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My Mother: Carter should have been re-elected.

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coloradodem2005 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Mar-26-04 12:53 PM
Original message
My Mother: Carter should have been re-elected.
My mother said this and said that Jimmy Carter got a bad rap. I agree with all of this. He has been a monumental example of what a former president should be like. He was unfairly demonized and Reagan was elected because he was glitzy and it was purly style over substance. She was very disappointed about the way Carter got treated. No argument here.

My question to you. How would things be different if Carter was re-elected?
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bobbieinok Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Mar-26-04 12:54 PM
Response to Original message
1. no Reagan democrats - no roll over and play dead for Rgn mandate, etc
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progressiveBadger Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Mar-26-04 12:58 PM
Response to Reply #1
2. What a world it would be...
No Bush administrations.
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coloradodem2005 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Mar-26-04 01:00 PM
Response to Reply #2
3. Should we go back in time to 1980...
..get the hostages free, or prevent the Reagan people from dealing with them and convince the liberal third party candidate who took 7% of the vote not to run?
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fob Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Mar-26-04 01:02 PM
Response to Original message
4. There actually would have been a "Morning in America", instead
raygun brought in "Mourning upon America".

There would have been an actual move toward energy independence, and the bush* oil wars would not have been.

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Terran Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Mar-26-04 01:05 PM
Response to Original message
5. We might have actually seen a foreign policy
based on mutual benefit and the uplift of humanity, and not on crass self-interest.
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SarahB Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Mar-26-04 01:48 PM
Response to Reply #5
14. Here here!
And would be be facing what we face today with regards to terrorism?
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SemperEadem Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Mar-26-04 04:18 PM
Response to Reply #5
36. Carter was very strong on foreign policy
he just didn't like the media and the media took issue with that.
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Abe Linkman Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Mar-26-04 01:08 PM
Response to Original message
6. GOP "stole" the 1980 election from Carter
The GOP struck a secret deal with the enemy (Iran) to keep the U.S. hostages until after the election, in exchange for weapons. There is good reason to believe that G.W."POPPY" Bush personally participated in the negotiations in Paris with representatives of the Ayotollah Khomeni
during October, 1980. (gave new meaning to the phrase "October Surprise")
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tinanator Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Mar-26-04 02:16 PM
Response to Reply #6
20. Hey now, dont misunderestimate GHWB's role there
whats a few million dollars between friends? Nothing the Democrats wanted to make hay over, when they whitewashed that investigation. Of course, Kerry's hands are clean, they held him back. Then ran him for President. Anybody got a bridge to sell?
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bobbieinok Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Mar-26-04 01:20 PM
Response to Original message
7. I remember right after 80 election it became ok to
...be very greedy

...look out only for #1

...publicly speak negatively of minorities

Reagan's election signaled the end of the 60s optimism, the end of(at least publicly) being concerned for those less fortunate than oneself).

Reagan's first campaign speech set the tone -

...speaking at the county fair in Philadelphia MS at the invitation of US Rep Trent Lott

...he talked about returning local concerns and interests to the states - 'state's rights'

AT PHILADELPHIA MS WHERE IN 1964 SWERNER, CHENEY AND GOODMAN (CIVIL RIGHTS WORKERS) WERE ARRESTED, TURNED OVER TO THE KKK, AND MURDERED.

These murders so angered LBJ he forced through the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

Reagan's election in 1980 was the beginning of the right-wing's long march to 'take back America' (to the age of the Robber Barons of the late 19th century).

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Raster Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Mar-26-04 01:23 PM
Response to Reply #7
8. there was NOTHING good or positive about the reagan presidency...
...unless, of course, it was the fact he was at the least elected. One of the worst presidents this country ever had. A liar, a cheat, a thief, a special interests whore. Anyone notice a trend?
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Raster Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Mar-26-04 01:27 PM
Response to Reply #8
9. ...and it pisses me off to no end that there's an active movement...
...to canonize St. Ronnie. What a bunch of shite. All you have to do is honestly examine the historical record to know that ronnie was puppet boy number one. Turns out he really didn't have a fucking clue. Go figure.
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forgethell Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Mar-26-04 01:31 PM
Response to Original message
10. I am not in defense of Reagan, here
but I lived through the Carter years. It was the worst economy since the depression, to coin a phrase. Inflation AND stagnant wages. Even liberals can have the wrong ideas, sometimes, and Jimmy Carter had everyone of them.
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NewJeffCT Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Mar-26-04 01:39 PM
Response to Reply #10
11. Leftovers from Nixon
Nixon had a dry run at what Bush is atttempting now - heavyhanded manipulation of the economy for short-term gain (re-election) that will saddle his predecessor with enormous problems... Sort of like how George HW Bush got stuck with the Reagan Recession.

Not saying Carter was perfect...
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forgethell Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Mar-26-04 01:52 PM
Response to Reply #11
15. Not completely
although Nixon was certainly no prize economically
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tinanator Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Mar-26-04 02:20 PM
Response to Reply #11
23. stuck with Reagan's recession?
omfg. who do you think was running the show then? For that matter, who do you think is running the show now? Not a trick question, is it?
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NewJeffCT Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Mar-26-04 03:21 PM
Response to Reply #23
32. sorry, wasn't clear
What I meant was that Reagan was so irresponsible with the economy in the 80s with running up a massive deficit, cutting taxes on the rich and raising them on the poor & middle class that it was bound to catch up to the next President - George HW Bush. If Reagan hadn't botched up the economy so badly, the recession probably would have been milder and the recovery might not have been jobless. (Bush 41 was creating 100-150,000 jobs a month and it was a jobless recovery... Bush 43 is much worse)

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Name removed Donating Member (0 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Mar-26-04 04:02 PM
Response to Reply #11
35. Deleted message
Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.
 
tinanator Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Mar-26-04 01:47 PM
Response to Reply #10
13. where were you 12-14 years ago?
You into interplanetary travel or something?
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forgethell Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Mar-26-04 01:54 PM
Response to Reply #13
16. I was right here,
and there is simply no comparison. The worst day of Bush 1 was better than the best day of Carter, economically.
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tinanator Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Mar-26-04 02:05 PM
Response to Reply #16
19. not hardly
Edited on Fri Mar-26-04 02:14 PM by tinanator
under Carter we still had a government that worked, the great society was not so deeply buried. The Bush years shouldnt be sold short by anyone.
ftp://ftp.bls.gov/pub/special.requests/lf/aat1.txt

look at the unemployment % trends from 75-80 and from 88-92
and tell me the same thing again.
for that matter look at Reagan/Bush's morning in America.
Hot air.
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forgethell Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Mar-26-04 02:35 PM
Response to Reply #19
26. I was there,
and I know what happened. There are 3 kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics. Jimmy Carter had a lot of good qualities as President, He is probably our greatest ex-president ever, but the man ran a truly lousy economy.
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tinanator Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Mar-26-04 02:39 PM
Response to Reply #26
27. and Bush/Reagan did better?
that had to be one hell of a long nap.
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forgethell Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Mar-26-04 03:23 PM
Response to Reply #27
33. Reagan did, yes
but, to tell you the truth, I am not really all that sure that the President has that much influence over the economy. And yes, it was better under Bush, And Clinton. and even * than it was under Carter.
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coloradodem2005 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Mar-26-04 07:46 PM
Response to Reply #33
39. Actually, I don't see how you can make that argument.
At least not about the two Bushes, or even Reagan. Reagan was doing terribly during his first term. As for job creation, Bush I had positive job creation, but it was extremely low. Very close to zero. Bush II has had negative job creation. I think Carter had better numbers in job creation than Bush I and therefore Bush II. Reagan was the one who gave the country the deficit. On another note, the economy did improve in the mid 80's this is true. Then the stock market crash of '87 occurred. Yes Carter had the energy crisis of '79 but at least job creation was not as terrible under Carter than under either Bush.
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SharonAnn Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Mar-26-04 04:31 PM
Response to Reply #10
37. Have you forgotten Nixon and Price Controls? Ford and WIN?
for Whip Inflation Now? Those problems were already in place when Carter became president. Rampant inflation, job losses, etc.

Carter did the things that were needed to get the nation in decent financial shape again. It always takes several years to straighten up a Republican's mess.

Then the Iranian revolution occurred (blowback from Republican policies of putting the Shah in place and propping him up for many years).

Just remember, it takes much longer to build things than it does to tear them down. Democrats build the national economy and foreign policy. Republicans tear them down.
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forgethell Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Mar-26-04 04:52 PM
Response to Reply #37
38. Oh, no, I haven't forgotten.
I won't debate that Nixon and Ford were bad economically, too. But Carter just made it worse, if possible. At the least, he didn't make it better. that, and the hostage crisis are the reasons he did not get re-elected.
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tinanator Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Mar-26-04 01:46 PM
Response to Original message
12. teddy kennedy and john anderson would have kept to themselves
Of course, when Nader steps up, its HIS fault Reagan got into office.
I know, I know, hobgoblins of small minds...
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DennisReveni Donating Member (203 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Mar-26-04 01:56 PM
Response to Original message
17. What a record.
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=11&ItemID=2463
While the award was primarily for Carter¹s work since leaving the White House, it might be instructive to examine his record while serving as “leader of the free world.”

Jimmy Carter was a president who claimed that human rights was “the soul of our foreign policy” despite making an agreement with Baby Doc Duvalier to not accept the asylum claims of Haitian refugees. His duplicity, however, was not limited to our hemisphere; Carter also earned his Nobel Prize in Southeast Asia.

In Cambodia, Jimmy Carter and his national security aide, Zbigniew Brzezinski made an “untiring effort to find peaceful solutions” by initiating a joint U.S.-Thai operation in 1979 known as Task Force 80 which, for ten years, propped up the notorious Khmer Rouge under the all-purpose banner of anti-Communism. “Small wonder present U.S.-originating stories about the Khmer Rouge end abruptly in 1979,” says journalist Alexander Cockburn. Interestingly, just two years earlier, Carter displayed his “respect for human rights” when he explained how the US owed no debt to Vietnam. He justified this belief because the “destruction was mutual.” It¹s odd that I have no recollections of my city being napalmed or babies born deformed on my block due to Agent Orange. Carter¹s statement, as Noam Chomsky has commented, “is easily worthy of Hitler or Stalin, yet it aroused no comment.”

Moving further southward “to advance democracy and human rights,” we have East Timor. This former Portuguese colony was the target of a relentless and murderous assault by Indonesia since December 7, 1975‹an assault made possible through the sale of U.S. arms to its loyal client-state, the silent complicity of the American press, and then-Ambassador Daniel Patrick Moynihan¹s skill at keeping the United Nations uninvolved. Upon relieving Gerald Ford (but strategically retaining the skills of fellow Nobel peacenik Henry Kissinger), Carter authorized increased military aid to Indonesia in 1977 as the death toll approached 100,000. In short order, over one-third of the East Timorese population (more than 200,000 humans) lost their lives due to war-related starvation, disease, massacres, or atrocities.

Closer to home, Carter also made his mark in Central America. As journalist William Blum details, in 1978, the future Nobel Peace Prize winner attempted to create a “moderate” alternative to the Sandinistas through covert CIA support for “the press and labor unions in Nicaragua.” After the Sandinistas took power, Blum explains, “Carter authorized the CIA to provide financial and other support to opponents.” Also in that region, one of Carter¹s final acts as president was to order $10 million in military aid and advisors to El Salvador‹perhaps “to promote economic and social development.”

A final glimpse of “international co-operation based on international law” during the Carter Administration brings us to Afghanistan, site of a Soviet invasion in December 1979. It was here that Carter and Brzezinski aligned themselves with staunch anti-Communists in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan to exploit Islam as a method to arouse the Afghani populace to action. With the CIA coordinating the effort, some $40 billion in US taxpayer dollars were used to recruit “freedom fighters” like Osama bin Laden. The rest, as they say, is history."

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tinanator Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Mar-26-04 02:24 PM
Response to Reply #17
24. and you can lay a lot of East Timorese bloodshed at Clinton's feet too
What a noble act of journalistic defiance Amy Goodman performed in her interview with that (pick a word, Im stuck)
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David__77 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Mar-26-04 02:02 PM
Response to Original message
18. I don't care for Carter.
He was pro-deregulation and made serious mistakes in many areas such as energy policy. His "get tough on the Soviets" policies only led the way for Reagan even more obscene foreign policy. Supporting the Afghan "freedom fighters" and boycotting the 1980 Olympics were monumental mistakes.

Perhaps had Ford been elected in 1976, the modern right would never have emerged and the ERA would be passed.
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tinanator Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Mar-26-04 02:18 PM
Response to Reply #18
21. no kiddin
that CAFE standard stuff, the energy conservation, the alternative energy programs, crazy talk! Nothing but a Reagan/Bush enabler!
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David__77 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Mar-26-04 02:40 PM
Response to Reply #21
28. Not like Reagan, but still no good.
They were a part of a program of austerity. It went along perfectly with the disastrous Federal Reserve policy of disintegrating the economy for the supposed purpose of reducing inflation. Austerity programs are never progressive.
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tinanator Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Mar-26-04 02:47 PM
Response to Reply #28
29. WHAT?
jesus fucking christ I must not have any command of english whatsoever. program of austerity? LOL is that anything like privatization? Balanced budget? help me out here, Im so lost...
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David__77 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Mar-26-04 02:58 PM
Response to Reply #29
30. "putting the screws to the people"
Austerity: policies designed to allegedly "improve the economic climate" which erode the living standards of the general populace. Wage controls are one example. Inflation-fighting policies tend to be austerity policies. Some aspects of the energy program, in my opinion, were improperly focused on demanding sacrifices by ordinary people.
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tinanator Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Mar-26-04 03:05 PM
Response to Reply #30
31. like what?
you need to elaborate on theose aspects of the energy program.
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David__77 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Mar-26-04 03:44 PM
Response to Reply #31
34. Well, here's something.
I'm not going to seek out the policy specifics, but I know Carter's basic orientation to the issue. He stressed conservation at the expense of more energy production, which I think was a mistake. But, then again, I also support nuclear power if it is well-regulated and preferably state-owned.

Carter said, "The energy crisis is real. It is worldwide. It is a clear and present danger to our nation..." He wanted "a bold conservation program to involve every state, county and city, and every American citizen, in our energy battle.... I ask Congress to give me authority for mandatory conservation and for standby gasoline rationing."

That kind of policy, such as gasoline rationing, is an example of an austerity policy.

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/nj/schneider2001-05-17.htm
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ButterflyBlood Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Mar-26-04 02:19 PM
Response to Original message
22. well even if Reagan won in 1984
Poppy Bush would of likely not been his running mate. Therefore we would never have to deal with him or his mentally challenged son. What a great thought.
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tinanator Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Mar-26-04 02:28 PM
Response to Reply #22
25. that is hellaciously hard to follow, care to elucidate?
I assume you are aware of Bush's VP machinations in 80?
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