Global Events (1980-1984)| Lexual Does The 80s #1

narratives about the 1980s are riddled with myths and misconceptions so in this series we're going to go deep we're going to probe places you've never been before and discuss things that series like cnn's the 80s didn't care to mention i'm lectual and together we'll experience the orgasmic highs and disappointing lows of the 80s in seven episodes in this series we'll thrust full throttle into the events attitudes people and legislation that has direct bearings on america today we'll strip back t

he myths about america's role in an increasingly globalized world while examining what the 80s meant for people outside of our borders what can i say we're going to do the 80s i've been waiting to say that for so long in this episode of lecture does the 80s we'll dive into the state of geopolitics at the start of the decade and we'll explore how globalization complicated politics discourse and lives while ronald reagan set his foreign policy rewind pause and take notes if you have to but first a

wedding for the first time in over 300 years a non-royal british citizen was set to marry into british royalty the story dominated not just british tabloids but adoring well-wishers and nosy people worldwide i'm of course talking about the 1981 wedding of 20 year old diana spencer to 32 year old prince charles which gathered 750 to 1 billion viewers around their tv sets and roughly 600 000 spectators on the streets of london meanwhile 3 500 vip guests gathered for the first royal wedding to tak

e place in saint paul's cathedral since 1501 this included international guests and dignitaries even american ambassador nancy reagan for months before and after the wedding the event was water cooler fodder that demonstrated how globalized the world was becoming plus it showed the changing tide and what the growing middle class looked for in their news a smear of politics with a heap of celebrity and gossip news was faster than ever before and much more accessible there was a lot of it and only

so much one could focus on major events like the wedding of the princess of wales and her subsequent paparazzi souls fashion influence and drama would share the stage with a plethora of world milestones and tragedies from the well-known to the obscure to really get the 80s in america we'll have to see what was happening worldwide [Music] [Music] well tonight thank god it's them instead of you [Music] in congress to work with me and not against me [Music] so off the bat a lot was going on in the

first half of the decade where does one begin in 1980 it was announced by the world health organization that smallpox had been eradicated france outlawed capital punishment in september 1981 ending the use of the ghastly guillotine it is a sign perhaps of how far we have come in this country that today's news of formal recognition between the governments of the united states and the vatican did not create a furore america who had for 117 years been anti-catholic reignited official relations wit

h the vatican in january 1984. later that year in october the third prime minister of india and first and only woman in the role indira gandhi was assassinated by her two sikh bodyguards minutes after mrs gandhi's death was confirmed the sikhs of salvo were out on the streets celebrate they gathered at britain's biggest sikh temple to rejoice as they put it in the downfall of a tyrant you think that her murder is going to provoke more violence i don't care it is up to them they started violence

that we they started and we have done the same thing to them i mean she got what she deserved her legacy like a lot of people will talk about in this episode and series is complicated she helped usher in food self-sufficiency under the green revolution provided refuge for pakistani refugees helped establish bangladesh and championed the rights of the poor and enacted social welfare programs with populist gusto while also killing and jailing political opponents engaging in nepotism shutting down

india's free media for 19 months finally killing hundreds of sikh civilians during operation blue star a 1984 indian military attempt to try to take back a temple from sikh separatists who wanted to break free from hindu majority rule after the assassination thousands of civilians mostly seek would die during 1984's anti-sikh riots which were partly organized by the indian national congress indian leaders even handed out weapons just three months after gandhi's assassination the country was deal

t another blow when in bhopal india a chemical gas leak at a pesticide plant compromised the health of over 500 000 people with thousands killed immediately and tens of thousands killed as time went on the pesticide plant was owned by a corporation with majority ownership held by americans with the remaining 49.1 percent owned by indian investors blame over who caused the incident would be contentious for decades to come also in 1984 a bbc report on the ongoing ethiopian famine aired penetrating

the bubbles of millions of people across the globe charities sprung up to raise money and 36 of the most well-known pop artists convened in a notting hills studio to record the smash hit do they know it's christmas to raise money for famine victims throughout the early 80s fundraisers used striking and controversial images of african children to generate western interests with critics arguing that such images were dehumanizing and paternalistic all in the family star sally strothers became the

undisputed spokesperson of this genre which would come to be known as poverty porn it was meant to guilt westerners into opening their wallets and would become more relevant in the late 80s it's enough to make the angels cry no i can't get used to this any more than you could but we can get rid of it yes we can you and i and ccf i've given 17 years of my life to child care and i'll give a hundred more but all you have to give is 70 cents a day also during this period israel was welcoming approxi

mately 7 000 ethiopian jews into its borders through operation moses after an official policy change in 1977 these ethiopian jews notably face discrimination and oppression that they still deal with today another 20 000 ethiopian jews migrated into the country between 1984 and 1985 fleeing famine and the ongoing ethiopian civil war between various groups ranging from marxist-leninist communists to anti-communists to eritreans demanding their own sovereign nation speaking of civil war lebanon was

in the middle of a civil war between palestinian muslims and lebanese christians known as phalanges which had started in 1975 the united states supported the lebanese right-wing phalanges and saw the left-wing soviet-backed palestinians as a threat in 1975 after an attempted assassination of lebanese phalange pierre jamielle phalange gunmen killed 27 palestinians on a bus triggering a chain of violent clashes between the groups syria sent 30 000 troops in to restore peace and egypt and saudi ar

abia joined syrian forces for a while in 1978 israel occupied southern lebanon to push the palestinian liberation organization away from the borders and to help their allies the lebanese phalanges they withdrew that same year and gave the occupied land to the phalanges who continued to fight the plo in 1982 israeli troops again invaded the fray to attack the palestinian liberation organization this was just one of the triggers for reagan to dispatch marines to keep the peace without immediately

consulting congress as required by 1973's war powers act along with french and italian forces the u.s forcibly resettled civilians and members of the palestinian liberation organization with nearly 6 000 of them ending up in west bank and gaza meanwhile israelis and christian militiamen killed between 2 000 and 3 000 palestinian civilians in two days while backing another president from the gemiel family amine the next year in the west bank approximately 1 000 palestinians living in the area man

y of them school girls fell ill with mysterious symptoms of nausea stomach pain and fainting rumors swirled about chemical warfare with both palestinians and israeli leaders freaking out palestinians claimed israelis were trying to drive them out of the area and israelis claimed radical palestinians were trying to incite riots or protests the west bank fainting epidemic of 1983 was eventually deemed to be a case of mass hysteria by u.s and israeli experts however impartial investigations by the

world health organization denied that this was completely factual they found that initial reports quote might have been caused by hydrogen sulfide from decomposing wastes in pits connected to the toilets of the school where the first outbreak was reported to make the middle east even more complex on september 1980 iraq invaded iran and the two countries would fight for the next eight years with reagan supplying weapons to iraq and backing saddam hussein's use of chemical weapons here special env

oy donald rumsfeld meeting with saddam in 1983. but lest you think reagan wasn't two-faced he also gave weapons to iran which of course will be coming back to in the second half of the 80s iraq quickly learned that iran wasn't to be [ __ ] with and within three months iran had beaten them back to pre-war borders and turned on the offensive in addition to rolling back new and fragile rights for women through 1979's islamic revolution iran would spend the 80s bombing western embassies through prox

y militias like when in 1983 a suicide bomber in lebanon killed 241 american marines stationed in beirut the official toll now tops 160 dead and more than 180 wounded not counting one body that was pulled from the debris while news 4 was on the scene this afternoon reagan initially wanted revenge and didn't want to look weak especially because there had been an embassy bombing a few months prior that killed 63 people but due to congressional anger and intense public pressure reagan recalled the

remaining marines from lebanon in 1984 saying he was unwilling to risk another vietnam by committing american troops to lebanon the lebanese civil war would continue throughout the late 80s and roughly 200 000 people would die 1984 was also around the time that the u.s clearly began backing the israeli propped jimmy l government it's important to note that the reagan administration sought an alliance with israel because it was seen as friendly and democratic in comparison to its neighbors many o

f which were allied with the soviet union or dealing with some sort of conflict take saudi arabia in 1979 it had been changing there were tvs women in the workforce non-muslim inhabitants and more secular culture there were fundamentalists who rejected the new ways and some were organized under a former military man sickened by the wealth and corruption of the royal family al otabi organized hundreds of radical muslims who entered islam's holiest shrine in mecca saudi arabia taking approximately

50 000 worshipers hostage the incident taking place on sacred ground was unbelievable to many muslims around the world few details emerged because saudi arabia blocked off communication the siege lasted two weeks leaving over 200 dead and by january 63 perpetrators publicly beheaded the royal family seeing that becoming extra religious and pious would help maintain their power and wealth made changes for the rest of the 80s even though the leaders of the siege were executed it was believed by m

any that the monarchy had indeed moved away from real islam saudi arabia rolled back social reforms stopped showing women in newspapers and tv and shut down popular locations like movie theaters and music shops while also segregating remaining businesses by gender women were forced to wear a bias school curriculum also dropped non-islamic history and turned up the religion as the country became increasingly extremist and wealthy from its natural oil reserves in south korea a new generation of st

udents and workers called for various changes and freedoms back in october 1979 the south korean president park chung-ee was assassinated over dinner he had seized power and served as dictator since 1961. the assassination was done by the director of south korea's central intelligence who claimed he had done so because of park's harsh crackdowns on students who protested the economy the very next day martial law was declared the national assembly which functioned like a parliament was disbanded

all public meetings of more than three people were banned except for funerals political speech and gatherings were also prohibited in december army security general jun du huan seized power with the acting president serving as a figurehead moon extended martial law over the entire country and sent police squads to homes of pro-democracy leaders and student organizers throughout the spring semester of 1980 students at chonham university in guangzhou protested calling for freedom of the press demo

cratic elections and an end to martial law on may 15 1980 nearly 100 000 students marched to seoul station two days later jun shut down universities and newspapers and arrested hundreds of students and political opponents he used a division of the south korean army that had been trained and under the joint control of the us army by the way the next day hundreds of students went to the front gates of the closed chaunham university where they were attacked by paratroopers the students marched down

town and attracted a crowd of over 2 000 prompting the arrival of about 700 more paratroopers who bludgeoned students and passerby to death the first victim was a deaf man uninvolved in the protests in what would come to be known as the guangzhou massacre three thousand additional paratroopers would be sent in who killed nearly 2 000 people with clubs and bayonet stabs the south korean government would say only 170 people died and people who disputed the death toll faced arrest in 1985 an eyewit

ness account of the incident was published by anonymous writers using a famous writer's name the publisher of guangzhou diary beyond the death beyond the darkness of age was imprisoned and hundreds of thousands of copies of the book were secretly distributed despite being banned across the yellow sea china was evolving and reaching new heights its population hit 1 billion in 1980. just one year later the one child policy had been introduced as a temporary measure with the official decree stating

in 30 years when the problem of the population that is serious at present has been mitigated the government could adopt a new policy single child homes were given benefits like longer maternity leave while homes that broke the policy refined and many women were subjected to forced abortions and sterilization millions of girls who were seen as less desirable than boys were abandoned by families who couldn't afford to pay fines the controversial policy would be somewhat relaxed and tweaked by the

mid-80s like allowing people in rural areas to have a second child if the firstborn was a girl but its larger implications remained a fixture of chinese life for the next 30 years the chinese government later estimated 400 million births had been averted and other things were changing back in 1978 the third plenary session of the 11th central committee of the communist party of china agreed to abandon maoist ideological structures of the past and embrace practical changes under reform and openi

ng engineered by former mao general dang zhao ping the failures of china's great leap forward had made the former maoist a lot more practical understanding that china's development required international trade and good foreign relations dang set about rejecting maoist support of global anti-capitalist revolution and isolation for starters he set aside maritime disputes with china's neighbors further opened diplomatic relations with the united states and initiated china's open door policy allowin

g foreign businesses to set up in china he began to reform state-owned enterprises and rural markets and private enterprises which were expanded in size and scope under the new socialist market economy in 1980 four cities including shenzhen were designated as special economic zones with flexible market policies shenzhen went from an underdeveloped fishing village to a global manufacturing and shipping center other special economic zones would follow instead of giving all of their profits to the

state enterprises in these zones were allowed to keep a portion of their profits as long as they produce more than what the state required in 1984 it went a step further if enterprises exceeded their production quotas they were allowed to sell their products outside the state at as much as 20 percent above the state price as a result there was a slowly growing class of wealthy chinese many concentrated in zones and coastal areas there were fashion shows from international designers celebrity vis

itors and new products for purchase the increase in wealth led to a boom in the construction industry for new homes in manufacturing especially among farmers private and collective enterprises multiplied for every day in leisure items meaning cheap and interesting goods would come to be consumed worldwide the continued use of state-owned enterprises meant efficient infrastructure in healthcare in the years to come however reform and opening also meant a small but noticeable return of narcotics t

rafficking and addiction which had been virtually wiped out during the 1950s revolution there was also a rise in criminal gangs and human trafficking additionally not all of xiaoping's policies were initially popular or believed to last for instance some chinese citizens many of them students were protesting against japanese business owners believed to be economically aggressive and invasive by 1985 there would be no turning back the clock to an isolated country however even as some protested ja

panese influence or influence from western countries others embraced the flow of alternative cultures from the new open door policy remarked one writer in 1985 more than 50 million people are learning english and many more are wearing western clothes among the young the rages disco dancing japanese motorcycles fast food the article added nearly 40 000 college students went abroad that year with more than 15 000 going to america some observers speculated that china would move towards liberalism a

s a result of its economic expansion westerners theorized that if china continued to be authoritarian innovation and economic growth would be stifled but deng again showed how different he was from mao especially when it came to intellectualism there was high priority given to science and technology education as well as technical training and a revival of art and literature but of course there were limits chinese owned tv stations while teaching english and addressing social problems also promot

ed nationalism and repressed dissidence we're also eugenics propaganda that reminds me so much of america's eugenics movement it's a pity that not all mothers can have the baby of their dream look at this woman why is she so unhappy it is because she has just given birth to this deformed child other babies are born with damaged brains exposed internal organs or defective limbs they are a burden to the family and society alike that is why it is so important to take preventive measures against bir

th defects we can produce a better race of people if each newborn is a good and healthy child dang rejected party pluralism believing it would lead to violence and disorder this along with the rejection of the open door policy growing civilian desire for democracy an alleged corruption would come to a head in the second half of the decade one last major event of note for early 80s china was the handover of hong kong hong kong around since the 3rd century bc had come fully under british control a

long with other chinese territories in 1898 with that control set to expire in 99 years in 1982 uk prime minister margaret thatcher visited china initially hoping to continue significant control over the territory even if china received legal sovereignty the uk claimed that hong kong wouldn't be able to survive without it which china rejected his [ __ ] thatcher later claimed that deng said he could take hong kong by force if he wanted saying i could walk in and take the whole lot this afternoon

to which she responded there is nothing i could do to stop you but the eyes of the world would know what china is like which is rich coming from the prime minister of the colonizing ass uk the nations eventually settled on a principle of one country two systems in the sino-british joint declaration agreeing that britain would give hong kong back to china in 1997 and that hong kong would continue operating in a capitalist economy and residents would continue to have rights to speech press assemb

ly and religious belief among others at least until 2046 the uk like many european countries was reckoning with its colonialist actions conservative or tory member margaret thatcher became prime minister in 1979 and was extremely ideologically similar to reagan and american conservatism children who need to be taught to respect traditional moral values are being taught that they have an inalienable right to be gay all of those children are being cheated of a sound start in life yes cheated thatc

herism involved the deregulation of businesses privatizing services shifting the tax burden from the rich to the poor protecting western imperialism and stamping out anti-communism and cutting government funding for the poor that last one is why she was called margaret thatcher milk snatcher seeing as during her time as secretary of state for education in the 70s she eliminated a program that provided free milk to all children under 11. and like reagan and america the iron lady's actions contrib

uted towards a larger realignment of british life towards neoliberalism so what was the uk dealing with in 1981 a 17 year old new zealand teenager named christopher lewis fired a gun at queen elizabeth ii when she was visiting dundin the royal family covered up the incident not wanting to inspire copycats or provoke anti-imperialist criticism there was also an uptick in irish republican army action which since 1919 had been on a crusade to halt british rule in northern ireland in 1969 two factio

ns emerged in the ira both wanting british withdrawal but disagreeing on how to go about it the officials advocated for peaceful methods while provisionals advocated violence and their campaign over the following decades would lead to 1800 deaths including 600 civilians they set off multiple bombs in the 70s even killing a cousin of the queen in 1979 a 1983 car bomb outside of a harrod's department store would kill six with the ira army council insisting they had not authorized the attack this s

howed the growing divide among the ira factions and the drawback of a cell system in which units could become virtually autonomous from the rest of the organization and operate at their own discretion a theme in future terrorist attacks across the globe beginning in 1981 there were a series of hunger strikes led by imprisoned irish catholic provisional bobby sands who was serving 14 years for firearms possession his protest for better treatment of political prisoners lasted for 66 days before hi

s death along with making five demands sans and other participants wanted the state to recognize them as political prisoners not as criminals to which thatcher said we are not prepared to consider special category status for certain groups of people serving sentences for crime crime is crime is crime it is not political during the hunger strike despite being imprisoned bobby was elected to a vacant seat in british parliament when he died riots ensued and over one hundred thousand attended his fu

neral thatcher said mr sands was a convicted criminal he chose to take his own life it was a choice that his organization did not allow to many of its victims six more ira and three irish national liberation army members would die from the hunger strike leading to international criticism of margaret thatcher she also saw increased support from her party and those leaning towards it in october 1984 the provisionals bombed the hotel where thatcher and other members of her cabinet were staying prim

e minister herself only narrowly escaped injury her bath was wrecked by the blast but in the immediate aftermath of the explosion she remained sufficiently collected to talk to newsmen um you hear about these atrocities these bombs you don't expect them to happen to you but life must go on as usual bacter escaped but five people were killed and another 31 were injured this attack has failed all attempts to destroy democracy by terrorism will fail she said the strikes and the iron lady's continue

d refusal to give in led to an increase in ira recruitment and activity which would culminate in more death and tragedy in the second half of the 80s in 1980 southern rhodasia officially gained independence from the uk officially becoming zimbabwe prince charles was there to mark the occasion and bob marley performed the new leader was robert mugabe whose successful campaign to be the first prime minister depending on who you ask was allegedly rife with intimidation in the 70s he had cut his tee

th by being a leader of the resistance against white minority rule and he was very popular when elected he quickly sprung into action notably removing statues of colonizer cecil rhodes and renaming roads after black people those areas which are most agents where attention is required immediately such as the resettlement of our displaced persons and providing them with more language we are doing getting schools back into function building more schools repairing those which were damaged more hospi

tals repairing more those which were damaged and extending the services in that way this is what we are doing and it's being done quite fast in 1982 mugabe deployed north korean trained troops to crush an insurgency by people loyal to an old rival in the resistance movement joshua nukomo between 10 and 20 000 people were killed many of them civilians of a particular group the indiabella many people were raped and brutalized mugabe had opponents in various groups executed or arrested many of them

in a minority group members of the clergy or judiciary or members of the independent news media he also expressed a desire to turn zimbabwe into a one-party state he talked about implementing socialist policies but his budget remained conservative and he greatly desired foreign investment and aligned himself with america here we are a young state that uh yesterday yesterday was only a toddler but today is able to do a little more than it was able to do yesterday and this is because of the amoun

t of systems i think the united states contributes the largest amount towards our whole program of reconstruction and development so he initially avoided zimbabwe's underlying racial tension by 1982 he was sure there was a growing threat of white militants backed by south african apartheid leaders many of the white people remaining in zimbabwe were leaving and a good chunk went down to south africa speaking of south africa the 1976 soweto uprising had caused a rift among afrikaners the dutch des

cended minority group who maintained power in south african politics there were those who were leaning towards reform or even abolition of apartheid and those who wanted an even stricter apartheid and to be clear by reform i mean they wanted to admit a small and carefully chosen number of black people to the middle class additional concessions like the removal of certain laws regarding separate amenities or requiring black people to carry around past books were made but apartheid was still funda

mentally awful in 1980 the african national congress published a statement written by their imprison leader nelson mandela the statement was carefully smuggled from mandela's prison cell it read unite mobilize fight on between the anvil of united mass action and the hammer of the armed struggle we shall crush apartheid mandela had been a political prisoner of apartheid for 16 years at this point and his words though few were powerful they also traveled worldwide we talk to people who want consti

tutional change but not i'm not prepared to talk to people who want revolutionary change if mandela were to say he wanted constitutionalism he does not want it he stated it all over and over again and he's in jail because he made certain he took certain steps that which overstepped the market as far as legislation that was south african prime minister pw baba who in 1983 introduced a [ __ ] parliamentary system to reduce international criticism satisfy white south africans reduce internal black

resistance and form relations with other black countries the reagan administration worked closely with baba and throughout the first half of the 80s reagan said he would veto any congressional attempts to levy sanctions on south africa reagan also portrayed baba as a moderate who was making good and impactful changes to south africa but this was a lie reforms like the tricameral parliament were not good most importantly the tricameral parliament would further divide the racial groups 178 seats o

f the assembly would be reserved for whites 85 seats of the house of representatives would be for colored people and 45 seats of the house of delegates would be reserved for indians none would be reserved for blacks this reflected the south african food chain at the top are whites then indians or asians who would come to south africa as 342 indentured servants in 1860 then coloreds aka mixed race people and then black people who were then further divided among language and culture the proposed p

arliamentary system would create different houses of the government that essentially kept power concentrated among the white group in response hundreds of women's students church sport and trade union groups loosely formed the united democratic front warning that udf unites apartheid divides they told people not to vote on the tricameral parliament proposal which still passed meanwhile right-wing afrikaners broke away from the national party to form the conservative party wanting to go back to a

n even worse form of apartheid the rise in civil unrest and coordinated action led to increased violence from the government who eventually declared a state of emergency throughout the whole country in 1985. the apartheid debate would be a main feature of 1980s discourse worldwide especially back home in the states where the divestment movement was looming meanwhile in cuba 1980 the country was 18 years under a u.s embargo that impacted its economy even still the nation helped build infrastructu

re and support allied nations for example fidel castro was five years deep in supporting a burgeoning communist aligned movement in angola the people's movement for the liberation of angola were fighting against western-backed angolans and apartheid south africa and the war would continue for the entire decade thanks in large part to the military aid of castro cuba was also a vocal opponent of apartheid in may 1980 castro announced in a speech that those who have no revolutionary genes those who

have no revolutionary blood we do not want them we do not need them in the wake of cubans trying to seek asylum in venezuela in the late 70s castro made a sudden reversal of anti-immigration policy he told cubans that anybody who wanted to leave could go giving them the freedom to exit at marielle port they would be leaving behind mandatory russian language courses in school economic subsidation by the soviet union and free college and healthcare cuba had a large population of scholars scientis

ts and doctors as well as one of the highest literacy rates in the world despite this nearly 125 000 cubans many of them young adult blue-collar men from 20 to 34 years of age would take the opportunity to leave over five months some wanted to see family others were drawn to american materialism and culture and others didn't wish to conform to cuba's egalitarian way of life so many boats were coming in that the coast guard began ordering them to anchor offshore there simply was no more room at t

he dock new arrivals waited in near 90 degree heat waited behind the boat loads being processed before them they hopped on commercial fishing vessels speed boats anything to make the journey to florida others were picked up by cuban americans wielding boats from florida they were also joined by thousands of haitians who had been arriving by boat since at least 1972. president jimmy carter who hadn't yet lost the election announced in june that he would welcome the refugees with open arms even es

tablishing a program that granted temporary status to cubans and haitians who could get asylum assistance this of course gave his political opponents more ammo seeing that carter would be welcoming to refugees fidel was alleged to force out mental hospital patients political opponents lgbtq people sex workers and convicted criminals in a dual attempt to ease budgets and get rid of undesirables or escoria aka scum castro said in a speech that the u.s was doing an excellent sanitation job for us t

hese cuban exiles known as marieltos were characterized as different from earlier waves of cuban immigrants for starters marieltos were often darker second the fact that many of the criminals had been convicted of crimes that were not actual crimes in america didn't matter they were all considered criminals lastly because of the addition of lgbtq and sex worker exiles they were considered to be immoral carter ordered the u.s coast guard to seize boats the coast guard took 1400 vessels but many m

ore slipped through their fingers carter eventually negotiated an end to the marielle boat list but the event would continue to divide and pose new problems well into the reagan presidency in december 1984 castro agreed to take back 2 700 undesirables in exchange for america resuming the processing of visa applications of cuban immigrants but this would ultimately fall through and the issue was a hot-button political topic in the mid-80s american media claimed that the marielle boatlift was proo

f that cuba's revolution was a failure despite the millions who remained on the island and supported fidel's regime the media also called the cubans refugees which didn't fit international standards of the word we are now facing another aspect of the originality of the cubans and of castro name me another communist leader who says to his people if you don't want to stay you can go and they are going or from our perspective coming florida long a conservative state saw a host of outraged politicia

ns journalists and commentators discussing the crimes of marielle cubans as well as the alleged tax consequences at least 60 to 80 000 of the marielle cubans permanently stayed in southern florida published the south florida sun sentinel in 1985 on any given day there are 350 to 400 marielle cubans in dade county jails according to a recent report by the dade miami criminal justice council this year alone the county will spend more than six million dollars to house those criminals the state depa

rtment of corrections will shell out another six million to house muriel's convicted of felonies indeed despite the majority of the marielle cubans settling peacefully into their new upended lives the fear of cuban criminals coming from the marielle boatlift was stoked by 1983 scarface and news coverage like this he says the 11 years i was in jail had a lot to do with it i know what it is to be hungry i know what it is to be punished i know what it is to be killed or to have to kill were you afr

aid of freedom in this country that goes without saying because after 11 years behind bars and then out on the street it's like you've been dead and then born again it is a typical story for so many marielle refugees arriving alone not a penny in their pockets their only skills the ones they learned in jail some of them took to their old ways creating a fear in south florida that grew out of violence september 12 1981 a miami police officer is shot dead the gunman jorge martinez is from marielle

september 13th a robbery at a burger king a store clerk pulls out a can of mace the robbers shoot her dead the gunman are from marielle february 2nd 1982 sergio ortega roja hijacked an air florida jet with 77 aboard back to cuba his homeport marielle haitians were also treated with hostility due to racism and hiv stigma as we'll find out in the next few episodes miami's changing demographics would impact the city in more ways than one in august 1983 the new prime minister of a small caribbean i

sland spoke at hunter college in brooklyn new york the reagan administration was pissed and pressed labeling the prime minister's government as a brutal group of leftist thugs maurice bishop a 39 year old with marxist leninist leanings had big plans for grenada through his people's revolutionary government regarding the monroe doctrine he told the crowd they like to talk a lot about backyard and front yard and lake well grenada ain't nobody's backyard and ain't a part of nobody's lake just two m

onths later the young leader would be dead before his new jewel movement party overthrew the previous prime minister in 1979 grenada had an unemployment rate of 20 one of the lowest rates of gross domestic product per capita in the region and widespread poverty mine knew this had been after vast improvement by eric gary who in 1951 had led a revolution against the reigning plantocracy but the islands still relied mainly on agricultural exports like sugar cocoa banana and mace and had a small and

ineffective airport that didn't help the poor tourism industry so as prime minister bishop had rival political parties banned suspended the constitution and didn't hold any elections he also rejected a state monopoly on ownership like in cuba instead pursuing a mixed economy with the state sector dominant and in charge of planning bishop's goals were to combat poverty educate the population improve infrastructure diversify the economy build a manufacturing base and boost tourism to go about thi

s bishop had income tax abolished for 30 percent of the lowest paid workers even while cutting taxes bishop raised public spending on programs and infrastructure from 38.7 to 52.7 everyone was provided free medical health care including dental and optical university scholarships were doled out school uniforms and books were free there was a literacy program and a program for teachers to travel to people's homes bishop was also a strong ally to grenadian women outlawing sexual exploitation of wom

en in exchange for work equal pay for equal work was established and coolest of all mothers were guaranteed three months maternity leave two of which were paid plus their jobs were held until their return grenada established a national transportation service and a marketing and national import board the grenada international airport was well underway by 1983 and like many of bishop's infrastructure projects was assisted by cuban construction workers cuba's support also came with defense as ameri

ca would have invaded sooner if not for the presence of cuba's military maurice bishop did a lot of great things for grenada especially considering the circumstances ultimately the new jewel movement would not be able to build a self-sufficiency that would keep it safe from the global economy and the predation of international markets basically it still relied too much on agriculture and exports which stagnated tourism didn't grow because american propaganda targeted the island reagan administra

tion was extremely hostile over the international airport and rejected attempts by maurice bishop and the people's revolutionary government to normalize relations because the country received soviet funds it was falsely argued by reaganites that grenada was just a soviet plant and not an indigenous revolution when grenada supported the soviet union's invasion of afghanistan the country was further maligned as a puppet state unfortunately the international recession of the early 80s impacted gren

ada as well as its communist allies and by 1983 the revolution was losing popularity bishop himself was still popular among the people but not among those in the new jewel movement who didn't believe he was radical enough after bishop rejected joint leadership with bernard cord he was placed on house arrest freed by the people and then assassinated by soldiers on october 19th in the ensuing chaos reagan conveniently enacted operation urgent fury to mobilize marines for an invasion claiming that

multiple caribbean nations in the vicinity had requested help and that cubans were about to occupy the island and cuban ammunition was found as well as communications equipment it was all there in such quantities that the americans believe this to be the makings of a full-scale military base these are the weapons which mr reagan says turned a friendly island paradise into a soviet cuban colony being ready to export terror and undermine democracy the quick four-day victory excited americans who w

ere anti-communist and signaled to skeptics of reagan's central american policy that there was more to come like a possible direct invasion of nicaragua wrote stephen kinzer an orgy of self-congratulation followed the triumph a total of eight thousand 8612 medals were awarded to participants most of them to desk officers who never came within a thousand miles of the island to add legitimacy to its invasion which even uk prime minister margaret thatcher had warned against the reagan administratio

n produced a letter allegedly signed by the governor general paul schoon begging for intervention the rub the letter had been written in washington and backdated and delivered to schoon to sign after the invasion began by the way this is how the cia propagandized the invasion of grenada so what other lengths was reagan willing to go to in the name of american democracy if not just plain old lying nicaragua experienced a revolution in 1979 that ousted a repressive us-based family dynasty that had

existed since the 30s the leftist sandinistas took control with daniel ortega winning a free and fair election in 1984. nicaragua was also closely allied with the communist bloc particularly cuba ronald reagan called the election a sham and threw his support behind the contras with cocaine money and later american aid they set up bases in honduras with the goal of launching cross-border attacks to destabilize the sandinistas contras bombed and attacked tobacco farms and other locations of econo

mic interest so that the sandinista government could not claim any successes reagan called the contras freedom fighters who were battling the dangerous and pernicious threat of soviet union communism in our backyard congress disagreed and passed legislation in 1982 to restrict the cia and the department of defense from giving money to contras explicitly for overthrowing the nicaraguan government still the attacks didn't stop various peace activist groups visited the site of a 1983 tobacco farm b

litz and noticed the contras didn't try to attack said one anthropologist who made the trip if all it takes to stop this killing is to get a bunch of americans down here then let's do it before calling for 1500 american volunteers to take the trip with him this attitude gave way to the witness for peace program in which americans held vigil and affected areas of nicaragua to stop further violence other americans visited and returned to the states to bear witness to america's role in the contra-l

ed violence against the nicaraguan people in the sandinistas banana republics had long been exploited in the 20th century and there were regular direct military actions by the us government with little resistance but in the 1980s after the fallout of the vietnam war many americans didn't care much for the idea of fighting the cold war in third world venues reagan's solution came to be regarded as low intensity warfare in which generous economic aid would be given for friendly read non-leftist re

gimes while politically and economically isolating the unfriendly ones speaking of economic isolation reagan also used this tactic when he made a trade embargo against nicaragua in 1985 further weakening sandinista leadership fragan also used proxies like the contras to carry out attacks that could fly under the international radar low intensity warfare uprooted lives and left the trail of dead bodies in guatemala honduras and other central american countries consider this the rise of warfare an

d instability due to american-funded violence meant a rise in refugees fleeing to america between 1981 and 1990 roughly 1 million refugees from el salvador and guatemala alone were reported as discussed by historian bradford martin if the united states granted political refugee status to these central americans it would mean admitting that the u.s funded right-wing governments were dangerous and inhumane very much undermining the image of benevolent us aid so instead these people were designated

as unworthy economic refugees and condemned to deportation violent reprisal and often gruesome executions for having fled their home countries in the first place some religious americans like a quaker goat rancher named jim corbett in tucson arizona felt compelled to offer sanctuary to refugees despite it being a felony he eventually helped coordinate an underground system of support in safe places for central american refugees sanctuary movement activists like corbett also dispersed informatio

n about the horrific realities of life in central america and reagan's role in them of course not all groups displaying central american solidarity were religious whole cities at least 12 including santa fe and los angeles established themselves as sanctuary locations that would not mobilize local law enforcement to assist the ins the secular committee in solidarity with the people of el salvador or sispis flourished getting 525 chapters across the states by 1988 attempting to expose murders and

violence by a right-wing reagan-backed army in el salvador sepsis had its first large-scale demonstration in 1982 on the white house lawn attracting over 23 000 protesters the triggering event was the 1981 missout massacre in which roughly 1 000 civilians were murdered by the salvadorian army reagan had claimed that there was no war crime and that el salvador was making new progress in human rights sispis also brought refugees to tour the country speaking to labor unions church groups and colle

ges sanctuary and solidarity activists also served the important function of pressuring democrats to break the bipartisan consensus on central american policy all of this led to a little scandal we'll return to in episode 7. let's just say it's too bad that in june 1984 the supreme court ruled that presidents can't be sued for their actions in office meanwhile in liberia at the top of the decade long simmering tensions and an imbalance of power exploded between native liberians and americo libra

rians who immigrated to the area in the back to africa movement of the 19th century liberia would spend the 20th century financially indebted to firestone tire company and the u.s government as well as being underpaid for its resources in turn leaders of liberia were loyal to u.s interests enter americo liberian president william r tolbert in 1971 who was welcoming to china the soviets and cuban ambassadors he was pro-palestine officially announcing that he was cutting ties with israel in 1973 a

nd he was also supportive of america during the vietnam war by 1980 though americo liberians and indigenous librarians were integrated by this point the minority americo librarians had too much political power and were not willing to share it this issue was exploited in april 1980 when there was a bloody coup and william tobert was killed over a dozen family and cabinet members were similarly executed and political power was restored to a faction of indigenous liberians the coup was led by samue

l doe who helped found the people's redemption council to run the country despite the violent way samuel doe came to power the prc was considered an ally of the united states in the cold war against communism and received aid from the reagan administration dove was repressive in media violent towards specific ethnic groups and corrupt in 1985 the prc held elections because an embarrassed united states requested it the elections were rife with fraud but american officials concluded the election w

as imperfect but at least it was a movement towards democracy liberia would remain politically unstable and america's support of the corrupt samuel doe will continue to be an issue into the second half of the decade despite the ongoing criticism of his foreign policy reagan's anti-communism stance remained strong in the first half of the decade and it was supported by most americans who engaged in politics reagan rejected daetan and emphasized that he would refuse to negotiate in substantive arm

s negotiations the invasion of grenada was just one component of the ongoing reagan doctrine in which reagan supplied overt and covert aid to anti-communist resistance movements across the globe this was an ongoing trend of u.s military intervention and sales with for example the new york times reporting in 1981 that america had supplied 47.7 billion worth of arms equipment and advice to middle east nations in the previous decade so it's no surprise that the incentive to beef up military innovat

ion and spending kept growing in 1983 reagan announced the strategic defense initiative which critics later called the star wars program the grand plan was for both america and the soviet union to erect an x-ray laser shield in space that would de-incentivize both sides to acquire nuclear weapons the soviets rejected this proposal saying that the sdi would simply lead to a race to create ground-based missiles they also didn't want to spend any more of their dwindling money on paying for the damn

thing which wasn't even guaranteed to work they also didn't trust reagan whose 1983 decision to deploy the fleet x-831 the largest naval exercise to date in the north pacific made soviet leaders think that the united states was preparing a direct preemptive attack the soviet union's limited funds and attention were also tied up in its poor choice to invade afghanistan trying to stamp out a united solidarity movement of over 700 000 people striking against communism in poland and trying to keep

up with reagan's promise to outspend soviets for worldwide influence reagan had introduced the teacher and space project in 1984 it's just one of many ways to increase american interest in stem and appear superior to other space programs one specially selected teacher would join an official space shuttle due to take off in 1986 but back to the soviet union while they floundered from citizen unrest and dwindling coffers they were still viewed as a significant threat and called the evil empire by

reagan in march 1983. their reputation took a further hit that year when they shot down a korean airline flight that accidentally strayed in the soviet airspace in august the attack killed all 269 passengers and crew members aboard which reagan exploited immediately as an act of barbarism and inhuman brutality and soviet leaders denounced as an american conspiracy the next month the soviet union's early warning nuclear system was triggered due to a system malfunction imagine how different [ __ ]

would have gone for the rest of the decade if the guy manning the system actually reported the warning and helped kick off a nuclear war two months later on november 20th roughly 100 million americans were scared shitless by a little tv movie named the day after making it one of the most watched television events at the time i don't believe this is happening we have a massive attack against the us at this time icbms [Music] but they fired first and we just got our missiles out of the ground in

time this is not an exercise [Applause] [Music] for weeks before airing commentators wondered if the movie would be anti-reagan propaganda too scary for children and or too controversial one of the movie's actors called the movie unusually disturbing and urged parents to keep young children from watching it while preparing to answer questions from older children the movie terrified advertisers reagan who had been shown the film in advance wrote in his diary it's very effective and left me greatl

y depressed so far they abc haven't sold any of the 25 spot ads scheduled and i can see why whether it will be of help to the anti-nukes or not i can't say my own reaction was one of our having to do all we can to have a deterrent and to see that there is never a nuclear war the abc sunday night special told the story of a small group of kansas survivors grappling with life after a nuclear war between the united states and the soviet union the movie definitely impacted americans who were already

dealing with worsening cold war anxiety while pissing off those who saw the film as soviet propaganda those people probably enjoyed 1984's red dawn a patriotic film depicting an america abandoned by its allies and invaded by soviets and cubans but thank god they had patrick swayze and that other guy what's his name charlie sheen this is the emergency broadcast system we are under attack by conventional forces of the russian army it is believed the lead waves were disguised as commercial charter

flight communications have broken down other parts of the country large areas of the midwest may have been overrun i know who all of you are looking for by the way that was the first movie to ever be released with the new pg-13 rating many people for the first time were beginning to pay attention to the concept of a nuclear winter or the devastating environmental effects that would happen after the widespread firestorms triggered by nuclear war the concept itself had not emerged until the early

80s more than 40 years after america dropped two atomic bombs that caused widespread damage to japan the ongoing tensions about a possible nuclear showdown were palpable not just for americans western europeans closer to americans in ideology but closer to soviets in location were particularly worried over a million people demonstrated against nuclear weapons at a march in london in october 1983 and the next month 550 000 marched in the hague in holland's largest non-violent movement meanwhile

the american nuclear freeze campaign was also heating up in 1980 an american peace activist named randall forsberg published the call to halt the nuclear arms proposal she and other peace activists helped bring different groups together to try to convince both the united states and the soviet union to stop building more nuclear weapons the call attracted many peace organizations politicians scientists and public intellectuals who in turn attracted everyday people journalist jonathan shell publis

hed a series of anti-nuke essays for the new yorker that became the best selling the fate of the earth an important pillar of the freeze movement another important pillar were the dozens of freeze protests in the early 80s that attracted thousands and in one case a million people in march of 84 in an unexpected move that calmed cautious voters reagan gave his jim and sally ivan and anya speech in which two couples one russian one american had similar lives that would be impacted by a nuclear war

it was a sign that things were possibly changing wrote reagan in his diary the speech was carefully crafted by all of us to counter soviet propaganda that we are not sincere in wanting arms reduction or peace it was low-key and held the door open to the soviets if they mean what they say about having peace to walk in in august 1984 reagan was heard saying my fellow americans i am pleased to tell you today that i've signed legislation that will outlaw russia forever we begin bombing in five minu

tes while testing out a microphone before a speech though many took the joke as a joke for those anxious about a nuclear war it was not funny in 1985 the pentagon officially accepted the theory that an atomic war would cause a nuclear winter but hostility remained during february state of the union address reagan announced his plan to supply aid to anti-communist forces everywhere in the world to overwhelm the influence of the soviet union literally the next month the soviet union inducted a new

and ideologically different leader mikhail gorbachev eight months later he and reagan met for the first time and in the background of all of these global issues there was the dawn of the aids crisis the virus though often referred to as the gay plague at the time had unknowingly been around for decades when it was first reported on by the center for disease control in 1981. this at the national centers for disease control in atlanta today released the results of a study which shows that the lif

estyle of some male homosexuals has triggered an epidemic of a rare form of cancer violent homophobia kept many governments across the world from caring until it was too late in america by the mid-80s when reliable tests were first available over 15 000 people were already dead unfortunately early attempts to mitigate the spread of hiv aids took place at the local level charging their local municipalities with discrimination some gay activists protested measures that shut down bath houses for in

stance meanwhile reagan and the federal government did worse than nothing they perpetuated homophobia that put millions at risk take this october 15 1982 white house press conference featuring press secretary larry speaks it's known as game play no it is i mean it's a pretty serious thing that one in every three people in campus have died and i wonder if the president is aware i don't have it do you you can get a longer in-depth conversation about hiv aids in this episode of let's talk about sex

history though we will be discussing it at several points throughout the rest of this series so the flippant and downright attitude towards the physical and emotional safety of others continued to be a theme of the reagan presidency another notable example was in 1985 when the u.s didn't sign the u.n treaty banning torture [Music] we'll pick back up with 1980s global issues in episode 7 but hopefully it's already apparent how complex the world was and how it would further complicate the lives o

f american citizens even if they weren't aware of all the little details on top of reagan's foreign policy goals and struggles the first few years of his presidency were marred by a global recession plus the reagan doctrine was expensive as [ __ ] military defense spending jumped from 171 billion in 1981 to 229 billion in 1985 the highest level since the vietnam war next the ongoing deindustrialization of american cities combined with the beginning of chinese manufacturing for a global market me

ant lagging manufacturing and global export revenue in america and japan at the time was also our biggest competitor and one of our biggest investors all of this would factor into arguments about reaganomics in the next episode of lexual does the 80s it's a new day according to reagan but who was benefiting from that new day that's right we'll be talking about the rich the poor and american greed 80s style [Music] [Applause] [Music] you