People's History: Jimmy Carter (Chap 21)
Mercy Mercy Me, Marvin GayeBall of Confusion, The Temptations
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Summary A quiet activism marked the seventies, but Carter's public-pleasing effort to appease the poor was, truthfully, a bow to industry and foreign wars, like much of US history. Chapter The activists prevailing in the seventies, unlike the sixties radicals, were more at ease with quiet efforts, aimed at the environment and women's issues, housing, health care, war dissent. The Carter term would aid the poor, purportedly. In truth it helped the men of war and industry. His greatest failure was a poor economy that emanated from a wayward policy of cutting taxes for the rich, and to sustain his crucial Wall Street ties. In Jimmy Carter's reign the multinationals gained power, taking wealth from poorer nations, giving 'aid' adorned in stealth and motive. Budgetwise, he promised to reduce the military. Stopping civil rights abuse in foreign lands was crucial to his master plan. But Nicaragua, Indonesia, and Iran were still oppressed; rebellions in El Salvador and Philippines were thwarted by a secret war by "School of the Americas," the training ground for brutal military officers renowned for torture. Carter, while refusing to rebuild the bombed-out villages of Vietnam, instilled an anti-US fervor in Iran with staunch support of the abusive Shah, and this would launch the hostage crisis -- this, and the economy, would lead to Ronald Reagan's '80 victory. |