Ammonia emissions from land-spreading of slurry

Ammonia emissions from land-spreading of slurry

Paper details:

Provide a review of ammonia emission abatement techniques for land spreading of slurry based on peer reviewed literature. Including a focus on both effect of spreading approach (i.e. splash plate, trailing shoe, injection, etc.) and amendments (i.e. acidification, additives, etc.) – please also include any other potential abatement identified in the literature. Consider any potential negative aspects of emission reduction approaches (i.e. pollution swapping, compaction, etc.). Identify and quantify potential reduction to emissions alongside any identified negative effects. Consider the role of soil nitrogen cycling in ammonia emissions from land application of slurry.

Subject: Human Resource Management

Topic: Reading Response

Paper details:

Drawing from the lectures, readings, and film clips, what social/political and historical conditions between the 1950s and 1980s led to the rise of Hip Hop Culture in the United States? In your answer, you might consider phenomena like: segregation, the Civil Rights Movement, Black Militancy, de-industrialization of cities(!), “white flight,” or anything else you think might be connected. Lecture 10 In the era of World War II and its aftermath, I find the aftermath to be much more interesting (not to mention there are about a million books about World War II), because domestically, people in the United States find themselves in an interesting position– on many fronts. But let’s start by looking at the 1950s, when people are adjusting to life without war, and without an economic depression, two phenomena that characterized the last twenty years in the United States. How do people adjust? For most of us, when we think of the 1950s, some particular images come to mind.

It might be “Beaver”, from the famous TV show, Leave it to Beaver, an early sitcom that traced the daily life of the Cleavers, where the two sons of June and Ward would learn life lessons every week. (if you are too young to get the reference, just go with it for now. Look, here’s a picture!): Leave it to Beaver Family– adorably “normal” You can find a lot of their episodes on YouTube– here is an excerpt of what the media thought the average American family looked like (or was supposed to look like–[two minutes]). Others think about early rock stars like Buddy Holly (this is a link!).

For me (and perhaps for you), one of the things that struck me as odd about the above clips (and the 1950s!) was just how “normal” everyone seems. Believe it or not, the performance by Buddy Holly in the above clip might have been seen as scandalous in those days– “OMG! Rock and roll music? Those are just rebellious kids! Honey, HIDE THE CHILDREN AND THE PETS!” Ok, maybe it wasn’t that dramatic, but it was close! The point is, the 1950s are characterized by tropes about America that survive to this day, even if they aren’t necessarily true: the father works all day, and comes home to a stay-at-home wife who has been cleaning the house, doing the shopping, and taking care of the kids all day– and somehow she has the strength to cook dinner for her husband when he gets home!

Yes, as rare (and ridiculous?) as the above situation may be in our modern era, it is still the type of “normal” from which we are all trying to break out. In other words, while fewer people these days only have one working parent (congratulations if you have this!), it wouldn’t be going too far to say that maybe some people aspire to this type of “normal”– or maybe switch it around to have the father stay at home! The 1950s were many things (which we’ll talk about), but everything that people did back then was in an effort to try to be normal– a “normal” American who does “normal” things with “normal” kids and a “normal” job. Normal. Yeah. Yikes. In fact, people began to think about just how were they supposed to live after World War II. What were their lives supposed to look like, as Americans?

Also, who would be included in this identity? One of the best examples of the efforts of Americans (primarily white Americans) struggling with normalcy is the creation of the suburbs, particularly places like Levittown. Check out this clip, and notice exactly who you see (or more tellingly, who do you NOT see) (about 15 minutes) Levittown, like other neighborhoods emerging in the Post-WWII era, for all of their bright and beautiful landscape did not allow African Americans to purchase homes there. It was a whites only community, although they never overtly advertised it as such. Housing covenants, as they were called, ensured that people of color would not be able to purchase a home in these de facto “exclusive” neighborhoods (that were becoming more numerous in the 1950s!).

Indeed, being “normal” in American society meant that you were middle class, white, married, and had a small “nuclear” family. People who lived outside of these “norms” (whether or not by choice) were seen as outliers, and not symbolic of normality in the United States. Just So You Know: We will be getting into this next week, but when we talk about the notion of being “normal” in the 1950s, it is important to recognize exactly WHO in the 1950s had the power to DEFINE what “normal” meant– which is why so much of television, radio, politics, real estate, and popular culture was overwhelmingly white. What historians have found is that the obsession in the 1950s with being “normal” had a lot to do with what had just happened: the Second World War, and the dropping of the atomic bombs of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The normalcy that most people in the 1950s was trying to achieve was a reaction to the fact that after the Second World War, we had officially entered the “atomic age.” As the video above makes clear where life could end and the nation could change with the explosion of one bomb. But where was that bomb going to come from?

Roots of the Cold War The United States came out of World War II as the world’s greatest power. The U.S. had the most powerful military in the world, and at home, the United States accounted for half of the world’s manufacturing capacity. Not only that, but at the time the United States was the only country that had the atomic bomb. Unlike the aftermath of World War I, at the end of the Second World War the president and many of his advisers were determined not to fall back into isolationism. They believed that the United States could lead the rest of the world to a future of democracy, international cooperation, and higher living standards. New institutions like the United Nations (1945), and the World Bank (1944) signaled a new moment in world history, offering new means through which trade, politics, diplomacy, and even tensions between countries could be addressed.

It is in this context that the United States emerged as the most powerful nation in the world. The only power that came close to the United States in sheer strength was the Soviet Union (USSR), whose armies remained in eastern Europe after the defeat of Hitler. Although the USSR losses on the ground during World War II were heavy, the Soviets remained determined to establish a sphere of influence in eastern Europe– if for no other reason than eastern Europe being the route through which Germany had invaded the USSR twice in the previous thirty years. Containment Although FDR seemed to have believed that the United States could maintain friendly relations with the Soviet Union after World War II, looking back it seems unlikely that the two most powerful state actors to emerge from the war would come into conflict. Yes, they fought as allies during the Second World War, but in the aftermath of the conflict, it was obvious that the only thing they had in common was that they had a common foe: Germany (the Axis powers). Whatever peace they may have had unraveled quickly after the war. Soviets installed pro-communist governments throughout eastern Europe– Poland, Romania, and Bulgaria at first– and they claimed doing so was no different than what the United States had been doing throughout Latin America (installing governments amenable to the needs of the United States).

Nonetheless, many Americans felt that the Soviets were violating the promise of free elections that had been agreed upon at the Yalta conference in 1945. Stalin, Churchill, and FDR at the Yalta Conference From left to right: Winston Churchill, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and Josef Stalin at the Yalta Conference. After the war, these leaders met here to discuss how the various nation-states of Europe would be organized in the Post-WWII era. Early in 1946, an American diplomat named George Keenan sent a long telegram from Moscow (in fact, it is called “the Long Telegram) explaining to the Truman administration that the Soviets were not a normal government. He went on to explain that because the Soviet Union followed a communist ideology, they would be constantly looking to expand their power and sphere of influence throughout the world. He also stated that getting the Soviets out of eastern Europe would be impossible, and that the best option for the United States would be to “contain” the threat of communism spreading throughout the world. This was the beginning of a policy that would inform United States foreign policy throughout the twentieth century, called “containment.” (you can look up and read the “Long Telegram” if you like.

It was about 12 pages. You can think of telegrams like text messages: usually people using them tried to be brief because they were expensive. So think of a four page text message, and that will give you an idea of why this is called the “Long Telegram.” The “Long Telegram” and “containment” were theories that underlay the “Truman Doctrine,” which was put forth by President Truman’s administration (of course!). Harry Truman was FDR’s vice president near the end of the Second World War, and became the president after FDR’s death. He wasn’t really a very popular politician, which is to say he wasn’t terribly well known. He was a senator from Missouri who had risen up through the ranks through his connections with the Kansas City political machine. He assumed the presidency after FDR’s death, which was in April, 1945. Here is a quick timeline to help you keep things straight: Feb, 1945: Yalta Conference (FDR) April, 1945: FDR passes away August, 1945: first atomic bomb drops, on Hiroshima, Japan (Truman made this decision) Feb, 1946:

“The Long Telegram” from Keenan regarding the Soviet Union The Truman Doctrine might be best defined as how president Truman put the policy of containment into effect. It worked like this: in order to “contain” the spread of communism throughout the world, the United States (and its allies) must support governments around the world that were struggling, either economically or politically. It also meant withdrawing support from countries that might be leaning towards communism or socialism– whether or not the USSR was actually involved was irrelevant. Thus, the Truman Doctrine essentially worked to support governments in flux, draw them towards becoming a capitalist democracy, and shun states that either leaned towards communism or accepted help from the USSR. The Truman administration couched these actions in terms of preserving freedom, while at the same time, “scaring the hell” out of the American people, as senate leader Arthur Vandenberg said to Truman. “Scare the hell” out of the American people?

It sounds dramatic at first, but keep in mind that in the United States, after surviving a conflict where American soldiers/citizens die, the United States becomes more “isolationist,” which is to say that they are uninterested in intervening in the concerns of other countries. because the Truman Doctrine was all about funneling money into countries that would otherwise be of no concern to the United States, Truman would have to “scare the hell” out of the American people, making them believe that for our own well-being and safety, we had to invest in countries like Greece and Turkey, two countries fairly removed from the American consciousness. This was the beginning of the cold war. A “cold war” is best described as the opposite of a “hot war.” A “hot war” is fought with soldiers, missile, planes, and tanks. A “cold war,” on the other hand, is a conflict that has none of these features.

Instead, a “cold war” is fought through political policy, and through proxy wars (a good example of a “proxy war.” Nicaragua, Korea, Vietnam are examples of this). Obviously, this is not to say that there wasn’t tension, even outside of “proxy war” zones. In the United States, the cold war defined American life throughout the 1950s, 60s, 70s, and 80s. But at the end of the day, it is important to keep in mind that for all of the tension and fear in the United States (and the Soviet Union!), the cold war was a war of ideologies. As the cold war escalated, so did the anti-communist rhetoric at home, in the United States. Not long before, the Soviet Union were allies in the fight against Germany and Japan, but now the two countries were clearly enemies. throughout much of the developing world– Asia, Africa, Latin America– the United States and the Soviet Union funneled aid into countries in hopes of gaining geographical and strategic allies, in hopes of eradicating the power of the other.

But as mentioned above, the ability of the United States to support these hopeful allies in the fight against communism, people living in the United States had to support it wholeheartedly, and without reservation. To many politicians and the Truman administration, this meant (bear with me for repeating this yet again) “scaring the hell out of people.” Whether or not it was intended, the American people were scared. In truth, the dropping of the atomic bomb, for all of the horrors that it caused in Japan, initially gave people living in the United States a huge boost in confidence. However, as the Soviet Union began testing their own atomic weapons, the cold war began to take on a more serious tone with both the citizenry, and politicians. Atomic testing began in both the United States and the USSR, and did not stop for decades. Check out this artist’s (accurate) rendition of the tests, through 1998 (it gets a little crazy near the end!) Anyway, that clip gives us all a pretty good idea how serious governments in the US and the USSR were about the cold war!

So what was happening at home, in the United States? Our next lecture will tell you all about it! HUAC and McCarthyism In 1947, the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) launched a series of hearings about communist influence in Hollywood. Calling well-known screenwriters, directors, and actors to appear before the committee ensured a wave of national publicity of which the members of the committee would take full advantage.

Walt Disney, Gary Cooper (google him!) and Ronald Reagan all testified that the movie industry was full of communists. But among the people who were called from Hollywood to testify, there were ten “unfriendly witnesses” who refused to testify about their political beliefs, and refused to “name names” (identify potential communists) on the grounds that it violated their first amendment guarantees of freedom of expression and political association. The committee charged the Hollywood Ten, as they were called, and each served jail terms of 6 months to a year. Hollywood studios blacklisted them (denied them employment) along with over 200 others who were accused of communist sympathies, or even if they refused to name names. One of the members of the committee was senator Joseph McCarthy, from Wisconsin. He was little known when he was elected in 1946, and he won election to the senate based on a fictional war record (he said he flew combat missions in the Pacific, which was later found to be fabricated). In a speech given in West Virginia, he announced to the crowd that he had a list of 205 communists working for the state department. Can you imagine??

Communists– not only in the United States, but working within high levels of government?! OMG! The charge was preposterous, the number he gave constantly changed, and in McCarthy never identified one person guilty of genuine disloyalty. But for McCarthy, it was a genius move– he used his gift for self-promotion to hold hearings and make wild charges against numerous individuals as well as the Defense Department, the Voice of America (the federal government’s radio station that played news and radio shows abroad), and other government agencies. And although at first other republicans supported his actions as a political weapon against the Truman administration, once Eisenhower was elected, support faded. But McCarthy did not stop. His charges became more ridiculous, as did his brow-beating of witnesses appearing before his sub-committee, and it was not long before he was embarrassed publicly by the chief lawyer for the Army, Joseph Welch. After attempts at assassinating the character of a young lawyer at Welch’s firm, Welch finally cried out at the hearing, “You have done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last??”

And although McCarthy was condemned by congress (even his fellow Republicans!), he fell into obscurity as a political figure, and died three years later. But the fear that McCarthyism promulgated would continue to grow. In fact, in the wake of the McCarthy hearings and in the midst of the political policy of containment and the Truman Doctrine (which lasted long after Truman left office), the fear of communism was everywhere. Part of the reason for this is because the government, through the CIA and other agencies, created propaganda that pushed this fear even further. In fact, the fear was so pervasive, that even saying something out loud was a frightening prospect. More than that, people began to suspect one another– everyone was terrified, thinking that they would either be accused of communism, or that their friends and neighbors would implicate them. After the HUAC accused and dismissed the Hollywood Ten, even Hollywood was afraid to criticize the government, even though, as you can see above, the paranoia surrounding the specter of communism in the United States was exaggerated and overblown.

The Hollywood Ten One sector of the entertainment industry went relatively untouched, however. Because their subject matter was often otherworldly or firmly in the realm of fantasy, during the 1950s and 1960s some of the best television that could safely critique the federal government witch hunts for supposed communists were television shows that dealt in Science Fiction. one o the most famous shows during this period– a highly political one– was the Twilight Zone. Here is an episode of the Twilight Zone that speaks directly to the paranoia the characterized the United States in the wake of McCarthyism and during the cold war (link here). The above shortened episode– sorry it was so short, you can find it on Netflix or probably somewhere on the internet!– speaks to exactly how fearful the public was.

The accusations of communism carried much weight, because being a communist– or even being thought of as a communist– was disruptive. It made you different. It meant that you were not “normal.” The world had changed after the war, and even though it was a “good war,” so much had changed– technology (television arrives), housing (the suburbs; places like Levittown), and the way that politics worked changed dramatically (due to the supposed communist “threat” and the Truman Doctrine). Folks in America were struggling to be normal, but they didn’t really know what “normal” was anymore. Immediately before World War II, the country (and the world) was steeped in the Great Depression. Before that was the “Roaring Twenties”, but so much had changed that at the very most, the 1920s seemed “quaint”– a bygone era that could never be returned to. So what did it mean to be normal? Heck, what did it mean to be American?

The Cold War gave the people of the United States a common enemy (Communism, the Soviet Union) not only to unite against, but also to compare themselves to, so they might work towards redefining just what it meant to be American. At the same time, people who had the money, the opportunity, and the right complexion further recreated normalcy for a Post-WWII, Atomic Age through housing covenants, racial segregation, and the continued subjugation of women (we’ll read more about that next week). The “normalcy” that the nation-state and the privileged classes created, however, destroyed lives, shaped politics for the next 60 years (you’ll see!), but most importantly the children who grew up in this generation looked around during the 1950s, and finally said out loud, “Maybe I don’t want to be normal. Maybe I don’t want people telling me what it means to be an American.”

“Maybe I don’t want to live in an all-white neighborhood that excludes African Americans.” “Maybe I don’t want to continue to be treated like a second class citizen because of the color of my skin or my gender.” The children and teenagers who said these things would be the people who led the massive social and political change that occurred in the 1960s, which is what we will talk about in more detail next week. (Post Script: There is still a strong contingent of people in politics who still want to remain in the 1950s, or, to put it a different way, they want to remain “normal”, the way that it was defined back then.

These folks aren’t necessarily adherents to any political party, but when they mobilize around issues, they are the ones that usually recall with satisfaction the 1950s [even if they weren’t alive in the 50s!], and are reluctant to admit the need for social change, effectively arguing that the world was much more “normal” back then. In fact, you might even be able to see remnants of this idea of “normalcy” even today, as politicians and activists fight against marriage equality, transgender rights, against the Voting Rights Act, and the very history that we are learning today (Links to an external site.)! (click on the link! I am happy to talk about it if you like!) Levture13 After talking about the 1960s– in particular the Black Power Movement, feminism, and all of the other challenges to the idea of “normal” that permeated throughout the 1950s, it is hard to imagine what lay in store for the 1970s. The 1960s had so many actions, had so much protest, and brought about so much change, how could the 1970s possibly compete? About 20 years ago, in the 1990s, people were referring to the 1970s as a “lost decade.”

When you think of the 1970s, you may think of disco, bellbottom jeans/pants, clubs likeStudio 54 (Links to an external site.) or just…excess. But unlike the 1920s, excess in the 1970s was not the result of a short burst of economic growth in the post-war moment, but rather as a result of the efforts of activists in the 1960s becoming disenchanted with politics and political participation. Couple that with the emergence of a serious political reaction to the leftward swing in the 1960s, and what do you come up with? Disco. disco! Yes…sigh…Disco. Well, maybe not just disco (hopefully). There was also Richard Nixon, The Silent Majority, Watergate, and Jimmy Carter, Funk, nuclear power, feathered haircuts, and the famous TV show, Happy Days!* And these are just some of the major headlines– there was so much more! But when we think about the 1970s, what people rarely discuss is perhaps an even more important process during this period (the 1970s): the de-industrialization of urban areas in the United States. What does de-industrialization mean? It means that urban areas in the 1970s, which were once the centers of industry, were shrinking. They were moving overseas, or to smaller towns where they might get tax breaks, or benefit from relaxed regulations regarding noise pollution and waste.

Also, in these smaller towns (either in the U.S. or overseas, there was often a more pliant, less organized workforce, which companies believed lowered operation costs. Also emblematic of de-industrialization was “white flight”: white folks began moving out of the cities and into the suburbs. They moved right into planned communities just outside of the city, which in the 1950s and 1960s were regulated by racially restrictive housing covenants (remember the clip about Levittown?). What was left was a city without an industrial backbone, without revenue or jobs, and with a shrinking population of middle class whites. New York was a prime example of this. Today, examples of de-industrialization would be the once great cities of St. Louis or Detroit. So as the industries and jobs in a given city disappear, the city and its residents are often left impoverished. Thus, the de-industrialized city features abandoned buildings, abandoned apartments, abandoned factories, and in most cases, people of color who did or could not leave the city for the suburbs as their white counterparts did (one of the main reasons for remaining in the cities was that in the 1960s, as the suburbs grew, folks of color were often not permitted to reside in suburbs). The processes outlined above were not exclusive to the 1970s. It started in the 1960s, and even earlier in specific neighborhoods within many urban areas. As industry, jobs, and white folks left the cities, the impulse to maintain and protect the city disappeared.

Crime was on the rise, as were the often brutal and illegal responses by mostly white police forces (who commuted to the city from the suburbs). Eventually people who lived in the suburbs referred to entire cities like New York, Los Angeles, and even St. Louis, as dangerous places– where gangs of youths roamed free amidst ineffective law enforcement. They called them slums. Here is an interesting clip from a 1979 movie entitled “The Warriors.” If you watch it carefully, the clip is doing two things at once: it is essentially saying (1) that the “city” is broken, and (2) that there is an opportunity for empowerment within what is left of the cities, even if it comes from a very unlikely source (sorry about the commercial). Alright– technically, Cyrus (the speaker) is saying that the gangs should take over the city. Still, when the movie came out in 1979, it is was (and for many, still is) an accurate reflection of the brokenness of the city in the 1970s. At the same time, this early scene of the movie suggests that there should be some pride in where they came from, and that they should work together to make a society that reflects their values (yes, I know, these values happen to be those of supposedly criminal gangs, and if it makes you feel more comfortable, remove the word “gangs” and replace it with “community groups.” : ) There is another movie that features de-industrialization in the cities (in this case New York City). As middle class white Americans left the cities and left them to deteriorate, a new type of culture arose in the cities. Although this culture was not particular to only New York, it was New York City that became the center of this culture.

I’m talking about hip hop. Without moving into a long discussion about what hip hop means (which could be a course in itself!), I will only say that in the context of the 1970s, hip hop culture was not just rap music– it was an umbrella term that included dancing, break dancing, rap music, dj-ing, and graffiti writing, or, “bombing.” In the early 1980s, there was a movie that chronicled and sought to explain these phenomena, explaining and discussing the rise of this multi-layered culture in America’s cities (specifically New York, which many say is the birthplace of hip hop culture). This movie is entitled, Style Wars. crime in the city In the link above this picture, you will find this movie. As you watch this movie, I want you to take note of a few things: 1) The landscape: what does the city look like? What kind of environment are they portraying, and how does it relate to the emergence of “bombing” during this period? 2) What are the protagonists in this story saying (the “writers”)? What are politicians and other citizens who have no understanding of what graffiti writing is? As the movie will tell you, hip hop culture emerged in these de-industrialized areas, such as New York City as a means to take ownership of a space that few others wanted to be a part of.

They took pride in their work, and where they were from, despite the fact that unemployment was high, crime was high, and financial support and revenue coming into the city was low. KRS-1, the famed rapper from the 1980s (and still going strong today) said it best in one of his tracks when he noted that the ownership of New York had changed hands, and was now run by Disney. (you don’t have to check this out, but this is the track, by KRS-1 and backed by DJ Premier is about 3 minutes long, and includes a lot of hip hop references that call back to the 70s, 80s, and 90s– which means I suspect that only a couple of you would recognize some of the shouts. But near the end, he does talk about New York) But to say that de-industrialization was simply due to white flight and businesses/corporations abandoning the cities is to miss larger themes of the 1970s.

It is important to remember that the decade of the 1970s was in many ways a reaction to the radical politics and activism in the 1960s, in two ways: (1) by the 1970s, many activists were growing up and searching for different ways to better their communities, whether through the formation of community organizations, or through becoming teachers and professors. No longer were they on the street yelling, but they were becoming professionals, even sometimes partnering with universities and government institutions. Many leaders in the Chicano Movement and the Black Power Movement became educators, and others went into politics.(some of them might even be educators right here at the Peralta Colleges!!!) (2) In addition to many of the intellectuals underwriting the movements in the 60s leaving, the government and law enforcement became much more adept and quelling dissent (or, to put it another way, “shutting up the people and the communities that were the loudest and most public”).

National Politics In the larger picture of the United States– in national politics– the key figure of this era was Richard Nixon, who rose to the presidency of the United States in 1969 after winning a very close election in 1968 against Hubert Humphrey. Nixon came into office during a difficult period in the United States, and in many ways his election was an expression of a conservative backlash against the radical 1960s. As Nixon himself noted, it was a “silent majority” that elected him to the presidency, meaning that the people in the streets, campaigning for racial and gender equality, the people who were demonstrating for human rights in the United States were, in fact, in the minority, and it was the “silent majority” who had had enough of this, and they wanted a change– they wanted Nixon. Yet, during his presidency there was much legislation that he oversaw that today would seem ridiculous for a conservative Republican to support: (1) Amid the continuing tensions with the USSR and the Cold War, President Nixon visited the Soviet Union and spoke with Leonid Brezhnev about how to prevent the Cold War from escalating.

While they realized that they could not get rid of nuclear weapons, they could work together to at least slow down their production and the stockpiling of such weapons. Hence, the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (Links to an external site.) which was the beginning of a relationship between the two countries and their allies that, while sometimes tense, allayed the fears that many had of a nuclear holocaust (World War III) being inevitable. They both used deterrence theory as a strategy for preventing World War III, which is to say that nuclear weapons, because of their extreme destructive capability, prevented both sides from taking action against the other. The key term used in discussions of deterrence was “Mutually Assured Destruction,” or MAD. These agreements and Nixon’s visit was key to the tamping of Cold War fears. No longer did Americans fear an inevitable conflict with the Soviet Union, they simply lived with the possibility. In other words, nuclear war was no longer a certainty; it was more of a possibility. He actually visited the Soviet Union! (2) China. Nixon’s work in China has been well-documented, and for many students, it may be the first thing you think about when someone mentions his name (this wasn’t always the case, by the way. There was another thing we associated him to back in the 70s, 80s, and 90s). Yet, say what you will about Nixon, his trip to China was historical, and incredibly fruitful. Not only did it ease trade relations between the two countries, it also deepened the divide between China and the Soviet Union.

Here are a couple of videos that chronicle this: Here is one Here is another As you see from the above videos, while the visit to China was about maintaining peace, it was also about limiting the scope of the Cold War, specifically to further weaken the already tenuous relationship between China and the Soviet Union. 3) A few other things that you might not associate with conservative Republicans: Nixon oversaw the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Occupational Safety and health Administration (OSHA), the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), the Consumer Products Safety Commission, and signed Title IX, which prohibited gender discrimination in education. Looking back, there was much the Nixon did (with the help of congress; no one does such things alone) that one might find unusual to be attributed to a conservative Republican who, as he himself stated in one of the above videos, was “on the right” of the political spectrum. Of course, Nixon’s legacy will be forever scarred by the Watergate scandal, and his subsequent resignation. Alright, full disclosure: I have been trying to find a way to make the section on Watergate as short as possible, because although it does uncover a lot of the corruption that permeated not only Nixon’s administration but also Washington D.C. in general, thethe aftermath and effects of the scandal are so important that I try to make the telling of the scandal itself as short as possible. Luckily for me (and you?) I found this video.

It is only a minute and a half, and although it doesn’t really come from an official educational institution or program, I think it is pretty informative (while at the same time being short). Let’s take a 1 min 30 sec look at the Watergate scandal The impact of the Watergate scandal was huge, if for no other reason that it eroded the public’s faith in their elected government, and a decline in political participation. If the 1960s were a high point for the idea of democracy, the Watergate scandal and its aftermath were undeniably a low point. Gerald Ford, (but mostly) Jimmy Carter It was into this political environment that Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter became president. The former became president after the resignation of Richard Nixon, while Jimmy Carter rode his conservative Democrat reputation from the Georgia governor’s office to the White House. While the most notable moment of Gerald Ford’s presidency was his pardoning of Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter had four full years, from 1976-1980 in office! Carter ran for president in 1976 as an “outsider,” a label that had quite a lot of appeal in the wake of the Watergate scandal and corruption in politics. He was a devout “born again” Baptist, and spoke openly of his religious convictions.

His promise, “I’ll never lie to you,” resonated with an electorate tired of official dishonesty. Once in office, although his party controlled both houses, Carter often found himself at odds with Congress. Carter viewed inflation, not unemployment, as the country’s main economic problem and to combat it he promoted cuts in spending on domestic programs. In the hope that increased competition would reduce prices, his administration deregulated the trucking and airline industries. Carter also supported the Federal reserve Bank’s decision to raise interest rates to curtail economic activity until both wages and prices fell, which was traditionally a Republican policy. But oil prices kept rising, and inflation did not decline. Since the New Deal, Democrats had presented themselves as the party of affluence and economic growth. But Carter’s presidency seemed to be happening in the midst of a national decline, and thus, he became much less popular.

It didn’t help matters when, in a speech, he spoke of a “crisis of confidence,” and seemed to blame everything on the American people themselves, and their “mistaken idea of freedom” as “self-indulgence and consumption.” Even if he might have been right, these were certainly things that a sitting president says to his constituents, particularly not during his first term! By 1980, Carter’s approval rating was around 21%, which was lower than Nixon’s at the time of his resignation! there was a conservative wave moving through the western world. In 1979, Margaret Thatcher became prime minister of Great Britain. She promised to restore economic competitiveness by curtailing the power of unions, reducing taxes, selling state-owned industries to private owners, and cutting back on the welfare state.

In the United States, Ronald Reagan’s 1980 campaign brought together the many strands of 1970s conservatism: the religious right, libertarians, and deficit hawks– three groups that have very little in common aside from a disdain for the liberal agenda. His campaign tag: “Let’s make America great again,” saying “the era of self-doubt is over.” Reagan also appeals skillfully to “white backlash.” he kicked off his campaign in Philadelphia, Mississippi, where three civil rights workers had been murdered in 1964, with a speech emphasizing his belief in states’ rights. Many white southerners understood this doctrine (states’ rights) as including opposition to federal intervention on behalf of civil rights. During the campaign, reagan repeatedly condemned welfare “cheats” (see your reading!!!), school busing, and affirmative action. Although not personally religious and the first divorced man to run for president, he gained support from the religious right and conservative upholders of “family values.” By the end of the 1970s, it was clear that all the signs of conservatism that surfaced briefly in the 1960s were gaining popularity throughout the 1970s, culminating in the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980. And it was during the 1980s, with Ronald Reagan’s skillful politicking around cultural and cold war fears that people began looking for solace wherever they could, and many people ultimately found it in themselves, which is in part why the 1980s is known as the “Me” decade.

The 1980s Last week, we talked about de-indusrialization and what that did to urban areas throughout the United States. The focus on these areas and the problems that white flight and capital flight created illuminated the persistent racism and discrimination that continued in this country even after the civil rights movement. One of the things that was mentioned (both in your readings from last week and the lecture) was the fact that the 1970s was a period of larger economic turmoil. The recession and the “stagflation” (a combination of economic stagnation and inflation) of the 1970s made for a very tumultuous economic period in American history that some said rivaled the Great Depression. Of course, the lack of growth in the 1970s and the economic downturn during this period was dramatic, but it did not reach the depths of the Great Depression in the 1930s. However, during both the 1930s and the 1970s people began to look towards what they felt the root causes of the economic problems were: 1) During and after the Great Depression, in the 1930s, economists and politicians like FDR began to critique business practices, and from their exhaustive examination of how businesses manipulated capitalism, they arrived at a solution: the New Deal.

As you remember, the New Deal was a set of legislation, programs, and agencies that regulated capitalism and created jobs during a period with up to 25% unemployment. 2) During the recession of the 1970s, politicians (and some economists) began critiquing government instead of business practices. Thus, while in the 1930s the government believed that big business/corporations were the problem, in the 1970s, people began to believe that government itself was the problem. The clearest example of this was in the first inaugural address of President Ronald Reagan in 1980: Government is the problem “In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.” Despite the fact that there were roughly forty years (some would say more, depending on how they slice the numbers) of positive economic growth in the United States since the New Deal, the emergent anti-government philosophy took hold with a vengeance. Why? Well, there are a number of reasons, but if you take them all together, the combination of international and domestic dislocations during the 1970s (the recession, the Iran Hostage Crisis (Links to an external site.)- see the link for details, via pbs.org) created a “widespread sense of anxiety among Americans and offered conservatives some new political opportunities,” according to historian Eric Foner.

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