Unit 09: 1980 - Present Flashcards
You’ll learn about the advance of political conservatism, developments in science and technology, and demographic shifts that had major cultural and political consequences in this period. Topics may include: • Reagan and conservatism • The end of the Cold War • Shifts in the economy • Migration and immigration • Challenges of the 21st century On The Exam 4%–6% of score
How did the Supreme Court revise the Regents of the University of California v. Bakke (1978) hearing in 2003?
affirmative action legitimate interest creating a “diverse” student body
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Chapter 27:
From Triumph to Tragedy
(1989-2004)
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What happened during the Gulf War?
- Iraq annexed Kuwait (dictator: Saddam Hussein)
- fearing attack on Saudi Arabia: Bush rushed troops to defend Kuwait
- 1991: launched Operation Desert Storm
- drove Iraqi army from Kuwait
- UN ordered Iraq disarm and imposed economic sanctions produced suffering
- Hussein still leader
Who won the election in 1991?
Bill Clinton (Bush would have won due to increased approval rating after Gult War but it was followed by a recession)
How did Clinton deviate from Reagan and Bush in his first year? (culturally)
- appointed several blacks and women
- modified military’s stict ban on gay soldiers:
“Don’t ask, don’t tell” policy- officers not seek out gays for dismissle
What economic changes did Clinton make?
- Raised taxes on the wealthy
- expanded Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) →cash payment low-income workers during Ford Adminisration
How did Clinton’s economic policies echo his predecessors passion for free trade?
North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)
- created a free-trade zone consisting of Canada, Mexico, and US
What happened after the Republicans gained control of both houses of Congress since the 1950s?
“Freedom Revolutiion”
What was Newt Gingrichs platform during the Freedom Revolution?
Contract with America:
promised curtain scope of government, cuts on tax and environmental regulations, overhual welfare system, end affirmative action?
Implimentation:
- approved cuts
- shut down nonessential operations
How did Clinton rebuild his popularity in 1946?
- Campaign against radical Congress*
- opposed mose extreme parts & adopted others
Why did Clinton end the Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) in 1996?
- new grant system replaced it
- welfare rolls plummeted
What was Clinton’s approach to foreign policy?
- like Carter
- encourage settlement long-standing international conflicts
- elevate support human rights
What similarities did Jimmy Carter and Clinton’s foreign policy have?
- elevate support human rights
- struggled to put the rhetoric into policy
Ex: Rwanda Genocide (1994): US did nothing
What was the Baltic Crisis in 1989?
- disintegration of Yogoslavia (muti-ethinic state in southeastern Europe)
- communist government ruled since 1940: collapsed in 1989
- Country dissolved into 5 states:
- Balkan Crisis: ethinic conflicts plauged several nations
how did Clinton and the UN respond to the Balkan crisis and ethnic cleansing?
- most complex foreign policy crisis
- gave NATO new purpose:
- launched 2 month war in 1999 agianst
- Yugoslavian troops and local Serbs
conducted
ethnic cleansing against the Albanian population of Kosovo
How did “human rights” play a more important during the Clinton presidency?
- 100s nongovernmental agencies
- defined selves as protectors of human rights
How did the 21th century see a radical change in globalization?
- companies such as Microsoft worldwide reach
- unprecedented scope
- collapse of communism opened new space to spread capitalism
How did the collapse of communist regime see a renewed desire for a lack of government regulations in the US?
- critisized regulation of wages and working conditions, environment
How did American presidents tie capitalism to global freedom?
During the 1990s, presidents Bush, a Republican,
and Clinton, a Democrat, both spoke of an
American mission to create a single global free
market as the path to rising living standards,
the spread of democracy, and greater worldwide
freedom.
What was the anitglobalization movement?
- challenge consequences
- accelerated worldwide creation of wealth
- widended gap between rich and poor countries & haves and have-nots
How did Clinton change the government’s budget?
- Reagan and Bush leave behind massive deficit
- Clinton created surplus in second term
- due to increased economic growth and taxes
What was the Computer Revolution in the 1990s?
dawn of “new economy”
computers and internet produce new efficiencies
- developed high-speed military communications network
- expanded flow of information
How did the Computer Revolution result in another stock market boom? What was the result?
Investors poured funds into stocks, spurred by rise of discount and online firms
- attracted to new “dot coms” (companies conducted business via Internet)
- many “high-tech” companies not turn profit
- April 14, 2000: Dot-Com Bubble Burst
- largest one-day point drop in history
- apparent stock market boom fueld partially fraud (Enron reported billions of profits while operating losses)
How did the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act (1999) affect stocks?
Act: New Deal measure separates commerical banks from investment banks
Effects of repeal:
- stock frauds
- poured money into risky mortgages
- housing bulle collapsed in 2008:
banks suffered losses threaten bring down entire financial systeem
- housing bulle collapsed in 2008:
How did the book beginning in 1995 affect Americans?
Benefitted nearly all Americans
- real wages increased
- family incomes grow
- still: poor and middle-class became poorer while the rich became richer
How did NAFTA result in outsourcing?
- continued shift manufacturing jobs to Mexico - cheaper
- downwards pressure US wages
- Businesses increaed relied on finanical operations from profits rather than making things
How did immigration reform since WW2 change the country’s religious and racial map?
Immigrants moved into outlying neighborhoods and older sububrs
no longer concentrated in one part of a city
How did post-1965 immigration form part of worldwide uprooting of labor arising from globalization?
- migrants to US:
- poor and illiterate refugees
- well-educated professionals
What change in the sex of immigrants took place post-1965?
- majority women
- reflected decline manufactoring jobs previously absored immigrant men
- spread of opportunity
Describe Mexican immigration to the US in the 1990s.
Massive amounts of legal and illegal immigrations
- why:
- poverty
- high brithrate
- proximity to US
How did the presence of Latino communities change in the US?
- largest minority population
- poorer than rest of the country
- flux of legal and undocumented
- low-wage urban jobs
Desribed the increased racial pluralism in the US
- increased visibility of Asians and Latinos
- interracial marriages more common and acceptable
Decribe the increased prison population in the 1990s.
- due to “tough on crime”
- crime rates decline → prison population increase
Describe the racial disparity in the prison system
- percentage blacks 5 times higher than whites
- 1/4 all black men spent time in prison during their lives
*
What was teh Americans with Disabilities Act (1990)?
prohibited discrimination on the basis of disabilities
How did the gay rights campagin that movements that lost intensity after the 60s gain support agian in the 90s?
- Campaign for gay rights
attention to combating acquired AIDS- epidemic among gay men
- promote “safe sex” and press federal governemtn devote greater resources fighting disease
- Increased role in politics
Which movements that lost intensity after the 60s were revived in the 90s?
- Gay rights campaign
- American Indian movement
Describe the resurgence of the American Indian movement in the 90s.
- population growth
- renewed sense of pride: many first time identify themselves as AI in census
- still economic hardships
How did some Americans respond to increased immigration, raicla minorities, inheritors of sexual revolution?
- Not celebrate multicultualism*
- Alarm over cultural fragmentation*
- result: Cultural Wars (battle over moral values raged hrough 90s)
What was the Christian Coalition in the 90s?
- started Pat Robertson (evangelical)
- crusade against gay rights, abortion, secularism in public schools
Casey v. Planned Parenthood of Pennsylvania (1992)
- reaffirmed women’s right to terminate pregnancy
- overturned requirement husband be notified before procedure was undertaken
How did private militias grow in the 90s?
- racial fringe of conservatism
- belief federal government posed threat to American freedom
- private militias armed themselves to fend off oppression
What led to the possible impeachment of Clinton in 1998?
- became known Clinton had sex Monica Lewinsky (White House intern)
- 1998: Republican house voted to impeach Clinton
- not successful
How did Clinton’s continued popularity during the sex impeachment represent societal values?
demonstrated how profoundly traditional attitudes
toward
sexual morality had changed.
What happened during the election in 2000?
- closest in history (between Al Gore and George W. Bush)
- SC determine outcome: Bush v. Gore
- oddest SC case
- justified decision with “equal protection clause” required all ballots be within state counted according single standard
- Bush Won
What challenges faced American democracy at the end of 2000?
- electoral college → gave precidency to candidate not recieve the most votes
- country: voting system in which citizens choices were not relaible
What was 9/11? (September 11, 2001)
- hijachers seized control 4 jet airlines filled with passengers
- crashed 2 into World Trade Center
- 3rd: wing of the Pentagon
- 4rth: passangers overpowered hijachers
- Crashed in field in Pittsburgh killing all
What was the response to 9/11?
- blamed Al Qaeda (leader: Osama bin Laden)
- fought with USSR in Afganistan
- hates US
- new urgancy to answer: Should the US act in the world as a republic or an empire?
How did the events of 9/11 change public support of the government?
- increased government support
- public trust rose dramatically
- public servants = national heros
renewal feeling of common social purpose
What was the Bush Doctrine?
US would launch as war on terrorism
- new foreign polkcy
- war on terrorism
- vaguely defined enemy
- demanded Taliban give up Laden → refusal
- 2001: launched airstrike
What was Bush’s “Enduring Freedom?”
War on Afghanistan
- end 2001: combination of US bombing and ground combat by Northern Alliance (Afghans fought Taliban) driven the regime from power
- New government: dependent US
not establish full control of the country
Who were the “Axis of Evil?”
- Iraq
- Iran
- North Korea
What was the international response to 9-11?
- wave of sympathy
- supported war in Afghanistan → response to terrorist attacks
- 2002: US claiming the right to act as world policeman in violation of international law
Why did Bush announce a goal of “regime change” in Iraq in 2002?
- conservatives wanted to remove Saddam Hussein from power → saw 9-11 as an opportunity
- no evidence Iraq anything to do with it
- Regime change: Hussein
- ousted from power because he developed arsenal of chemical and bacterial weapons (no independent investigations
- turned out to be false
- successful
How did the Iraq War split the Western alliance?
- inspired massive antiwar movement in the world
- Chian, Russian, Germany, France: not support “preemptive” strike on Iraq
What happened after the fall of Hussein’s regime?
- looting and chaos followed
- insurgency developed →
- targeted US soldiers and Iraqis cooperating with them
- Shiite and Sunni Muslim fighting
What similarities did American involvement in Iraq and Vietnam have?
Little knowledge of the countries which they sent troops
How did the Iraq War mark a departure in American foreign policy?
- enormous power in WW2
- never occupied nation
How did the war on terror raise questions about freedom and security?
problem of balancing security and liberty
What was the USA Patriot Act? (2001)
- conferred uprecedented power on law-enforcement agencies
- preventing new, vaguely-defined crime of “domestic terrorism”
1. spying citizens
2. open letters
How did Americans respond to increase citizen survaliance and government power post 9-11?
Willing to accept contention that retains time-honors liberties to fight terorism
How did the Bush adminitration try to undermine international law in relation to torture?
- insisted aftermath of 9-11 US not be bound by international law
- eager sidestep Geneva Conventions & International Convention aginst Torture
- 2003: prohibited use of torture
- CIA series of jails in foreign nations > kidnapped suspects
How did the torture practices of the Bush adminitration become known true toe Abu Ghraib prison?
- Iraqi prison
- beat prisoners & electric shock & attacked dogs & strip and lie atop other prisoners
- photos circulated - public
- undermined reputation of US as a country adheres standard civil liberties
- full extend torture only known in 2014
- not just a few bad apples
- systematically employed at secret US prisons
How did the SC respond to the Bush misuse of powers internationally?
dispoved→ reaffired rule of law both domestically and internationally
Hamdi v. Rumsfeld (2004)
- lawsuit of Yasir Hamdi (American citizen moved Saudi Arabia been captured in Afghanistan. Imprisoned military jail in South Carolina without hearing)
- ruled right to judicial heearing
Hamdan v. Rumsfeld (2006)
- 2 justices replaced → more conservative
- still rebuke to key presumptions of Bush administration:
- said Geneva Convensions not apply to prisoners captured in war on terror
- Prisoners of war → law of the land
Boumediene v. Bush (2008)
affirmed detainees’ right to challenge their detention in US counts
The decision was a powerful affirmation that constitutional rights remain intact during wartime.
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Chapter 28:
A Divided Nation
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