our own ideals? Having and fighting for our ideals is a bad habit? In a response to a reporter who finally directly asked about the wisdom of spending almost a trillion more tax-payer dollars to overcome problems caused by massive over-spending and little fiscal discipline, the President summed up the problem thusly: "the biggest problem we're going to have with our federal budget is if we continue a situation in which there are no tax revenues because economic growth is plummeting at the same time as we've got new demands for unemployment insurance..health care..food stamps." So basically what that President is saying is that he has a two-pronged problem: economic growth declining and spending rising. How about we go at it this way, Mr. President? Reduce taxes on businesses and individuals even further, hand out incentives for private business to get involved in what you are trying to setup as federal projects, and reduce rather than expand federal social services. Now I don't know whether or not this will work, just as you don't know whether your spend and spend plan will work. But one thing is certain, my plan will not increase our debt, and my plan has a far greater track record of sustaining a recovery. The "stimulus" plan that President Barack Obama is trying to shove down the throats of the American public will fail, and we know it. While the results of a Gallup poll released last week showed 75% of Americans believing some sort of financial package is needed, a full 62% were against the current massive Obama plan, with 37% wanting major changes to the plan, and 53% believe the Obama plan will have no effect on their families or make things worse. It is not a question of wanting the President to fail, to paraphrase Rush Limbaugh, but simply an acknowlegement of common sense. You can't spend your way out of problems that were largely caused by too much spending and too little discipline. And an increase in the size of government always stifles a nation's economic development. Always. But President Obama will continue defending it with the very rhetoric and partisan rancor that he derides in his opposition. The press always loves a chance to get on camera and make themselves seem more important than they are, but to much of the American public last nights opening performance by the new President was just more blah, blah, blah.

Television & the Presidency as a Time Machine

I was sitting at home this past Saturday night, just flicking around the dial, when a newly produced special report on the Fox News Channel titled "Television & the Presidency" caught my eye. Being a bit of a history buff, especially American history, it was right up my alley: a historical perspective on the role that television has played in Presidential politics. As I settled in the program moved quickly through Jimmy Carter's lame Presidency in the late 1970's. Those Carter years were fresh in my own experience, since I turned 15 years old right after his election. Carter was basically the President of my high school years, and it wasn't pretty. The man was supposed to be some kind of genius. At least that was how the press sold him. But he just couldn't seem to solve any of the big problems that came along, from the gas crisis to unemployment to ballooning interest rates to the emergence of radical islam. Every time a problem raised it's head, Carter talked and talked and got nothing done to solve it. At least that was my perspective as a teenager, but what did I know? And besides, it didn't matter, I didn't have a vote...yet. In the fall of 1979, among the many other changes happening in my life, I turned 18 years old and had finally reached the age where I could register to vote. My family was historically a Democratic one, and the Party seemed to easily fit the liberal ideals that most appropriately espoused my own philosophy at the time, so I registered Democrat. As Carter continued to stumble and falter, I looked to 'Camelot' for my own and my new Party's salvation. I had been a Kennedy fan ever since learning in my youth that I shared my birthday with Bobby Kennedy. I did reading during high school on JFK and Bobby, and was among those convinced at the time that there was obviously a conspiracy in Dallas, and that the Warren Commission was a sham. In my first election, the Pennsylvania primary of May 1980, the presumed heir to the Kennedy crown stepped up to challenge President Carter, and I jumped on board the 'Teddy Kennedy for President' express. That spring, Kennedy came to Philadelphia to accept the endorsement of Mayor Bill Green. I had just started working for First Pennsylvania Bank about eight months earlier, and Kennedy's speech was going to be given right outside my doors at 15th & Chestnut Streets. I remember very clearly looking down from our 7th floor windows in the 1500 Chestnut building. You could see the 'rooftop' security activity, but no one was telling us to stay away from the windows in those days. At some point I slipped out of work and made my way down to try and get a glimpse of my new (first) political hero. Much to my amazement, I was able to get within a few feet at the rear of the makeshift stand that had been setup from which Senator Kennedy would speak. I remember it pretty clearly, but I am quite sure that in the haze of the ensuing 28 years, I have probably messed up a few details. But that's how I recall that day. I remember that I never actually got a chance to see Kennedy, though I was probably no more than 15 feet from him. Being in the rear of the stage, and with other security and dignitaries between myself and others, with Kennedy speaking at the front, all I could do was stand and listen, which I did. Oh, and a couple other things that I know. I had longer hair then, actually parted in the middle with the 'wings' that were still in style. I was wearing a white dress shirt with the wide collar, had left the top shirt button unbuttoned, had a greyish tie loosened, and was wearing the vest from a grey 3-piece suit without the jacket. How do I know all that, you say? Because as the Fox special progressed through to Kennedy's challenge of Carter, they showed a snippet from that very speech that he gave that day in Philly. And very quickly, but lasting 3-4 full seconds, there was a closeup of an 18-year old Matt Veasey standing in the back of the stage, eyes glazed over as he listened to Kennedy speaking. I mean, it was crystal clear, closeup, and they held the camera on me long enough for me to say "Holy crap!" as I sat in my living room 28 years later. Thankfully, the television experts have invented DVR, and I quickly rewound the program to watch again. There I was staring back in time at myself almost three decades ago, still a teenager, less than a year out of high school, my eldest daughter just a couple of months old. It was eerie, partly because it was totally unexpected, partly because the shot was a good one, partly because I haven't seen that face much in decades. I don't know of any video, family or otherwise, that exists of me from those days. I don't actually even have many photos from that time, at least not in my possession. But there I was, live and in person, at least on tape, from spring of 1980. I ran upstairs and got my wife Debbie, who didn't know me back then, and asked her to come downstairs and watch the show for a minute. I had it cued up to just before my appearance, and gave her the buildup describing what the show was about and where we were in the episode, and then asked her to watch close and see if anything catches her eye. She watched and let the shot of me go by, and just as I flickered off the screen she looked at me wide-eyed and asked "was that you?" in an incredulous tone. We watched it together a few more times and shared the amazement with a good laugh as I caught her up on some of the things that were happening in my life at that point. So if you get a chance to see this "Television & the Presidency" special on Fox News Channel, stay tuned for the episode and section where they cover Jimmy Carter. As they move to the Kennedy 1980 primary challenge, they will show the Philly speech, and as Kennedy laments that we want "no more high taxes, no more hostages" or whatever his rant was, you will see a starry-eyed young liberal in the audience. That young man was me once. It was good to see me again.