- I met Senator Ernest F. "Fritz" Hollings (D-SC)
in 1985 in the aftermath of the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster. I had
testified before the Rogers Commission after I leaked documents to theNew
York Times about NASA's past knowledge of flaws with the O-ring joints
whose failure caused Challenger to blow up. Later I told commission investigators
and the press it was political pressure from the Reagan White House that
likely caused NASA to overrule the engineers who tried to stop the launch.
-
- Senator Hollings, then senior Democratic member of the
Republican-controlled Senate Commerce Committee, thought the same thing.
He wanted the Senate to conduct its own investigation, but the Republicans
blocked it.
-
- One day Senator Hollings invited me to his office for
a chat. He was both brilliant and humorous. Though he eventually backed
off the issue, the work we did together led to a major article I wrote
for the Washington Monthly entitled, "The Rogers Commission Failed."
My collaboration with the senator is described in detail in my book Challenger
Revealed: An Insider's Account of How the Reagan Administration Caused
the Greatest Tragedy of the Space Age (Thunder's Mouth Press, 2007).
-
- Senator Hollings retired from the Senate in 2006 after
38 years of service. He remained a Democrat and kept his seat after the
rest of his region went with the Republicans in 1968 through Richard Nixon's
"Southern strategy." As a moderate he worked in the shadows of
Democratic stalwarts like Walter Mondale or Ted Kennedy, and his run for
the presidential nomination in 1992 went nowhere. But he was a reliable
supporter of civil rights legislation and, with Strom Thurmond, the younger
of a duo that became the longest-serving tandem from the same state in
Senate history.
-
- Today Fritz Hollings is 87 years old and going strong.
As a senator, he opposed free trade as favoring corporate wealth over workers
and families. While in the Senate he once said, in his customary tone of
sarcasm, "We hear those in Congress running around and saying, 'Free
trade, free trade, I am for free trade,' when they know free trade is like
dry water. There is no such thing." In his book Making Government
Work (University of South Carolina Press, 2008), he wrote that it was protectionism
that was instrumental in building modern America.
-
- On April 28, 2009, Fritz published an article on the
Economy in Crisis website that President Barack Obama and his economic
team, along with every member of Congress, should be required to read.
It is entitled, "Silent Conspiracies." http://www.economyincrisis.org/articles/show/2785
-
- The first conspiracy he discusses is the growth of debt.
He writes, "President Reagan started a strategy of growth for the
economy cutting taxes, borrowing, spending, and growing the national
debt instead of the economy." After President Bill Clinton's policy
of fiscal restraint, George W. Bush came along. Fritz writes: "Under
President George W. Bush, Democrats joined Republicans in a conspiracy
of debt...."
-
- Now we have the Bush-Obama bailouts. Fritz writes: "After
six months of bail-outs and another trillion stimulation, there has been
no 'jump-start' to the economy. In order to 'jump-start' the engine there
must be an engine under the hood. To 'jump-start' the economy there must
be an economy under the hood."
-
- So why isn't there an economy? Simple: through free trade
we exported it. Through this conspiracy, says Fritz: "We have offshored
the economy, and no one mentions this problem. Investment, research, development,
production, jobs are in flight to China, India and Mexico. Republicans
and Democrats join in a 'no-no' to enforce our trade laws and compete in
globalization. Globalization is nothing more than a trade war with production
looking for a country cheaper to produce."
-
- Fritz doesn't mince words. He knows how the political
system works: "The President and Congress continue in their conspiracy
of 'free trade' in order to get the campaign contributions from corporate
America and the financial community." He writes that "these silent
conspiracies must be exposed," and he is doing it in a way that puts
almost every other present or former politician in the U.S. to shame.
-
- Richard C. Cook is a former federal analyst who writes
on public policy issues. His book "We Hold These Truths: the Hope
of Monetary Reform" is now available at http://www.tendrilpress.com.
His website is http://www.richardccook.com.
|