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Striking coal miners, Pittston Coal Strike, Virginia, 1989

Pittston was one of labor's biggest successes of the late 20th century,

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This week's images will cover American labor since World War II, in honor of the protests in Wisconsin.

Striking air traffic controllers, Chicago, 1981

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Float in East Los Angeles Christmas parade, 1985

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A classic. 

Donald Rumsfeld and Saddan Hussein shaking hands, 1983

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Rep. Charlie Wilson (D-TX) in Afghanistan, 1987

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In my recent America class, I'm having the students read selections from Douglas Little's American Orientalism: The United States and the Middle East since 1945. So this week's images will be of Americans in the Middle East. These are actually pretty hard images to find, at least for historical images. So we'll see how long I can keep this up.

Aftermath of bombing of U.S. Marine Barracks, Beirut, Lebanon, 1983

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My Recent US History course just read and discussed Elizabeth Kolbert's Field Notes from a Catastrophe: Man, Nature, and Climate Change. It's a very good book, though as depressing as you might imagine. In honor of that, this week I will be highlighting environmental disasters in US history.

Oiled otters after Exxon Valdez oil spill, Alaska, 1989

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Cover of Time Magazine, April 9, 1984.

This cover is so classic 80s--fear of sex representing the rise of both AIDS and conservatism. And then Al Haig on the corner.

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Moe Bandy, The Champ, 1980

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Exxon Valdez oil spill, Alaska, 1989

From Colony to Superpower, Part XIX

This is the nineteenth installment in the 20 part series Rob Farley and I have commenced to review George Herring's From Colony to Superpower: U.S. Foreign Relations since 1776. See the Herring Review tag below for previous entries.

This week we will discuss Herring's chapter on the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations. This is one of the book's better chapters. I like Herring's analysis of both presidents. He puts Reagan in the proper context without mythologizing him. In fact, Reagan comes across looking pretty bad. As Grandpa Caligula should. Reagan certainly was an important person. He represented what Americans of the 1980s wanted to see in themselves and in doing so, he restored national pride after Vietnam and the Iran hostage situation. The Reagan administration did incredible damage to this country and the world--in foreign policy, in the War on Drugs, in attacking welfare, in cutting domestic programs, in destroying labor unions, and in ignoring the AIDS epidemic because it was considered a gay disease. But ultimately, does Reagan deserve the blame or does the American people? It's not as if these policies were unpopular. At least until Iran-Contra, Reagan had a pretty consistently high approval rating. Why did Americans have so much hate in the 1980s toward people of the world and toward minorities, gays, and the poor in this country? I'm not prepared to offer a useful answer, but it's a sad period of American history.

However, the idea that Reagan won the Cold War has no basis in reality. In fact, most of Reagan's policies were terrible. He unnecessarily ratcheted up Cold War tensions in the early 80s, accusing the Soviets of knowing the Korean Air plane they shot down in 1983 was a civilian plane (not true), pushing Star Wars, and using dangerous rhetoric. His obsession with Central America led to disastrous results for the people of Guatemala, El Salvador, and Nicaragua. None of these places threatened the United States, but Reagan promoted horrible policies in each of these places. That he did so illegally, at least in the case of Nicaragua and El Salvador, is even more reprehensible. Where I can let earlier presidents off the hook a bit for their Latin American policies because both parties basically treated these places the same, by the 1980s, there was clear opposition to hardcore Cold War policies in the area. Congress refused to fund aid to the Contras. And Reagan's minions went around Congress. This was a crime and Reagan should have been impeached. The invasion of Grenada was even more absurd. The idea that Grenada, an island approximately the size of my office, could become the next Cuba was completely ludicrous. Nonetheless, invading the island was really popular with Americans looking for an unequivocal victory.

Reagan's policy toward the Middle East was even worse. Sending U.S. troops into Lebanon without a clear mission was a bad idea, pulling them out after the bombing of the Marine barracks made us look as weak as we had in 1973. Demonizing Iran and then dealing with them to fund the Contras was arguably the most hypocritical move in the long sordid history of American foreign policy. Reagan did a poor job of dealing with the rising tide of Middle Eastern terrorism; bombing Quaddafi's Libya was not an effective response. Virtually nothing the Reagan administration tried here went right.

One thing I thought interesting was that in the 1980s it was still possible to have a foreign policy toward Israel that was different than yes. Reagan was pro-Israel, but Begin caused him endless headaches. I guess latent anti-Semitism, especially in the State Department, was what led to a lot of hostility in the U.S. toward Israel, but at least in the 80s you could formulate an opinion about American relations with them. Today, everyone has to fall over themselves vocalizing fealty to Israel; even pointing this out, as Walt and Mearsheimer did, is cause to be accused of anti-Semitism (or self-hatred if the person involved is Jewish). I don't see how this reflexive relationship to one nation is good for the country.

What positive characteristics we can ascribe to Reagan come from the fact that he wasn't as crazy as he sounded when dealing with the Soviet Union. Although I'd like Herring to go into a bit more detail on what caused the Soviet Union to collapse, it's clear from his narrative that Gorbachev deserved most of the credit for leadership. It was his enterprise that thawed the Cold War and liberalized eastern Europe. Reagan just happened to be there. But to the chagrin of the hard-liners in his foreign policy team like the loathsome Richard Perle, Reagan softened considerably toward the Soviets once he realized what Gorbachev was doing. He stayed out of the way for the most part, and agreed to significant deals with Gorbachev over arms control during their frequent summits. Given his harsh anti-communistic rhetoric of his first term, not only was this change in heart unexpected, but also the best thing he could have done.

As for Bush, it seems that China and Iraq are the most important areas to discuss. Yes, he was president for the fall of the Berlin Wall and the breakup of the Soviet Union, but little he did mattered to this process. He wasn't particularly prepared to deal with this sudden change, but I'm not sure that most presidents would have done better. I do think Bush faced a pretty tough situation after Tiananmen Square. It was horrible, but what was Bush supposed to do? China was too powerful to act strongly against in any meaningful way. We could have completely ended all relations with them, but I remain unconvinced that this would have accomplished much for the Chinese people. As for Iraq, it's hard to argue that we should have let Saddam Hussein take over Kuwait. You really can't sanction nations swallowing their neighbors. The question of whether to leave Saddam in place is pretty tough. Obviously, Bush Jr. taking Saddam out didn't exactly work well. On the other hand, the HW Bush foreign policy team was far more competent than W's, there were active uprisings against Saddam that we might have piggybacked upon, and, for what it's worth, the times were different and the same result might not have happened. On the other hand, this is all speculation. Regardless, promoting internal rebellions and then letting Saddam brutally crush them was pretty terrible and it fits into a long history of Americans promoting democracy and freedom through their rhetoric and then hanging the freedom fighters out to dry when they take it seriously.

Sometimes the long term effects of foreign policy decisions can't be known for years. In 1989, Congress rejected Bush's first choice for Secretary of Defense, John Tower. His second choice: Dick Cheney. Tower might have sucked and maybe Cheney would have been just as powerful in the W administration. But maybe without his term as Secretary of Defense he would have remained a more peripheral player in the latter administration. Certainly the world would be a much better place now had that happened.

Historical Image of the Day

Fake ad run in Hustler magazine supposedly interviewing Jerry Falwell about sex with his mother in an outhouse while drinking Campari. This led to the Hustler Magazine v. Falwell case in front of the Supreme Court in 1988 where the Court struck down an earlier Virginia court ruling granting Falwell $150,000 in damages for "intentional infliction of emotional distress."

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Phyllis Schlafly led rally against Equal Rights Amendment, 1982

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Jesse Jackson speaking at the 1984 Democratic National Convention in San Francisco.

Although I have criticized Jackson at times, to me the most poignant moment of last night was seeing him crying after Obama's victory. Although I think he's an opportunist in many ways and has been resistant to a new generation of black leadership, Jackson was a pioneer and his 1984 campaign should be remembered as such.

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Senators Bill Bradley and Al D'Amato, as well as Jackie Mason, marching at the Salute to Israel Parade, New York City. My sense is that this is the mid 1980s, but I am not sure.

Lyrad's Random 10

The theme to the classic Sergio Leone western, originally written by the great Ennio Morricone, has never been so adequately covered...'80s style. Material was the one really great project of bassist/producer Bill Laswell. His fusion of jazz, rock, and hip-hop was groundbreaking and, sometimes, very strange. This cover of the great western theme was from the sessions for Material's "Memory Serves" from 1981. Probably their best lineup, it included Laswell on bass with co-founder Michael Beinhorn on keys and electronics; Sonny Sharrock, Fred Frith, and Henry Kaiser on guitars; Billy Bang on violin, Henry Threadgill on sax, Daniel Ponce on percussion, and Anton Fier on drums. That's some kind of lineup, and the album itself is fantastic and I wish the song here had actually been included on the album, although I can see how it doesn't really fit on an album. The song is played pretty straight in the melodies, played on the guitars, but it's full of every break beat from '81 you could imagine and sounds plain weird. It's a great novelty next to the original and a fun cover from a legendary band, but I'll stick with Morricone's original.

1. Material--For a Few Dollars More
2. Clifford Hayes' Louisville Stompers--Frog Hop
3. Memphis Minnie--Fish Man Blues
4. Elmer Barton--Bummer's Reel
5. Frank Sinatra--You're Sensational
6. Jane's Addiction--Been Caught Stealing
7. Girls under Glass--Desire Lasts Forever
8. The Meat Purveyors--The Bottle Let Me Down
9. Tool--Undertow
10. North Carolina Ramblers--Pearl Bryant

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Jerry Falwell and Ronald Reagan.

There should be a special "When Bastards Meet" edition for pictures like this.

Book Review: Philip Jenkins, Decade of Nightmares: The End of the Sixties and the Making of Eighties America

U.S. historians intentionally stay a little behind the times. Usually, U.S. historians don't begin working on a period until about 25 years later. This is opposed to Latin Americanists, who start about 25 seconds later. This means that our first really good histories of the 1970s and early 1980s are just starting to come out. The most interesting, challenging, and provocative of these works I've read so far is Philip Jenkins' Decade of Nightmares: The End of the Sixties and the Making of Eighties America, published by Oxford in 2006.

Jenkins argues that the mid to late 1970s truly were an awful time in American history. Certainly people at the time believed that. The making of Reagan's America came on the heels of that sense of disaster. Disgust over Watergate and political corruption was high. The economy was bad. It seemed that serial killers roamed every neighborhood. Sex was everywhere, including child pornography. The cities had collapsed. The nation's international prestige was at an all-time low. Domestic abuse, drunk driving, and PCP use raged like an epidemic.

As the conservative myth goes, Ronald Reagan came riding through this muck and saving America. He made America whole again. And all of that crap. The 80s saw the rejection of drugs, sex, abuse, weak foreign policy, etc. Well, maybe. That seems simplistic, but Jenkins really believes that the late 70s were a bad time. He seems to buy into more than one conservative talking point about the period. It's a good book. I do recommend it for anyone interested in the period. But beware that you may read some really annoying sentences and have to take some of the conclusions with a grain of salt.

One thing Jenkins does particularly well is move the narrative out of traditional political and social history and centers his story on cultural phenomena like the rise of the serial killer in the American media, the nation beginning to take child abuse seriously, and the rise of the war on drugs. He rightly points out that none of these things were new to the late 1970s. Serial killers had been around for a long time. Various drugs were popular at different times. But the impending sense that America was going down the toilet helped focus media and public attention on these problems.

Another strength of Jenkins' work is downplaying the central role of Ronald Reagan in the period's narrative. While I think he doesn't take a critical enough stance toward Reagan, he rightly points out that most of the cultural phenomena we think of as resulting from Reagan, including support of anti-revolutionary movements in Central America, the drug war, and economic policy began during the Carter administration.

Jenkins' book is challenging and I have some trouble accepting some thrusts in his argument. I can't help but believing he thinks that liberals are at fault for many of the problems of the 70s. He claims that the "extreme liberalism of the 1970s naturally generated the conservative reaction of the following decade" (56). He connects liberalism with the worst killers of the decade, with child pornographers, and with cultish religious movements. I just can't agree with this. I don't think the rise of conservatism was just a reaction against an extreme liberalism of this type. It's not that I don't think conservatives were horrified by these things. I'm sure they did connect them to the evils of liberalism. But I don't think these things were liberal in any way. I don't think liberalism really helped child pornography except perhaps to not be inclined to push for punitive laws. He also claims that liberals in the mid-70s saw the government as evil. Well, a) we had just fought a war that killed 58,000 Americans for no good reason, b) this was just after Watergate, where Richard Nixon brought disgrace to the office, and c) no they didn't. Jenkins makes an incredible overstatement. Liberals distrusted government, and for good reasons. They thought the government had been acting evil. Hell, maybe some of them did believe the government was evil. You can't paint 1/2 the country with an unfounded blanket charge like this without challenge.

He also comes across as rather conservative on foreign policy issues. He dismisses critics of the U.S. selling arms to Saddam Hussein in the 1980s, saying that Iran was legitimately the greater threat, neglecting the argument that the U.S. should not have armed anyone during that stupid, pointless conflict. What really bugged me though was his brutal attack of Cyrus Vance, Carter's Secretary of State. Evaluating Vance's work during the Iran crisis, Jenkins writes, "Cyrus Vance consistently behaved the way a stereotypical ultra-liberal politician might have done in a simplistic morality tale drafted by the far-right: at every stage favoring negotiation in the face of extortion, and resisting attempts to grant the shah asylum in the United States" (158).

I think this is unfair. There are lots of options in diplomacy outside of military attack and it makes a lot of sense to use them up before you start killing people. Vance rightly opposed the attack--how many hostages would have died had the attack reached Tehran? When the attack was launched, Vance resigned. He said the the attack would destroy U.S. prestige in the Middle East and around the word. He was right, in no small part because the attack helicopters wrecked in the Iranian desert.

In any case, it's a good narrative with a ton of interesting information (did you know that George W. Bush won 25 of top 26 states in white fertility?) and Jenkins does a great job of periodization--the 70s don't work that well as a coherent decade for historical study--essentially splitting it between the 60s and 80s makes a lot of sense. Jenkins certainly gets at the mindset of conservatives in the late 70s and early 80s, showing both why they were so angry and why they were successful at drawing people to their causes. His examination of cultural phenomena is first rate.

Like most really challenging books about the recent past, I can't agree with everything Jenkins says. Maybe I am too invested in my own narrative of the period. But I certainly recommend this book to anyone looking to understand the rise of conservatism in the United States.

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C. Everett Koop speech defending animal testing, 1980s

Could Al Haig Be Next?

I don't know what to do. All of my favorite icons from the 80s are dying. Not long ago, we lost Tammy Faye. Then, Michael Deaver passes away. No one did more to shape the Reagan image, not that ol' Ron probably remembered who the man was by 1985. Then today I hear about the passage of Leona Helmsley. The grand dame of evil was one of the true legends of the worst decade in the history of humanity. I'm sure there are some celebratory parties going on right now hosted by the many people who worked for her.

It's a good thing we have such an evil administration right now. If a Democrat was in the White House, we would be entering a dangerous and perhaps unprecedented period of unevilness. What would we do?

Also, the answer to the question in the post title is that I hope so.