[HN Gopher] Statement on President Carter's Health
___________________________________________________________________
Statement on President Carter's Health
Author : astrange
Score : 186 points
Date : 2023-02-18 21:25 UTC (1 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.cartercenter.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.cartercenter.org)
| rgmerk wrote:
| I was hoping that Carter was going to live to see Guinea Worm
| eradicated: https://www.theguardian.com/global-
| development/2023/jan/25/g...
|
| With any luck it might be achieved by his 100th birthday.
| DennisP wrote:
| Until covid hit, he taught Sunday school in Atlanta. Anyone could
| come sit in on his class, but there was limited space. You had to
| get in line by 4 am or so to get in.
|
| I found out about this in 2019 or so, and I'm within a day's
| drive. Thought about doing it, hadn't yet, and then it was too
| late.
| sfgoodforonce wrote:
| Carter blessed the re-election of Hugo Chavez as "free and fair"
| when he should have known better. Carter was ultimately a flawed
| man more beholden to leftism than to to truth. He was complicit
| in the total destruction of a country and that's what he should
| be remembered for.
| HL33tibCe7 wrote:
| Just a heads up -- you live in an echo chamber
| sfgoodforonce wrote:
| And I guess you're willingly ignorant.
| elbigbad wrote:
| I am not the person to whom you're responding, but I feel
| compelled to say that I would very much recommend you
| broaden whatever literature or media you consume. Your
| statements are really at odds with a more nuanced reality.
| I don't think having a second opinion will help much, but I
| don't think it could hurt necessarily.
| wkat4242 wrote:
| I have a lot of respect for Carter. Not only did he really seem
| interested in world peace instead of the warmongering from the
| MIC, he also remained active for all these years furthering
| humanitarian causes. And he was a brilliant nuclear engineer who
| cleaned up a nuclear accident with this team in Canada.
|
| I know he wasn't popular in the US which I don't really
| understand. It sounds to me like he fought the vested big money
| interests too much and they campaigned against him. I'm a
| European though and as such I don't know a lot about his domestic
| policies. Perhaps those were not as well received as his
| international leadership.
|
| But I'm very sure that if most world leaders were like him, the
| world would be a much better place.
|
| I'm very sad to hear he's in a hospice now.
| digianarchist wrote:
| The Carter administration was certainly better than others when
| it came to foreign-policy but he still authorized and funded
| Operation Cyclone [0].
|
| To say that he was interested in world peace is pure
| revisionism.
|
| [0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Cyclone
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| While he definitely deserves blame for the project starting
| under his watch, he still did far less with it than Reagan.
|
| >Funding officially began with $695,000 in mid-1979,[3] was
| increased dramatically to $20-$30 million per year in 1980,
| and rose to $630 million per year in 1987
|
| His total funding of it was around 5% of what the Reagan
| administration spent in one of it's eleven years funding it.
| nivenkos wrote:
| He funded and armed the Mujahideen in Operation Cyclone though
| - which has literally caused endless trouble with the rise of
| radical Islam. So it wasn't all "world peace".
| 0xDEF wrote:
| This is a rather wrong view on who exactly the West supported
| in Afghanistan.
|
| The Mujahideens the West supported became the Northern
| Alliance. The NA allowed girls to go to school. The NA was
| also allied with Iran and didn't persecute the Shia
| population of Afghanistan.
|
| Unfortunately the NA lost the later Afghan civil war to the
| Saudi/Pakistan backed Taliban.
|
| Also the rise of radical Islam has more to do with Arab
| countries and Israel than some Central Asian country that is
| culturally and geopolitically more connected to India than
| the Middle East.
| wkat4242 wrote:
| True, but this is something that could have gone both ways.
| It could easily have led to an enlightened movement as well.
| At he time the Mudjahedeen were very much in the "good guys"
| book.
| rtkwe wrote:
| How much of that was the US's Cold War classic evaluation
| where Anti-Communist seems to vastly dominate any other
| consideration in the decision of who to back? Just look at
| the dictators and death squads we actively trained here in
| South and Central America.
| derbOac wrote:
| I think there's been a gradual reassessment of him over the
| years in the US. I'm not saying everyone sees him as a
| fantastic president, or that they necessarily should, but my
| sense is that he's seen more positively now than he was at one
| time.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| I liked him (am American). He tried to bring the Metric system
| to the U.S., as en example.
|
| I have a hilarious road trip Kodak photo from the 70's where
| our family are standing in front of a sign at some mountain
| pass in the Rocky Mountains and the sign gives the elevation in
| both feet and meters.
|
| A recent Google street-view I found for the same location shows
| elevation in feet only.
|
| To hell with Reagan.
| blululu wrote:
| The cards were stacked against him. The legacy of Vietnam and
| the Yom Kippur War led to a massive debt, and an oil embargo
| from OPEC. This led to high inflation, high unemployment and
| constrained federal budgets for the first time in ~40 years.
| Arguably he saw the correct way out through innovation and
| American energy independence but the technology wasn't there
| yet and the electorate had little stomach dealing with high
| unemployment and high inflation through austerity for the
| length of time needed. He was also perhaps too principled for
| Washington politics, and he routinely got his ass handed to him
| by his own party in Congress which had no desire to curb
| spending on even the most obviously wasteful programs. But
| these are all excuses and as President you don't really get to
| make excuses. As much as I admire and respect the man and
| support his vision for America, the reality is things just
| didn't work out for him as president.
| [deleted]
| fortran77 wrote:
| > seem interested in world peace
|
| He's a smart man, with a lot of genuine accomplishments. But he
| wants to erase the nation where much of my family lives off the
| map, and he accuses me of racism. I don't see him as interested
| in world peace. He has an agenda.
| code_runner wrote:
| Can you elaborate a bit on this claim?
| fortran77 wrote:
| https://www.adl.org/resources/news/anti-semitic-reactions-
| ji...
| joshuamorton wrote:
| Quoting stormfront isn't particularly convincing about
| _Carter 's_ views, and given that a quick jaunt to the
| Wikipedia article shows Carter stating he fully supports
| Israel and that it's a "wonderful democracy" makes me
| wonder what you're talking about.
|
| Carter's views can't even be called antizionist. He
| plainly supports Israel's right to exist.
| coin wrote:
| Opinion piece from the Anti-Defamation League, not the
| most neutral source
| vore wrote:
| The ADL has a stunningly broad definition of anti-
| Semitism. They claim they draw a distinction between
| criticism of the Israeli government vs the Jewish people,
| but they do not allow much daylight between the two.
| Criticism of Israeli government actions against
| Palestinians is actually denying Israeli self-
| determination which is actually anti-Semitism, sorry!
| cldellow wrote:
| That link doesn't seem to support your claim that Carter
| wants to erase Israel.
|
| The link describes what a bunch of white supremacists
| think about the book. Some (many?) of them likely haven't
| read it, and are reacting to the title alone.
|
| I will admit that I also haven't read it. But I know it
| contains this paragraph:
|
| > The security of Israel must be guaranteed. The Arabs
| must acknowledge openly and specifically that Israel is a
| reality and has a right to exist in peace, behind secure
| and recognized borders, and with a firm Arab pledge to
| terminate any further acts of violence against the
| legally constituted nation of Israel.
|
| That doesn't sound like erasing to me?
| rocket_surgeron wrote:
| If a country has been targeted by Jimmy Carter for erasure,
| it probably deserves it.
|
| edit: oh, it's an Israel thing. Are Israeli citizens who
| marry people from certain countries still forbidden from
| bringing their loved ones into the country?
| doktorhladnjak wrote:
| Great person but he was unpopular as a president at the time
| because he failed to stop high inflation and to resolve the
| Iranian hostage crisis. The latter especially sunk his chances
| of re-election. So much of politics is about what happens when
| you're in office, but also how you deal with what happens.
| emilsedgh wrote:
| If there was any justice, there would be an investigation
| around Republicans' treason around this. Watch HBO's
| documentary about the matter but basically republicans
| negotiate with Iran behind US government's knowledge to not
| release the hostages until Raegan becomes president. Had it
| not been for this literal treason for party gain, Carter
| would've managed to get them released much earlier.
| syzarian wrote:
| What I don't understand about narrative that Carter failed on
| Iran is that Regan never got enough blame for blatantly
| violating U.S. laws and negotiated with Iran despite saying
| we don't negotiate with hostage takers. Carter got far too
| much blame and Reagan far too little.
|
| https://www.vox.com/2016/1/25/10826056/reagan-iran-
| hostage-n...
| krapp wrote:
| To put it simply, winners write the history, and Reagan's
| influence on American politics and culture far outstripped
| Carter.
| michaelscott wrote:
| Reagan played the political game far better than both
| Carter and Nixon (Watergate notwithstanding). He was a
| master at couching effective foreign policy tactics, which
| often relied on detente (eg negotiating with Iran), within
| the augur of American values and exceptionalism that spoke
| to the people of the time ("we don't negotiate with hostage
| takers").
|
| The former was critical to actually get things done, but a
| president has to realise that the latter is just as
| critical because you need that public support to get the
| former through the door.
| coin wrote:
| He did resolve the Iranian hostage crisis. It was just that
| the hostages weren't released until 20 minutes after Regan
| was sworn in.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| Yeah, it was the first time (I was then a young adult) when
| I smelled a rat at the Presidential level. Even then I
| called bullshit - later to learn it was all part of a
| hostage-for-arms swap.
|
| Disgusting.
| emmelaich wrote:
| > _brilliant nuclear engineer_
|
| Was he though? He did a B.Sc. and then "nuclear power school, a
| six-month non-credit course" which he did not finish (through
| no fault of his own).
|
| The course was started _after_ the clean-up in Canada.
| coin wrote:
| > really seem interested in world peace
|
| Definitely. He returned the Panama Canal to Panama because it's
| the right thing to do despite perhaps not being in the US' best
| interest. He advocated Palestine's rights despite all the
| resistance from the pro-Israel community.
| oxfeed65261 wrote:
| Apparently my grandfather had a bumper sticker, "Keep the
| canal, give 'em Carter."
| [deleted]
| yyyk wrote:
| * Initiated deregulation and an inflation-hawkish Fed.
|
| * Very dubious energy policies - which were _not_ dominated by
| environmentalism but by the search for alternate fossil fuel
| sources, all of them way more polluting then conventional
| fossil fuels.
|
| * Mixed foreign policy record, failing badly in on Iran and
| Zimbabwe but helping with Egypt-Israel peace.
| lenzm wrote:
| I think the general image of him is that he was a good person,
| perhaps the "best" to ever hold the office, but was not
| effective as President. That he was idealistic, naive and
| impractical. I don't necessarily agree with the above and he
| was before my time.
| Miraste wrote:
| He was unpopular for a number of other reasons, some of which
| were just bad luck. Inflation was high, the economy was poor,
| there was a massive oil shortage, and the Iranian hostage
| crisis went poorly. There were a lot of smaller issues too,
| like the 55mph speed limit. While he had good intentions and
| was far more forward thinking than other presidents, he wasn't
| an adept administrator and didn't manage to get buy-in on any
| of his plans. It's another sad instance of good people making
| bad politicians.
| incanus77 wrote:
| > he wasn't an adept administrator
|
| I can't find too much on this now except for the fact it
| happened, but initially Carter decided to buck tradition and
| not have a chief of staff, preferring instead a more level
| cabinet that could come to him as needed. I can't remember
| where I heard/read/saw this analysis, but it was cited as a
| major faux pas which led to him being completely inundated
| with competing priorities. The office of president is much
| more complex than that of the governorship of even a large
| state, and not having a trusted chief of staff who could help
| Carter prioritize led to a more ineffectual office.
| starkd wrote:
| There were stories of him personally doing scheduling
| charts for the White House Staff. That probably was an
| exageration that did not happen that often, but he was a
| technocrat. He loved getting involved in details. More
| evidence that engineers generally make poor politicians.
| snapetom wrote:
| Chris Matthews touches on this and other examples in
| Hardball. Carter is a great man, but just wasn't a very
| suave politician. Another example Matthews cites was
| getting rid of the presidential yacht. Sure it made for a
| few good public points, but it handicapped Carter in losing
| a historically valuable tool for many informal handshake
| political deals.
| Waterluvian wrote:
| A classic problem in politics:
|
| We need leaders because everyday people are often not
| informed or interested in the boring but important things.
| The sober choices that are often right but unsatisfying. But
| then a lot of us want our leaders to obsess over the little,
| inconsequential things we find to be important. And then we
| end up wondering if a candidate is someone you could have a
| beer with, and the exceptional candidates are seen as
| unpopular.
|
| I've always felt that politics, when working, should feel
| boring. And that one's civic duty to be informed and vote
| should feel like actual effort. Like homework.
| starkd wrote:
| I often wish we could abolish 24/7 cable news altother.
| When breaking news happens, we hear the same breaking news
| headline for the next 24 hours like it is a new event.
| version_five wrote:
| Related is the fact that most people who would be good
| politicians want nothing to do with politics and most that
| go into politics are the worst people to represent us.
| While i know it's too idealistic, I wish there could be
| some jury duty style model where real people are obliged to
| take on political duties
| Waterluvian wrote:
| "Mother #*^%er."
|
| "What's wrong?"
|
| "Sigh. Just got this in the mail. It says I have to be
| president this year."
| NoZebra120vClip wrote:
| This is not as far-fetched as it would seem:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sortition
|
| The ancient Greeks pretty much appointed magistrates and
| others by lottery, and every citizen participated in a
| very direct democracy.
|
| The Greeks saw this as a counter to oligarchy. I'm not
| sure that today's federal government is very far off from
| oligarchical tendencies.
| BolexNOLA wrote:
| I hear this a lot but I think it's kind of a cynical
| take. There are plenty of people who run for office
| because they _genuinely_ care and _genuinely believe_
| they can make a difference.
|
| Of course there are power hungry sociopaths who make it.
| But there are 535 members of Congress, 50 governors,
| thousands of mayors and city council members and state
| reps, etc. They can't all be terrible, yet I feel like
| the popular refrain is still "no one actually good wants
| to be in charge."
|
| I don't know. Just feels very self fulfilling and
| defeatist.
| pydry wrote:
| If you take principled stances you will generally end up
| making a lot of enemies of powerful interests. They will
| shred your character in public mercilessly and
| persistently even if your record is pretty much spotless.
|
| It's much _much_ easier to be casually evil and join a
| bloc of powerful interests who will take care of you and
| look after you if you happen to be caught in bed with a
| prostitute.
| Waterluvian wrote:
| I've seen the "voluntold into politics" at lower levels:
| like in schools and community organizations and such. The
| president of my province's dental association is someone
| new every year.
|
| It seems to work, particularly at lower levels. At high
| levels, perhaps not so much.
|
| I agree that there's people who sign up out of civic
| duty. I think the sexiness of politics attracts the wrong
| people. I think this is particularly an American
| phenomenon, but not unheard of elsewhere. We have a
| handful of cult personalities in politics but 99% of the
| politicians you can't even name. They're not getting huge
| kickbacks or a big salary. It's just a job.
| WJW wrote:
| The "politician by random lottery" model has always
| seemed like it would get completely owned by those that
| don't get changed around every few years, like the civil
| service and the lobbyists. Even more than is already the
| case, since at least now you can have career politicians
| who can be trained by their parties in things like
| "dealing with lobbyists". Seriously, I love my mother but
| if she were the deliberate target of a months long
| lobbying campaign with billions of budget I fear for the
| actions she might take.
| yyyk wrote:
| True, but we don't have to appoint everyone or even most
| positions that way. A small random element can actually
| help in keeping a system stable.
| irrational wrote:
| I'd rather have good people that are bad politicians than bad
| people being good politicians, which seems to be what we get
| the majority of the time.
| thr0waway001 wrote:
| Good always better than bad. I think we all agree on that.
|
| But good and ineffectual. I'm not sure I'd pick that over a
| dickhead who gets the job done.
| austinjp wrote:
| Surely it depends very much on what job gets done?
| BolexNOLA wrote:
| I feel like that sort of reinforces his point tbh. But
| both of y'all are right on some level.
| Maursault wrote:
| President Carter solved inflation, and it cost him the
| election, and President Reagan got the credit. Carter
| appointed Paul Volcker, an inflation hawk, as Fed chair in
| 1979. Volcker solved inflation by raising interest rates,
| causing two recessions, one of which was during Carter's re-
| election year. Reagan kept Volcker on for a short time before
| firing him, but Volcker got the job done, so it was President
| Carter that took inflation seriously and solved it with his
| hawkish Fed chair appointment. President Reagan gets credit
| for a booming economy, but it was President Carter that was
| responsible for that through massive deregulation. Reagan is
| thought of as a deregulator, but he only had two
| deregulations, one of which was Savings and Loan, which
| massively contributed to the 2008 mortgage crisis.
| Conservatives think back to the good old days of Reagan's two
| terms, but Reagan, seriously, didn't do shit, and everything
| everyone loves about that decade was solely due to the
| policies and decisions and sacrifices of President Carter.
| The man absolutely is a saint, and if there is any US
| President that could validly be canonized, it is him.
| Der_Einzige wrote:
| FDR first (and the first lady) then Carter re:
| canonization.
| lambdasquirrel wrote:
| Pretty much this. If there was ever a fundamental flaw of
| democratically-based systems, it's that people need to stop
| electing their leaders on the basis of how the economy is
| doing right now, at this moment.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| Glad you highlighted the luck part. The hostage crisis really
| did him in, _despite_ the fact that, in the end, he actually
| negotiated to get all the hostages back safely, with the
| Algiers Accords being signed minutes after Reagan was
| inaugurated.
| starkd wrote:
| Well, it could also be argued that the Iranians only came
| to the table in the end, because they knew they were not
| going to get nearly as much from Reagan administration than
| they would with Carter. Of course, Reagan was all to glad
| for Carter to wind it up before he took office
| whats_a_quasar wrote:
| Unless you have sources, I don't think there's much evidence
| either that he fought big money or was driven out of office by
| them.
|
| He lost primarily because the economy was bad in the second
| half of his term, with inflation and oil supply shocks. Also,
| his adminstration botched the handling of the Iranian
| revolution, which lead to the hostage crisis, a huge public
| debacle.
|
| He was a competent president, but not flashy, and presidents
| are not guaranteed a second term. So I don't think we need to
| imagine shadowy corporate interests to explain the election
| wkat4242 wrote:
| It was mainly my thought because I noticed he campaigned
| against the space shuttle and other big projects (though
| eventually he turned on this for disarmament reasons, Ars
| Technica had an article on this a couple weeks ago).
|
| But you're right, it's more how I imagine American politics
| than anything else.
| wefarrell wrote:
| Personally I don't think the US should ever be expected to
| handle any foreign revolutions.
| blululu wrote:
| The Iranian revolution was not a big issue in the election.
| It was the fact that American embassy staff was held at
| gunpoint for nearly two years so they could put the Shah on
| Trial. People were not happy about that.
| woodruffw wrote:
| This is a not-unreasonable position without context, but I
| think the American public reasonably expects the American
| president to handle foreign revolutions _vis-a-vis_ hostage
| taking.
| peteforde wrote:
| That's a tricky position to hold, because they keep doin'
| them.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_wIOqHSsV9c
| bsenftner wrote:
| > I don't think there's much evidence either that he fought
| big money or was driven out of office by them.
|
| Although "big money" is different people and different
| corporations now, they've pretty much always, in last 70+
| years, acted in concert with the Republican Party. And that
| is exactly who drove him out of office, with activities such
| as illegally negotiating with Iran during the election to
| withhold the hostages until after the election, so the GOP
| could lord the hostage situation over the American public.
| That's just the tip, and the situation is exponentially more
| advanced today. Big Business, as we know it today, didn't
| even exist during Carter's Administration. Mom and Pop,
| family companies were still the majority _then_.
| mhb wrote:
| _he was a brilliant nuclear engineer_
|
| There are some other views about that:
|
| "He started nuclear power school (a six month course of study
| that leads to operator training) in March, 1953. In July 1953,
| his father passed away and he resigned his commission to run
| the family peanut farm."
|
| https://atomicinsights.com/jimmy-carter-never-served-nuclear...
| voz_ wrote:
| > I know he wasn't popular in the US which I don't really
| understand.
|
| Note, these are not my opinions, but I am going to seek to
| answer this based on the things I have read on him.
|
| In short, the general opinion is that he was a weak, pitiful,
| activist president. His overtures toward peace, anti-
| imperialism, humanitarian causes were laden with activism
| rhetoric that one would normally use if they were _outside_ the
| structures of power. Once one is within the structure of power,
| then one is expected to speak less, and do more. Consider a
| parallel story of outspoken-activist-turned-president Theodore
| Roosevelt, speak softly and carry a big stick and all that.
| Carter spoke loudly and forgot his stick. This, combined with a
| perceived lack of policy and agenda, on top of a time of
| various crises, made him look rather unfit for the job.
|
| Again, please remember that this is the summary of a general
| stance many hold. I was not yet alive and so cannot necessarily
| speak to the zeitgeist of the time, firsthand.
|
| My personal opinion is that, if you squint, his presidency is a
| lot like that of Trump, in that his presidency lacked a focus
| and tried, and rather failed, to react to events at the time.
| And of course, rather different in that he was not a corrupt
| buffoon. To expand on this, I actually think that if we waved a
| magic what-if wand, and got Carter today, he would be hailed as
| a fantastic president, if only by comparison, so you know,
| context matters.
| yyyk wrote:
| >My personal opinion is that, if you squint, his [Carter's]
| presidency is a lot like that of Trump
|
| The parallel goes further. Both of these presidents initiated
| a very different economic policy, and this was expanded on by
| the succeeding president despite the successor being a
| standard bearer of the other party:
|
| * Carter initiated deregulation and appointed Volcker to the
| Fed.
|
| * Trump initiated China tariffs and decoupling, and was leery
| of trade deals in general.
|
| Another parallel is the unique foreign policy both had
| compared to their 'ordinary' successor. e.g. I don't think
| any other President would have been so supportive of Mugabe
| like Carter was.
| voz_ wrote:
| Presidency as an outsider art, perhaps?
| michaelscott wrote:
| I think this a great summary. Carter is someone who, when
| looking back, seems very ahead of his time in his views. It's
| just that presidents are not assessed in a vacuum, and
| unfortunately he was not perceived as the president America
| needed at that point in its history.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| > he was not perceived as the president America needed at
| that point in its history.
|
| Or maybe he was. After Nixon/Ford people were tired of
| corrupt career positions. Carter was folksy, one of us.
| starkd wrote:
| He was a very young president, and since he had an engineering
| background, he tended to get stuck in the weeds. There are
| stories of him micro-managing affairs, involving himself in
| affairs that should have been left to low-level staff. And he
| had a terrible speaking ability. It was not uncommon to walk
| away from his comments not knowing just what he had said.
|
| As with many, he has mellowed with age. His humanitarian
| efforts post-administration are probably the best summation of
| the man. While his policies were deeply unpopular, it is
| notable he is one of the last presidents not to sell out the
| white house after he left office. He still lives in a
| relatively modest home.
| sammalloy wrote:
| > And he had a terrible speaking ability. It was not uncommon
| to walk away from his comments not knowing just what he had
| said.
|
| I've listened to hours of Carter talking and never once had
| this impression.
| woodruffw wrote:
| Most US presidents (with a few conspicuous exceptions)
| experience post-presidential "glow": they become folksy pater
| familarum in the public's eye. Carter has experienced this more
| than most, in parts because (1) he's lived longer than every
| other president to have left office, and (2) he was widely
| perceived as being kind and genteel, _too_ kind and genteel,
| while in office.
|
| Carter seems to be a genuinely good and kind human being, but
| his actual domestic legacy is mostly mediocre. His greatest
| achievement on the domestic side is probably establishing the
| Department of Education (no mean feat!).
| ren_engineer wrote:
| >is greatest achievement on the domestic side is probably
| establishing the Department of Education (no mean feat!)
|
| going by pretty much every objective metric this has been a
| disaster for the US school system with how it changed
| teaching to be about hitting certain federally defined goals
| rather than actually teaching students
| mikeyouse wrote:
| Meh.. the majority of the deregulation that Reagan is
| credited with actually happened under Carter (craft beer,
| trucking, airlines, oil, nuclear, natural gas), he appointed
| Volcker specifically to beat inflation who then spiked rates
| to 17% which caused the slowdown that likely contributed to
| Carter's reelection loss..
|
| Noah Smith has a good post on the topic:
| https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/much-of-what-youve-
| heard-a...
| woodruffw wrote:
| Yep. Carter's folksy image obscures a lot of his domestic
| agenda in the American memory, but he was an economically
| conservative Democrat.
| tgbugs wrote:
| When I was a child I was at a Duke graduation event, and was
| sitting around waiting for it to end so I could go play, and a
| old guy sat down next to me and said "Hi! I'm Jimmy. Who are
| you?" and proceeded to talk with me for the next 30 minutes or
| so.
|
| I had no idea who he was, and I have no memory of the
| conversation, but I have been told that he was relieved to find
| someone to talk to with about anything other than politics.
|
| Thank you for keeping a little boy entertained on a summer
| afternoon long ago, among the countless other things you have
| done to make the world a more welcoming and caring place.
| jasonhansel wrote:
| Over time, I think it's increasingly clear that our country made
| a horrible mistake in the 1980 election. Whatever happens,
| Carter's legacy will only continue to improve.
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| I naively don't know why you say that.
| swarnie wrote:
| https://www.google.com/search?q=us+presidents&rlz=1C1ONGR_en.
| ..
|
| I struggle to find a genuinely good one since Carter.
|
| To summarise his successors:
|
| Hollywood
|
| World police
|
| Junior staff suck
|
| World police (this time its personal)
|
| Change has come but not really
|
| Budget Hollywood + Crack for breakfast
|
| We ran out of ideas
| bsenftner wrote:
| Ronald Reagan and the start of corporate puppet US
| Presidencies. The fools had an Official White House
| Astrologist setting the presidential schedule. The Reagan
| White House was as dismaying stupid as it was dangerous, yet
| quite effective for the GOP. They still praise him like he
| was Jesus.
| evan_ wrote:
| The most recent Democratic President to die was LBJ on January
| 22, 1973- more than 50 years ago.
| iambateman wrote:
| My wife and I recently named our daughter Carter after Jimmy and
| Rosalynn.
|
| There's so much to admire about their life. They represent people
| who rose to the very top of public life in the United States and
| chose to live quiet lives of service afterward. Their work on
| Habitat for Humanity helped tons of people and paved the way for
| hundreds of other nonprofits.
|
| They weren't perfect, but I believe they were admirable and
| worthy of respect.
| emmelaich wrote:
| Well-intentioned, fairly smart I guess. Hopelessly naive.
|
| e.g. monitoring Venezuela's election 2013
| areoform wrote:
| During the 40th Apollo 11 anniversary, Neil Armstrong remarked to
| a reporter that, "I guess we all like to be recognized not for
| one piece of fireworks, but for the ledger of our daily work."
|
| It strikes me as such a beautiful ideal. A simple statement to
| live up to and by, but difficult to achieve. It's easy to let
| your life be defined by one event or a narrow set of
| circumstances. Especially if you've achieved wild success, like
| becoming the President of the United States. Even if it's for a
| single one term.
|
| President Carter is unique because he is the only modern
| president I can think of whose impact after the presidency
| exceeded his impact during his presidency. He has chosen to "wage
| peace, fight disease, build hope" and has done so more
| successfully than most philanthropic efforts. Not many people can
| claim to have fought a disease and won.
|
| What a legacy to have.
| photochemsyn wrote:
| President Carter comes off as a nice enough person, but the
| historical reality is that much of the current neoliberal
| economic era really got started under his tenure. I suppose it
| was also a response to the oil price shock of the early 1970s and
| the institution of petrodollar recycling in the mid-1970s, itself
| something of a consequence of Nixon leaving the gold standard.
|
| For the birth of the neoliberal economic movement, aka
| 'globalization':
|
| > "Countries, like the United States and Germany, better equipped
| to face worldwide competition and in favour of policies that
| strengthened it, saw trade liberalization as the right path....
| Eventually, under US President Jimmy Carter's leadership and with
| the key support of Chancellor Helmut Schmidt, the results of the
| Round reflected a vote in favour of liberalizing international
| trade. Thus, the Round was shaped by the globalizing economy but,
| at the same time, its results gave further impetus to the
| globalization wave that would reach full swing in the
| 1980s-1990s. The GATT talks took place in the shadow of
| globalization: while attempting to govern the process, also built
| it up."
|
| That really marked the beginning of the end of the political
| influence of manufacturing-sector unions in the United States as
| well, and it's curious that a Democratic administration kicked
| that off, I think.
|
| https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/07075332.2017.1...
|
| Also, Carter and Brzezinski played a central role in the
| destabilization of Afghanistan, done in the name of opposing the
| Soviet Union, by approving the initial covert action program in
| 1979. Of course it got much larger under Reagan. The Soviets were
| hardly blameless, they wanted control of Afghanistan to
| facilitate a direct route to move their oil to the Indian Ocean,
| a theme interestingly revived in the Bush/Obama era (Clinton's
| New Silk Road, another failure). Now it's what, China's Belt and
| Road? Sort of bypasses Afghanistan though.
|
| https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/coldwar/interviews/episode-17/brz...
|
| It's rather curious how public perceptions of public figures have
| been managed over time, but the reality is that every president
| since WWII has been engaged in empire-building of some sort or
| other, often in opposition to the Soviet Union, certainly, which
| was doing the same kind of thing.
|
| A world without empires and superpowers would be a much more
| peaceful world, I'm pretty sure.
| wefarrell wrote:
| I'm a huge fan of the man despite the fact that I wasn't alive
| when he was president. He strikes me as possibly the kindest,
| humblest and most compassionate man who has possibly ever
| occupied the Oval Office.
|
| The complaints about him that I've heard from the older
| generation of my family is that he was too nice and naive to run
| a superpower like the US.
| ubermonkey wrote:
| I WAS alive -- though a child - and I think you're likely
| right. The only President of this era who I think might be as
| kind and compassionate is Obama.
|
| But Carter's post-presidential years stand alone in their
| profound decency and generosity.
| andrewmcwatters wrote:
| Right, the guy who received a Nobel Peace Prize for doing
| nothing and ordered missile strikes on people.
|
| I can just never take those comments seriously.
|
| I don't know much about Carter, but Obama's presidency is
| much more recent.
| bsenftner wrote:
| I consider him one of the greatest human in recent history. It
| is a damn shame the current climate is so politically
| difficult; he is not going to get the recognition he deserves
| for quite a while. Yes, there will be recognition, but the
| magnitude of what he took on, gripe-less all the while, is yet
| to be realized.
| ResNet wrote:
| Mirror: https://archive.is/ZTMBr
| stuartd wrote:
| > Across Carter's term, artists including Nelson, Charles Mingus,
| Loretta Lynn, Bob Dylan, Sarah Vaughan, Cecil Taylor, Linda
| Ronstadt (who had campaigned against Carter with her then-
| boyfriend Jerry Brown), the Staple Singers, Cher (and her then-
| boyfriend, Gregg Allman) and Tom T. Hall either visited or
| performed at the White House. Crosby, Stills and Nash once
| dropped by the place unannounced. Carter made time for them.
|
| https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/music/story/2020-...
|
| 'Jimmy Carter: Rock & Roll President' is well worth watching,
| even if (like me) this isn't your favourite kind of music
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