Chapter 29 The Search for Order in an Era of Limits,

Transcription

1 Chapter 29 The Search for Order in an Era of Limits,

2 An Era of Limits The economy was suffering in the 1970s due to the Vietnam War. The Middle East oil embargo also made matters worse. The environmental movement brought attention to the toxic effects of modern industrial capitalism. Energy Crisis After European powers lost control over the Middle East, they also lost control over its oil. In 1960 OPEC (Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries) was formed Why did members of OPEC resent the U.S. and place an embargo on oil? oil prices went up 40% Foreign gas efficient cars increased in demand

3 Environmentalism The energy crisis was a catalyst for the resurgence of environmentalism Be able to identify at least four prior environmentalist movements before the 1970s (page 921). In 1969 there were three developments that raised awareness Santa Barbara oil spill Cuyahoga River (near Cleveland) fire because of chemicals in river Friends of the Everglades opposition to building an airport in the everglades Environmental Protection Agency After the Santa Barbara oil spill, the federal government established the EPA Divided Americans because federal environmental regulation costs companies money

4 Nuclear Power Environmentalists publicized the dangers of nuclear power plants The disaster at Three Mile Island, a nuclear plant in PA, enabled environmentalists to influence government to reduce the amount of new nuclear plants Economic Transformation Vietnam War and Johnson s Great Society created a federal deficit and inflation Industrial competition with Japan and Germany hurt America s industries U.S. produced fewer cars, appliances, and televisions In the 1970s, the U.S. economy was hit with stagflation (unemployment, stagnant consumer demand, and inflation) Presidents Nixon, Ford, and Carter failed to revive the U.S. economy in the 70s

5 Deindustrialization Worst hit industry was steel. U.S. steel industry was outdated and could not compete with Germany and Japan The latest technology from foreign companies caused deindustrialization The auto, tire, textile, appliances, electronics, and furniture industries all started shrinking in the 1970s Organized Labor in Decline Deindustrialization hurt the labor union movement Industries could no longer afford union demands, and labor s bargaining power produced fewer results Instead of seeking higher wages, unions now mainly fought to save jobs Union membership began to drop by the mid 1980s to its lowest levels since the 1920s

6 Urban Crisis Revisited Migration from the city to the suburbs continued from the 1960s to the era of limits in the 70s. Nearly every U.S. city struggled to pay its bills in the 1970s The main reason was the continued loss of residents and businesses to the suburbs More Americans lived AND worked in the suburbs

7 Tax Revolt and Economic Inequality Stagflation lead state governments to increase taxes hurting citizens ability to pay their bills Proposition 13- a CA policy that made it difficult for the state to increase taxes on its citizens. This inspired other tax revolts across the country This policy was created by conservatives and became a defining Republican issue: low taxes Disproportionate distribution of income emerged as 10% of the wealthiest Americans began to pull ahead again They laid off high wage workers, paid workers less, and relocated in foreign countries The middle class became smaller and smaller

8 Politics in Flux, Republicans were not happy with Nixon s Detente (Chapter 28) The Watergate scandal tainted the Republican party s image Democrats would temporarily take advantage of this Watergate Babies Democrats made Watergate and Ford s pardon of Nixon major issues in 1974 midterm elections In 1975 seventy five new Democrat members of the House, many under the age of 40, came to Washington D.C. = Watergate Babies They eliminated the HUAC (House of Un-American Activities Committee), which investigated alleged Communists in the 1940s and 50s They created the Ethics in Government Act (page 928) Overall, the decentralized the power in Washington and brought greater transparency to U.S. government The consequence was that special interest groups and party leaders had more influence, creating more partisan politics and less efficiency

9 Political Realignment Conservatives became more popular as the postwar liberal economic policy of Keynesian consensus failed to restart the economy Power began to shift in favor of conservatives in Congress who favored tax cuts Populations in the Northeast and Midwest began to shift toward the West and South Jimmy Carter: The Outsider President President Jimmy Carter (Dem) was elected in 1976 Down home image of common man, pledging to restore morality to White House Horrible with managing the economic crisis Became very unpopular with his TV address when he scolded Americans for behaving financially irresponsible

10 Reform and Reaction in the 1970s Civil Rights in a New Era Affirmative Action Affirmative action- quotas for universities and employers that required the hiring and enrollment of minorities and women Intended to rectify imbalances resulting from past discrimination Some conservative whites viewed it as reverse discrimination Bakke v. University of California- Busing In 1968 only about one-third of all black children in the South attended schools with whites Federal courts forced schools to desegregate by busing kids to schools from other neighborhoods By the mid 1970s, 86% of southern black children were attending school with whites. However, in the north desegregation of schools was virtually impossible due to school district restrictions (see pages )

11 The Women s Movement and Gay Rights Women s Liberation Women run child care facilities, began to spring up in cities and towns in the 1970s All male colleges and universities became co-ed (Yale, Princeton, Columbia) Much of women s liberation activism focused on the female body Women s health More female doctors Founding of anti-rape movement Rape crisis centers established Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) ERA was intended to be an amendment to the Constitution that would protect women s rights (1972) It needed ratification by 38 states to pass. However, due to heavy campaigning against the women s movement by conservative lawyer, Phyllis Schlafly, ERA expired and never became an amendment Schlafly advocated for traditional roles of women She proclaimed ERA would create a unisex society, with women drafted in the military, single sex toilets, and same sex marriages

12 Roe v. Wade (Extremely important!!) In the early 1960s abortions were illegal in most states Supreme Court decision in 1973 gave women the right to have an abortion in the first trimester of pregnancy. Right protected by the right of privacy Evangelical and fundamentalist Christians, Catholics, and conservatives generally hated this court decision, claiming that abortion is murder. Harvey Milk By the mid 1970s, dozens of cities passed laws protecting gay men and lesbians from employment and housing discrimination San Francisco was especially more liberal when it came to gay rights Former businessman and openly gay Harvey Milk ran for city supervisor as an openly gay candidate. Milk finally won a seat in 1977 and became a symbol of emerging gay political power

13 The Supreme Court and the Rights Revolution Following Brown v. Board of Education, the Supreme Court increasingly agreed to hear human rights and civil liberty cases Law and Order and the Warren Court Republican appointed judge, Earl Warren surprised many conservatives by advocating many civil rights bills and liberties Right wing activists in the 1970s came to detest the Warren Court Court ruling, giving people who are arrested the constitutional right to council and Miranda v. Arizona, that arrestees have to be informed by police of the right to remain silent A series of court decisions liberalized restrictions on pornography The court also ruled that religious rituals in public schools (such as school prayer) were unconstitutional Conservatives found these decisions acts against morality

14 The Burger Court Supreme court justice Warren Burger extended the right of privacy developed to include women s access to abortion Other decisions advanced women s rights Sexual harassment violated the Civil Rights Act However, justices were reluctant to move ahead of public attitudes toward homosexuality In 1986, the Supreme Court upheld a Georgia sodomy statue that criminalized same-sex acts Not until 2003 would the court overturn that decision

15 The American Family on Trial Working Families in the Age of Deindustrialization By 1973, wages were declining as a result of decline of organized labor, the loss of manufacturing jobs, and runaway inflation Family wage (income earned by men to support entire family) was declining and fewer families could afford only one income Women earning income increased in the 1970s Single women raising children nearly doubled between 1965 and 1990 More women earned income in the law and medical field and the sciences

16 Workers in the National Spotlight blue collar blues were the difficulties of working class Americans in the 1970s The number of union led strikes surged as the labor movement declined The most popular shows and music reflected the blue collar blues All in the Family, Good Times, One Day at a Time, Laverne and Shirley Bruce Springsteen, John Cougar Mellencamp, Johnny Paycheck

17 Navigating the Sexual Revolution The Sexual Revolution represented more liberal attitudes toward sexuality By the 1960s, sex before marriage became for socialy acceptable. Causes Birth control pill, rise of the baby boomer counter culture (Chapter 26), and the influences of feminism Some argued that the sexual revolution only benefited men. Others said it freed women from older moral constraints

18 Sex and Popular Culture Popular culture was suffused with discussions of the sexual revolution The Joy of Sex, a sex guide for couples was one of the most popular books of the 1970s Hollywood took advantage of the new sexual ethic by making films with explicit erotic content Middle-Class Marriage Many came to believe that they needed help as marriage came under a variety of stresses A therapeutic industry arose in response. Churches and secular groups established marriage seminars to address increase in divorce rates

19 Religion in the 1970s: The Fourth Great Awakening Evangelical Resurgence Evangelical churches focused on literal interpretation of the Bible Billy Graham was the most influential evangelical preachers Popular radio and TV programs Laid groundwork for 4 th Great Awakening in the 1950s and 1960s Regarded feminism, counterculture, sexual revolution, homosexuality, divorce, pornography, and abortion as signs of moral decay President Jimmy Carter became the nation s first evangelical president Most success came from the use of television Oral Roberts, Jimmy Swaggart

20 Religion and the Family Evangelicals believed that the nuclear family, and not the individual, represented the fundamental unit of society. Organized along paternalist lines Evangelicals founded publishing houses, wrote books, established foundations, and offered seminars Evangelical Christians held that strict gender roles in the family would ward off the influences of an immoral society