#Time'sUpUS

[drewgaither6]

Annotated Timeline of Period 9

Drew Gaither

2nd APUSH

11-27-18

Mr Johnson

A. Ronald Reagan’s victory in the presidential election of 1980 represented an important milestone, allowing conservatives to enact significant tax cuts and continue the deregulation of many industries.

As Reagan began his first term in office, the country was suffering through several years of stagflation, in which high inflation was accompanied by high unemployment. To fight high inflation, the Federal Reserve Board was increasing the short-term interest rate, which was near its peak in 1981. Reagan proposed a four-pronged economic policy (Reaganomics ~ supply side) that was intended to reduce inflation and stimulate economic and job growth: 1) reduce government spending on domestic programs; 2) reduce taxes for individuals, businesses and investments; 3) reduce the burden of regulations on business, and 4) support slower money growth in the economy.

In Congress, Representative Jack Kemp, Republican of New York, and Senator Bill Roth, Republican of Delaware, had long supported the supply-side principles behind the Economic Recovery Tax Act (ERTA) (1981), which would also be known as the Kemp-Roth act. The bill, which received broad bipartisan support in Congress, represented a significant change in the course of federal income tax policy, which until then was believed by most people to work best when used to affect the demand during times of recession. The ERTA included a 25 per cent reduction in marginal tax rates for individuals, phased in over three years, and indexed for inflation from that point on. The marginal tax rate, or the tax rate on the last dollar earned, was considered more important to economic activity than the average tax rate (total tax paid as a percentage of income earned), as it affected income earned through “extra” activities such as education, entrepreneurship or investment. Reducing marginal tax rates, the theory went, would help the economy grow faster through such extra efforts by individuals and businesses. The 1981 Act, combined with another major tax reform act in 1986, cut marginal tax rates on high-income taxpayers from 70 per cent to around 30 per cent. Reagan's 1981 cut in the top regular tax rate on unearned income reduced the maximum capital gains rate to only 20% – its lowest level since the Hoover administration.

In April 1980, the federal government enacted the crude oil windfall profit tax on the U.S. oil industry. The main purpose of the tax was to recoup the federal government's revenue that would have otherwise gone to the oil industry as a result of the decontrol of oil prices. Supporters of the tax viewed this revenue as an unearned and unanticipated windfall caused by high oil prices, which were determined by the OPEC (Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries) cartel. Despite its name, the windfall profit tax (WPT) was actually an excise tax, not a profits tax, imposed on the difference between the market price of oil and an adjusted base price. The tax was repealed in 1988 because (1) it was an administrative burden to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), (2) it was a compliance burden to the oil industry, (3) due to low oil prices, the tax was generating little or no revenues in 1987 and 1988, and (4) it made the United States more dependent on foreign oil. The depressed state of the U.S. oil industry after 1986 also contributed to the repeal decision.

Part of Reagan’s deregulation overall was massive deregulation of the FDR New Deal Bank Regulations. Federal requirements that set maximum interest rates on savings accounts were phased out. This eliminated the advantage previously held by savings banks. Checking accounts could now be offered by any type of bank. All depository institutions could now borrow from the Fed in a time of need, a privilege that had been reserved for commercial banks. In return, ALL banks had to place a certain percentage of their deposits in the Fed. This gave the FED more control and stabilized state banks. Garn - St. Germain Act of 1982 allowed savings banks to now issue credit cards to make non-residential real estate loans and commercial loans and facilitated actions previously only allowed to commercial banks. Deregulation practically eliminated the distinction between commercial and savings banks. Deregulation caused a rapid growth of savings banks and saving and loans (S&L’s) that now made all types of non-homeowner related loans. Now that S&L's could tap into the huge profit centres of commercial real estate investments, many credit-card issuing entrepreneurs looked to the loosely regulated S&Ls like a profit-making centre. As the '80s wore on the economy appeared to grow. Interest rates continued to go up as well as real estate speculation. The real estate market was in what was known as a "boom" mode. Many S&L's took advantage of the lack of supervision and regulations to make highly speculative investments, in many cases loaning more money than they really should. When the real estate market crashed, and it did so in a dramatic fashion, the S&L's were crushed. They now owned properties that they had paid enormous amounts of money for but weren't worth a fraction of what they paid. Many went bankrupt, losing their depositor's money. This was known as the S&L Crisis. In 1980 the US had 4,600 thrifts, by 1988 mergers and bankruptcies left 3,000. By the mid-1990's less than 2,000 survived. The S&L Crisis cost about $600 Billion USD in "bailouts." This is $1,500 USD dollars for every man, woman, and child in the United States. In summary, the S&L crisis was caused by deregulation which led to high-interest rates that then collapsed. Other causes included inadequate capital and defrauding shorthanded government regulatory agencies (fewer regulators and inspectors).

On August 3rd, 1981 almost 13,000 air-traffic controllers went on strike after negotiations with the federal government to raise their pay and shorten their workweek, but their efforts were fruitless. The controllers complained of difficult working conditions and a lack of recognition of the pressures they faced. Across the country, some 7,000 flights were cancelled. The same day, President Reagan called the strike illegal and threatened to fire any controller who had not returned to work within 48 hours. Robert Poli, president of the Professional Air-Traffic Controllers Association (PATCO), was found in contempt by a federal judge and ordered to pay $1,000 USD a day in fines. This is comparable to Teddy Roosevelt’s interference in the Anthracite Coal Strike, banking on it being a “national emergency” if Americans did not get coal in the middle of the winter. He used a “bully pulpit” as he had no real power. Unlike Roosevelt, Reagan did have power and on August 5, 1981, President Ronald Wilson Reagan begins firing 11,359 air-traffic controllers striking in violation of his order for them to return to work. The executive action, regarded as extreme by many, significantly slowed air travel for months. In addition, he declared a lifetime ban on the rehiring of the strikers by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). On August 17th (ironically a day after my sister Angel's birthday), the FAA began accepting applications for new air traffic controllers, and on October 22nd the Federal Labour Relations Authority decertified PATCO. This for many conservatives was a major milestone as it dealt harsh blows to the already much-depleted labour union system that had been so prevalent during the Progressive Era and the Gilded Age.

In 1994, under the Clinton administration, the Contract with America was signed on the Capitol steps in Washington, D.C., by members of the Republican minority before the Republican Party gained control of Congress in 1994. The “Contract with America” outlined legislation to be enacted by the House of Representatives within the first 100 days of the 104th Congressional Convention (1995–96). Among the proposals were tax cuts, a permanent line-item veto, measures to reduce crime and provide middle-class tax relief, and constitutional amendments requiring term limits and a balanced budget. With the exception of the constitutional amendment for term limits, all parts of the “Contract with America” were passed by the House, under the leadership of the speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich.

Under George W. Bush and continued under Barack Obama two major changes to the tax code were made: (1) the EGTRRA and the JGTRRA. The Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001 (EGTRRA) is an income tax cut enacted on June 7th, 2001. The Bush administration designed the tax cuts to stimulate the economy and end the 2001 Recession. Families would spend the extra money, increasing the demand. It, out of many things, increased the tax-deductible contributions people could make to their IRA accounts, doubled the child tax credit from $500 to $1,000, expanded the Earned Income Tax Credit, provided greater tax deductions for education expenses and savings, reduced the gift tax, and provided relief from the Alternative Minimum Tax.

The EITC phased out the estate and generation-skipping transfer taxes so that they were eliminated in 2010. The Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act (JGTRRA) is an investment tax-cut that was enacted by the Bush Administration on May 28th, 2003. Its goal was to end the 2001 Recession. It reduced the long-term capital gains tax rate from 20 percent to 15 percent. For taxpayers who were already in the 10-15th per cent income tax bracket, it reduced the rate to 5 per cent and then to zero in 2008. It changed the dividend tax rate to the same as the long-term capital gains rate. Prior to that, dividends were taxed as regular income. Increased tax deductions for small businesses, accelerated many of the provisions in the EGTRRA, which were supposed to be phased in more gradually, raising the exemption for the Alternative Minimum Tax.

B. Conservatives argued that liberal programs were counterproductive in fighting poverty and stimulating economic growth. Some of their efforts to reduce the size and scope of government met with inertia and liberal opposition, as many programs remained popular with voters.

Reagan stated in his 1987 State of the Union Address that he would “finally break the poverty trap” and in 1988 he signed the Family Support Act in October. The Family Support Act was the culmination of a major 1987 congressional debate on welfare. The act provided for an extensive state-managed education and training program with transitional medical assistance, child-care benefits, and stronger child support enforcement. Under the act, educators are provided opportunities to form linkages with other agencies to strengthen families and help them move toward self-sufficiency. Education is the pivotal goal of the FSA, to help families avoid long-term dependence on public assistance, and the act requires states to make educational services available to participants under the Job Opportunities and Basic Skills (JOBS) training program. Training and employment personnel and vocational and adult educators may join human services staff in providing education and training programs to JOBS clients. Heralded as an “end of welfare,” critics viewed the FSA as a failure. However, the act generated the expectation among voters that welfare recipients would and should be required to work. Despite the goals of the Family Support Act, the nationwide Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) caseload remained constant in the late 1980s, and then grew by more than a third between 1990 and 1994. Reagan also helped save Social Security by passing the Social Security Reform Act of 1983. It provided extra revenue dedicated to securing the solvent future of Social Security.

President Reagan signed legislation expanding Medicaid on several occasions. From 1982 to 1988, Reagan signed legislation mandating coverage for children and pregnant women receiving cash assistance, mandating emergency treatment of illegal immigrants who would otherwise be ineligible for Medicaid and expanding the low-income populations that states could choose to cover, among other expansions. Reagan also signed into law the Medicare Catastrophic Coverage Act of 1988 (MCCA), a health care bill to expand Medicare and increase taxes to pay for it which passed in both the House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate by wide margins. Most people thought for good or ill, this expansion of government would be permanent. It provided full coverage for hospital stays after deductibles of $560 USD (for hospitals) and $1,370 USD (doctor bills, 80% of drug costs covered after a $600 deductible, 150 days of coverage for skilled nursing care, and 38 days of coverage for home health care). To pay for this coverage, the bill included a $400 USD a year surcharge (tax) for seniors making $40,000 USD per year and an $800 USD surcharge for those in the top tax brackets. It was political backlash against those surcharges that caused the bill to be repealed during the George H. W. Bush administration.

Reagan believed that widespread freeloading plagued welfare and social programs. As Reagan slashed spending in his first term on programs, the poverty rate climbed from 12% to 15% and unemployment rose from 7% to 11%. Within seven months of Reagan's inauguration, Congress had enacted the largest spending and tax cuts in its history, slashing fiscal 1982 spending $35 billion USD below projected levels and reducing personal and corporate income taxes by $37.7 billion USD. The biggest change was to reduce benefits for the working poor and focus federal welfare assistance primarily on the non-working poor. Congress, for example, amended the major cash benefit program -- Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) -- to eliminate most payments to working parents. According to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), “Of the 450,000 to 500,000 families with earnings estimated to be receiving AFDC at the time of the [1981 program] changes, about one-half are estimated to have lost eligibility because of [those changes]. Another 40 per cent are estimated to have had their AFDC benefits reduced, and the remaining 10 per cent to have received unchanged or higher benefits. The other changes, which affect primarily non-income earners, are estimated to have made at least another 100,000 families ineligible and reduced benefits significantly for another 100,000.” Congress in 1981 and 1982 made changes in the Food Stamp program that, according to the CBO, eliminated about 4 per cent -- or one million people -- from the rolls. Deferrals in adjustments for inflation affected most people still receiving benefits. Although Congress refused Reagan's request to put a cap on the federal contribution on Medicaid (the state-run health care program for the poor) it did reduce federal Medicaid grants to the states and allowed the states to require Medicaid recipients to pay for part of the cost of their care. In addition, since AFDC recipients are automatically eligible for Medicaid, many of those eliminated from the AFDC rolls lost their medical benefits as well.

Congress abolished altogether the Public Service Employment (PSE) program, which provided jobs for the unemployed in state and local governments and in non-profit agencies. PSE was one of the most controversial of the low-income-targeted programs. Its advocates said PSE provided many poor individuals with work experience that eventually helped them move completely into the unsubsidised job market. However, opponents said the program provided dead-end, make-work jobs; news reports on mismanagement and provision of jobs to non-needy individuals further tarnished the program's image. The administration also targeted the Work Incentive Program (WIN) for cutbacks. The program, which provides job search and training assistance, has been mandatory for AFDC recipients without children under the age of 6 since its inception in 1967. However, Reagan's budgeters claimed the program was neither successful nor cost-effective in reducing welfare dependency. Although Congress rejected requests to eliminate the program, the number of registrants dropped from 1.6 million in 1981 to 1 million in 1982. Other major spending cuts affecting the poor were made in federal housing assistance programs, social services, and community services; school lunch programs, compensatory education and emergency energy assistance.

Counteractive measures during time include the Family and Medical Leave Act that was drafted by Donna Lenhoff of the Women’s Legal Defence Fund and a staffer for California’s Congressman Howard Berman in 1984. In 1985, the first version of the law introduced in the House of Representatives allowed for 18 weeks over a two-year period for unpaid parental leave for the birth, adoption, or serious illness of a child, and 26 weeks of unpaid medical leave for the employee’s own serious health condition. The law applies to employers with 50 or more employees. Nine years transpired between the initial draft of the bill and the actual passage of the FMLA in 1993 due to heavy political resistance. Over time, a coalition was formed from organisations representing diverse groups, including workers and unions, women, children and parents, the elderly, health professionals, and religious organizations. Many compromises were made to increase the bill’s political viability, including reducing the length of allowed leave and increasing the minimum employer size for employers covered by the law. The FMLA was signed into law by President Bill Clinton. The final version of the bill allowed for 12 weeks of unpaid parental and medical leave and applied to employers with at least 50 employees. It allowed employees to take leave to care for family members, but only if the family members are spouses, children or parents.

C. Policy debates continued over free-trade agreements, the scope of the government social safety net, and calls to reform the U.S. financial system.

Ronald Reagan’s 1984 Caribbean Basin Initiative prompted a major increase in US food aid to Haiti. In 1984, Haiti received $11 million USD in food aid; from 1985-1988, Haiti received $54 million USD in food aid. The Caribbean Basin Initiative called for integrating Haiti into the global market by redirecting 30% of Haiti’s domestic food production towards export crops, a plan that USAID experts systematically carried out. The United States fully recognised that this would lead to widespread hunger in rural Haiti, as peasant land was converted to grow food for foreigners. At the time, Jean-Claude Duvalier, the son of Haiti’s infamous dictator, Francois Duvalier, ruled Haiti. Like his father, the younger Duvalier held onto power by controlling Haiti’s repressive security forces. He received millions in US aid intended to maintain US influence in the Caribbean as a bulwark against Cuba. The Reagan administration conditioned US aid on Duvalier’s support for the plan to restructure Haiti’s economy. Thus began the most massive foreign intervention in Haiti since the 1915-1934 American occupation.

By 1990, the year Fr. Jean Bertrand Aristide was elected President in Haiti’s first democratic election, US rice imports outpaced domestic production. Aristide was the candidate of Haiti’s popular movement Lavalas. He won with 67% of the vote. His February 1991 inauguration marked a victory for Haiti’s poor majority after decades of Duvalier family dictatorships and military rule, signalling the participation of the poor in a new social order. The Aristide government met with a large coalition of farmers’ associations and unions and proposed buying all Haitian-grown rice in order to stabilize the price, limiting rice imports during periods between harvests. Just seven months after his inauguration, President Aristide and the democratic government were overthrown in a bloody military coup led by General Raoul Cedras. Trained in the United States and funded by the CIA, Cedras commanded the Haitian Army. His regime unleashed the collective violence of Haiti’s repressive forces against its own people. From 1991-1994, nearly 5,000 Lavalas activists and supporters of the constitutional government were massacred; many others were savagely tortured and imprisoned. Rape as a political weapon was widespread. Three hundred thousand Haitians were driven into hiding, while tens of thousands fled the country.

In 1985, the US imposed import quotas on Japanese cars. Japan flooded the U.S. market with high-quality cars that sold far below the price at which the Big Three could afford to build, sell, and survive. In 1985, the dollar, at 220 to the yen, was still too high to arrest the rising U.S. trade deficit. The Big Three were at death's door. Refusing to let any of them go under, Reagan intervened to save the industry by imposing import quotas on Japanese cars. Free traders denounced Reagan as a heretic. The death of Ford and Chrysler were of far less concern to them than fidelity to the free-trade gospel of David Ricardo and Adam Smith. It was Reagan, after all, who first articulated a goal of free trade in the Western Hemisphere. America's first free trade agreement with Israel, implemented in 1985, was a Reagan achievement. A US-Canada agreement followed. In 1986, Reagan launched the Uruguay Round, a series of talks aimed at the reduction of trade barriers among more than 60 nations.

Back in 1984, President Ronald Reagan passed the Trade and Tariff Act, which allowed the president special authority to negotiate free trade agreements more quickly. Going off of Reagan's initiative, Canadian Prime Minister Mulroney supported the president and the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement was eventually signed in 1988; it went into effect one year after. When George H. W. Bush became president, he began to negotiate with Mexican President Salinas to generate a trade agreement between Mexico and the United States. The trade agreement was part of President Bush's three-part plan called the Enterprise for the Americas Initiative, which also included debt relief programs. After Mexico lobbied for a trilateral trade (Triangular Trade - Concept Originating from Mercantilist Slave Trades in the 1500-the 1800s) agreement in 1991, NAFTA was created as a way to open up free trade between the three, not just two, superpowers in North America. President H.W. Bush signed the NAFTA agreement in 1992, which was also signed by Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney and Mexican President Salinas. The agreement went into effect under Bush's successor President Bill Clinton, who signed the agreement himself on December 8th, 1993. By January of 1994, the trade agreement was in effect.

The Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) is an expansion of NAFTA to five Central American nations (Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Costa Rica and Nicaragua), and the Dominican Republic. It was signed May 28th, 2004, and passed through the U.S. House of Representatives by one vote in the middle of the night on July 27th, 2005. After more than a decade of CAFTA, countries in the region have faced hardships for workers and farmers, corporate attacks on health and environmental laws, political instability, and deplorable human rights conditions. CAFTA is based on the failed neoliberal NAFTA model, which has displaced family farmers in trade partner countries, exacerbated the "race to the bottom" in labour and environmental standards, and promoted privatization and deregulation of key public services.

Now a look at the domestic side. Under Governor Mitt Romney’s administration, with his support and advocacy, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts passed a health care reform law in 2006 with the aim of providing health insurance to nearly all of its residents. The law mandated that nearly every resident of Massachusetts obtain a minimum level of insurance coverage, provided free health care insurance for residents earning less than 150% of the federal poverty level (FPL) and mandated employers with more than 10 "full-time" employees to provide healthcare insurance. The law was adopted by senators Barrack Obama and Ted Kennedy into the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA). Obama campaigned on it and after winning the 2008 election, set to work on passing it. The ACA was signed into law by President Obama in March 2010. Its major provisions go into effect on January 1st, 2014, although significant changes went into effect before that date and will continue in years to come. The Act extended insurance to more than 30 million uninsured people, primarily by expanding Medicaid and providing federal subsidies to help lower-and middle-income Americans buy private coverage. Twenty-six states and the National Federation of Independent Business had brought suit in federal court challenging the mandate that individuals carry insurance or pay penalties, as well as the expansion of Medicaid. The Supreme Court ruled that states could not be forced into cooperating with the Medicaid expansion, but left most of the other provisions intact. Much of the Obamacare political action came in 2009, the first year of the presidency. On July 14th, House Democrats introduced a 1,000-page plan for overhauling the US health care system. The debate raged throughout the summer and beyond.

The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act is a massive piece of financial reform legislation passed by the Obama administration in 2010 as a response to the Geroge Bush's financial crisis of 2008. Named after sponsors U.S. Senator Christopher J. Dodd and U.S. Representative Barney Frank, the act's numerous provisions -- spelt out over roughly 2,300 pages -- are being implemented over a period of several years and intended to decrease various risks in the U.S. financial system. The act established a number of new government agencies tasked with overseeing various components of the act and by extension various aspects of the banking system. Dodd-Frank put regulations on the financial industry and created programs to stop mortgage companies and lenders from taking advantage of consumers. This dense, complex law continues to be a hot topic in American politics. Supporters of it say it places much-needed restrictions on Wall Street, but critics charge that Dodd-Frank burdens investors with "too many rules" that "slow economic growth." An additional provision of the Dodd-Frank Act is known as the Volcker Rule, named after Paul Volcker. Volcker was chairman of the Federal Reserve under presidents Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan, and chairman of the Economic Recovery Advisory Board under President Obama (AKA, dude forgot to retire). The Volcker Rule forbids banks from making certain investments with their own accounts. For example, banks can’t invest, own or sponsor any proprietary trading operations or hedge funds for their own profit, with some exceptions. Banks like Wells Fargo, Wachovia, Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, and Chase ALL broke this rule. Dodd-Frank is viewed as one of the most stringent regulations on banks since the FDR era, which was prompted after the Great Depression of 1929.

Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission is a United States Supreme Court case involving Citizens United, a 501(c)(4) non-profit organisation, and whether the group's film critical of a political candidate could be defined as an electioneering communication under the 2002 Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, also known as the McCain-Feingold Act. Decided in 2010, in a 5-to-4 decision, the Supreme Court held that corporate funding of independent political broadcasts in candidate elections cannot be limited because doing so would "violate" the First Amendment. The Court's decision struck down a provision of the McCain-Feingold Act that banned for-profit and not-for-profit corporations and unions from broadcasting electioneering communications in the 30 days before a presidential primary and in the 60 days before the general elections. The decision overruled Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce (1990) and partially overruled McConnell v. Federal Election Commission (2003). The decision upheld, however, the requirements for disclaimer and disclosure by sponsors of advertisements, and the ban on direct contributions from corporations or unions to candidates. The overall precedent set, however, was that “money is speech,” and thus any limitation on money transactions would be considered "suppression of free speech" (I call bullshit). However, this ruling was flawed, as you cannot argue that prostitution or the payment of drugs is “speech.” Nevertheless, the Reagan and Bush stacked Supreme Court upheld such a ruling under the guise of the first amendment.

POL-1.0: Explain how and why political ideas, beliefs, institutions, party systems, and alignments have developed and changed.

Imagine a pendulum oscillating back and forth. Due to the laws of physics, the amount of energy applied to one end of the pendulum will match the other side equally. However, there is energy lost due to friction which inevitably stops the pendulum altogether, dead centre, and in line with the force due to gravity. Politics in any given society act in a pendulum manner. Key events, such as a war, a depression, a recession, or among other things act as the energy supplied to that pendulum. When the economy is bad and social issues are at a major crossroads, energy is applied to the right of the pendulum swaying it to the left. When the economy is good, energy is applied in the other direction, i.e. social welfare programs in the former like under FDR following the Great Depression of 1929, or during the Progressive Era and the Republican Normalcy preceding the crash in the latter, or the Conservative resurgence. The election of 1980 represents a shift in the ideology of the nation. After suffering from the Vietnam War, and the Carter administration bearing the brunt of military debt and major crises inherited from the Ford and Nixon presidencies, the United States citizens felt that they could "no longer trust a Democratic," welfare-friendly administration. In 1980, actor, republican and California governor Ronald Reagan won the U.S. presidency by all but three US states (because EVERYONE LIKED HIS MOVIES, and were BLINDED by his DONOR'S POLICY OBJECTIVES). With Reagan came a return to conservative values, that, although two “Democratic” presidents followed him, the United States still operates with. In other words, we swung so far back to the right, that it TRUMPED Herbert Hoover's or even Andrew Johnson's failed legacies). The “Neo-Liberal” philosophy that Presidents Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush AND Barack Obama ALL HAVE championed keeps that pendulum ever to the right, with an ANGRY populace BEGGING for a HARD-LEFT TURN AGAIN, something that goes EVEN FURTHER than President Franklin Delano Roosevelt or President John F. Kennedy!

The Republican and Democratic parties have amalgamated into one, corporate elite business party, where one must be subservient to corporate donors (Bill Moyers talks about this in his dissection of the Deep State). Tax cuts under the Reagan and Bush administrations, as well bank deregulations, the repeal of Glass-Steagall under Clinton, and the major increase in defence spending have contributed to a massive debt-deficit driven economy. And lest we forget the major increases in illegal wars under the second Bush administration. Artificial inflation, stagflation, and depreciating wages have led to a rise in homelessness, deaths, health care loss, starvation and overall poverty in America. Major slashes to public funding have only added to this loss. And the grossly misguided theory that cutting taxes for the TOP moneymakers, while potentially raising lower-income taxers will someone “trickle-down” wealth for those at the bottom has led to decades of congressional tax cuts that have only lead to corporations buying back their own stocks, artificially boosting the Gross Domestic Product while leaving workers without a dollar more to their name. All of this resulted in the election of a demagogue in 2016; a living embodiment of the SYSTEM of neoliberalism sparked by Reagan. Donald Jay Trump was a mere product of the years of wreckage to the American economy and political institutions paved by his predecessors. In this way, Washington D.C. has become a mere artifice, or "political theatre," that OLIGARCHS in Wall Street and Capitol Hill have successfully orchestrated, as individuals like Jeff Bezos, the Walton Family, Rothchild, the Koch Brothers, and Warren Buffet get filthy rich off the work that THEIR EMPLOYEES put in. And all they do is sit on their fat, rich, lazy white asses and SIT ALL day scheming their next corporate takeover for VALUELESS US Dollars AT THE EXPENSE OF THEIR WORKERS HEALTHS & FAMILIES because OUR COUNTRY is 28 TRILLION DOLLARS in DEBT to THEM and THEIR SWISS BANK ACCOUNTS. That, combined with the bought corporate media that spews economic propaganda about “how well the economy is doing,” which seeps into the minds of Americans as we educate the future generation on what is right and wrong, is a recipe for a disaster. And the failure to properly address these issues has only further cemented their legacies in the inevitable, irreversible, and fast-approaching demise of the American Empire. Through this demise, may we FINALLY become A TRUE DEMOCRATIC NATION that works TOGETHER with ALL COUNTRIES, rather than LORD OVER THEM like PUPPETS on our DEMONIC STRINGS.

C. Employment increased in service sectors and decreased in manufacturing, and union membership declined.

Between 1970 and 2000, manufacturing employment was relatively stable, ranging from 16.8 to 19.6 million workers, and generally remaining between 17 and 18 million. However, this relationship broke down in the early 2000s, a period of rapidly growing trade deficits. At that time, manufacturing employment began a prolonged collapse, falling to a low of 11.5 million workers in February 2010, and recovering by December 2014 to 12.3 million workers, where it has remained. Overall, manufacturing lost 5 million jobs between January 2000 and December 2014. Between 2000 and 2007, growing trade deficits in manufactured goods led to the loss of 3.6 million manufacturing jobs in that period. Between 2007 and 2009, the massive collapse in overall U.S. output hit manufacturing particularly hard (real manufacturing output fell 10.3 per cent between 2007 and 2009). This collapse was followed by the slowest recovery in domestic manufacturing output in more than 60 years. Reasonably strong GDP growth over the past five years has not been sufficient to counter these trends; only about 900,000 of the 2.3 million manufacturing jobs lost during the Great Recession have been recovered.

In addition, the resurgence of the U.S. trade deficit in manufactured goods since 2009 has hurt the recovery of manufacturing output and employment. As more free-trade policies like NAFTA, CAFTA, and the TPP (Trans-Pacific Pact) have taken root and have gotten more aggressively laissez-faire, more and more jobs have been outsourced to lower-wages and less regulated countries such as Mexico with the automobile industry; China has virtually every industry, and India practically owns the customer support industry. Without regulations, US manufacturer labourers have no way to compete with countries that have non-union, slave-labour like, and in some cases actual slave labour conditions. This all has lead to the continuance of manufacturing jobs being outsourced. The emphasis on labour cuts, especially unions, was fuelled by Reagan’s bold policy of strike-breaking by firing 11,359 striking air traffic controllers who had ignored his order to return to work, causing a significant impact on labour-management relations in the private sector.

Over the past decade, the oil and gas industry has fused two technologies—hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling—in a highly polluting effort to unlock oil and gas in underground rock formations across the United States. As fracking expands rapidly across the country, there is a growing number of documented cases of drinking water contamination and illnesses among nearby residents. Yet it has often been difficult for the public to grasp the scale and scope of these and other fracking threats. Fracking is already underway in 17 states, with more than 80,000 wells drilled or permitted since 2005. Moreover, the oil and gas industry is aggressively seeking to expand fracking to new states—from New York to California to North Carolina—and to areas that provide drinking water to millions of Americans. In the same aspect, fights over the dying and heftily cost (to the environment and miners health) of the coal industry have been waged as people lose their jobs in the mines and “coal towns” become desert towns.

Furthermore, as technology becomes more and more innovated, more jobs are being outsourced to robots, i.e. automation. So as more and more jobs become depleted, more people are finding it difficult to find work, and the owners of more automated industries rake more profit in without having to pay wages, which in turn invests itself back into the economy. More people turn to service sector jobs, i.e. plumbers, technicians, mechanics, construction, etc., because these jobs, at least as of now, demand ACTUAL people to provide labour. All of this is evidence of structural changes in employment due to many of the policies of the administrations including and following President Reagan.

D. Real wages stagnated for the working and middle class amid growing economic inequality.

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) reported that for the 1979-2007 period, the after-tax income of households in the top 1 per cent of earners grew by 275%, compared to 65% for the next 19 per cent, just under 40% for the next 60 per cent, and 18% for the bottom fifth of households. This trend of a rising income gap is evidentiary of not only the furtherment of money accumulation for the top earners but also the failures of the tax cuts for the top earners to generate more wealth for the bottom earner (supply-side economics). This issue was exacerbated with the Great Recession of 2007.

The Great Recession—which officially lasted from December 2007 to June 2009—began with the bursting of an 8 trillion-dollar housing bubble. The resulting loss of wealth led to sharp cutbacks in consumer spending. This loss of consumption, combined with the financial market chaos triggered by the bursting of the bubble, also led to a collapse in business investment. As consumer spending and business investment dried up, massive job loss followed. In 2008 and 2009, the U.S. labour market lost 8.4 million jobs or 6.1% of all payroll employment. This was the most dramatic employment contraction (by far) of any recession since the Great Depression. By comparison, in the deep recession that began in 1981, job loss was 3.1%, or only about half as severe. The job loss during the Great Recession has meant that family incomes have dropped, poverty has risen, and adults, as well as children, have lost health insurance. The bursting of the housing bubble and the drop in the stock market has meant that family wealth has dropped dramatically, as well. This feature highlights the impact of the Great Recession on the labour market and on working families.

The Emergency Economic Stabilisation Act (EESA) (2008) was one of the bailout measures taken by Congress in 2008 to help repair the damage from the subprime mortgage crisis. The act gave the Treasury Secretary the authority to buy up to $700 billion USD of troubled assets and to restore liquidity in financial markets. The Emergency Economic Stabilization Act (EESA) was originally created and proposed by Henry Paulson. The original form of the EESA was rejected by the House of Representatives in September of 2008 and was therefore revised. A revised version was passed the following month. Proponents of the plan believed that it was vital to minimise the damage done to the economy by the mortgage meltdown, while detractors contended that the cost amounted to a bailout for Wall Street and the banks. A central part of the response to the financial crisis was the implementation of the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP).

Another law passed by Congress in response to the Great Recession of 2008 was the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (2009). It is more commonly known as the stimulus package of 2009, or the "Obama stimulus." The package included a series of federal government expenditures aimed at countering the job losses associated with the 2008 recession. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) called for a massive round of federal spending designed to create new jobs and recover jobs lost in the Great Recession of 2008. This government spending was intended to compensate for a slowdown in private investment in that year. It was intended to provide tax relief for families, including withholding reductions up to $800 USD per family and a $70 billion USD extension of the alternative minimum tax. It also was intended to provide over $80 billion USD in infrastructure projects, expand healthcare including $87 billion USD in aid to states to help cover additional recession-related Medicare costs, and provided over $100 billion USD in education spending, including teacher salary support and Head Start programs.

In a response to the legislative bailouts and the risky and overly greedy business practices of Wall Street, a movement was started known as Occupy Wall Street. Occupy is a progressive protest movement that began on September 17th, 2011, receiving global attention and spawning a surge in the movement against economic inequality worldwide. The main issues raised by Occupy Wall Street were social and economic inequality, greed, corruption and the undue influence of corporations on government—particularly from the financial services sector. The Occupy slogan, "We are the 99%", refers to income inequality and wealth distribution in the United States between the wealthiest 1% and the rest of the population. To achieve their goals, protesters acted on consensus-based decisions made in general assemblies which emphasized redress through direct action over the petitioning to authorities. The protesters were forced out of Zuccotti Park (where they had been assembled) on November 15th, 2011. Protesters turned their focus to occupying banks, corporate headquarters, board meetings, foreclosed homes, and college and university campuses.

WXT-3.0: Analyse how technological innovation has affected economic development and society.

As mentioned earlier, automation and the ever-moving feats of technology have affected jobs, wealth accumulation, and how Americans interact with one another and with those around the globe. In 1975, IBM released its first portable computer. In 1983, TCP/IP protocols replaced NCP on the ARPANET, marking the beginning of the modern internet. In 1985 the first version of Microsoft was released. And technological feats continued. On June 29th, 2007, the first iPhone was released. With the access to computers, DVR technologies, expanding TV networks, countless websites and online records, human capacity has expanded and the ability to research and articulate such matters has grown. This affects society tremendously when it comes to the changing tides on social issues, the ability to question more of religion and previously inaccessible doctrine, the greater acceptance of sexuality, and a growing consumer culture based on the immediate gratification of buying things. These new technologies and attitudes have led to the further automation of U.S. sector jobs and the growing collapse of the economy.

New innovations in the manufacturing industry, especially in say coal, have left people without a job. More and more labour is being replaced with machines that only accumulate profit for the owner of those machines, who then buy back into their own companies. Unlike a paid employee who would have to invest in the economy by buying goods and participating in the market, or who get small "shares" in their company like at Home Depot or Publix, these owners of machines, corporations, and PEOPLE make up to 300x A YEAR what their average employee does, but CONTRIBUTE the LEAST AMOUNT of WORK in THE ENTIRE COMPANY. Hell, they probably didn't even design the machines they profit from, rather some college student in an unpaid internship at say Georgia Tech did. In this way, technology does help the overall GDP of the nation and increases profitability, but it undercuts wages and leaves more Americans less off than ever before. With tax cuts and supply-side theories, these greater profit margins are left unchecked and the consumer is the one to suffer. Larger businesses who have established themselves while also having the ability to adapt, like Amazon, begin to crush smaller competitors and without regulations begin to monopolise several industries simultaneously. With new robotic technologies, Amazon hires fewer and fewer workers, even having workerless stores and eventually driverless delivery trucks. At the same time, they have made their competitors go out of business, cutting jobs from not only their company but other companies in that field. Then, they make a profit from all of the cut jobs, sucking most of the wealth to just be invested back into the company to raise stock prices which goes MOSTLY into Jeff Bezos’ pocket.

B. Increased U.S. military spending, Reagan’s diplomatic initiatives, and political changes and economic problems in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union were all important in ending the Cold War.

Reagan increased defence spending to achieve "peace through strength" in his opposition to Communism and the Soviet Union. Reagan wound up increasing the defence budget by 35 per cent. Under Reagan, government spending increased 2.5 per cent annually. Reagan's first budget was for the fiscal year 1982. He incurred substantial deficits for each year of his presidency. As a result, the debt each year also increased. By the end of Reagan's two terms, the national debt had more than doubled. At the end of his two terms, Reagan had incurred a national debt of $1.86 trillion USD, a 186% per cent increase from the $998 billion USD debt at the end of Carter's last budget, FY 1981.

One of Reagan’s budgetary priorities was the Strategic Defence Initiative (SDI), by the name "Star Wars," which proposed the US strategic defensive system against potential nuclear attacks—as originally conceived, from the Soviet Union. The SDI was first proposed by President Ronald Reagan in a nationwide television address on March 23rd, 1983. Because parts of the defensive system that Reagan advocated would be based in space, the proposed system was dubbed “Star Wars,” after the space weaponry of a popular motion picture of the same name (cause Reagan was an ACTOR and LIKED HOLLYWOOD). The SDI was intended to defend the United States from attack from Soviet intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) by intercepting the missiles at various phases of their flight. Though initial funding for the SDI had been approved by the U.S. Congress by the mid-1980s, the program aroused a heated debate among both arms experts and public officials over its military and political implications and its technical feasibility. Proponents of the SDI asserted that the overwhelming technological obstacles to its implementation could eventually be overcome and that an effective defensive system would deter potential Soviet attacks. Critics of the program argued variously that the scheme was unworkable, that it encouraged a further arms race, and that it undermined established arms-control agreements and weakened the prospects for further arms-control agreements. Testing continued on a number of SDI-related devices, but the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991 changed the conditions of such defence.

START I inevitably acted as one of the dampers of the Star Wars program. In 1982, Ronald Reagan renamed disarmament talks with the USSR START and proposed radical reductions, rather than merely limitations, in each superpower’s existing stocks of missiles and warheads. In 1983 the Soviet Union abandoned arms control talks in protest against the deployment of intermediate-range missiles in western Europe (see Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty). In 1985 START resumed, and the talks culminated in July 1991 with a comprehensive strategic-arms-reduction agreement signed by U.S. Pres. George H.W. Bush and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. During the negotiations on START I, one of the most controversial issues had been how to handle limits on nuclear-armed cruise missiles, as verification would be difficult to implement. The issue was finally handled by means of separate political declarations by which the two sides agreed to announce annually their planned cruise missile deployments, which were not to exceed 880.

For the first time in eight years, the leaders of the Soviet Union and the United States held a summit conference. Meeting in Geneva, President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev produced no earth-shattering agreements. However, the meeting boded well for the future, as the two men engaged in long, personal talks and seemed to develop a sincere and close relationship. The meeting came as somewhat of a surprise to some in the United States, considering Reagan’s often incendiary rhetoric concerning "communism" and the Soviet Union, but it was in keeping with the president’s often-stated desire to bring the nuclear arms race under control. For Gorbachev, the meeting was another clear signal of his desire to obtain better relations with the United States so that he could better pursue his domestic reforms. Little of substance was accomplished. Six agreements were reached, ranging from cultural and scientific exchanges to environmental issues. Both Reagan and Gorbachev, however, expressed satisfaction with the summit, which ended on November 21st. The next summit was held in October 1986 in Reykjavik and ended somewhat disastrously, with Reagan’s commitment to the Strategic Defence Initiative (the so-called “Star Wars” missile defence system) providing a major obstacle to progress on arms control talks. However, by the time of their third summit in Washington, D.C. in 1987, both sides made concessions in order to achieve agreement on a wide range of arms control issues.

When Gorbachev became head of the Communist Party in 1985, he launched Perestroika (“restructuring”). His team was more heavily Russian than that of his predecessors. It seems that initially, even Gorbachev believed that the basic economic structure of the U.S.S.R. was sound and therefore only minor reforms were needed. He thus pursued an economic policy that aimed to increase economic growth while increasing capital investment. Capital investment was to improve the technological basis of the Soviet economy as well as promote certain structural economic changes. His goal was quite plain: to bring the Soviet Union up to par economically with the West. Gorbachev launched Glasnost (“openness”) as the second vital plank of his reform efforts. He believed that the opening up of the political system—essentially, democratizing it—was the only way to overcome inertia in the political and bureaucratic apparatus, which had a big interest in maintaining the status quo. In addition, he believed that the path to economic and social recovery required the inclusion of people in the political process. Glasnost also allowed the media more freedom of expression, and editorials complaining of depressed conditions and of the government’s inability to correct them began to appear.

Solidarity, officially Independent Self-Governing Trade Union “Solidarity,” was a Polish trade union that in the early 1980s became the first independent labour union in a country belonging to the Soviet bloc. Solidarity was founded in September 1980, was forcibly suppressed by the Polish government in December 1981, and reemerged in 1989 to become the first opposition movement to participate in free elections in a Soviet-bloc nation since the 1940s. Solidarity subsequently formed a coalition government with Poland’s United Workers’ Party (PUWP), after which its leaders dominated the national government. During a growing wave of new strikes in 1980 protesting rising food prices, Gdańsk became a hotbed of resistance to government decrees. Some 17,000 workers at the Lenin Shipyards there staged a strike and barricaded themselves within the plant under the leadership of Lech Wałęsa, an electrician by trade. In mid-August 1980 an Interfactory Strike Committee was established in Gdańsk to coordinate rapidly spreading strikes there and elsewhere; within a week it presented the Polish government with a list of demands that were based largely on KOR’s Charter of Workers’ Rights. On August 31, accords reached between the government and the Gdańsk strikers sanctioned free and independent unions with the right to strike, together with greater freedom of religious and political expression.

C) The end of the Cold War led to new diplomatic relationships but also new U.S. military and peacekeeping interventions, as well as continued debates over the appropriate use of American power in the world.

The Persian Gulf War also called Gulf War, (1990–91), was an international conflict that was triggered by Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait on August 2nd, 1990. Iraq’s leader, Saddam Hussein, ordered the invasion and occupation of Kuwait with the apparent aim of acquiring that nation’s large oil reserves, cancelling a large debt Iraq owed Kuwait and expanding Iraqi power in the region. On August 3rd the United Nations Security Council called for Iraq to withdraw from Kuwait, and on August 6th the council imposed a worldwide ban on trade with Iraq. (The Iraqi government responded by formally annexing Kuwait on August 8th.) Iraq’s invasion and the potential threat it then posed to Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest oil producer and exporter, prompted the United States and its western European NATO allies to rush troops to Saudi Arabia to deter a possible attack. Egypt and several other Arab nations joined the anti-Iraq coalition and contributed forces to the military build-up, known as Operation Desert Shield. Iraq meanwhile built up its occupying army in Kuwait to about 300,000 troops.

The 1991 Persian Gulf War was, according to President Bush, about "more than one small country; it is a big idea; a new world order," with "new ways of working with other nations . . . peaceful settlement of disputes, solidarity against aggression, reduced and controlled arsenals and just treatment of all peoples." Not long after the war, however, the flow of White House words about a new world order slowed to a trickle. Like Woodrow Wilson’s Fourteen Points or Franklin Roosevelt’s Four Freedoms, George Bush’s grand rhetoric expressed the larger goals important for public support when a liberal democratic state goes to war. But after the war, when reality intruded, grand schemes turned into a liability. People were led to compare the war’s imperfect outcome with an impossible ideal. The proper standard for judgment should have been what the world would look like if Saddam Hussein had been left in possession of Kuwait. The victory lost its lustre because of an unfair comparison that the president inadvertently encouraged, and recession shifted the political agenda to the domestic economy. The White House thus decided to lower the rhetorical volume.

In the 1980s, Panamanian leader Manuel Noriega, a once U.S.-supportive leader who was later accused of spying for Fidel Castro and using Panama to traffic drugs into the United States, was one of the most recognizable names in America and was constantly in the press. The struggle to remove him from power began in the Reagan administration when economic sanctions were imposed on the country; this included prohibiting American companies and governments from making payments to Panama and freezing $56 million USD in Panamanian funds in American banks. Reagan sent more than 2,000 American troops to Panama as well. Unlike Reagan, Bush was able to remove Noriega from power, but his administration's unsuccessful post-invasion planning hindered the needs of Panama during the establishment of the young democratic government. In May 1989, Panama held democratic elections, in which Guillermo Endara was elected president; the results were then annulled by Noriega's government. In response, Bush sent 2,000 more US troops to the country, where they began conducting regular military exercises in Panamanian territory (in violation of prior treaties). Bush then removed an embassy and ambassador from the country and dispatched additional troops to Panama to prepare the way for an upcoming invasion. On December 18th, Bush admitted he believed the current Panama situation was very concerning and that it had been "an enormous frustration to me" but declined to state what intent the US had toward it during an Oval Office interview with wire service reporters. R. W. Apple Jr. of The New York Times observed the invasion as placing Bush among other post-World War II American presidents that had "felt a need to demonstrate their willingness to shed blood to protect or advance what they construe as the national interest."

Faced with a humanitarian disaster in Somalia, exacerbated by a complete breakdown in the civil order, the United Nations had created the UNOSOM I mission in April 1992 to aid the situation through humanitarian efforts, though the mission failed. The Bush administration proposed American aid to the region by assisting in creating a secure environment for humanitarian efforts and UN Resolution 794 was unanimously adopted by the Security Council on December 3rd, 1992. A lame-duck president, Bush launched Operation Restore Hope the following day under which the United States would assume command in accordance with Resolution 794. Fearing chaos resulting in the starvation of Somalia's civilians and to help U.S. Forces defend themselves, Clinton increased troop presence in the country. Demands for withdrawal, however, grew louder and Clinton ordered troops out of the country in March 1994. This left Somalia in a state of chaos, with warlords battling for control.

Much of the focus of Clinton's foreign policy during his first term was the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina, a nation in southeastern Europe that had declared its independence from Yugoslavia in 1992. This declaration was the catalyst of a war between Bosnian Serbs, who wanted Bosnia to remain in the Yugoslav federation, and Bosnian Muslims and Croats. The Bosnian Serbs, who were supported by Serbia, were better equipped than the Muslims and the Croats; as a result, they populated and controlled much of the countryside in ways including besieging cities, such as the capital of Sarajevo. This caused widespread suffering, and in response, Clinton proposed bombing Serb supply lines and lifting an embargo preventing the shipment of military arms to the former Yugoslavia (a policy known as lift and strike - LITERALLY PLAYING WITH PEOPLES LIVELIHOODS, FAMILIES, AND HOMES like "BOARDS ON A CHESSBOARD"). European nations, however, were opposed to these moves. In 1994, Clinton opposed an effort by the Republicans in Congress to lift the arms embargo, as it were because American allies in Western Europe were still resistant to that policy. Clinton continued to pressure western European countries throughout 1994 to take strong measures against the Serbs. But in November, as the Serbs seemed on the verge of defeating the Muslims and Croats in several strongholds, Clinton changed course and called for conciliation with the Serbs. After the 2nd Markale massacre, in which Bosnian Serb forces reportedly shelled a crowded marketplace in Sarajevo, NATO, led by the United States launched Operation Deliberate Force with a series of airstrikes against Bosnian Serb targets. The air campaign, along with a counter-offensive by better-equipped Muslim and Croatian forces, succeeded in pressuring the Bosnian Serbs into participating in negotiations. In November 1995, Clinton hosted peace talks between the warring parties in Dayton, Ohio. The parties reached a peace agreement known as the Dayton Agreement, leaving Bosnia as a single state made up of two separate entities with a central government. In the spring of 1998, ethnic tension in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia–the state formed from the former Yugoslav republics of Serbia and Montenegro–heightened when the military forces responded in the Autonomous Province of Kosovo and Metohija. More than 90 per cent of the residents of Kosovo were Muslim and ethnic Albanians, many of whom wanted independence from the country. Yugoslav forces were mobilized into provinces to quell Albanian rebels. Through attempting to impose the Rambouillet Agreement, Clinton, who strongly supported the Albanians, threatened the Yugoslav administration with military strikes. On the 24th of March 1999, NATO, led by the United States, launched the two-month bombardment of Yugoslavia. The strikes were not limited to military installations and NATO targets included civilian targets such as factories, oil refineries, television stations and various infrastructure. The intervention, which devastated Yugoslavia, was not approved by the United Nations, the UN General Assembly or the UN Security Council, and was strongly opposed by both Russia and China. It was the first time in NATO's history that its forces had attacked a sovereign country and the first time in which airpower alone won a battle. In June 1999, NATO and Yugoslav military leaders approved an international peace plan for Kosovo, and attacks were suspended after Yugoslav forces withdrew from Kosovo.

In May 1989, nearly a million Chinese, mostly young students, crowded into central Beijing to protest for greater democracy and call for the resignations of Chinese Communist Party leaders deemed too repressive. For nearly three weeks, the protesters kept up daily vigils and marched and chanted. Western reporters captured much of the drama for television and newspaper audiences in the United States and Europe. On June 4th, 1989, however, Chinese troops and security police stormed through Tiananmen Square, firing indiscriminately into the crowds of protesters (Note System of a Down's B.Y.O.B., why DON'T the PRESIDENTS ever FIGHT THE WARS???). Turmoil ensued, as tens of thousands of the young students tried to escape the rampaging Chinese forces. Other protesters fought back, stoning the attacking troops and overturning and setting fire to military vehicles. Reporters and Western diplomats on the scene estimated that at least 300, and perhaps thousands, of the protesters, had been killed and as many as 10,000 were arrested. In the aftermath, President George H.W. Bush denounced the actions in Tiananmen Square and suspended military sales as well as high-level exchanges with Chinese officials. Many members of the U.S. Congress, the American public, and international leaders advocated broader economic sanctions, some of which were implemented. U.S. leaders met with Chinese nationals studying in the United States as a symbolic gesture of commitment. Questions of relations with China, in particular the granting of Most-Favored-Nation trading status, were controversial questions for the remainder of President Bush’s term and into the term of President Bill Clinton.

WOR-2.0: Analyse the reasons for, and results of, U.S. diplomatic, economic, and military initiatives in North America and overseas.

After many feats in US power history, including the naval expansion under Teddy Roosevelt, the increase in military spending under Reagan, and the escalation of conflict under several presidents, including Wilson, FDR, Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon, as well as a steady trend starting back in the days of Washington of money growth and growth in US representation around the world, the United States has blossomed as a GLOBAL SUPERPOWER, ever much so in the Conservative Resurgence. If one examines history in the world during any given time, one will find the ever-lingering ideologies of imperialism. One such example of this would be the British Empire and its stronghold on countries all across the globe during the 16th and through the 20th centuries (Note Netflix's "The Crown"). The United States is the largest and most frankly, important nation in global geopolitics. For this reason, the country finds a need to act as a sort of “global policeman”; at least, that is what we have been told. In reality, the United States has always gotten involved in matters that best benefit ITS OWN NATION as a whole whether it be financially, politically, or in other regards. The United States has no great moral cause to crusade around saving other countries for the greater good. Some may even say, with good reason, that the United States put up a façade when claiming that communism was the greatest threat to American democracy and that it must be stopped up at all costs, even if that meant destabilizing democracies across the world and stripping away civil liberties in the United States. That façade seems much more realistic when evaluating the great profit made off such wars as the Vietnam War, Korean War, and Cold War, and at the expense of American and foreign blood. President Eisenhower himself warned against the Military-Industrial Complex in his Farewell Address. This complex feeds off war, so inevitably, it survives at the cost of making war - a skill that US presidents seem to be pretty good at.

Diplomacy works for the US when it can benefit the most financially to do so. In such a case as the START I treaty and disarmament talks between the USSR and the US, the United States understood that more profit could be made by opening up trade with the Union rather than waging a never-ending Cold War. If the financial profits of the Cold War had exceeded the trade route, such diplomatic talks may never have occurred. In this way, the US can also block trade like with Cuba or with China after Tiananmen Square. The US will also support dictatorships across the world, and coups of democratic governments if it best serves the Country to do that, while at the same time waging wars against dictatorships and striving to “spread democracy.” It hides its money holds under the guise of "moral justice." Initiatives are incentivised by profit and by power.

A. In the wake of attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon, the United States launched military efforts against terrorism and lengthy, controversial conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The Afghanistan War was an international conflict in Afghanistan beginning in 2001 that was triggered by the September 11th attacks and consisted of three phases. The first phase—toppling the Taliban (the ultraconservative political and religious faction that ruled Afghanistan and provided sanctuary for al-Qaeda, perpetrators of the September 11th attacks)—was brief, lasting just two months. The second phase, from 2002 until 2008, was marked by a U.S. strategy of defeating the Taliban militarily and rebuilding the core institutions of the Afghan state. The third phase, a turn to classic counterinsurgency doctrine, began in 2008 and accelerated with U.S. President Barack Obama’s 2009 decision to temporarily increase the U.S. troop presence in Afghanistan. The larger force was used to implement a strategy of protecting the population from Taliban attacks and supporting efforts to reintegrate insurgents into Afghan society. The strategy came coupled with a timetable for the withdrawal of the foreign forces from Afghanistan; beginning in 2011, security responsibilities would be gradually handed over to the Afghan military and police. The new approach largely failed to achieve its aims. Insurgent attacks and civilian casualties remained stubbornly high, while many of the Afghan military and police units taking over security duties appeared to be ill-prepared to hold off the Taliban. By the time the U.S. and NATO combat mission formally ended in December 2014, the 13-YEAR Afghanistan War had become the longest war ever fought by the United States.

The 2003 invasion of Iraq was the first stage of the Iraq War (also called Operation Iraqi Freedom). The invasion phase began on the 20th March 2003 and lasted just over one month, including 21 days of major combat operations, in which a combined force of troops from the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and Poland invaded Iraq. This early stage of the war formally ended on the 1st of May 2003 when U.S. President George W. Bush declared the "end of major combat operations," after which the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) was established as the first of several successive transitional governments leading up to the first Iraqi parliamentary election in January 2005. U.S. military forces later remained in Iraq until the withdrawal in 2011.

In 2003, a secret compound, known as Strawberry Fields, was constructed near the main Guantanamo Bay detention camps, in Cuba. It was not until August 2010 that reporters found that it had been constructed to hold CIA detainees classified as "high value.” These were among the many men known as ghost detainees, as they were ultimately held for years for interrogation by the CIA in its secret prisons known as black sites at various places in Europe, the Mideast, and Asia, including Afghanistan (LIKE JULAIN ASSANGE'S TORTURE IN BELMARSH PRISON). Matt Apuzzo and Adam Goldman, in an exclusive report on August 7th, 2010, for the Associated Press, reported that the "high-value detainees" Abu Zubaydah, Abd al-Nashiri, Ramzi bin al-Shibh, and Mustafa al-Hawsawi, had first been transferred to military custody at Guantanamo Bay on September 24th, 2003. They reported that CIA agents thought they had learned most of the information to be extracted from these individuals. At the time, the CIA thought the men could be held securely and secretly at Guantanamo, without any prospect of the public learning that they had been SUBJECTED to what the United States courts have determined is TORTURE, including waterboarding, one of the euphemistically termed "enhanced interrogation techniques." These techniques had been specifically authorized by political appointees in the Office of Legal Counsel, Department of Justice (DOJ), in the Bush administration, in August 2002 (MONTH & YEAR DREW WAS BORN), in what came to be known as the Torture Memos. David Johnston and Mark Mazetti, writing in the New York Times in August 2009 also described the camp. They quoted CIA officials, who said that the camp's nickname in 2003 was a reference to the Beatles' song "Strawberry Fields Forever," because the detainees would be held there "forever" (THEY COOPTED POPULAR AMERICAN SONGS to SELL THEIR HEINOUS BULLLSHIT POLICES. THEY LIED TO THE AMERICAN PUBLIC). As the Habeas Corpus petitions collectively known as Rasul v. Bush made their way to the United States Supreme Court for its ruling in 2004, the CIA took the four men back into their custody. Apuzzo and Goldman report that the Bush government returned the men to CIA custody three months before the Supreme Court's ruling, to avoid the possibility of having to release any information about them. The Supreme Court held that detainees had the right of Habeas Corpus to challenge their detention before an impartial forum, and NONE had seen counsel. Up until that time, no detainees had been able to challenge the grounds of their detention. The Supreme Court's ruling would have compelled at least some information about the four detainees to be publicly revealed. The CIA violated State Law, Federal Law, and International Law in VIRTUALLY EVERY COUNTRY and GOT AWAY WITH IT BECAUSE OF US NUCLEAR STOCKPLIES (aka the "threat" of the RED BUTTON being used against FOREIGN "enemies" - aka XENOPHOBIA).

Since 2004, the United States government has attacked thousands of targets in Northwest Pakistan using unmanned aerial vehicles (drones) operated by the United States Air Force under the operational control of the Central Intelligence Agency's Special Activities Division. Most of these attacks are on targets in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas along the Afghan border in Northwest Pakistan. These strikes began during the administration of United States President George W. Bush and increased substantially under his successor Barack Obama. Some in the media have referred to the attacks as a "drone war.” The George W. Bush administration officially denied the extent of its policy; in May 2013, the Obama administration acknowledged for the first time that four US citizens had been killed in the strikes. THIS is what Chelsea Manning released and was imprisoned for, and what Megan McCain, daughter of WAR CRIMINAL, said was "justified" for "international security" on the asinine, politically-dumb ABC show "The View," that FOCUSES TOO MUCH ON PERSONAL ISSUES within HOMES and NOT ENOUGH on GLOBAL ATROCITIES. BUT Manning's distribution of this information SAVED future CITIZENS of the WAR-TORN regions, thus making CHELSEA MANNING a WAR-HERO, NOT a CRIMINAL, like her PRESIDENT GEORGE BUSH and VICE PRESIDENT DICK CHENEY.

B. The war on terrorism sought to improve security within the United States but also raised questions about the protection of civil liberties and human rights.

The USA Patriot Act was a law passed shortly after the September 11th, 2001, terrorist attacks in the United States. It gave law enforcement agencies broad powers to investigate, indict and bring "terrorists" to justice. It also led to increased penalties for committing and supporting terrorist crimes. An acronym for “Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism,” this "anti-terror" measure was chiefly designed to lower the probable cause threshold for obtaining intelligence warrants against suspected spies, terrorists, and other enemies of the United States. The USA Patriot Act deters and punishes terrorist attacks in the United States and abroad through enhanced law enforcement and strengthened money laundering prevention. It also allows the use of investigative tools designed for organized crime and drug trafficking prevention for terrorist investigations. For example, federal agents can use court orders to obtain business records from hardware stores or chemical plants to determine who may be buying materials to make bombs, or bank records to determine who is sending money to terrorists or suspect organizations. Police officers, FBI agents, federal prosecutors and intelligence officials are better able to share information and evidence on individuals and plots, thus enhancing their protection of communities. Opponents of the Act argue it effectively lets the U.S. government investigate ANYONE it wants to, colliding directly with one of the U.S.' most cherished values: a citizens’ right to privacy.

My Freshman Biology teacher Mr Alan Curtis told me that one time when being pulled over for a speeding ticket, he made a wise-assed remark to the police officer and he WAS THREATENED with the PATRIOT ACT in PAULDING COUNTY GEORGIA by one of their EVIL SHERIFFS. A CLEAR abuse of AN ALREADY unconstitutional law. Imagine how many innocent teachers, black, brown, and even poor-white people have been arbitrarily detained for 24-hrs against their will., causing them to lose job opportunities, miss school, and sometimes DIE in prison cells due to government overreach. Questions of misusing government funds arise when limited resources are used in tracking American citizens, especially those moving overseas. It is unclear what federal authorities intend to do with information discovered through tracking public records, raising concerns about the government’s autonomy and power. Suspected terrorists have been imprisoned in Guantanamo Bay without always explaining why or allowing legal representation, violating their RIGHT to due process. Some prisoners have been proven, subsequently, to not even have any ties to terrorism. Officials in the Federal government have OFTEN abused this power, even as far as imprisoning their OWN SPOUSES that cheated on them (this is known in the CIA as LOVESPYING). The business, finance and investment communities are more likely to be affected by heightened documentation requirements and due diligence responsibilities. Though the impact is more on institutions than individual investors, anyone who conducts international business is likely to experience added costs and greater hassles with something as mundane as opening a simple foreign checking account. Basically, rich oligarchs can open bank accounts and get away with it because THEY OWN THE GOVERNMENT, but a lowly grandma trying to get her child into a better country might spend DECADES in prison. This is UNJUST, UNBALANCED, ANTIQUATED, and news to be ADDRESSED IMMEDIATELY!

The Homeland Security Act was a piece of U.S. legislation signed into law by President George W. Bush on November 25th, 2002, that established the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) as a new department in the executive branch of the government and established a number of measures aimed at protecting the "national security" of the United States. The act was drafted in the aftermath of the September 11th attacks in 2001, when defending the United States against terrorist attacks and responding to large-scale emergencies which had rapidly emerged as top priorities for the government. Until the passage of the Homeland Security Act, the U.S. security apparatus had been dispersed across a wide range of federal agencies and the military. In addition to creating an entirely new federal government organization with its own mandate, a cabinet-level secretary, and more than 180,000 employees at the time of its founding, the Homeland Security Act placed a number of existing agencies beneath the larger umbrella of the DHS, which took on responsibilities ranging from infrastructure protection and chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, and related countermeasures to border and transportation security, emergency preparedness and response, and coordination with other parts of the federal government, with state and local governments, and with the private sector.

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is a U.S. agency created following the September 11th, 2001 terrorist attacks that are mandated with developing and implementing policies to ensure the safety of the nation’s transportation systems. It was established by the Aviation and Transportation Security Act, which was passed by Congress and signed into law by President George W. Bush on November 19th, 2001. Originally part of the U.S. Department of Transportation, in 2003 the TSA became part of the newly created Department of Homeland Security. Airport security and preventing aircraft hijacking are important concerns of the TSA and arguably the most well-known to the public. Uniformed transportation security officers at airports examine passengers and luggage, looking for any prohibited materials. Others work behind the scenes, for example, by reviewing passenger lists and comparing them with lists of individuals deemed to be a security threat or at risk for being a security threat. NOTE, this power is OFTEN ABUSED and RACIALISED. For example, I have always been "randomly" selected for more "IN-DEPTH" and UNCOMFORTABLE screenings as a CHILD. My PawPaw was put on hold because my YaYa forgot to put A SOUVENIR KNIFE in their main cargo and he was a Native American-Man with SLIGHTLY darker than normal skin and a granddaughter that was Lilly-white. This was a RACIALISED incident in the 21ST CENTURY.

They then identify anyone who requires additional screening or who should not be allowed to board a plane. The TSA also has a public presence with its VIPR teams (Visible Intermodal Prevention and Response teams), members of which are easily identifiable as security officers and who patrol railways and mass transit systems. Other modes of transportation that are also under the purview of the TSA include freight carriers moving across the nation’s highways, cargo entering U.S. ports and travelling on U.S. waterways, and freight being transported via pipelines. In addition to the transportation security officers and VIPR members mentioned above, the TSA also employs other specialists, including behaviour detection officers, federal air marshals, explosives specialists, and canine teams as part of its mandate to "keep the country’s transportation systems safe" from THE COUNTRY'S OWN MESS of TERRORISM which was CAUSED by US OFFICIALS IN THE MILITARY INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX who WANT WAR! (Note: Ozzy Osbourne's "War Pigs")

The Terrorist Surveillance Program was an electronic surveillance program implemented by the National Security Agency (NSA) of the United States in the wake of the September 11th, 2001, attacks. "The program, which enabled the United States to secretly track billions of phone calls made by millions of U.S. citizens over a period of decades, was A BLUEPRINT for the NSA surveillance that would come after it, with similarities too close to be coincidental." It was part of the President's Surveillance Program, which was in turn conducted under the overall umbrella of the War on Terrorism. The NSA, a signals intelligence agency, implemented the program to intercept al Qaeda communications overseas where at least one party is not a U.S. person. In 2005, The New York Times disclosed that technical glitches resulted in some of the intercepts including communications that were "purely domestic" in nature, igniting the NSA warrantless surveillance controversy. Later works, such as James Bamford's The Shadow Factory, describe how the nature of the domestic surveillance was much, much more widespread than initially disclosed. In a 2011 New Yorker article, former NSA employee Bill Binney said that his colleagues told him that the NSA had begun storing billing and phone records from "everyone in the country." The program was named the Terrorist Surveillance Program by the George W. Bush administration in response to the NSA warrantless surveillance controversy following disclosure of the program. It is claimed that this program operated without the judicial oversight mandated by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), and legal challenges to the program are currently undergoing judicial review. Because the technical specifics of the program have not been disclosed, it is unclear if the program is subject to FISA. It is unknown if this is the original name of the program; the term was first used publicly by President Bush in a speech on January 23rd, 2006. On August 17th, 2006, U.S. District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor ruled the program unconstitutional and illegal. On appeal, the decision was overturned on procedural grounds and the lawsuit was dismissed without addressing the merits of the claims, although one further challenge is still pending in the courts. On January 17th, 2007, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales informed U.S. Senate leaders by letter that the program would not be reauthorized by the president but would be subjected to judicial oversight. "Any electronic surveillance that was occurring as part of the Terrorist Surveillance Program will now be conducted subject to the approval of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court," according to his letter. On June 6th, 2013, it was revealed that the Terrorist Surveillance Program was replaced by a new NSA program, referred to by its codeword, PRISM.

Edward Snowden, former American intelligence contractor, now whistle-blower, who in 2013 revealed the existence of secret wide-ranging information-gathering programs conducted by the National Security Agency (NSA). Snowden left the CIA for the NSA in 2009. There he worked as a private contractor for the companies Dell and Booz Allen Hamilton. During this time, he began gathering information on a number of NSA activities—most notably, secret surveillance programs that he believed were OVERLY BROAD in size and scope - A DIRECT VIOLATION OF THE ORIGINAL UNITED STATES CONSTITUTION. In May 2013, Snowden requested a medical leave of absence and flew to Hong Kong, where during the following month he conducted a series of interviews with journalists from the newspaper The Guardian. Footage filmed during that period was featured in the documentary Citizenfour (2014). Among the NSA secrets leaked by Snowden was a court order that compelled telecommunications company VERIZON (my grandparents Jessica, Rex, and boyfriend's family ALL USED VERIZON while around ME, A DIRECT TARGET OF THE US GOVERNMENT as a RADICAL) to turn over metadata (such as numbers dialled and duration of calls) for MILLIONS of its subscribers.

Snowden ALSO disclosed the existence of PRISM, a data-mining program that reportedly gave the NSA, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Government Communications Headquarters—Britain’s NSA equivalent—“direct access” to the servers of such Internet giants as Google, Facebook, Microsoft, and Apple. YOUR GOVERNMENT WAS WATCHING YOU! On June 9th, 2013, days after stories were initially published in The Guardian and The Washington Post without revealing the identity of their source (FOR OBVIOUS SECURITY REASONS), Snowden came forward, stating that he felt no need to hide because he had done nothing wrong. In a subsequent interview with the South China Morning Post, he claimed that the NSA had been hacking into Chinese computers since 2009 and that he had taken a job with Booz Allen Hamilton expressly to obtain information about secret NSA activities. The U.S. charged Snowden with espionage on June 14th, and Justice Department officials, including Attorney General Eric Holder, began negotiating with authorities in Hong Kong in an attempt to initiate extradition procedures. The Hong Kong government declined to act, and Snowden, with the assistance of the media organization WikiLeaks (ASSANGE'S LIFE-LAVING AUSTRALIA AGENCY), flew to Moscow, where his exact whereabouts became the source of intense speculation (SNOWDEN WENT OFF THE GRID). Russian President Vladimir Putin confirmed that Snowden, whose passport had been revoked by the United States, has remained within the confines of the international transit zone of Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport ever since. HE WANTS TO GO BACK TO HIS FAMILY IN HIS HOME COUNTRY! THAT HE TRIED TO HELP SHARE THE TRUTH WITH! And dammit, he's FAMILY in my BOOK and I ALWAYS look after MY FAMILY!

NAT-2.0: Explain how interpretations of the Constitution and debates over rights, liberties, and definitions of citizenship have affected American values, politics, and society.

America HAS ALWAYS had a problem respecting the civil liberties of EVERYONE on its soil. Whether it be the natives, or African Americans, or any person other than a white, landholding, protestant man, ALL Americans have been deprived of BASIC civil liberties and HUMAN RIGHTS at one point or another. Presidents for centuries have made constitutionally iffy decisions, like the Alien and Sedition Acts and the Espionage Act under President John Adams. It is at times of war or perceived threat that the American government ACTS THE MOST CARELESSLY in this regard. During WWI and throughout WWI and the Cold War, the Red Scare (fear of a "Communist" takeover in the United States) led to the forming of such committees like the House Un-American Committee and more legislative actions that went after any semblance of left-wing ideology. As seen in this section, these practices of encroaching on constitutionality did not stop during the Conservative Resurgence, if anything IT GREW since the years of Ronal Reagan. With the cultivation of new technologies, the government expanded its practices. After 9/11, the Bush administration could successfully market such legislation as the “Patriot” Act which greatly deprived civilian liberties, but if you advocated against it, you could and were perceived as “unpatriotic," like Sean Hannity or Rush Limbaugh often yelled over and over again. THEY WERE LIARS AND IN IT FOR THEIR OWN PROFITS WITH THEIR OLD, OUTDATED, BASE LISTENERS. (note: What's the problem with Texas radio!!!!). At the same time, he also used the terrorist attack to wage a massive military campaign coined the “War on Terrorism.” As seen throughout Supreme Court cases like Rasul v. Bush, citizens tried to challenge the government’s decisions on a constitutional basis. In this particular example, it was a petition of Habeas Corpus for those being illegally detained in the “Strawberry Fields,” a secretive CIA compound located in the US military base Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. After 9/11, the government thought it best suited that it should have a way to detain people indefinitely without the “burden” of going through the legal sentence (a UNIVERSAL HUMAN RIGHT established in part by ELEANOR ROOSEVELT in the 1940s). The problem is that there have been multiple cases of wrongful imprisonment and abuse of such already abusive powers.

As a response to these threats of civil liberties, organisations such as the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) have acted vigilantly in waging lawsuits against both the Federal and State governments. It was actually during the Red Scare that the ACLU was formed as a combative force to the rampant violations of liberties at the time. The act of whistleblowing -- leaking classified government documents --also has been used to try and protect the interest of citizens and democracy. Famous examples of this would be people such as Edward Snowden, Julian Assange, and Chelsea Manning - ALL dear friends AND family of MINE. All saw threats to civilian liberties or abuses of power on the federal level and acting accordingly with their conscious to try and inform the citizens of the United States of America. While some have criticised them as being traitors, MANY others have HERALDED them as heroes across the globe. In fact, the act of whistleblowing itself brings up a heated debate over the constitutionality and whether leaking is considered part of the first amendment or not. Probably most important of all is the fact that not everyone agrees on what is or is not constitutional. Justices like Antonin Scalia had very different ideas on the constitution rather than say a Ruth Bader Ginsburg. In some ways, that’s the beauty of the American court system and legislative body is that there are variations of thought. However, some take it too far for the sake of “security” or PROFIT that THEIR BUSINESSES stand to lose, and they lose sight of what is RIGHT.