November 4 Reagan’s America

Read: Seventies, 218-241;

Recommended:

· Reagan’s Administration’s Spending Pattern (in respect to other administrations)

· Reagan’s Morning in America Ad: http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/1996/candidates/ad.archive/reagan_morning.mov

· Kevin Phillips, Reagan’s America: A Capital Offense – the originator of Nixon’s southern strategy and former Republican excoriates the President’s role in stratifying wealth in the US

· The Reagan example

· Excerpt from Barbara Ehrenreich, The Worst Years of Our Lives,

· James Watt on the Environment

· Excerpt from National Review on the virtues of the Reagan Years

Culture:

· Lee Atwater and the Destruction of Black Music—very interesting interpretation of the decline of funk and disco http://www.soul-patrol.com/funk/lee_at.htm

· Awesome 80s nostalgia for the 1980s

· The 80s Movies

· American Consumerism, 1970-present Excerpt from Juliet Schor, The Overspent American

· The Way We Never Were: Americans and the Nostalgia Trap “Historically, Americans have tended to discover a crisis in family structure and standards whenever they are in the midst of major changes in socioeconomic structure and standards. Today's family crisis follows a major economic and political restructuring going on since the late 1960s” –blame the family (and women) instead of the social structures that put pressure on it

Weaver story

· Excerpt on Military and Social Spending from Right Turn

· Reagan and the Chicago Welfare Queen

· Democrats Response from Right Turn

· Late Reagan presidency--Excerpt from William Chafe

· Ronald Reagan Calls for New Economic Policies, speech before business,1980

· Star Trek-Klingons and Commies: http://www.bbc.co.uk/cult/st/original/commies.shtml

· The Tax Revolt by Thomas Edsall http://members.tripod.com/~anthony_giacalone/tax_revolt.html

· New Right by Alan Crawford http://members.tripod.com/~anthony_giacalone/new_right.html

The Education of David Stockman (David Stockman shaped Reagan's first budget, here he reveals some of the startling class-conscious basis for that administration's decision-making—the game was to increase military spending, thereby creating a budget crisis that would reduce social spending)

Kevin Philips, Reagan’s America: A Capital Offense Philips was a conservative Nixon advisor in 1968, turned against the conservative revolution of class warfare

Whatever became of Jude Wanniski, of famous Laffer curve fame? (The Laffer curve was the much heralded but totally unfounded basis of the Reagan Administration’s economic policies) Now he’s viewed as a crank even by the right-wing

The Tax Revolt by Thomas Edsall --the story behind the revolt

Military under Reagan

· Understanding Military and Social Spending Under Reagan --theme: military spending was geared not toward winning the Cold War, but toward giving a boost to the military industrial complex and reduce social spending

· Excerpt from Gunfighter Nation (on Reagan/John Wayne and the cowboy myth)

· With Enough Shovels: Reagan and Nuclear War Reagan appointee’s view on surviving a nuclear war: “If there are enough shovels to go around, everybody’s going to make it”

Racial Politics

· · Lee Atwater and the Destruction of Black Music Very interesting Perspective

· · The Big Black Rapist and the 1988 Presidential Campaign—race and politics in the late 20^th century

the Actual ad is at http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/1996/candidates/ad.archive/horton.mov

(this can take quite a long time to load, but is worth it.)

· · Opposing the Second Reconstruction- (history of affirmative action, legal status of African Americans)

· Dubious Secrets -- the bizarre things that are classified as secret in our obsession with secrecy – a humorous but in the end, very serious look at how overclassification leads to less democracy and the ability to hide the reality of foreign policy

· Snitch Snitch" investigates how a fundamental shift in the country's anti-drug laws -- including federal mandatory minimum sentencing and conspiracy provisions--has bred a culture of snitching that is in many cases rewarding the guiltiest and punishing the less guilty.

· Low Intensity Conflict and the War on Drugs

· Excerpt from Fear of Falling: The Inner Life of the Middle Class (Yuppies)

· Ten Myths about Affirmative Action—one of the most polarizing issues of the era was based on much mythology

· Affirmative Action History

· Deregulation and the Attack on labor –excerpt from Right Turn

· Concession Bargaining and the Decline of Unions in the 1980s Explodes myth that concessionary bargaining by unions saved jobs; shows how it started under Jimmy Carter, not Ronald Reagan, and is related to corporate agenda in both parties; shows how it was politically, not economically conditioned

· Mexican coyotes – the life of illegal immigrants

· Latinos as a scapegoat for Unemployment (1982)

· Steelworkers Face A Bleak Future After Layoffs (1984) –Chicago – Wisconsin Steel hardships

· Prison Industrial Complex

Multiculturalism in the workplace, 1998

“Labor Has To Be International:” David Abdulah Describes Workers Strategies for Organizing Transnational Corporations

Sweatshop Watch

AFL-CIO Global Economy page -- lots of links, including women in the global economy statistics, children in the global economy, etc.

National Labor Committee for worker and human rights—

Nike Wages site

Fifty Years is Enough—policies of the WTO

Chicago Tribune records “massive scale” of child labor

Economic Policy Institute --analysis of U.S. living standards, wage and hour patterns, benefits, trade and globalization statistics, etc --see for example, their report, “Inequality at the Starting Gate” on Kindergartners and the effect of disadvantages

Income Inequality chart

Bush’s assault on Labor Rights

Executive Paywatch --follow the trends of executive pay

Boom for Whom? Inequality dogged the “new economy”

Wealth Distribution

Household Debt

Race and Money—statistics of income and jobs

Whose Bubble Was it? –analyzing recent trends

Program on Law, Corporations and Democracy

UNFAIR ADVANTAGE Workers' Freedom of Association in the United States under International Human Rights Standards by Human Rights Watch, 2000

Barbara Ehrenreich, Your Urine Please -workers rights analyzed by their right or obligation to pee

· · Browse: Enron and public financing--- http://www.seen.org/ --at least read the press release on the issue

story.html?StoryID=10560

· · For Teenagers, McDonalds is a Snack

· · Swollen Fortunes: Congress Feeds the Rich (Moberg, 2000) http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Class_War/Congress_Feeds_Rich.html

· · Rich Media Poor Democracy http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Media_control_propaganda/RichMedia_PoorDemo.html

· · Excerpts from book

· · http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/McChesney/RichMedia_PoorDemocracy.html

· · This Communication Revolution Is Brought To You By U.S. Media at the Dawn of the 21st Century

· · by Robert W. McChesney excerpted from 1998 Censored News Stories

· · http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Project%20Censored/CommunicationRevol_PC.html

· · Prison-Industrial Complex (there are 3 parts to this article) http://www2.theatlantic.com/issues/98dec/prisons.htm

· · The Worst Thing Clinton Has Done

· · http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/97mar/edelman/edelman.htm

· · Hidden Entitlements: corporations and welfare: http://www.ctj.org/html/hemenu.htm

· · How Government and International Agencies Used Taxpayers Money to

Bankroll Enron’s international investments http://www.corpwatch.org/issues/PID.jsp?articleid=2279

· · Corporate Welfare increased http://www.cato.org/pubs/wtpapers/corpwelfare-es.html

· · Incomes Rise in 1999, but so do work hours http://www.economicpolicyinstitute.org/webfeatures/econindicators/income.html

· · Corporate croppers : top 2% of fed agricultural recipients http://www.ewg.org/pub/home/Reports/Croppers/Cash_Croppers.html

· · Corporate Welfare http://www.corporations.org/welfare/globe2.html

Corporate Welfare Information Center http://www.corporations.org/welfare/

· · Aids and History http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/pwh/index-am.html#c22

· The Big Black Rapist and the 1988 Presidential Campaign—race and politics in the late 20^th century

· · One other document useful for your historical biography, from the list below

· · Abortion and the Politics of Motherhood

· · Excerpt from Intimate Matters (Sexual Politics and the New Right, Homosexuality as a political issue, AIDS crisis)

· · “The Liberal Media”: The Poltergeist that will Not Die –the idea of the media is filled with liberal advocates is unfounded, even though it is widely considered as true. Turns out to be a mantra that is just repeated as a political ploy

· · My outline on the influence of the New Right—women as a “bridge group” for the new right –

· · Sunbelt Conservatism – the influence of military spending on the creation of the south as a political powerbase

· · The New Right by Alan Crawford (1981) written early in the influence – Moral Majority, Jerry Falwell, others

· · My outline on anti-governmentalism under Reagan (Savings and Loan Bailout and deregulation)

Class War in the 1980s

· · How ideas were transformed by money— funding of popular books—“these people wrote books directed at a mass audience and received funding and support from conservative sources that understood the fundamental importance of the battle of ideas.”

· · Candidate Ronald Reagan speaks against regulation (1980)

· · James Watt on the Environment (1981) Watt was Reagan’s Secretary of the Interior

· · Fear of Falling: The Inner Life of the Middle Class (Yuppies)

· · Ronald Reagan on regulation and spiritual awakening

· · The Education of David Stockman (David Stockman shaped Reagan's first budget, here he reveals some of the startling class-conscious basis for that administration's decision-making—the game was to increase military spending, thereby creating a budget crisis that would reduce social spending)

· · Bruce Shulman, The Reagan Culmination – a recent retrospective

· · Kevin Philips, Reagan’s America: A Capital Offense Philips was a conservative Nixon advisor in 1968, turned against the conservative revolution of class warfare

· · Whatever became of Jude Wanniski, of famous Laffer curve fame? (The Laffer curve was the much heralded but totally unfounded basis of the Reagan Administration’s economic policies) Now he’s viewed as a crank even by the right-wing

· · The Tax Revolt by Thomas Edsall --the story behind the revolt

· · Reagan’s Morning in America Ad (1984) --- very notable for its impact, but not acceptable as extra reading document·

Labor and Immigration

· · Deregulation and the Attack on labor –excerpt from Right Turn

· · Concession Bargaining and the Decline of Unions in the 1980s Explodes myth that concessionary bargaining by unions saved jobs; shows how it started under Jimmy Carter, not Ronald Reagan, and is related to corporate agenda in both parties; shows how it was politically, not economically conditioned

· · Mexican coyotes – the life of illegal immigrants

· · Latinos as a scapegoat for Unemployment (1982)

· · Steelworkers Face A Bleak Future After Layoffs (1984) –Chicago – Wisconsin Steel hardships

Other

· · American Consumerism, 1970-present Excerpt from Juliet Schor, The Overspent American

· · The Way We Never Were: Americans and the Nostalgia Trap “Historically, Americans have tended to discover a crisis in family structure and standards whenever they are in the midst of major changes in socioeconomic structure and standards. Today's family crisis follows a major economic and political restructuring going on since the late 1960s” –blame the family (and women) instead of the social structures that put pressure on it

· · A Time Bomb Inside of You: the AIDS crisis

· · Excerpt from Story of American Freedom

· · My outline on anti-governmentalism under Reagan (Savings and Loan Bailout and deregulation)

· · Phyllis Schlafly’s Eagle Forum anti-feminist Phyllis Schlafly’s website

· · Conservative Foundations by Eric Alterman a fantastic summary of the influence of money on the media- brief

· · The Money behind the Media this is among my favorite sites. Here you can find the way that money influences the media and ideas in society. It traces the funding for “think tanks” that are often quoted. This is the group that showed the Nazi-Eugenics link behind the funding of the book The Belle Curve, which proclaimed that African-American IQ numbers were lower because of racial factors (an idea discredited by most social scientists) But the website has lots of other examples.

· · Ten Myths about Affirmative Action—one of the most polarizing issues of the era was based on much mythology

· · Affirmative Action History

· · The FBI, COINTELPRO and Far-Right Vigilante Networks --provocative, documented; main point he makes is that the violence against abortion clinics is in part the outcome of earlier decisions made by the FBI to support right-wing terrorist groups against left-wing in the U.S.;

Uncle Ronnie and His Contra Buddies

PATCO- pivotal moment in Reagan administration

Homelessness in NY during 1980s

Aids Use in Prison

1996 description of welfare in New York We Want Real Jobs