Daily Kos :: Jimmy Carter's Lost Vision: The Solution to War on Terrorism

Being a member of the tailing edge of the boomer generation, I remember the 70's well. As it regards politics and changes in the fortunes of liberals I have always been able to clearly identify the years when everything seemed to change - 1978 through 1982. Until then, the outcomes of 60's introspection as 70's political, rights and economic realism (as evidenced in rights battles like Roe vs Wade, the end of the Vietnam War, the attempt to pass the ERA, environmental regulation and so forth) were ripening, and were yes, restrictive. In short, I understood the material hardships were the economic whiplash of a political realignment that in the end could save us from environmental destruction through material conservation. Things were tight but I was happy, the way one who has been freed from the burden of an addiction might be - it hurt, but I knew it was good for me, my family, my country and by extension, the global community. It was the reverse whiplash of Reagan's full-tilt turnabout straight into Gordon Gekko's "Greed is Good" mentality that lost me.

For years now I have been wondering what happened in that late 70's period and this fascinating take on Jimmy Carter and the war on terrorism holds out some insight:

There's a brilliant piece in The Wilson Quarterly this month by Andrew J. Bacevich, Professor of International Relations at Boston University, excerpted from his upcoming book, "The New American Militarism" (No link to story provided yet). His essential point is a critique of the myth that the War on Terror is the Fourth World War (the Third being the Cold War). Bacevich believes that The War on Terror is actually simply the newest escalation in a World War that was declared 25 years ago by Jimmy Carter.

Bacevich writes:

By the beginning of 1980, a chastened Jimmy Carter had learned a hard lesson: It was not the prospect of making do with less that sustained American-style democracy, but the promise of more. Carter had come to realize that what Americans demanded from their government was freedom, defined as more choice, more opportunity, and, above all, greater abundance, measured in material terms. That abundance depended on assured access to cheap oil--and lots of it.

In enunciating the Carter Doctrine, the president was reversing course, effectively renouncing his prior vision of a less materialistic, more self-reliant democracy. Just six months earlier, this vision had been the theme of a prescient, but politically misconceived, address to the nation, instantly dubbed by pundits the "Crisis of Confidence" speech, though, in retrospect, perhaps better called "The Road Not Taken."

Ah, I miss Jimmy Carter, maybe the only fully liberal president of the last thirty years...