How Jimmy Carter was actually one of the most consequential presidents in modern history

[GGoss]

How Jimmy Carter was actually one of the most consequential presidents in modern history - HNN/RawStory

Editor's note: This story originally ran on September 3, 2019. Dates and events noted below reflect that.

When Americans think of Jimmy Carter today, they often hasten to commend his work after he left the White House. He and his wife Rosalynn founded the Carter Center in Atlanta dedicated to promoting democracy in emerging countries, to resolving international disputes peacefully, and to eradicating, especially in Africa, chronic and deadly diseases such as guinea worm. He has set a new standard for former presidents by selflessly dedicating himself to help people around the world improve their lives.

As worthy as Jimmy Carter’s post-presidency has been, it shouldn’t overshadow his time in office, which has been too often overlooked, and which stands in sharp contrast to what we see in the White House today. President Carter was well known for tackling almost every tough issue that came his way, usually regardless of the political cost:

Carter struggled with a chronic energy crisis, but in the end he put the country on a clear path to energy independence.

By deregulating natural gas and appointing Paul Volcker to head the Federal Reserve, he brought inflation under control, where it remains.

Carter appointed more women, African Americans and Hispanics to judgeships and senior positions than all of his 38 predecessors combined.

He created new departments of Energy and Education, but perhaps the most significant structural change he made was the creation of “the modern vice presidency” ...

Link: https://www.rawstory.com/2019/09/how-jimmy-carter-was-actually-one-of-the-most-consequential-presidents-in-modern-history/

[malaise]

1. July 15 1979 - The Crisis of Confidence Speech

[keep_left]

3. If more Americans had really listened to and heeded that address instead of ridiculing it...

...as the "Malaise" speech (a word found nowhere in it, by the way), the country would be a much different and better place. The writer and historian Morris Berman has identified the "Crisis of Confidence" speech, and the reaction to it, as a crucial turning point in postwar American history. Berman has discussed Carter's address in many talks and interviews as well as in his "American Decline" trilogy (The Twilight of American Culture, Dark Ages America, and Why America Failed).

Here's another place that Carter's speech can be found and easily downloaded (in several formats). YouTube makes that difficult without browser add-ons like Video DownloadHelper.

https://web.archive.org/web/20090721024329/http://millercenter.org/scripps/archive/speeches/detail/3402

[malaise]

5. Absolutely right

but big oil controlled the headlines.

By the way my malaise user name came from the title of a book about cricket written by an American socialist who moved to England during the Vietnam War (Anyone But England: Cricket and the National Malaise by Mike Marqusee).

[keep_left]

7. Oh, wow, I didn't even notice your username! That's a bit of irony there...

The reaction to the "Malaise" speech is one of the earliest things I remember from the news (I'm a Gen-Xer). For whatever reason, even then it seemed like common sense to me, and I couldn't (and still don't) understand the attacks on Carter regarding that speech. In recent years, the "Crisis of Confidence" address has been rehabilitated, so to speak, and it is now seen by many historians as a prophetic speech that went unheeded.

[malaise]

9. Over the years here at DU I've posted a lot about Carter

including the Crisis of Confidence Speech - if only the fools had listened - he was light years ahead of them on matters energy.
I will never forgive that asshole Reagan for removing the solar panel from the WH.

Carter is just a good human being - completely unassuming and down to earth.

[orleans]

13. i was just thinking about the white house solar panel and fucking reagan ten minutes ago

then i took my doglet out for a minute, came back in and saw your post.

yep. i imagine there are plenty of us who will never forgive reagan for that (as well as for plenty of other shit he pulled)

[malaise]

14. Never ever

[bahboo]

4. Billy might have been in his ear on that one...

[Kid Berwyn]

6. Integrity. So he had to go.

How a Deep State Plot Sank Jimmy Carter

PETER DALE SCOTT
WhoWhatWhy.Org, 11/02/14

The Safari Club was an alliance between national intelligence agencies that wished to compensate for the CIA’s retrenchment in the wake of President Carter’s election and Senator Church’s post-Watergate reforms. As former Saudi intelligence chief Prince Turki bin Faisal once told Georgetown University alumni,

In 1976, after the Watergate matters took place here, your intelligence community was literally tied up by Congress. It could not do anything. It could not send spies, it could not write reports, and it could not pay money. In order to compensate for that, a group of countries got together in the hope of fighting Communism and established what was called the Safari Club. The Safari Club included France, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, and Iran. (1)

After Carter was elected, the Safari Club allied itself with Richard Helms and Theodore Shackley against the more restrained intelligence policies of Jimmy Carter, according to Joseph Trento. In Trento’s account, the dismissal by William Colby in 1974 of CIA counterintelligence chief James Angleton,

combined with Watergate, is what prompted the Safari Club to start working with [former DCI Richard] Helms [then U.S. Ambassador to Iran] and his most trusted operatives outside of Congressional and even Agency purview. James Angleton said before his death that “Shackley and Helms … began working with outsiders like Adham and Saudi Arabia. The traditional CIA answering to the president was an empty vessel having little more than technical capability.”(2)

Trento adds that “The Safari Club needed a network of banks to finance its intelligence operations. With the official blessing of George Bush as the head of the CIA, Adham transformed . . . the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI), into a worldwide money-laundering machine.”(3) Trento claims also that the Safari Club then was able to work with some of the controversial CIA operators who had been forced out of the CIA by Turner, and that this was coordinated by Theodore Shackley:

Shackley, who still had ambitions to become DCI, believed that without his many sources and operatives like [Edwin] Wilson, the Safari Club—operating with [former DCI Richard] Helms in charge in Tehran—would be ineffective. . . . Unless Shackley took direct action to complete the privatization of intelligence operations soon, the Safari Club would not have a conduit to [CIA] resources. The solution: create a totally private intelligence network using CIA assets until President Carter could be replaced. (4)

Continues…

https://whowhatwhy.org/politics/government-integrity/the-deep-state-plots-the-1980-defeat-of-jimmy-carter/

Saudi Roils and Petroligarchs — and rich US oilmen — HATE democracy.

[malaise]

10. On the ball as ever

[kentuck]

11. Much like Biden, in one respect...

He had to follow a criminal in office and try to bring back respect for the office.

He was a president ahead of his time, in my opinion.

[WestMichRad]

12. Not exactly true!

Carter did follow Tricky Dick, but Gerald Ford was president for about 2 1/2 years in between. Ford, for all his failings, did at least help the country heal somewhat from the Watergate morass.

[Lars39]

15. Original Link...

https://theconversation.com/jimmy-carters-lasting-cold-war-legacy-human-rights-focus-helped-dismantle-the-soviet-union-113994

[nuxvomica]

16. I recall a lunch I had with a Russian in the '90s

It was during a technical training course held in Burlington, MA, with students from all over the globe. I was having lunch with two classmates, an Indian and a Russian, when Carter's name came up and the Russian became livid, blaming Carter for ruining his once-great country with the grain embargo, his support of the Mujaheddin in Afghanistan, the Olympics boycott and all this silly talk about human rights. I left the table with renewed admiration for the former president.