The Most Important Book of 2008
Currently half-way through The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism by my old CO Andrew Bacevich, and I have to say it is quite the eye opener. It is a short read, so I will finish it tomorrow on the flight and give a fuller review later, but one thing is worth a quick comment right now. Bacevich revisits the Carter “Crisis in Confidence” speech (aka the “Malaise” speech), and that prompted me to go read the speech again in full:
Our people are losing that faith, not only in government itself but in the ability as citizens to serve as the ultimate rulers and shapers of our democracy. As a people we know our past and we are proud of it. Our progress has been part of the living history of America, even the world. We always believed that we were part of a great movement of humanity itself called democracy, involved in the search for freedom, and that belief has always strengthened us in our purpose. But just as we are losing our confidence in the future, we are also beginning to close the door on our past.In a nation that was proud of hard work, strong families, close-knit communities, and our faith in God, too many of us now tend to worship self-indulgence and consumption. Human identity is no longer defined by what one does, but by what one owns. But we’ve discovered that owning things and consuming things does not satisfy our longing for meaning. We’ve learned that piling up material goods cannot fill the emptiness of lives which have no confidence or purpose.
The symptoms of this crisis of the American spirit are all around us. For the first time in the history of our country a majority of our people believe that the next five years will be worse than the past five years. Two-thirds of our people do not even vote. The productivity of American workers is actually dropping, and the willingness of Americans to save for the future has fallen below that of all other people in the Western world.
As you know, there is a growing disrespect for government and for churches and for schools, the news media, and other institutions. This is not a message of happiness or reassurance, but it is the truth and it is a warning.
Something to think about while in the midst of a credit crisis, a deepening recession, a miniature oil shock, and the realization that America is on a steady decline. That Carter fellow was on to something.
The Moar You Know
People love to harsh on Carter. I do not. He may not have handled some things in a manner that produced a "win", but I doubt that anyone else could have, either.
And he was right about a lot of things. We would be a far more prosperous nation had we listened to him about energy, for starters.
zmulls
But Reagan made us feel better about buying stuff and not caring much about spending money on those less fortunate. What the hell was Carter’s problem?
El Cruzado
Obligatory Onion link.
Lee
Should have linked to the excellent JImmy Carter piece in The Onion
KG
In a way, this is very similar to what Peggy Noonan wrote in her recent book, Patriotic Grace. There’s a certain unease that I haven’t felt in my life time (granted, I’m only 30), like the whole thing is about to come crashing down and we all know it and can’t do anything about it.
Zifnab
@El Cruzado: Beat me to it.
r€nato
Bacevich was your CO? Wow. I am in awe. I am incredibly impressed every time I hear Bacevich interviewed in the media.
Re: Carter… he meant well and he was dealt a crappy hand at the outset of his administration, but he was an incompetent in several respects. I criticize him for different reasons than the usual right-wing vilification of him… and he was almost certainly the victim of an "October Surprise" with regards to the US Embassy hostages in Iran.
I mean, they were released the day of Reagan’s inauguration. It doesn’t take a tinfoil hat to see that that was no coincidence.
El Cruzado
Obligatory Onion link that hopefully works this time. despite having already been linked by someone else…
Shygetz
"Gee, maybe Carter was right…" seems to be a steadily growing refrain these days. His politics left much to be desired, but his policy seems to have been almost prescient.
pseudonymous in nc
John: if you’re able to get hold of the first part of Simon Schama’s BBC documentary, ‘The American Future’, there’s a very good discussion of the Carter/Reagan thing in the context of American history, going back to the mapping of the Colorado River. Schama’s thesis is that there’s an ongoing push-pull between a small-scale, human-sized social model and a grand, aspirational, ‘triumph over nature’ one. One side promotes channel irrigation for small communities; another builds the Hoover Dam. Of course, when ‘triumph over nature’ goes wrong, you get the Dust Bowl, and Schama spends time looking at the abandoned prairie farms, then talking to Okies who took the trip west to California as children and lived in tent-houses.
I suspect it’ll end up on PBS, albeit in edited form, since it was made before the election. But there are mumblemumble ways to get hold of it. When my wife saw it, she said ‘damn, Carter was right’.
r€nato
Perhaps the worst, most malicious thing Reagan did to this country with regards to energy policy, was ripping out the solar panels on the White House.
It was, of course, intended as a symbolic rejection of Carter’s ‘malaise’ speech and telling of ugly truths to the American people.
But it also sent a powerful symbol to Americans; that we could be as wasteful as we pleased with energy resources, and that we never needed to concern ourselves with our economy’s reliance on foreign oil.
I hope that this will be remembered in the future when Reagan’s legacy is discussed. He made America feel good about itself once again, in much the same way that getting drunk makes you forget that you’re broke and you lost your job.
bootlegger
Bacevich is a big fan of Carter. Bacevich’s interviews also clearly reveal his concern about American consumption and consumerism and the corrosive effects it has on our civil institutions (family, education). I share this concern.
Everyone in my department is a big Bacevich fan. I got copies of his past books before the conference he attended here last spring and he is one hell of a good writer (and speaker).
Nice guy too, matched me drink for drink. He is also very self-deprecating. One of the attendees asked him one of those convoluted questions only an academic could ask and Becevich said "I’m not smart enough to pretend I know what you just said. Can you rephrase the question?" It was awesome.
Hyperion
you could have seen an excellent interview with Bacevich on Bill Moyers Journal about 6 weeks ago. And on CSPAN’s AfterWords about 3 weeks ago. In both interviews Carter’s prescience is mentioned. And Bacevich’s intelligence is evident.
I often wonder: why does anyone waste time watching cable news?
bootlegger
@r€nato:
The hangover is gonna be nasty.
John Cole
@r€nato: Yes. I have been really lucky to have been surrounded by smart people for most of my life. Such a shame that so little of it rubbed off.
The Grand Panjandrum
I just read the book this past weekend. I will be interested to read your analysis. This country is in dire need more conservatives like him if we are to ever have a reasonable debate between liberals and conservatives about the direction this country should take.
Eric U.
Carter had a constant din of beltway journalists criticizing his every move, good or not. The malaise speech was a good example, he was right. The only reason that the entire government didn’t fall apart under Reagan was that Carter left it in such good shape.
Brick Oven Bill
Carter’s biggest life influence was his CO, Hyman Rickover, the writings of whom are dutifully archived here . Rickover was brilliant.
This obsession with growth that we have is going to get a lot of people killed.
Brick Oven Bill
Carter’s biggest life influence was Hyman Rickover, the writings of whom are dutifully archived here . Rickover was brilliant.
This obsession with growth that we have is going to get a lot of people killed.
smiley
@bootlegger:
Heh. Reminds me of a time when I was a doctoral candidate when, in a seminar, I asked one of the first-year students one of those. All the faculty members around the table cracked up. I soon learned to not ask that kind of question. Or at least try not to.
Napoleon
I wonder if anyone ever showed that Onion piece to Carter. I sent it to my brother once and at first he thought it was for real.
Incertus
@Eric U.: And he had a hell of a repair job to do after what LBJ and Nixon had done to it. He really doesn’t get enough credit for the work he did on the economy. Conservatives love to point to Reagan’s economy, but that really is a case where Carter served the table and Reagan collected the tip.
Ash Can
@r€nato:
Bingo. This might be the best one-sentence description of the political appeal of Ronald Reagan that I’ve ever seen. I’m stealing it, but will give you due, albeit obviously anonymous, credit.
rob
Now explain to me why I am supposed to respect the government, church and news media?
Sounds like an old fart wishing for a time that never really existed.
PS. I didn’t read the full thing, just what you had.
MikeJ
Volcker had a lot to do with it, but he has nothing but praise for Carter and his handling of the economy.
J.D. Rhoades
ISTR that Chrysler had to be bailed out back in the 70’s as well, and for much the same reasons.
If George Dubbya Bush burns in hell for nothing else, it’ll be for bringing the problems of the 70’s back with a vengeance. Let’s just hope the crappy music doesn’t follow.
The Other Steve
The election improved my mood a great deal this year. I’m pretty hopeful for the future. I see challenges as opportunities.
Comrade Ed Drone
You know, if smart ‘rubbed off,’ most folks would have had it all abraded by the time you met them. Smart has to be taken internally, not topically. Carter’s prescription for energy is an example. We had the medicine there, complete with instructions, but the taste was bitter so we chose sugar pills instead.
Ed
wingnuts to iraq
Carter was right.
Wear an f’ing sweater. He put solar panels on WH.
Then like the children Americans are, they voted for Ronnie, a douche-bag, empty suit who told Americans we can live in a fantasy empty world.
If we’d have listened to Carter 30 years ago, we would not be in the mess we are today.
flyerhawk
John,
That was a really interesting read. Unfortunately he doesn’t really offer a solution to fix the American people. When I finished the book I was was utterly depressed about the future prospects for the Republic.
wingnuts to iraq
I stole r€nato’s line too! It is gold.
Joshua Norton
Before Carter, Truman was the whipping boy of choice for the right wing. Now they all want to be like him. They’re dumping on Carter mainly to deflect the shame of Richard Nixon.
pseudonymous in nc
It’s on the internets (via video podcast if you so desire). And while r€nato’s line is genius, I’m reminded of how intoxication and religious enthusiasm traditionally have plenty in common.
Paul Kennedy had a couple of lectures at LSE during his year as a visiting professor, talking about the ‘nuts and bolts of empire’, and focusing on how the current military expenditure of the US (50% of total world spend) can’t hold. It may take people from the old-school conservative military establishment to deliver that news to the country at large.
(Schama’s part 2, btw, is on ‘America’s Wars’, featuring West Point and the tension between the different models of the military’s function.)
MattF
I’ve noticed that a lot of right-wingers date their ‘conversion’ from liberalism to the Carter-to-Reagan transition… So, is it time yet to propose changing the name of Washington’s Reagan-National airport to Carter-National airport? I’m for it, if only to watch the blood pressure of every winger go waaaaay up.
EdTheRed
Meanwhile, Michelle Bachmann serves up another heaping bowl of crazy. Remember that time she went on Hardball and called for the media to investigate members of congress for possible un-American activities? Turns out it was all just a dream, because Michelle, mah belle, assures us that the whole incident is just an "urban legend."
Well, I know what she did last summer…
Joshua Norton
Better grab it quick. Ted Stevens will probably have all the tubes tied before he slinks off into those long Alaskan nights.
TheHatOnMyCat
Bacevich is a brilliant guy.
This is a great interview. After seeing it last summer, I bought the book.
Watch the video, read the book.
Napoleon
You don’t think nearly big enough.
Meet the
">USS Jimmy Carter
USS Willian Jefferson Clinton
gnomedad
Incertus is too modest to point to his post on the "malaise" speech, so here it is.
Quaker in a Basement
Very good, grasshopper. Your transformation is complete.
Napoleon
@MattF:
You don’t think big enough.
Meet the
USS James Earl Carter, Jr.
and the
USS William Jefferson Clinton
Billy K (D-TX)
I’ve read that speech a few times before and every time I thought to myself, "no wonder he lost in a landslide. No one wants to hear that!"
But now I read that in Obama’s voice, and it rings clear. It’s not that different than anything he’s said on the campaign trail. I guess, as a Nation, we’re ready to hear the truth.
Napoleon
@TheHatOnMyCat:
It would be nice to see Obama pick Bracevich as his National Security Advisor.
Napoleon
You do not think big enough.
Meet the
USS James Earl Carter, Jr.
Napoleon
and the
USS William Jefferson Clinton
The Moar You Know
@pseudonymous in nc:
I am curious about the lectures you cite. A lot of America’s higher paying jobs are with companies like SAIC, CSC – big companies that do big business with the federal government, and most of it is defense or defense-related.
These employees also tend to vote Republican overwhelmingly, regardless of which party is in charge.
The money stream for these jobs is going to go away – one way or another. Either they’ll be cut by legislation or they’ll be cut by an American bankruptcy, but either way a good number of those jobs won’t exist a decade from now.
I’m curious as to whether he addressed any of these issues in his lectures and what conclusions he may have come to.
Seems to me that when those "bolts of empire" finally fall off the engine, we’re going to have yet more economic upheaval, but even more so we are going to see some fairly tremendous political upheaval as a way of making a prosperous living that has been around for the last sixty years comes to an end.
TheHatOnMyCat
Yeah, too bad it wasn’t something like "How to be a good president."
The guy couldn’t, as the old joke goes, sell a piece of ass on a troop train. The malaise speech is horrifying not because it doesn’t describe an addiction to cheap energy. It’s horrifying because it sounds like a scold. Guess what? Mister and Mrs. America didn’t create the energy problems. A government that didn’t want to lead on the issue is more to blame than a populace that wouldn’t put on its sweaters.
I admire the guy for being willing and able to say unpopular things. But to be a good president, you don’t just have to say things. You have to persuade, and you have to know how to negotiate and politick to get things done.
Ronald Reagan basically erased Carter’s entire legacy with one blurb at a debate: Are you better off than you were four years ago?
This account gives the flavor of it:
gnomedad
@r€nato:
"It’s
MorningHappy Hour in America!"Screamin' Demon
Carter’s big mistake was that he assumed Americans were adults who wanted to hear the truth about the problems they faced. They didn’t. They wanted a Big Daddy to tuck them in at night and tell them not to worry, that all was well, and to ignore that crazy uncle from Georgia. That’s what they voted for in 1980, and we’ve been paying for it ever since.
Incertus
@gnomedad: I appreciate it, but it wasn’t modesty that kept me from highlighting that pose. It was that I forgot it was there. Plus, Amy’s a better writer than I am, and I might have been subconsciously jealous of it.
passerby
Wow, John. He was outstanding in his interview with Moyers…and he was your CO?! I’m a civilian so I can only imagine that it must have been a pleasure to serve under a man like that.
Bacevich, from Wiki:
It’s heartening to me to see more and more retired military men and women speaking out with a sense of true honor.
The Bush administration abused military power then abandoned the veterans of its catastrophic wars by failing to provide for adequate VA funding and benefits. The Bushies, completely without honor and compassion, made damn sure billions of dollars made to pockets of those they serve.
This is the Change I’m hoping for most of all: cease and desist US wars of aggression that enrich the coffers of the Military Industrial Complex and the Oil Corporations.
As for Carter, I was young and idealistic when I voted for him but, I did so because I thought he was a decent, honorable and compassionate man. I’ve caught a lot of flack over the years for that vote and until Obama won, it was the only time my candidate won a presidency.
I guess America had to sink lower before realizing that maybe there is a place in the cut-throat, integrity-be-damned, world of politics for basic compassion. Obama seems to be in the right place at the right time.
Glenn
Were fucked. No money left, all spent on the rich and their concerns. No money for the rest of us. The Dems. are walking into a mess so huge I don’t see how they can do much. BV$H and his criminal gang have sealed the fate of Obama from day 1. This is all by design. Not BV$H’s design, but his handlers and backers. Ruin helps these people. They will end up picking up the pieces after the storm has passed. ignore the pols they’re just front guys for the "others." The BIG guys could care less about the rest of us.
Svensker
Carter’s big mistake was that he wasn’t a leader. He’s a decent, very smart man. But not someone who could mobilize people—and when you’re asking people to do something hard, you’ve gotta mobilize them, otherwise they’re going to run fast the other way.
(Carter’s other problem is that he really believes the best about people. Many times, he’s just wrong.)
Mnemosyne
You almost sound like this guy:
"So when Brian Williams is asking me about what’s a personal thing that you’ve done [that’s green], and I say, you know, ‘Well, I planted a bunch of trees.’ And he says, ‘I’m talking about personal.’ What I’m thinking in my head is, ‘Well, the truth is, Brian, we can’t solve global warming because I f—-ing changed light bulbs in my house. It’s because of something collective’."
RS
My first exposure to Andrew Bacevich’s writing was at TomDispatch. Recently, I was reading Michael Klare’s latest contribution there and thought to myself this country would be lucky if Obama selected Klare as Secretary of Energy. Then it occurred to me that the entire roster of writers there would make a great, however unlikely, presidential cabinet-like Napoleon, I thought Bacevich would be a great National Security Advisor, with Chalmers Johnson as Secretary of Defense and Mike Davis heading Homeland Security.
Maybe I need to start playing fantasy sports.
Doctor Science
Here is my review of Bacevich’s previous book, The New American Militarism. I’m very glad to see him getting more prominence—he’s the clearest thinker about American military policy currently in the public square.
comrade rawshark
The government is our government. If they aren’t leading it’s because we aren’t asking. the reason we are asking is the issue. Most don’t know we should. Those that they listen to tell them there is nothing wrong, just liberals making noises as they try to sell your country to america-hating americans. Go shopping. The world rocks and we’re the ones rocking it. America Fuck Yeah, Who’s with me?!
Roger Moore
@Napoleon:
USS James Earl Carter, Jr.
Sorry, you’re too late. There’s already the USS Jimmy Carter. It’s more appropriate, anyway, since the real Carter is a submarine.
Indylib
@Svensker:
Actually I do think Carter has shown some impressive leadership qualities ex. the Carter Center and Camp Davis Peace Accords, post Presidential diplomatic forays.
They just weren’t the type of leadership skills that work well on a national political level, and since he was POTUS that proved to be a problem.
Progressive/liberals/Dems are pretty lucky that Obama came along when he did, he has his own incredible oratorical skills, Reagan’s charisma, Carter’s integrity and compassion, and Clinton’s political skill which he can use for good instead of getting his ass out of self-induced hot water.
He’s the kind of leader we need to start to push the country in a more progressive direction cuz after him we are going to have to make do with guys like Gore and Kerry, smart, decent and boring as Dem. Presidential picks.
satby
These employees also tend to vote Republican overwhelmingly, regardless of which party is in charge.
Well, I work for one of those big companies, and we layoff thousands of folks under the radar every year, even in the so-called "good" years. The upper management might vote Repug, but anyone who looks at their 401K sure didn’t this election. And the high salaries have a tendency to be cancelled out by the periodic layoffs.
IT has lost over 2 million jobs to off-shoring and layoffs that never came back after 2001; those aren’t statistics that helped McSame this year.
Hyperion
One good moment in the Moyer interview was when Bacevich said that we cannot have it all and so we better start thinking about what are the most critical/important aspects of american life to preserve. (Rather like Carter, he assumes we are adults.)
That made me start wondering what choices folks would make (me included).
TheHatOnMyCat
Carter was the goddammed president. If he had made a speech about how he was going to do something and move the government in a better direction … and done it …. he might have convinced somebody. He coulda been a contender.
He was a weak whiner, his opponents played him like a drum, he lost communication with his own base, and he lost to a fucking movie actor .
Because he was a lousy president, and the movie actor exposed him and all but laughed at him.
Napoleon
@Roger Moore:
I knew that, but I couldn’t pass up the joke.
TheHatOnMyCat
I don’t have the time or inclination to hang around here tonight, but I think this PBS recap is a pretty good summary of the epic fail of the Carter administration.
The guy ended up after one term with a 34% approval rating. The public had completely tuned him out.
This captures some of the flavor of the time after the malaise speech:
Posted from another thread where I incorrectly posted it earlier.
vanya
It is ironic that Carter’s legacy inspires so much hatred on the Right – the same Right that is always complaining about "liberal elitists." Carter was the last President willing to take on the elite beltway consensus, and he paid a steep price for it. Certainly there are significant differences between Reagan, Clinton, Bush and Obama – but all of them (and Kerry, Dole and McCain fit in just fine as well) agree on fundamental principles shared by almost all our elite journalists, professionals, business leaders and politicians, regardless of political affiliation. These principles include unquestioning devotion to free trade, except for certain privileged industries, a belief that what’s good for Israel is always good for the USA, a belief that US military intervention abroad is almost always a good thing, a commitment to immigration and keeping wages depressed for the lower classes, and no accountability before the law for the self-selected elites. The GOP is more shameless in its devotion to business interests and more blatantly corrupt, the Democrats are more willing to cut minorities in on a piece of the action. But when it comes to fundamental beliefs about the place of America in the world there is no real difference, at the the elite level. I think you can make the case that Carter vs. Reagan was the last truly meaningful election in US history.
pseudonymous in nc
@The Moar You Know: the Paul Kennedy’s LSE lectures are here, entitled ‘The Nuts and Bolts of Empire’ and ‘Measuring American Power in Today’s Fractured World’.
The end of the first one includes a discussion of how to achieve ‘managed decline’ from military hyper-puissance: in short, you have to stop treating the entire world as your patrol route, because it’s not going to be possible to ‘have it all’. (If you’re a military wonk, there’s some good stuff on carrier battle groups and suchlike.)
srv
John, met Bacevich last week. Reading book now. Speaks with great authority and is obviously one of the few guys who could logically wipe the floor with any conservative or progressive. A retired USMC two-star introduced him and pretty much agreed with everything he said.
Maybe that’s why I sorta like you, maybe Bacevich rubbed off on you.
My niece is going to BU, told her she won’t get a graduation present if she doesn’t attend one of his courses.
Bacevich on Moyers video. I’d use Links, but for some reason, it hangs (somebody debug that):
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/jour.....watch.html
DFH’s were right. Carter was right.
Comrade The Other Steve
I’m afraid I have to agree with TheHatOnMyCat.
Carter could talk about what’s wrong, but people don’t want to hear that. They want to hear what you’re gonna do.
Generally I think Carter was a lousy leader.
It doesn’t matter whether or not you are right. Sitting around analyzing shit isn’t leadership.
Comrade The Other Steve
Oh blah blah blah. Taking on the elite beltway consensus isn’t leadership. It’s never amounted to anything of value. It’s easy to point at people and make fun.
Now leadership is convincing the elite beltway that they want to follow your ideas.
I’m hoping that Obama will finally break the "Fight the man!" attitude of the Democrats. How the fuck do you fight the man when you are the man?
Joe Max
I’ve never really understood all the bashing of Carter, up to calling him the "worst president" (I guess we have a new winner for THAT prize).
Carter came into office facing a bad recession (remember Gerald Ford’s "WIN – Whip Inflation Now!" buttons? I guess you had to be there…), and at least got it turned around. He was clearly right about energy independence – in 1977, ferchrissakes…
What did him in was the fall of Iran and the hostage incident. If the army had managed to pull off the rescue mission Carter ordered, I think he would have sailed to re-election in a landslide equal to Reagan’s.
ksmiami
Glenn
No – even the rich are fucked in this environment. My banker friends are getting calls from former billionaires saying "WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED? WE’RE NOW JUST MILLIONAIRES"
The good news is that deflation is here so your basic living costs will go down…
ShadowboxerWV
My MBA prof went off on a two hour explanation in my last class of why America will no longer be, if not already, #1 and why. I will have to compare with this book.
pseudonymous in nc
@ShadowboxerWV:
There are some fairly straightforward arguments, some of which I’ve nabbed from Paul Kennedy. Unipolarity carries with it certain self-perpetuating demands for force-projection, and as other powers rise, maintaining that level of force-projection becomes increasingly draining on the home economy—imperial overstretch, if you like—and something’s gotta give. The question becomes one of whether to pull back in a relatively orderly fashion, with a few small humiliations on the way (the British model) or whether to implode.
One reason I like Kennedy is that he holds where he came from close to his chest, and the other is that he spent his younger years working for bookmakers at the racetrack. He recounts a story of how he bet a decent sum (by proxy in the UK) on Bush to win in 2004, which allowed him to restock a wine cellar depleted by Yale academics drowning their sorrows. He’s an odds man, and is clearly aware that it’s basically an even-money bet on whether the aspirational hubris of America delivers another Dust Bowl on the global stage, or whether the tendency to ‘do a Thoreau’ and respect the boundaries of the world that are accessible to them.
blogreeder
I can’t believe how much disagreement I’m reading in these comments about how Carter governed and the tone is still civil. I’m impressed. Count me in the group that thinks Carter was no-good at governing. I think one of the overlooked mistakes he made was boycotting the Olympics. Especially after the USA won the gold in hockey that year.
Rick Taylor
One of the things I was very happy to see (and which was far more important than whatever happened to Joe Lieberman) was Obama’s national address on global warming. Perhaps he can succeed where Carter failed, getting the nation behind addressing out long term energy position, by offering a vision hope rather than a scolding. It has to happen now.
liberal
Man, what a lucky so-and-so you are.
Tony Comstock
One of my earliest memories of the world around me was seeing gasoline go from $.35/g to $.70/g at the Chevron station at on the corner of Pearl and LJ Blvd. I guess that must have been about 1973. I was 9-13 during the Carter administration, and he’s the reason I thought I was being patriotic driving a Honda Civic hatchback in 1993.
It’s a pity he couldn’t sell it.