HUSH Ch. 26-28

Affirmative Action

Affirmative Action

• Policy efforts to promote greater employment opportunities for minorities

• First suggested by MLK in his 1964 proposal, “Bill of Rights for the Disadvantaged”

  • If US had done something special against black people for so many years, now have the obligation to do something special for black people

Busing

• The extensive transportation of students as a tool to increase/achieve school integration

• Backed by fed gov

  • SC cases Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education (1971)

• Strong opposition from white people, saw it as part of a “too strong government”

Reverse Discrimination

• What white people viewed affirmative action and affirmative action programs as

• Not real L

Title IX

• Approved by Congress in 1972, during Nixon presidency

• Banned gender discrimination in higher education

• Number of women workers in skilled jobs continued to grow

Strategic Arms Limitation Talks

• Negotiations between President Nixon and USSR leader Leonid Brezhnev in 1972

• Resulted in…

  • Agreements for increased trade

  • Arms control treaties: SALT and Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty

Detente

• “Cooperation”

• Period of improving relations between the United States and Communist nations

• The era of “peaceful coexistence” proclaimed by Nixon and Brezhnev

My Lai Massacre

• 1968

• American troops killed some 350 South Vietnamese civilians

• Led by Lieutenent William Calley

  • Later convicted but got light punishment

• New York Times published details

• Undermined US support for Vietnam War

Pentagon Papers

• Leaked by New York Times in 1971

• Defense Department’s top secret report tracing US involvement with Vietnam

• Revealed that successive US presidents had lied to public about the war

• Nixon wanted to halt publication but the Supreme Court rejected

War Powers Act

• Passed 1973

• President must get congressional approval to send US troops overseas

Watergate

• Nixon scandal!!!

• Nixon kinda paranoid, viewed critics as threats to national security, made an “enemies list”

• June 1973, ordered a burglary/break-in at __ apartment in Washington DC, the Democratic Party headquarters

• Investigations → congressional hearings

• Saturday Night Massacre

  • Prosecutor Cox demanded Nixon release secret tapes → Nixon fired Cox

• SC demanded he release tapes — Nixon not above law

• Nixon denied involvement, paid burglars to remain silent → impeached for obstruction of justice → resigned

Oil Embargo

• Brief war broke out in 1973 (Israel VS Egypt & Syria)

• Middle eastern states of OPEC retaliated against US support for Israel by quadrupling price of oil, suspended oil export to US for several months

• Americans had limited gas supply

Stagflation

• Stagnant economic growth + inflation, 1970s

Deindustrialization

• Decline of manufacturing in old industrial areas, many manufacturing jobs lost

• Companies shifted production to low-wage centers in the South and West or in other countries

• Wanted cities as finance, entertainment, information hubs

Sunbelt

• Arc from Carolina to California

  • Nonunion, low-wage states

• Jobs/investment/population flowed here

• Conservative region, gated communities/cars, cities on highways

Helsinki Accords

• 1975 agreement between USSR and USA, recognized post WWII boundaries and basic civil liberties

Deregulation

• Carter saw inflation as biggest issue, not unemployment

• Wanted increased competition to reduce prices

• Removed regulation on industries like finance and air travel — seen in Regan-Clinton era but started with Carter

Three Mile Island

• Nuclear power plant near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania 1979

• Released radioactive steam into the air, public response basically halted nuclear power expansion

Camp David Accords

• 1978 peace agreement between leaders of Egypt and Israel, brokered by Carter

Neoconservatives

• Early 1980s conservative insurgency

• People like Reagan who promoted “family values,” less government, supply-side economics, against welfare, popular in suburbs

• There were also Christian conservatives who wanted “moral majority”

• Takes on issues such as ERA and Roe v. Wade, anti-tax sentiment

Reagan Revolution

• The shift of American politics towards the right/conservatism after the election 1980

• “Freedom” in America emphasized

Reaganomics

• Reduced taxes for the wealthy, created new tax bracket divisions based on inflation

• Reduced environmental protection and workplace safety rules that businesses complained about

• Used high interest rates to reduce inflation and cut taxes for the wealthy and businesses

• Called “supply-side” by supporters and “trickle-down” by critics

• High economic inequality -- 40% of US wealth owned by top 1%

• Initially produced severe recession, then companies downsized, used more technologies, shifted production overseas to become more profitable

• In the end, GDP greatly increases and inflation/unemployment rates significantly dropped

Vietnam Syndrome

• Public caution in sending American troops overseas

• Regan wanted to end this by sending troops into different conflicts but public only supported minor operations and not large casualties

• Against totalitarian communist regimes, but unlike carter’s human rights ideals, wanted to assist authoritarian non-communist regimes

Iran-Contra Affair

• Scandal in second Reagan administration

• Congress banned US from giving military aid to the Contras in Nicaragua, but CIA & National Security Council secretly took funds Reagan was also secretly giving Iran for the Contras

• Scandal leaked by Middle East → 11 administration members convicted, Reagan denied knowledge, but public lost trust that he had control over his admin

New World Order

• President George H. W. Bush's term for the post-Cold War world

Gulf War

• Military action in 1991 in which an international coalition led by the United States drove Iraq from Kuwait, which it had occupied the previous year.

“Don’t ask, don’t tell”

• President Clinton's compromise measure that allowed gay people to serve in the military incognito, as officers could no longer seek them out for dismissal but they could not openly express their identity; ended under the Obama admin

North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)

• A trade agreement between Canada, the United States and Mexico that encourages free trade between these North American countries

  • Eliminated all tariffs and other trade barriers between the countries

Contract with America

• A list of conservatives' promises in response to the supposed liberalism of the Clinton administration

• Drafted by Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich and other congressional Republicans as the GOP platform for the 1994 midterm elections

• More a campaign tactic than a practical program; few of its proposed items ever became law

• → Republicans took back control of Congress

  • HoR approved budget cuts in welfare programs but couldn’t reach agreement w/ Clinton → gov shut down non essential operations 1995 → Congress retreated

  • Clinton compromised by opposing radical members of Congress and accepting some opponent/Reaganism policies, against big gov

Rwandan Genocide

• 1994 Genocide conducted by the Hutu ethnic group upon the Tutsi minority in Rwanda

• Despite Clinton wanting to bring human rights issues into the center of global relations, the US didn’t help at all

Balkan Crisis

• A series of ethnic and political crises that arose following the dissolution of Yugoslavia in the 1990s

  • Communist government fell in 1989 during the Velvet Revolution

• Many atrocities were committed during the conflict

  • Ethnic cleansing of Albanians in Kosovo → NATO, the United Nations, and the United States intervene

Ethnic Cleansing

• The systematic removal of an ethnic group from a territory through violence or intimidation in order to create a homogeneous society

• Term popularized by the Yugoslav policy brutally targeting Albanian Muslims in Kosovo during the Balkan Crisis

Globalization

• Collapse of communism led to many countries believing in free market

• Rapid acceleration of international flow of commerce, financial resources, labor, and cultural products starting in the 1990s

• Computers and the internet

  • Production and sale of info > sale of goods

  • Microchips → portable consumer products

• Anti-__ movement challenged its socioeconomic consequences (e.g. widening the wealth gap between countries)

Americans with Disabilities Act

• 1990 law that prohibited the discrimination against persons with disabilities in both hiring and promotion

• Mandated accessible entrances for public buildings

Multiculturalism

• Growing emphasis on racial and ethnic identity

• Demands that jobs, education, and politics should reflect the increasingly diverse nature of American society

  • Influx of Mexican, Asian, and African immigrants from ~1970s to 2000s

Culture Wars

• Battles over moral values in the 90s

  • Conservatives concerned about…

    • Decline of the nuclear family

    • Increase of racial diversity

    • Teaching of evolution

  • Groups like the Christian Coalition

Bush v. Gore

• U.S. Supreme Court case that halted Florida’s 2000 election recount

  • Instead, Florida governor Jeb Bush (Bush’s brother) declared the winner (hmmm)

• Justification: 14th Amendment’s “equal protection” clause requires all ballots within a state to be counted within a single standard, but Florida’s ballot/voting system is too complex for that

Bush Doctrine

• After 9/11

• President Bush's foreign policy principal wherein the US would launch a war on terrorism

• Asserts America's right to a preemptive attack on any terrorist groups around the world that might threaten US

  • Very vague “enemy”

War on Terrorism

• Global crusade to root out anti-American/anti-Western Islamist terrorists

• Launched by President George W. Bush as a response to the 9/11 attacks

War in Afghanistan

• AKA Enduring Freedom

• War fought against the Taliban and Al-Qaeda in __ following 9/11

  • US demanded Taliban hand over Osama bin Laden, when Taliban refused, US launched air attacks

  • Drove out the Taliban by 2001, but new government dependent on US so they kept troops

• Longest war in American history

Iraq War

• 2003

• US wanted to play liberator: oust Hussein → __ quickly establish a democratic government

  • Yeah so no one thought that would work (didn’t get UN approval, only major ally was Great Britain)

• Spread false rumors that Hussein had weapons of mass destruction

• Operation Iraqi Freedom

  • Easily overpowered Hussein’s regime, Hussein executed in 2006

  • Country fell into chaos, lots of sectarian violence

  • Bush: “mission accomplished” (no)

  • Reminder of Vietnam War, sending troops to a country the US doesn’t know enough about

• Was initially popular in US, but many thought it to be a mistake by 2007, especially after finding out Hussein didn’t have any weapons of mass destruction

USA Patriot Act

• 2001

• Mammoth bill (so long that barely any people in Congress had time to read through it before voting)

• Conferred unprecedented powers on law enforcement agencies to prevent domestic terrorism

  • Power to wiretap, read private messages, and spy on citizens

Guantanamo Bay

• Detention center in __, Cuba (US naval base)

• Held suspected terrorists and war prisoners indefinitely, tried by extrajudicial secret military tribunals (no Constitutional protections)

• Later exposed along with Abu Ghraib for severe mistreatment of prisoners

• During his 2008 presidential campaign, Barack Obama pledged to close the prison, but as of 2015 it remained open

Hurricane Katrina

• 2005 hurricane that devastated much of the Gulf Coast, especially New Orleans

• Slow aid from the mayor and federal government, Bush administration's response was widely criticized as inadequate → shattered Bush’s image of dealing with disaster

• Citizens rescued each other, Texas opened doors for refugees

• By time aid came, 1.5k deaths, ⅔ displaced, poor African Americans hit the hardest — bad image for US (globally)

Obergefell v. Hodges

• 2015 Supreme Court case that legalized gay marriage in US

• Showed how public opinion had changed rapidly from 2003-2015, especially among younger ppl

Great Recession

• US economic collapse in 2008

• Largely blamed on bad home loans by banks

  • After the Technology/Dot Com Bubble popped in 2000, the Federal Reserve Bank lowered interest rates to help economy recover and also encourage people to take out loans for houses → rise in housing prices (Housing Bubble) but also consumer debt

• Overbuilding of houses in 2006 & 2007 → home values fell, people reset mortgages and defaulted on loans → banks stopped loaning, business dried, stock market crashed

• Unemployment rates rose

• 2007 to 2009 marked by the most pronounced contraction in U.S. economic activity

Sonia Sotomayor

• First Supreme Court Justice of Hispanic descent; appointed by President Barack Obama in 2009

Occupy Wall Street

• A grassroots movement in 2011 against growing economic inequality, declining opportunity, and the depredations of Wall Street banks

  • Started with hundreds of young protesters in New York protesting economic inequality

  • Similar protests across US → some cities raised min wage for fast food workers

• US falling behind other developed countries in economic equality

  • ⅕+ children in poverty, shrinking middle class

Black Lives Matter

• Civil rights movement started in 2013 that demanded that police practices be changed and officers who used excessive force be held accountable

  • Sparked by series of cases of police brutality against black people where the perpetrators received basically no punishment

• Didn’t really have specific policy changes it wanted to see, rather, it highlighted black humanity (similar to abolitionism)

• Police & national guards sent to sometimes violent protests

• Investigations after Michael Brown’s death showed that police (mostly white) preyed on black ppl as source of money

ISIS

• An insurgency that emerged from the sectarian civil wars that destabilized Syria and post-Saddam Hussein Iraq

• Beginning in 2014, its forces took control of territory in the Middle East (e.g. Iraq, Syria, and Libya)

  • Brutal campaigns, systematically murdered members of ethnic and religious minorities

  • Sponsored terrorist attacks outside the Middle East → US counterattacks → surrendered its territory

Edward Snowden

• Former National Security Agency (NSA) contractor who released classified information about the US's intelligence gathering both at home and abroad

  • Showed the high extent of NSA surveillance (e.g. it monitored virtually all telephone, instant messaging, and e-mail traffic in the US, tracked the location of numerous American cell phones, even secretly worked with major Internet and communications companies like AT&T and Verizon to gain access to the private data of their users)

  • Rekindled liberty VS security debate

Tea Party

• A grassroots Republican movement that emerged in 2009 (during midterm elections) opposing the Obama administration

  • Helped the Republicans gain control of the House of Representatives and reduce Democratic majority in Senate

  • Conservative gains → new laws targeting undocumented immigration, which associated the Republican Party w/ nativism

• Opposed the Obama administration's sweeping legislative enactments (such as the Affordable Care Act) and advocated for a more stringent immigration policy