It's About Coalitions Not Purity, Part Twenty

First published in November 2012


I will use "George Bush (Sr.)," or just, "George Bush," rather than George H.W. Bush.

George Bush came to the presidency with much, but not all, of the Reagan coalition intact. There was little inkling of the world-changing events that would take place within just a short time in Bush's presidency. Mikhail Gorbachev's liberal reforms in the Soviet Union gave hope to the people of the communist-run states of eastern Europe for reforms in their countries too. With Bush in office just a few months, protests in China took place, with large crowds gathering in the capital of Beijing, in Tiananmen Square. A visit to China by Gorbachev only added to the obvious desire of people in communist countries to have more freedom, as reporters worldwide reported on his visit. This stirred the people of eastern Europe and the Chinese protesters. The gatherings and protests continued, and the Chinese leaders declared martial law, but troops dispatched to various locations were blocked by huge crowds of protesters and the army forces withdrew. The government then decided to use force to restore its hold on the country. Large numbers of troops were sent and protesters again tried to block their deployment, but this time troops, often in armored vehicles, opened fire, prompting a violent response from some protesters. Eventually the troops and the Chinese government regained control and the square was cleared. In the next few days protests elsewhere in China subsided. While actual figures are unknown, apparently hundreds of protesters were killed, with many more wounded, and government forces seem to have suffered something near fifty deaths.*

Meanwhile in Poland in 1989, the Solidarity Movement was legalized and a system of somewhat competitive elections was set up. Solidarity won an overwhelming victory. The Soviet Union of Gorbachev made no move. Within about a year Poland had shifted from a communist nation to a free nation. Similar happened in Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, and East Germany, where German citizens literally began to tear down the wall that had been put up in the early 1960s by the communists to stop the loss of population to (then) West Germany.** In Rumania matters were more confrontational for a time, and some protesters were killed, but eventually the army joined the revolution and the communist government was overthrown. Dictator Nicolae Ceausescu and his wife were quickly tried by the army and executed. By 1990 the Soviet Union itself began to come apart, as its various components began to split off. By late 1991, the Soviet Union was no more.

George Bush and his administration offered public support to protesters during all of these historic times, but the President also kept the United States out of direct intervention, and there was no talk of "boots on the ground," although Bush, the U.S. and its allies were more involved in the Middle East at that time. Bush and Gorbachev worked together to reconcile the former opponents.

Next... "Bush's Popularity Soars, Then Plummets"  

* I was in Germany when the violent outbreak occurred, staying in, get this, a Chinese government-owned hotel in downtown Frankfurt (on Niddastrasse). The German manager and I had been friends for several years, dating back to when he managed a different hotel right down the street from the Hauptbahnhof (main train station) in downtown Frankfurt. The anxiety among the Chinese employees and guests at the hotel was evident and the faxes were flying fast and furious between Frankfurt and China, as they tried to get information on their loved ones at home.

** As already mentioned, I was in Germany around mid 1989, and if someone, including the relatives I visited, had told me that East and West Germany would be on their way to reunification in a matter of months, I'd have asked, "Seid ihr verrückt geworden?" ("Have you gone crazy?")

WORD HISTORY:
Gulf-The ultimate origins of this word are uncertain, but it goes back to Greek "kolpos," the original notion of which was "bent, curved," which then led to the additional meaning "bosom," and thus to the meaning "water surface between curved land area;" that is, "gulf." Latin borrowed the word from Greek as "colfos" with that meaning, and Old French, a Latin-based language, had "golfe." English borrowed the word from French in the 1300s and it has since taken on the extended meaning, "gap," often in reference to ideas, as in "The gulf between the two countries for an agreement was wide."  

It's About Coalitions Not Purity, Part Seventeen

"Reagan's Last Years In Office"

Libya, a North African nation, was once part of the vast Ottoman (Turkish) Empire, and then a colony of Italy until after Mussolini's defeat in World War Two. Shortly thereafter it became a kingdom. In the late 1960s, Muammar Gaddafi,* the leader of a group of army officers, overthrew the government when the king was out of the country. Gaddafi established a dictatorship, with socialism as the economic base of the oil-rich country. Gaddafi militarized Libya and supported various anti-government, anti-Western groups in other countries, particularly, but not exclusively, in his own part of the world. In the spring of 1985, Gaddafi's agents bombed a nightclub in (then) West Berlin, killing and injuring a couple of hundred people, including a number of Americans. Intelligence from a number of sources, not just American, clearly linked the terrorist attack to Gaddafi. Reagan ordered air attacks against Libya not long thereafter. The American planes were given permission by Britain to operate from bases there, which then moved the British up on Gaddafi's hit (or hate) list, too. Gaddafi began to deal with the Soviet Union more and more. In December 1988, a Pan Am flight from London to New York exploded over Lockerbie, Scotland, killing all aboard the plane and causing further deaths on the ground. Evidence pieced together led investigators to believe the bombing was orchestrated by Gaddafi. The extensive investigation was ongoing when Reagan left office in January 1989. 

 During the mid 1980s, members of both political parties tried to work out a law to deal with the nation's problem with illegal immigration. The law basically made it illegal for employers to "knowingly" hire people who were in the country without documentation. This was an attempt to restrict employment, primarily, but not exclusively, by agricultural firms, in hiring undocumented workers, which the theory went, then only encouraged more illegal immigration. These workers typically made far less than the average American worker and provided a cheap labor source. The idea was, curtail hiring of illegals, and this would then discourage other potential illegal immigrants from trying to enter the country. Many American business people, led by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, opposed the bill, not just because of the cheap labor sources it provided to some businesses, but because the law would involve them in checking worker documentation. Latino-American groups opposed the bill because they feared hiring discrimination against LEGAL immigrants, or even Latino-American citizens, simply because of their appearances, and the desire by employers to avoid any possibility of hiring illegal immigrants. In an effort to please both business people and the Latino-American community, the law provided for undocumented workers to become legal under certain circumstances.** With many of the grievances addressed for both business and Latino-Americans, a successful coalition had been formed to advance the legislation, and the bill passed and was signed into law by President Reagan.

By 1985, Mikhail Gorbachev took power in the Soviet Union. Gorbachev sought to modernize and to liberalize Soviet society by granting a degree of freedom of speech and freedom of the press, plus by releasing a number of political prisoners from Soviet custody. Gorbachev himself criticized corruption in the Soviet system. He also desired a lowering of tensions in the Cold War and met with President Reagan, with whom he signed an agreement about limiting nuclear weapons.***

Next.... "Assessment of Reagan"

* Until more recent times in English, it was more typically spelled "Qaddafi," the "q" being pronounced like a "k."

** The law granted legal status (amnesty) to certain "seasonal workers" (almost by definition, agricultural workers) who had worked at least 90 days in the U.S. by May 1986 and to illegal immigrants who had continuously lived in the U.S. prior to 1982. These provisions granted amnesty to about three million previously illegal immigrants.

*** Earlier in his administration, Reagan had proposed an elaborate space defense system against attack, dubbed "Star Wars" in the media. The plan created much debate as to its possibilities, but its major stumbling block was the estimated cost at a time when Reagan had already proposed large defense budget increases and the country was running huge budget deficits. A further problem was the time needed to develop the technology for such a system, which involved a system of space deployed lasers to destroy incoming enemy missiles (usually in those times thought of as "Soviet"). 

WORD HISTORY:
Broth-This word traces back to Indo European "bhreuwhe," which had the notion of "to boil;" thus also, "to bubble, to seethe, to cook." This gave its Old Germanic offspring "breuwanan," which meant "to brew" (indeed, the ancestor of "brew"), which then also produced a noun "breuthan," meaning "broth;" that is, "liquid produced after cooking/boiling something in it." This then gave Old English (Anglo-Saxon) "broth." Since this word is derived from the same source as "brew," its other Germanic relatives have retained the forms generally closer to that, like German "Brühe" (broth), although German also has the derived verb "brodeln," which means "to boil," along with the figurative "seethe with anger." Low German Saxon has "Bröh" (broth). Latin borrowed a form of the word from Germanic, which then gave Italian, for instance, "brodo," their word for "broth."

It's About Coalitions Not Purity, Part Fifteen

"Conservatism Consolidates Power-Reagan Runs Again"

As the economy gradually improved, foreign policy challenges remained for the U.S. and the world, including in the ever volatile Middle East. Lebanon was in a state of civil war, and the U.S. sent military personnel, mainly Marines, as part of an international force to guarantee the withdrawal of opposing forces there, including Israeli military units, and to provide security for Lebanon to stabilize.* Not long thereafter, there was a suicide bombing of the American embassy in Beirut which killed more than 60 Americans. This was followed a few months later by another suicide attack on a barracks in Beirut housing American military personnel, primarily Marines, which resulted in the death of nearly 250 Americans, most of them U.S. Marines. A few months later, Reagan authorized the withdrawal of American forces from Lebanon. Also shortly after the barracks bombing came an attack on the U.S. embassy in Kuwait and about a year later came another attack on the U.S. embassy in Beirut, which had been moved to another part of the city after the first bombing.

In a period of about two and one half years, the Soviet Union had FOUR different leaders. Always secretive and insecure, the Soviets were terrified of telling the truth to their people, and when their leaders did not appear in public for a lengthy period, Soviet propaganda, ah, I mean "news," would announce that the particular leader "has a cold." It fooled few in free nations (in fact it became something of a joke), and probably few Soviet citizens, as three leaders died during that time span, finally bringing Mikhail Gorbachev to power. In the midst of these changes in Soviet leaders came news that a Korean passenger plane had been shot down by Soviet aircraft, after straying into Soviet airspace, resulting in more than 200 deaths (most of them South Koreans, but Americans and other nationalities were also killed). Reagan stopped Soviet flights to the U.S. and halted some negotiations with the Soviets in retaliation. The Soviets "claimed" the plane was spying on the Soviet Union,** a story that didn't play well in the international community. The incident only served to play to one of Reagan's strengths, his anti-communism and his ability to lambaste the Soviets, which became increasingly popular in the U.S. and other democratic nations.

By 1984 Reagan was up for reelection, although he was 73 years old. The age issue remained with him, as it had when he ran in 1980. As noted in an earlier segment, Reagan loved to joke, including about himself, and he even could laugh at jokes by others about him. Just prior to his inauguration, impressionist and comedian Rich Little had perfected Reagan's voice and mannerisms. With Reagan in the audience, Little told a joke, the gist of which, I have never forgotten. The basic joke was that a reporter (imitated by Little) asked Reagan at a news conference what he planned to do about the energy crisis. In response, (imitating Reagan) he said something like, "We are going to go to the sun to tap the energy there. Now I know you may think this is strange, because we'll get burned up before we get there, but we won't, because we're going to go at night." Cameras showed Reagan laughing as hard as the audience. This was one of Reagan's strengths, the ability to laugh, even at his own expense. I can't emphasize enough, Americans generally liked this, and being liked as president is critical in tough times, and it undoubtedly, in my opinion, allowed Reagan to remain in office, even though the public did not necessarily agree with many of his policies. This earned him the title of the "Teflon president," by some; that is, political problems didn't stick to him.

In the first debate in 1984 against Democratic opponent, former Vice President Walter Mondale, Reagan was not in top shape, and this brought renewed concern about his age. More on his toes in the second debate, Reagan cracked that he was not going to exploit Mondale's "youth and inexperience" (he was 17 years younger than Reagan) against him in the campaign. Even Mondale laughed, and the issue of Reagan's age died down. On election day, Reagan won a resounding victory, carrying all but Mondale's home state of Minnesota and the District of Columbia, as well as nearly 59% of the popular vote (Mondale received less than 41%).*** Like him, not like him, agree with him, or not agree with him, Americans took a strong liking to Reagan and felt he was "in charge;" thus they entrusted him with another four years.

* The situation in Lebanon was highly complex and far beyond the boundaries of this article, but it involved religious elements in Lebanon, where there was a mixture of Christians, Sunni Muslims and Shia Muslims, plus elements of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (also known as the "PLO"), and substantial influence by Syria and by Iran, which was a theocracy (a system of rule by those believed to be divinely guided). Israel intervened in Lebanon with military forces about a year before U.S. military involvement.

** This is another complicated story beyond the boundaries of this article, but there have been theories that the plane may have had the additional mission of gathering information (spying) on the Soviets. Since the Soviets withheld much evidence for so long, including items recovered from the aircraft, their credibility for supporting evidence was highly suspect. 

*** The 1984 election saw Walter Mondale choose Congresswoman Geraldine Ferraro as his vice presidential running mate. This was the first time a major party had a woman on the ticket, but it didn't help much, as women voted heavily for Reagan, although less so than men.

WORD HISTORY:
Stair(s)-Often used in the plural, this word goes back to Indo European "steygh," which had the notion of "step, stride (which also produced the sense 'march'), and ascend." This gave Old Germanic the noun "staigriz," which placed more emphasis on the "ascend" meaning, as it meant "elevated platform;" thus several "elevated platforms" became "stairs, staircase, stairway." This gave Old English (Anglo-Saxon) "staeger," with the meaning "staircase" or just one "step" of such a staircase. This later became "stayer," "steir," or "steyer" (all such forms were used), as the "g" sound transitioned to a "y" or "i" sound, which then produced the modern version. Common in the other Germanic languages: German uses three forms: "Stiege" (pronounced as if "steeg-eh), "staircase," "Steig" (pronounced as if "styke"), "path on a hill or mountain," and "Steige" (pronounced as if "sty-geh"), "steps, stairs;" Low German Saxon has "Stieg" meaning "path;" Dutch has "steiger," "landing platform, pier;" Danish and Norwegian have "sti," meaning "path, trail;" and Swedish has "stig," meaning "path." I did not find forms in modern Frisian or Icelandic, although West Frisian has the verb form "stige," meaning "to climb, to ascend."