At the turn of the 19th century, terrorism in the form of political assassination became a major global phenomenon. In the post-World War II years, other types of terrorism became strategies of choice for nationalist groups in the Middle East, North Africa, and Asia in their struggles for independence.
In predominantly agrarian societies, this terrorism took the form of guerrilla warfare, with China and Indochina as the classic examples. A number of these national political movements, which owed much of their success to violence, adopted a strategy in the war of semantics surrounding the use of violence. These newly created Third World Countries, as well as their brethren from the communist states, advanced the argument that their fight against colonial oppression was not terrorism but rather the hard work of dedicated freedom fighters.
A significant turning point in the history of terrorism was the formation of Hezbollah (Party of God), formed in 1982 in response to the Israeli invasion of Lebanon. This Lebanon-based radical Shi’a group takes its ideological inspiration from the Iranian revolution and the teachings of the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. Its members were not only interested in carrying out the goals of the revolution but were also concerned with the social conditions of their fellow Shiites throughout the Middle East. Hezbollah’s outreach in Lebanon during the 1980’s solidified Lebanese Shiite support and helped spawn smaller terrorist groups, the most recognizable of which was the Islamic Jihad.
36.1 Reagan and "Reaganomics"
In the years before and following Reagan's election, a conservative movement grew which complained that the government spent too much money and collected too many taxes. So, Reagan decided to cut taxes and spending. Reagan's policy of supply-side economics (increasing supply and services to stimulate the economy) soon became known simply as "Reaganomics." Reagan took over the worst economy since the Great Depression, unemployment of 13% and inflation of 17%. So called "Reaganomics" cut the top tax rate by half and lowered all other tax rates by a significant margin. The deals struck with the Democratic controlled congress caused an INCREASE in spending and the DECREASED revenue from the tax cuts and smaller tax shelters could not cover the increases in spending on defense Reagan demanded. The result of the nearly tripling of the budget by the president was only matched by Reagan. The largest increase in spending was defense in a plan to bankrupt the Soviet Union. By 1983, the economy began a steady growth, doubling tax revenue, signaling that his plan was successful.
During his Presidency, Ronald Reagan pursued policies that reflected his optimism in individual freedom, expanded the American economy, and contributed to the end of the Cold War. The "Reagan Revolution", as it came to be known, aimed to reinvigorate American morale, and reduce the people's reliance upon government Reagan made progress in other areas too. He made up for Carter's general indecision by resolving an air traffic controller's strike quickly and cleanly. Although this action did subject the American flying public to a more hazardous aviation situation.
During the years of President Reagan 11,000 air traffic controllers went on strike to fight against so called unfair wages. The people on strike found quite the surprise when they discovered Reagan would not bargain with their request but instead have them fired and never be allowed to be rehired as air traffic controllers once again.
36.1.1 Sandra Day O'Connor Supreme Court nomination
In 1980, Ronald Reagan promised to nominate the first woman to the Supreme Court should he be elected. Then, on July 3, 1981, Associate Justice Potter Stewart, who had been appointed by Dwight Eisenhower in 1958, retired. Reagan fulfilled his promise and nominated Sandra Day O'Connor, a judge on the Arizona Court of Appeals. The Senate confirmed her unanimously, and on September 25, 1981, she became the first woman to serve on the Supreme Court. She served as Associate Justice until January 31, 2006, when her successor, Samuel Alito, was confirmed.
Reagan nominated two other Justices to the Court. In 1986, he successfully nominated Antonin Scalia, and in 1988, he nominated Anthony Kennedy.
36.1.2 Defense
As promised in his campaign, Reagan drastically increased military spending to a level of about $1.6 trillion in five years. This triggered a secondary arms race between the United States and the USSR, and relations between the two fell to levels not seen since the 60s. While Reagan favored drastically increasing spending on the military, the US confidence in full-scale ground war had been broken with the loss of Vietnam in the 70s. Because of this, Reagan favored funding trained insurgents to fight enemy governments instead of committing the army full-scale.
The first major military conflict during Reagan's administration was 1983's Operation Urgent Fury, the invasion of the Caribbean island nation of Grenada. When the island was taken over by Marxist Bernard Coard, Reagan used the safety of 500 U.S. medical students working in the government as a pretext for the invasion. The new government was quickly and cleanly overthrown, and served as a model for future conflicts.
Reagan also, with the help of South Africa, funded insurgent groups fighting Soviet-backed regimes in the African nations of Mozambique and Angola. In Afghanistan, which had been invaded by the Soviet Union to the north, the U.S. government provided arms and
humanitarian aid to mujahideen rebels fighting the Soviet-backed government. In 1985, Mikhail Gorbachev, a Communist party reformer, assumed leadership of Russia. Realizing that his Soviet troops were bogged down in a costly guerrilla war, and wanting to regain face with the international community, he announce in 1987 that the Soviet army would be withdrawing from the country. Withdrawal completed in 1989.
36.1.3 Central America and Iran Contra
Hostage takings in the middle east did not end after the 1979 Iran hostage crisis. In 1983, members of an Iranian militant organization were arrested for truck bombings in Kuwait, and an ally militant organization retaliated for the arrests by taking thirty hostages in Lebanon, six of whom were American. In order to free the hostages, the administration decided that it would secretly sell arms to Iran, one of America's greatest enemies, which was in the middle of a war with Iraq. Few countries were willing to supply Iran with weapons, and the United States sold the arms to Iran in the hopes that Iran would pressure the militants in Lebanon to free the hostages. This sale had the explicit approval of Reagan himself.
At the same time, a coup d'état in Nicaragua brought to power the socialist Sandinista government. The country had formerly been friendly territory for multinational corporations and a wealthy ruling class, and this resulted in a large poor class willing to hand power over to left-wing leaders. American interests in Central America seemed in jeopardy with the Sandinista government in power. When the CIA decided to conduct sabotage missions against the Sandinistas without congressional approval, the Republican senate angrily passed the Boland Amendment, which banned the funding of the anti-Sandinista Contra rebels by certain governmental agencies.
Because of this, a few in the Reagan administration decided to, possibly without the President's knowledge, use the proceeds from the secret weapons sale with Iran to secretly fund the Contra rebels in Nicaragua.
These dealings went on in violation of the Boland amendment, and in conflict with statements made by Reagan that he would not negotiate with terrorists. When a Lebanese magazine revealed the weapons-for-hostages dealings in 1986, scandal ensued. Reagan, with pressure from congressional Democrats and the media, created the Tower commission, led by former senator John Tower. The commission in the end laid most of the blame for the dealings on Reagan himself for not paying more attention and not having more direct control over many governmental agencies. The scandal itself raised many separation of power and presidential ethics questions, but Reagan emerged from its aftermath relatively unscathed. By the end of his second term, Reagan once again was registering positive approval ratings.
36.2 Changing Modern Society
A broad shift in values and attitudes took place in the U.S. between 1970 and 1990 as financial prosperity spread through American society. Across almost all social and economic groups, the trend was away from community and toward individualism. Aspects of the change included resistance to taxation and support for tax cuts; distrust of government and belief in privatization of public functions on the argument that the private sector could carry them out more effectively; decreased support for public assistance to low-income groups and demands that these groups improve their own economic standing; and a general decrease in the type of public citizen involvement that earlier generations had practiced during the middle decades of the 20th century. Politicians of both major parties hastened to follow these trends, with the Republicans in the lead under Reagan and the elder Bush, while the Democrats, seeing their broad base of voters increasingly drawn toward Republican positions, hastening to follow.
36.2.1 Urban Problems
Many people believed that despite large change in the 60’s and 70’s, race relations were taking a major step back during the Reagan administration. Reagan’s “New Right” caused a more apparent dividing of lines between religions and races. In 1988 national report claimed that blacks and whites were once again segregating. It pointed out the fact that more whites were living in nice suburban homes, while blacks and latinos lived in largely impoverished communities. Although there were more white people living in poverty, the percentage of people of color living in poverty was nearly three times that of whites. The living conditions of people of color living in poor urban communities continued to diminish and the neighborhoods became increasingly diminished as more struggled.
One of the major causes of the danger in poor black neighborhoods was Crack. One of the cheapest and most addictive drugs, Crack is a derivative of cocaine, often cut down and laced with dangerous chemicals such as Draino. Crack first made an impact in New York in 1985, striking poor urban neighborhoods. As more and more people became addicted to crack the business of drug dealing became more profitable and, therefore, more competitive. America saw a steep incline of drug crimes and gang related violence. In 1987 the death toll of gang related violence was at 387 in Los Angeles alone. Many of the victims were innocent bystanders. This increase in violence caused swift action. Many states enacted laws that gave mandatory prison sentences for crack possession. These laws made the punishment of holding 1 gram of crack the equivalent to having 100 grams of cocaine, the drug of choice for higher income whites. These laws are still considered some of the most blatantly racist in recent history. These laws, along with other crackdowns on people of color, caused a disproportion of black and latino convictions compared to people who were white. By 2000, young black men were more likely to have been arrested than to have graduated from college. Many see this as an obvious way to hold young black people down and keep them in impoverished, and even homeless, states.
As the Sun Belt as a whole grew, it accompanied a nationwide trend of migration out of cities and into suburbs. This migration was easier to accomplish with more accessible transportation brought by cars. The service sector of the economy grew along with this shift, at the expense of the shrinking manufacturing industry. Cities in the northern and midwestern "Rust Belt" were left with smaller populations and thus smaller tax bases, and large, poverty-stricken minorities; bankruptcy loomed for many northern cities. Additionally, old downtown areas of cities exhibited gentrification, a phenomenon in which affluent, young middle class citizens move into restored urban areas. This displaced the lower class and poor and contributed to one of the biggest problems of the mid-80s— homelessness.
36.2.2 Conservative Movements
Neoconservatism The neoconservative movement grew in the 1960s & 1970s as a reaction to the growing antiwar counter-culture & liberal social programs like the Great Society. Neoconservatism advocated a very hawkish, interventionist foreign policy, and was less committed to cutting governmental spending than mainstream conservatism was. While the Reagan administration was the first to show hints of neoconservatism, the movement would not be in the political mainstream until the rise of think tanks like the American Enterprise Institute and the Project for the New American Century in the mid and late 90s. The culmination of this movement was the election of George W. Bush in 2000.
The Religious Right Evangelical Christians constitute the main constituency of what is often referred to as the “religious right.” Like neo-conservatism, evangelical Christianity (often referring to themselves as “born-again”) grew in the 1960s & 1970s. Organization such as the Moral Majority, founded in 1979 by televangelist Rev. Jerry Farwell, stressed “family values.”
Conservative Coalition Sharing membership and views on a variety of issues, neoconservatives and the religious right began to join forces in the late 1970s to form a conservative political coalition. The political platform of this coalition included moral opposition to drug use, pornography, and abortion, as well as opposition to the expensive liberal social programs of the 1960s and 1970s. The coalition also favored free-enterprise and foreign policy backed by a strong military.
The new coalition proved to be politically powerful, fueling a conservative victory in the national elections of 1980 when Republicans, supported by neoconservatives and the religious right, earned a majority in the U.S. Senate, while Ronald Reagan won in a landslide over Jimmy Carter in the presidential race. Specifically, California’s “Christian Voice” was influential in the 1980 election, swaying the vote in the South & the Midwest. The Rev. Jerry Farwell's Moral Majority registered approximately 3 million voters from 1979 to 1980.
36.2.3 African Americans in Politics
By the 80s, African Americans saw a level of political empowerment and representation unseen during the course of the country's history. Mostly running as Democrats, the 80s saw the rise of many major black political players. Shirley Chishlom, a Brooklyn native, was elected to Congress in 1968, representing New York's 12th district. She was one of the founding members of the powerful Congressional Black Caucus, which would eventually constitute a large chunk of the Democratic caucus itself. Today, the powerful group boasts 43 members, all Democrats. Eventually Chishlom would be the first African American and first woman to make a serious (though unsuccessful) bid for the Presidency, but it would not be until Obama that one would get on the ticket in the general election.
In 1984, civil rights leader Jesse Jackson decided to make a bid for the Democratic nomination for the presidency and exceeded expectations, winning five southern primaries. Although he lost the nomination to Vice President Walter Mondale, Jackson was seen as a more credible candidate for the 1988 election. This proved to be an accurate prediction, with he and eventual nominee Michael Dukakis running neck and neck for the nomination. Briefly, Jackson was considered the frontrunner. Despite his loss, Jackson would remain politically active and would continue to push for progressive reform and civil rights for many minority groups, notably including homosexuals.
Other black politicians were appointed to positions of power as well. In 1967 President Lyndon B. Johnson appointed Thurgood Marshall to the supreme court. Marshall became the first African American to serve on the bench, and he did not retire until 1991. Clarence Thomas became the second black justice when he replaced Marshall that same year. As a general in the army, Colin Powell was appointed to the position of National Security Advisor, and was eventually elevated to the powerful position of Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. As a civilian, Colin Powell was appointed to the position of Secretary of State by George W. Bush in 2001. This was the first time a black person had been appointed Secretary of State and was the highest ranking position that any African American had held before.