watched The Seventies lectures

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+The Seventies: An Era of Malaise
+
+- Nixon resigned in disgrace
+- American troops resigned from Vietnam
+    - The Vietnamese gov't collapsed
+- ME nations put a complete embargo on the US
+    - "Energy shortage"
+    - Unending gas lines, spiking gas prices
+- Americans were accustomed to hegemony. It appeared to have come to a
+  halt
+    - "Sense of limits"
+- Pres candidates sought to develop a sense of purpose
+    - Indecision at the ballot box; voters oscillated wildly
+    - Democrats got the greatest majority in postwar era, Republicans do
+      the same 6 years later.
+    - Huge swathes of voters didn't vote.
+- New Right and the "Me" Era (instant gratification) developed
+    - Microcosm of the new vs. old (do values even count?) issue.
+
+Questions
+- Why do historians consider the 70s a period of political malaise?
+- Why did Jimmy Carter experience such limited success as president?
+- How did the Iran hostage crisis shape the Carter presidency?
+
+- America's leadership in the world relied on sustained economic growth
+  and global hegemony
+    - Economic decline
+    - Diplomatic reversals challenged Americans' sense of leadership
+
+President Gerald Ford
+- Nation relieved Watergate had come to an end
+- Most of Nixon's political aides were serving jail sentences, and Ford
+  pardoned Nixon of "all wrongdoings."
+    - Nation was stunned.
+- Ford vetoed 39 measures designed to give consumers more money to
+  spend.
+    - Deepened the economic recession that was beginning
+- Historians eventually viewed Ford's pardon as "statesmanlike," but
+  voters next time around preferred a Democrat senate/house. Carter, a
+  born again Christian, was reelected. Carter told small-town audiences
+  that they deserved a government as "good, honorable, and filled with
+  love as Americans."
+
+- Personality, commitment to values created a sense of new hope.
+  Sounded like an old-time populist, pledging to help the little man
+  against large corporations, against racial-economic discrimination.
+    - Lost 33 points in the polls before election, and won narrowly.
+    - Both Ford and Carter had ~80% of Americans believing negatively of
+      him
+    - Economic issues were the major concern of most Americans. Carter
+      won 3/4 of votes about jobs.
+
+The Oil Shocks
+    - OPEC was a cartel designed by oil-owning states
+    - Took 1973 Arab-Israeli (Yom Kippur) War as an opportunity to raise
+      global oil prices.
+        - To pressure US, Israel's chief ally, Arab oil producers
+          reduced prodcution by 10%. Then, after military aid, put the
+          embargo on (lifted in 1974) but continued to rise from
+          $2/barrel to over $10/barrel by end of 1974.
+            - Triggered '74-'75 recession, most serious since Great
+              Depression. Unemployment rate reached 9%
+            - Stagflation coined to describe the stalled economic growth
+              and rising inflation.
+    - Competition from Eurasia was hurting American businesses
+        - American workers' productivity significantly slowed.
+Americans believed "The Land of Plenty is becoming the Land of Want"
+
+The "Me" Decade and "The Culture of Narcissism"
+- Personal rather than political awareness
+- Norman Mailer, called, in 1979, the 70s an emphasis on "the skin, the
+  surface rather than on the root of things."
+    - Developing sense of entitlement
+    - The economic and social issues were blamed on it.
+
+The Culture Wars and the Christian Right
+    - Religious conservatism, once deemed so outside the mainstream
+      Christian conservatives didn't believe it had a place in politics.
+    - Business conservatives argued for low tax rates and deregulation.
+        - Religious right joined them in a Republican party against the
+          "liberal state"
+    - Backlash against growing feminist movements
+        - Originally were mostly reacting to
+    - Jerry Falwell and the Moral Majority
+    - Phyllis Schlafly and the Battle over the ERA
+        - Anita Bryant wanted to repeal municipal gay rights ordinances
+        - Eventually coalesced into a party that wanted action.
+    - Historically separated by denominational differences, like
+      abortion being regarded as "Catholic issues."
+        - Nearly 80% of Sunday school teachers used to support abortion
+          access
+        - The evangelical right reframed Christianity as one issue and
+          had Christian conservatives rally around the "right to life."
+    - Supreme Court ruled that unmarried women had the right to
+      contraception and that women had the right to abortion in Roe v.
+      Wade. (Opinion had changed significantly in late 60s and early
+      70s)
+        - Jane Roe is an anonym.
+    - In the coming years and decades after Roe v. Wade, the
+      anti-feminist and conservative ("pro-family") movement grew based
+      on this, called the Moral Majority.
+        - Led by Rev. Jerry Falwell.
+        - Attack on feminism, abortion, and equal rights movement was
+          supported by Phyllis Schlafly.
+        - Feminist activists wanted broader protections against
+          discrimination in the workplace. Equal Rights Amendment (ERA)
+          was a constitutional amendment that "Equality of rights under
+          the law should not be abridged by the US or any state on the
+          basis of sex, and Congress could enforce it."
+            - Congressional politicians widely supported it.
+            - Ratification slowed and stalled as "Stop ERA" made the
+              argument that the ERA would reduce rather than expand
+              women's rights.
+            - Schlafly described herself as "just a housewife looking to
+              protect mothers and housemakers, and a woman's right to
+              alimony, child support, and their bias of getting children
+              in divorce. Also "what about a woman who doesn't want to
+              be treated like a man?"
+                - Marginalized supporters of ERA as radicals who hated
+                  men and women.
+                - Evangelicals believed that traditional gender roles
+                  had been divinely determined and that women had a duty
+                  to serve and submit to their husbands.
+                - Conservative women wanted to maintain what privileges
+                  they had.
+    - Culture Wars
+        - The nuclear family was a large symbol
+        - Persecution of gay men
+            - Health professionals treated homosexuality as a mental
+              illness.
+            - Outed gay people were investigated by FBI as subversives,
+              states criminalized homosexuality, couldn't get jobs.
+        - Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village raided by "Vice Police" and
+          the attendants retaliated, causing the "Greenwich Riots." 
+        - APA removed homosexuality from mental illness list
+            - Gay and Lesbian Studies at colleges
+            - Anita Bryant was a spokesperson for the Florida Citrus
+              industry, raised by pious Baptist grandparents.
+                - Wanted to repeal a Dade County gay rights ordinance
+                - Primary concern was about gay teachers in schools
+                    - Equated child molesters with homosexuality
+                    - Said she did not hate homosexuals but needed to
+                      "protect her children"
+                    - She succeeded in the repeal
+        - Bryant believed it required the same dedication as a military
+          war.
+
+Carter passed a minor relief bill for the worst-hit industries
+- Anti-inflationary spending cuts
+- The industrial decay was partly because of a growing service industry
+  (70% of jobs created in the private sector).
+    - Worse-paying and much less reliable than manufacturing jobs
+- Promise of nuclear power to replace oil was dashed when, on Mar 28
+  1979, 3-Mile Island plant melted down and released radioactive gas
+  into the air. Governor ordered an evacuation, and confusion caused
+  panic.
+    - Coincidentally happened at the same time as a movie about a
+      nuclear accident.
+    - Another energy embargo occurred, from the Iranian Shah (1979).
+- Drivers were burning through 150KB/day just trying to get gas.
+Jul 15, Carter gave a speech about Americans' psychological roots to
+overconsumption.
+- "Human identity is no longer defined by what one does but by one owns"
+- Speech fell flat because Americans wanted a solution to the issue
+    - Conservatives dismissed the speech as the "Malaise Speech"
+- Chrysler, the "Sick Man of Detroit," looked like it was going to fall.
+    - Dodge, St. Regis were hugely underselling
+    - Big recalls on car designs
+    - Started to close up auto manufacturing plants
+    - 10th largest firm in the nation, major pillar of American economy
+    - Chrysler CEO goes in front of Congress and blames regulations as
+      the reason for its failure. Business community asserted that the
+      company should be forced to fend for itself. There was a big
+      bailout and "Such help...penalizes success," said the NYT.
+    - Unions lost their once strong position
+    - The Federal Gov lacked a plan for revitalizing the economy.
+The Challenger on the Right: Ronald Reagan
+    - Developing media presence of the right.
+    - Reagan used radio to express his arguments and develop a
+      constituency.
+        - Refuted claims that people living under Communism actually
+          liked the system
+        - Middle East became a focal point of his criticisms
+    - Carter focused his time and energy on "finding peace in the Middle
+      East."
+        - Situation spiraled out of control
+            - Carter allowed the Shah (believed to be an illegitimate
+              leader by Iranian public) to get medical procedure in NY
+              because he had terminal cancer.
+            - Mob of Iranians overran US embassy and took 66 American
+              hostages.
+            - Iranians wanted the US to apologize for allowing the Shah
+              to get medical surgery.
+            - Carter refused and, at first, America rallied around the
+              pres, but the media became consumed by the drama of the
+              Iran Crisis; public believed America was powerless.
+    - Reagan pointed to the Iran Crisis as a marker of Carter's failures
+      in foreign affairs, believing the Dem administration had
+      vacillating weakness, "dillying and dallying for months, trying
+      various diplomatic maneuvers with nothing to show for it."
+        - Reagan was embraced by the religious right
+        - Reagan's acceptance speech had dramatic speeches about the
+          need to lighten the tax burden and a call for silent prayer at
+          the end
+            - Promised he would work to "get the government off the
+              backs of the people." Proved very popular with the
+              electorate, making inroads with white working voters. The
+              old New Deal coalition includes the "Reagan Democrats."
+                - 489-49 in EC but barely cleared 50% of the popular
+                  vote in the lowest voter turnout election in 30yrs.
+            - On first day of election, hostages released after
+              444 days.