Chapter 32: The Crisis of Authority

American History: A Survey

APUSH: MR. ROLOFSON

Four deaths resulted after a clash between antiwar student groups and National Guardsmen at which U.S. college? (A) University of California, Berkeley

(B) Kent State University

(C) Ohio State University

(D) Columbia University

(E) Rutgers University

APUSH: MR. ROLOFSON

Conservative and Liberal Viewpoints

Liberals Conservatives Believe the role of

government should be to alleviate social ills and to protect civil liberties and individual and human rights.

Believe the role of government should be to provide people the freedom necessary to pursue their own goals.

Ideology: A Political Spectrum Ideology: a consistent set of beliefs

Radical: favors rapid, fundamental change in existing social, economic, or political order; willing to resort to violence or revolution to accomplish such change

Liberal: supports active govt in promoting individual welfare and supporting civil rights, accepts peaceful changes within the existing political system

Moderate: may include some of both liberal and conservative, tolerant of others’ political opinions

Conservative: promotes a limited govt role in helping individuals, supports tradition, cautious of change

Reactionary: advocates a return to a previous state of affairs, often a social order or govt that existed earlier, willing to go to extremes to achieve their goals

What is a Think Tank?

Think tanks are funded primarily by large businesses and major foundations. They devise

and promote policies that shape the lives of everyday Americans: Social Security

privatization, tax and investment laws, regulation of everything from oil to the internet.

They supply experts to testify on Capitol Hill, write articles for the op-ed pages of

newspapers, and appear as TV commentators. They advise presidential aspirants and lead

orientation seminars to train incoming members of Congress.

- sourcewatch.org

Think Tanks

Liberal Think Tanks Conservative Think Tanks

Center for American Progress

Center for Economic and Policy Research

Heritage Foundation

Cato Institute

Websites

Liberal Websites: Daily Kos, Huffington Post

Conservative Websites: Drudge Report, National Review Online

Non-partisan Websites: FactCheck.org, Project Vote Smart, Spot-On

Liberalism

The Old Left: (1890s-1930s) Gilded Age labor unions, socialists, Progressive Era activists fighting against industrial capitalism.

The New Left: (1950s-1960s) young people seeking revolutionary change such as the civil rights movement, the Women’s Liberation movement, and the anti-Vietnam war movement

The New Left had deep roots in the radical tradition that began with the American Revolution.

Before the Civil War, abolitionists sought to extend the Revolution’s promise of equality and refused to accept the legitimacy of slavery. They began the long campaign for women’s suffrage.

Beliefs of the New Left

The right not to be segregated by skin color

The right to walk down the street without fear of violence

The right to protest without being labeled a subversive

The right to equal access to education, housing, and jobs without regard to race or gender

The right to be left alone, to privacy and control over your own body

The New Left

To understand how revolutionary the New Left was, consider how much has changed since then. Today there are no COLORED and WHITE signs outside restaurants and bathrooms. It is illegal to deny someone a job because of his or her color or gender or religion. Protests are an accepted part of political life. Rejection of these changes has fueled a powerful New Right movement.

However naïve protest strategies appear to us now, they were very practical. Confronted with activists willing to endure violence and unafraid of jail, authorities from the Deep South to university administrations to the White House lost political legitimacy. Violent repression, once taken for granted in some places, became odious when exposed to national and world public opinion. Protesters asserting their civil and human rights and standing on the U.S. Constitution claimed the moral high ground.

The Conservative Resurgence

The central story of American politics since World War II is the emergence of the conservative movement, as a reaction to Roosevelt’s New Deal policies of the 1930s. After World War II, American conservatism stood for limited government in domestic, economic, and social affairs and aggressive government in foreign affairs. Conservatives favor the use of the free market instead of government to distribute economic resources and sustain economic growth.

Historians dispute the date of the seismic change in the nation’s political culture. Some point to the election of 1964, when Republican Barry Goldwater lost the presidential election but provided a rallying point for the men and women who would become leaders of the Right in the next decade. Others point to the rise of grassroots organizers such as the John Birch Society or the popular backlash against the counterculture, urban riots, and antiwar movement of the 1960s. Another point of view emphasizes the emergence of the Christian Right during the 1990s. Each perspective is valid.

Societal Issues of the 1960s and 1970s: Cultural Changes

Cultural Changes of the 1960s-1970s

Music lyrics openly sexual and drug-oriented, use of drug use becomes more widespread, sexual revolution (use of birth control pill), Roe v. Wade legalizes abortion, the women’s movement anger many conservatives who believe the women’s place is in the home

The Conservative Movement

In the early 1970s, the number of conservative organizations multiplied, branching out to include think tanks, media groups, and single-issue lobbies.

By the mid-1970s, the conservative movement expanded from economic conservatism and militant anticommunism to social conservatism.

The conservative movement, enforcing “traditional family values,” became synonymous with the Republican party.

The Conservative Movement 1945-2000

1945-1968: With the exception of some business organizations, conservatives had yet to mobilize prior to 1950. All of that began to change in the mid-1950s, when a recent graduate of Yale University, William F. Buckley began denouncing “government paternalism inimical to the dignity of the individual.” Republicans took both houses of Congress and began to dismantle the New Deal’s social legislation, a major achievement being the Taft-Hartley act of 1947. Known in labor circles as the “slave labor law,” it relaxed protections for unionists enshrined in the Wagner Act of 1935 and sanctioned anti-union laws in the states.

1968-1980: The years between 1968-1980 saw the advent of conservative domination of American politics. This transformation was fueled partly by white backlash against the civil rights movement and the backlash of traditional women aroused at first against the women’s movement and then by the Roe v Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion.

1980-2000: Reagan reshaped the judiciary into a more conservative mold. He made three appointments to the Supreme Court: Sandra Day O’Connor, Antonin Scalia, and Anthony Kennedy.

The Counterculture

The counterculture promoted values that ran counter to mainstream culture.

By rejecting conventional customs, “hippies” and the counterculture in general drew on the example of the Beat Generation of the 1950s.

APUSH: MR. ROLOFSON

Woodstock, 1969

The Woodstock Festival, in up-state New York, drew together various branches of the counterculture.

Although 12,000,000 people claim to have been at Woodstock, about 500,000 people were at the concert.

APUSH: MR. ROLOFSON

How did the modern civil rights movement impact the women’s rights

movement, the Chicano civil rights movement, and the “Red Power”

movement?

APUSH: MR. ROLOFSON

The relationship between people and the land: stewardship or ownership?

“During the ninety-five years between the legal founding of America on July 4, 1776, and the abandoning of treaty making with the Indians by the U.S. Congress Appropriations Act of March 3, 1871, the United States ratified 371 treaties with American Indian nations. In all cases the treaties were international instruments executed between sovereign nations. Throughout the following century and to the present day all 371 treaties have been violated, broken, ignored, or otherwise abrogated by the United States.”

- Blood of the Land: The Government and Corporate War Against the American Indian Movement (1982)

APUSH: MR. ROLOFSON

Native American History

Cultural genocide of Indian people has not let up in North and South America since the first Indian was killed by the first white settler some 500 years ago.

APUSH: MR. ROLOFSON

Renewed Attention to the Wrongs Inflicted on the Tribes in Past Generations

Custer Died For Your Sins Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee

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American Indian Movement (AIM)

AIM is an indigenous, land-based, spiritual movement, a call to Indian people to return to traditional values, and, at the same time, to stand firm against Anglo influence and dominance.

APUSH: MR. ROLOFSON

The American Indian Movement (AIM)

The goals of the American Indian Movement (AIM):

1. The restoration of lands illegally taken

2. Autonomy

3. Control of natural resources

4. To bring attention to Indian points of view of American history.

APUSH: MR. ROLOFSON

“Red Power”

Trail of Broken Treaties: Taking advantage of a federal law which allowed for abandoned military bases to revert to previous owners, AIM decided to “retake the country from west to east.”

Occupation of Alcatraz Island: In 1969, claiming their right to the island under the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868, Alcatraz was taken over in protest over the failure of the Bureau of Indian Affairs to improve conditions on reservations.

Wounded Knee: In 1973, protestors, led by AIM members, symbolically occupied the village of Wounded Knee, site of the dreadful massacres of Sioux men, women, and children by the Seventh Cavalry in 1890. They defied a long siege by federal and state forces.

APUSH: MR. ROLOFSON

Leonard Peltier

Leonard Peltier was described by the FBI as an “extremely dangerous criminal” although he had never been convicted of any crime.

An FBI document later released by the Freedom of Information Act revealed the FBI’s intention to “have local police put AIM leaders under close scrutiny, and arrest them on every possible charge, until they could no longer make bail.”

- The Circle, Boston Indian Council, March, 1979

Was the Indian Civil Rights Movement Successful?

Yes No Helped tribes win new legal

rights and protections that gave them a stronger position than they had enjoyed at any previous time (20th century)

Helped many Indians gain a renewed awareness of and pride in their identity

Challenged patterns of discrimination

Fell far short of winning full justice and equality

Never resolved its own internal conflicts

To some the goal was integration, to others the goal was to remain distinct

APUSH: MR. ROLOFSON

Cesar Chavez

Cesar Chavez founded the United Farm Workers (UFW) to organize Mexican farm workers. One successful strategy used by Cesar Chavez was a nationwide consumer boycott.

Dolores C. Huerta is an American labor leader and civil rights activist who, with César Chávez, co-founded the UFW.

Hector P. Garcia was a Mexican-American physician, surgeon, World War II veteran, civil rights advocate, and founder of the American G.I. Forum.

APUSH: MR. ROLOFSON

Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique

In 1963, Betty Friedan published a critique of the 1950s ideal of womanhood, lashing out at the culture that made it difficult for woman to choose alternative roles.

Betty Friedan was the author of The Feminine Mystique and the first president of the National Organization for Women (NOW).

The Modern Women’s Rights Movement

NOW was founded in 1966 in order to challenge sex discrimination in the workplace.

The women’s movement of the 1960s grew out of frustration with various forms of job discrimination.

During the 1960s, feminism tended to be a movement of middle-class women. The term feminism describes the theory of the equality of men and women.

APUSH: MR. ROLOFSON

Feminist Victories and Defeats

Title IX: (1972) prohibited sex discrimination in any federally assisted educational program or activity. Perhaps this act’s biggest impact was to create opportunities for girls’ and women’s athletics at schools and colleges.

Equal Rights Amendment (ERA): (1972) declared “Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.” Twenty-eight of the necessary thirty-eight states quickly ratified the amendment, first proposed by suffragists in 1923. The Equal Rights Amendment passed Congress in 1972 and then failed in the ratification process.

Roe v. Wade: (1973) struck down laws prohibiting abortion, arguing that a woman’s decision to terminate a pregnancy was protected by the constitutional right to privacy.

APUSH: MR. ROLOFSON

Phyllis Schlafly

The feminist movement soon faced a formidable backlash. Conservative activists such as Phyllis Schlafly did not support the Equal Rights Amendment. She argued that the ERA would remove traditional protections that women enjoyed by forcing the law to see them as men’s equals. Schlafly believed that the amendment would threaten the basic family structure of American society.

APUSH: MR. ROLOFSON

Gloria Steinem

In 1972, Gloria Steinem and several other women founded Ms. Magazine, providing women with different viewpoints than publications such as Good Housekeeping.

Slowly, the women’s movement brought a shift in attitudes and in the law.

APUSH: MR. ROLOFSON

The Modern Women’s Rights Movement

As a result of their experiences in the civil rights movement, many women learned the importance of taking advantage of legal tools.

Achievements of the Women’s Liberation Movement include education and employment (cannot discriminate on the basis of sex in admission policies)

APUSH: MR. ROLOFSON

Affirmative Action

Affirmative Action: procedures designed to take into account the disadvantaged position of minorities after centuries of discrimination.

Affirmative Action programs increased minority representation in colleges, the professions, and many businesses. The act had some unintended consequences. Some critics challenged these programs as a form of reverse discrimination.

In Regents of California v. Bakke, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld affirmative action, but not the use of racial quotas. Many affirmative action programs have been phased out over time as America has become a more pluralistic society.

Analyze the extent to which TWO of the following transformed American society in the 1960s and 1970s: the civil rights movement, the antiwar movement, the women’s movement.

APUSH: MR. ROLOFSON

Thesis Statement Formula in relation to this prompt

X = The __________ movement transformed American society by…(list two or three examples)

However A,B,C = However, the __________ movement

A, B, and C,

Therefore, y = Therefore, the __________ movement had more of an impact on American society during the 1960s and 1970s than did the __________ movement.

APUSH: MR. ROLOFSON

Possible Details: Civil Rights

Martin Luther King, Jr. and nonviolent resistance

Malcolm X, Black Muslims, Nation of Islam

Greensboro sit-ins, 1960

Freedom Riders, 1961

Birmingham protests, 1963

MLK’s March on Washington, “I Have A Dream”

Civil Rights Act of 1964

Twenty-Fourth Amendment

Voting Rights Act of 1965

Cesar Chavez, Hispanic rights, AIM, Native American rights, Wounded Knee of 1973

APUSH: MR. ROLOFSON

Possible Details: Antiwar Movement

Gulf of Tonkin Resolution

Student demonstrations – sit-ins, peace-ins, teach-ins

“Hawks” vs. “Doves”

Tet Offensive: consequences

TV and the Vietnam War

Human and economic costs of the war

Conscientious objectors, Muhammad Ali stripped of title

Vietnam Veterans against the war

Vietnamization, invasion of Cambodia

War Powers Act

APUSH: MR. ROLOFSON

Possible Details: Women’s Movement

Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique

NOW, 1966

Advocacy of social reforms (child care, maternity rights, abortion rights, birth control, equal pay)

Women’s Liberation Movement

Civil Rights Act of 1964

Radical feminism

Title IX

Roe v. Wade

Phyllis Schlafly

APUSH: MR. ROLOFSON

The major North Vietnamese and Viet Cong offensive launched on the Vietnamese New Year in 1968 is referred to as

(A) the My Lai Massacre

(B) Operation Rolling Thunder

(C) the Tet Offensive

(D) the Ho Chi Minh Trail

(E) the Khmer Rouge

APUSH: MR. ROLOFSON

Which of the following was not part of the 1964 Civil Rights Act?

(A) Banning of different voter registration practices based on race

(B) Banning of discrimination in public accommodations

(C) Allowing for federal funds to be withheld from programs that practice discrimination

(D) Creation of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission

(E) Outlawing of poll taxes

APUSH: MR. ROLOFSON

1968 Democratic National Convention

The demonstrations in the streets of Chicago tarnished Democratic candidate Hubert Humphrey’s presidential campaign. His opponent, Richard Nixon, won the presidency with calls for an “honorable peace” in Vietnam and “law and order” at home.

APUSH: MR. ROLOFSON

President Richard Nixon and the Vietnam War

Once elected in 1968, the first burning need was to quiet the public uproar over Vietnam. President Nixon’s announced policy, called Vietnamization, was to withdraw the 540,000 U.S. troops in South Vietnam over an extended period. The South Vietnamese – with American money, weapons, training, and advice – could then gradually take over the burden of fighting their own war.

The so-called Nixon Doctrine thus evolved. It proclaimed that the United States would honor its existing defense commitments but that in the future, other countries would have to fight their own wars without the support of large bodies of American ground troops.

APUSH: MR. ROLOFSON

President Richard Nixon Foreign Affairs

Nixon, the uncompromising anticommunist, announced to a startled nation in July 1971 that he had accepted an invitation to visit Communist China the following year. He made the historic journey in February of 1972, and the two nations agreed to “normalize” their relationship.

Nixon then visited the Soviet Union in May of 1972 to play his “China card” in a game of high-stakes diplomacy.

Nixon’s visits ushered in an era of détente, or relaxed tension, with the two communist powers and produced several significant agreements, including an anti-ballistic missile (ABM) treaty, and a series of arms-reduction negotiations known as SALT (Strategic Arms Limitation Talks), aimed at freezing the numbers of long-range nuclear missiles for five years.

APUSH: MR. ROLOFSON

Limiting Nuclear Arms

SALT I banned comprehensive anti-missile defense systems. As a result of this treaty, the world was spared an arms race in defensive technology. SALT I also capped offensive missiles, proving that the superpowers could reach agreements relating to arms control.

APUSH: MR. ROLOFSON

President Richard Nixon Domestic Policies

Surprisingly, Nixon presided over significant expansion of the welfare programs that conservative Republicans routinely denounced. He approved increased appropriations for entitlements like Food Stamps, Medicaid, and Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC). He signed legislation guaranteeing automatic Social Security cost-of-living increases to protect the elderly against the ravages of inflation when prices rose more than 3 percent in any year.

APUSH: MR. ROLOFSON

Nixon’s Philadelphia Plan

His Philadelphia Plan required construction –trade unions to establish “goals and timetables” for the hiring of black apprentices. Soon extended to all federal contracts, the Philadelphia Plan in effect required thousands of employers to meet hiring quotas or to establish “set-asides” for minority subcontractors.

Nixon’s Philadelphia Plan drastically altered the meaning of “affirmative action.” Lyndon Johnson had intended affirmative action to protect individuals against discrimination. Nixon now transformed and escalated affirmative action into a program that conferred privileges on certain groups. The Supreme Court went along with Nixon’s approach.

APUSH: MR. ROLOFSON

President Nixon and the Environment

Among Nixon’s legacies was the creation in 1970 of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). This agency enforced national pollution control standards.

On April 22, 1970, millions of environmentalists around the world celebrated the first Earth Day to raise awareness and to encourage their leaders to act. In the wake of what became a yearly event, Congress passed the Clean Air Act of 1970 and the Endangered Species Act of 1973.

Endangered Species Act: established protection for plants and animals in danger of extinction.

APUSH: MR. ROLOFSON

President Nixon’s Southern Strategy

Elected as a minority president, with only 43% of the vote in 1968, Nixon devised a clever but cynical plan – called the southern strategy – to achieve a solid majority in 1972. Appointing conservative Supreme Court justices, soft-pedaling civil rights, and opposing school busing to achieve racial balance were all parts of the strategy.

APUSH: MR. ROLOFSON

1972 Election

George McGovern, the Democratic candidate, ran an anti-war campaign against Nixon, but he was handicapped by his outsider status, limited support from his own party, and the perception of many voters that he was a left-wing extremist.

Emphasizing a good economy and his successes in foreign affairs, Nixon won the election in a landslide.

APUSH: MR. ROLOFSON

President Nixon and the end of the Vietnam War

Nixon launched a furious two-week bombing of North Vietnam to force the North Vietnamese back to the conference table.

Nixon hailed the Paris Accords as “peace with honor,” but the boast rang hollow. The shaky “peace” was in reality little more than a thinly disguised American retreat.

Passed over Nixon’s veto, the War Powers Act (1973) required the president to report to Congress within forty-eight hours after committing troops to a foreign conflict or “substantially” enlarging American combat units in a foreign country.

APUSH: MR. ROLOFSON

The Arab Oil Embargo and the Energy Crisis

In October of 1973, the OPEC nations announced an embargo on oil shipments to the United States and several European allies supporting Israel.

Lines at gas stations grew longer as tempers grew shorter. The shortage triggered a major economic recession. The “energy crisis” suddenly energized a number of long-deferred projects. Congress approved a costly Alaska pipeline and a national speed limit of fifty-five miles per hour to conserve fuel.

OPEC approximately quadrupled its price for crude oil after lifting the embargo in 1974. Huge new oil bills wildly disrupted the U.S. balance of international trade and added further fuel to the already raging fires of inflation.

APUSH: MR. ROLOFSON

The Oil Crisis

OPEC’s 1973 embargo on shipping oil to the U.S. resulted in higher inflation and a recession at home.

Nixon tried to halt inflation by imposing a short-term freeze on wages, prices, and rents.

APUSH: MR. ROLOFSON

Henry Kissinger

Henry Kissinger served President Nixon as national security advisor, Secretary of State, and a skilled diplomat.

Nixon ordered Kissinger to install wiretaps on the phones of his staff.

Nixon aides responded to the siege mentality in the White House by making an enemies list.

APUSH: MR. ROLOFSON

The Watergate Scandal

The Committee to Reelect the President (CREEP) wanted to wiretap the Democratic National Committee, and burglars were caught attempting to do so.

The trial and sentencing of the Watergate burglars led to testimony to a Senate committee about White House involvement.

APUSH: MR. ROLOFSON

Woodward and Bernstein

Why were the burglars bugging the Watergate, and who were they working for?

Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein would spend a year and a half pursuing these questions.

APUSH: MR. ROLOFSON

The Cover-Up

Nixon tried to cover up an investigation of the Watergate break-in on the grounds that it involved national security.

What did the President know and when did he know it?

APUSH: MR. ROLOFSON

The Watergate Tapes

In the Senate hearings, it was revealed that Nixon had secretly recorded all of his own White House conversations.

Nixon refused to give up the tapes, claiming “executive privilege.” But the Supreme Court ruled that Nixon must turn over the tapes, reaffirming the principle that no one is above the law.

APUSH: MR. ROLOFSON

Nixon Resigns

One outcome of the Watergate scandal was the resignation – to avoid impeachment - of Richard Nixon.

Nixon became the first President to resign.

APUSH: MR. ROLOFSON

The Impact of Watergate

Lowered public confidence in the government

Showed that growth of Presidential power created new opportunities for abuse

Showed that our government is based on laws, not individuals, and that the system of checks and balances works

Proved that the two-party system works; the party out of power serves as a watchdog over the other

Reaffirmed the role of the press in uncovering government misconduct and informing the public

APUSH: MR. ROLOFSON

The combination of inflation and economic recession faced in the United States in 1973 was caused in part by

(A) The opening of diplomatic relations with China and the Soviet Union

(B) OPEC’s increasing the price of oil

(C) The North Vietnamese capture of Saigon

(D) The signing of the Camp David Accords

(E) The signing of the SALT I agreement

APUSH: MR. ROLOFSON

What action did Gerald Ford take to attempt to heal the nation following the Watergate scandal?

(A) He asked citizens to wear WIN buttons.

(B) He provided military support to the South Vietnamese government.

(C) He ordered a full investigation of the Nixon administration.

(D) He signed the Helsinki Accords.

(E) He pardoned Richard Nixon.

APUSH: MR. ROLOFSON