The Age of Limits
Santa Barbara oil spill cleanup
and Apollo 11 launch: Which
story would characterize the
future?
The Limits of Reform

Ralph Nader attacks GM–Unsafe at Any Speed,
but GM
seems unconcerned, though they may have been well aware


Conservation versus
preservation—use vs. pristine
Barry Commoner and ecology
—“improve on nature” causes problems


EPA established
Earth Day —1970;
jobs vs. environment
Barry Commoner,
author of The
Closing Circle,
which discussed
damage to the
ecology.
The “unsafe at any
speed” Corvair and Nader
and his Raiders on the
steps of the Capitol.
Watergate and the Politics of
Resentment

Revenue sharing—block grants to states for states to
use as they decide: part of “New Federalism,” anti-New Deal

Family Assistance Plan—proposal that stressed
“workfare” not welfare, finally enacted in 90’s

Nixon reforms—OSHA (workplace safety),
Clean Air, Water Acts show Nixon’s practical side


School busing
Nixon and the Court
—conservative appointments
stem Warren court’s liberal activism
Boston police protect and oversee the
school district’s busing policy.
George McGovern campaigning during the
1972 election.
END OF READING
Part of the Watergate Office
Building complex in
Washington, DC.

George McGovern
—fighting uphill battle against CREEP


The plumbers—fix leaks
Impoundment—Congressional
appropriations Nixon left unspent: illegal

Senate hearings—reporters for Post
start things: How deep did Watergate go?




Agnew resigns—bribes in MD and DC
Spiro
Saturday Night Massacre—fires Cox Agnew
The smoking gun—Nixon hip deep in conspiracy
Fair Campaign Practices—dodged by PAC’s
Pinochet, the brutal
dictator who took
over Chile with U.S.
help and approval,
killing elected
President Allende.
A Ford,
Not a Lincoln

War Powers Act—consult Congress,
explain, withdraw after 60 days unless
Congress approves: no more Gulf of
Tonkins?

Coup in Chile—overthrow a democracy
with a dictatorship to save it from a worse
dictatorship?

Yom Kippur War and the energy
crisis—Arabs pressure U.S. for support of
Israel with oil embargo
A U.S. marine helplessly watches
as South Vietnamese climb the
United States embassy walls,
trying to find a way out of the
country, as North Vietnamese
forces close in on Saigon.

South Vietnam falls—no surprise
there, but do we owe the South Vietnamese
anything?

Helsinki summit—U.S./Soviet
agreements for détente (European political
boundaries recognized, Soviet Jews allowed
to emigrate)

CIA and FBI abuses—Senate investigations reveal domestic
spying, LSD, assassinations, infiltration of domestic groups, drive MLK to
suicide?

Jimmy Carter—being an “outsider” from Georgia a political advantage
for public tired of “insider” politics
Jimmy Carter: Restoring the Faith

Department of Energy—Carter tried to fight “produce more, not
conserve” mindset of corporate America with MEOW (lower to 65, drive 55)

Three Mile Island—stuck valve (Homer?) causes realization that
nuclear maybe not be as great as
advertised: inadequate safeguards,
radioactive waste

The Chrysler bailout—billiondollar tax credit: save big
corporation to save jobs, economy?
Precedent?
Three Mile Island near
Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, site
of an unnerving nuclear
accident.
Zbigniew Brzezinski, Jimmy Carter’s
foreign policy mastermind. (Below)
Egypt’s Anwar Sadat, Jimmy Carter, and
Israel’s Menachem Begin sign the Camp
David Accords. Sadat would later be
assassinated by Muslim fundamentalists.

Human Rights—economic pressure for
humane policies overseas

Brzezinski and Central America
—Commies all over the place?

Reviving the China
card—make Soviets
think twice: U.S.-China-Japan


Salt II—limitations unratified
Camp David Accords
—stop 30-yr. state of war
Some of the 53 American
Embassy personnel are displayed
as prisoners in Teheran during
the hostage crisis sparked by the
Iranian Revolution and dragged
on over a year in the media.

The Iranian revolution
—long-time U.S. ally toppled by
Muslim fundamentalists

The Soviet Union
invades Afghanistan—Muslim fundamentalist problems of their
own; U.S. slaps their wrists with boycott of 1980 Olympic games—Carter
Doctrine: U.S. will intervene unilaterally when interests threatened in
Persian Gulf

Crisis of Confidence—hostages, economy hobbles Carter’s reelection bid