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United States Democrats

When Jimmy Carter Spoke At a Wireless Tradeshow (cnn.com) 76

Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter has died. Born in 1924, he had just celebrated his 100th birthday on October 1st. If you want to catch a glimpse of his political charisma, YouTube has a clip of Carter's appearance on "What's My Line" when he was still only governor of Georgia. Within five years he'd be president of the United States, serving from 1977 to 1981.

But it seems like today everyone has a story to tell. More than two decades later, long-time Slashdot reader destinyland saw Jimmy Carter speak in Las Vegas in 2001 on the final day of the CTIA Wireless tradeshow. "I feel thrilled to be a part of this," 77-year-old Carter had said.... Carter applauded the work of "entrepreneurs and scientists and engineers that are transforming the face of the globe." And he noted their technologies could address problems targeted by the Carter Center.

Interrupted by a few cellphone rings, the former President conversed on a stage at the Sands Expo and Venetian Hotel with Tom Wheeler, the president of the wireless communications trade association. Wheeler reminded the audience of Carter's decidedly nontechnical background, discussing An Hour Before Daylight, Carter's memoir about growing up on a farm in Georgia during the Great Depression. "We were the only family blessed with an outhouse," Carter told the crowd.

Wheeler also asked a question many in the technology community could relate to. Carter, he pointed out, had been involuntarily retired. "What's it feel like?" The former President told the audience he'd re-focussed his energies into humanitarian efforts through the Carter Center, which is active in providing health services around the world as well as monitoring elections. Carter donated his appearance fee to the Carter Center...

Midway through the hour-long discussion, the former President touted his administration's record of deregulating several industries, including transportation, energy, and communications, saying "If it hadn't been for that deregulation, this environment in which you all live wouldn't have been possible." Carter also shared with the business crowd that it was a belief in free enterprise that made him want to enter politics, drawn from his experiences selling peanuts as a young boy for a dollar a day.

The audience greeted the former president warmly, giving him a standing ovation both when he took the stage and when he left. Carter joked it was almost enough to make him want to get back into politics.

Everyone has their own opinion. When a friend of mine was in high school, she got to meet Jimmy Carter early in his presidency. He'd seemed unusually kind and good, she said, but remembered her first reaction. "They're going to eat you alive." And yet then, pointing to the humanitarian work he would continue for four decades, she said he was also clearly America's very best ex-president.

And the liberal blog Talking Points Memo argues Carter's accomplishments as president are being re-evaluated: Some found him to be distinctly unsung, with little attention given to his brokering of peace with the Camp David Accords and emphasis on global human rights. And some just liked him. A serious, intelligent, faithful, deeply honest man who spurned political expediency and burned through hundreds of pages of memos a day, he preached self-restraint, stewardship and commonality to an electorate that cast him off four years later for the glib excesses of Ronald Reagan.... "People assume that because he wasn't warm and cuddly with Congress that he didn't get much through," said John Alter [who wrote the first independent Carter biography in 2020]. "He signed more legislation in four years than Clinton or Obama did in eight. He has the most prodigious legislative record since World War II, with the exception of Lyndon Johnson."

That record includes, by Alter's count, 14 major pieces of environmental legislation. In one of Carter's more creative moves, he dusted off the 1906 Antiquities Act to keep pristine 56 million acres of Alaskan wilderness. His piecemeal approach, cloaked in distinctly unsexy bills like the 1978 Public Utilities Regulatory Policies Act, planted the seeds for a changing national energy system in the face of climate change. Carter had started underlining passages in scientific journals about what is now the most existential crisis of our time as early as 1971. What's most wrenching about Carter's improvements in energy and environmental policy now is what he wasn't able to accomplish. On his way out of office, he issued a report that included recommendations for cutting carbon emissions — at exactly the same rate the Paris Climate Accords coalesced behind 35 years later....

His Carter Center has virtually eradicated certain devastating diseases on the African continent, part of the work for which he received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002. He and Rosalynn have also helped build and repair over 4,000 homes for Habitat for Humanity, work that continued well into his 90s.

I've got my own story. As a young boy I saw Jimmy Carter give a speech in 1977 — just six months after he'd assumed the presidency. A crowd of teenagers thrilled to see the president gave him a long, loud round of applause. And when it finally died down, Carter said...

"I wish I got that kind of reception from Congress."

When Jimmy Carter Spoke At a Wireless Tradeshow

Comments Filter:
  • Your value play in an ex-president. RIP Mr. President.

    • by shanen ( 462549 )

      So much for the theory of the good start to discussions producing more positive results. You could have said more, but I'm guessing you were hoping to nip the vileness in the bud and so you felt you were justified to hurry the FP. (The bad stuff starts with a mumble about puppet Reagan like that was a real president rather than a B-grade actor in another role...)

      My take? The lesson that could have been learned from Nixon was that the presidency is out of control and needs to be reconsidered along more human

      • The American right wing prodigiously defames their left-wing "enemies", with little regard to facts.

        Historians record the misdeeds of right-wing politicians as matters of fact, but they lack media outlets like fox news to grind them into the American populace through constant repetition

  • by maladroit ( 71511 ) on Sunday December 29, 2024 @10:38PM (#65049127) Homepage

    From his book, about something that happened in 1951:

    I was on duty when our submarine went into port in Nassau and tied up at the Prince George Wharf, and I was the officer who accepted an invitation from the governor-general of the Bahamas for our officers and crewmen to attend an official ball to honor the U.S. Navy. There was a more private comment that a number of young ladies would be present with their chaperones. All of us were pleased and excited, and Captain Andrews responded affirmatively. We received a notice the next day that, of course, the nonwhite crewmen would not be included. When I brought this message to the captain, he had the crew assemble in the mess hall and asked for their guidance in drafting a response. After multiple expletives were censored from the message, we unanimously declined to participate. The decision by the crew of the K-1 was an indication of how equal racial treatment had been accepted - and relished.

    I was very proud of my ship.

  • with little attention given to his brokering of peace with the Camp David Accords and emphasis on global human rights.

    Whatever truth there may be in that statement, Jimmy Carter's role in the Iran we have today undoes any other possible good he may have done his entire existence on this Earth alone.... and there are MANY other fuckups of equal magnitude.

    Yes he was very appealing to listen to but never forgive someone who has made such monstrous mistakes because they can make you chuckle.

    • I don't think you can blame Carter for what happened in Iran.

      That is, there is nothing he could have done to stop Khomeini from taking over the country.
      • What? You can't possibly blame preceding American administrations for supporting and propping up the brutal, hated dictator that ruled Iran prior to 1979. The Iranian revolution obviously was 100% Carter's fault!

        (note to the dense: I am being sarcastic)

        • By default, I give credit to the Iranians for the Iranian revolution. Americans like to think everything is about them, but most things are about local politics.
    • by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 29, 2024 @10:58PM (#65049161)

      "Jimmy Carter's role in the Iran we have today ..."
      Which was what? Be specific.

      Among other things, the Iranian revolution was very much because of the Shah, who was installed by the US well prior to Carter's presidency. And Ronald Reagan *deliberately* sabotaged deals that would have brought the hostages home sooner.

    • by ClickOnThis ( 137803 ) on Sunday December 29, 2024 @10:58PM (#65049163) Journal

      I invite you to evaluate the legacy of every president since Carter -- mistakes and all -- using the same scrutiny. Share your thoughts with us right here. We'll wait.

      • I invite you to evaluate the legacy of every president since Carter

        Some recent presidents have a mostly good legacy and no major FUs: Gerald Ford, GHWB, Bill Clinton, Obama.

        Heck, I'd even include Trump's first administration. He said a lot of stupid stuff, but his actions caused little lasting damage.

        • by fahrbot-bot ( 874524 ) on Monday December 30, 2024 @01:56AM (#65049361)

          Heck, I'd even include Trump's first administration. He said a lot of stupid stuff, but his actions caused little lasting damage.

          That may have been due to the people around him preventing the worst. He doesn't seem to be making that mistake this time ... Hopefully I'll be wrong.

        • I don't know much about the others because I'm from outside the USA and really became political aware in the 2000s I'd say Obama did alot of bad globally. Just this week I read a British newspaper article on how uae funded arab terrorist militia rape black women to ethnic cleanse. Then I remember because of Obama and his destruction of Libya and taking gulf state money to do so ended up creating war in over a dozen african countries today ( yes you don't see it much in cnn because they are black and beca
        • by narcc ( 412956 )

          Except for the massive increase in the national debt, the damage he's done to the judiciary, ...

          • Heck, I'd even include Trump's first administration [as one with a mostly good legacy and no major FUs]. He said a lot of stupid stuff, but his actions caused little lasting damage.

            Except for the massive increase in the national debt, the damage he's done to the judiciary, ...

            ... a disastrous response to the Coronavirus pandemic, pulling out of carefully-crafted treaties with a dismissive stroke of a pen, insulting and alienating US allies, separating immigrant children from their families, ... oh yeah, fomenting an insurrection on Congress in which people died ...

            Yeah, the list is long. Trump was much, much better at destroying than building in his first term. I'm not looking forward to what he has in store for his next one.

    • WTF? Iran isn't his fault. Where did you learn that? Rush Limbaugh? I know a dittohead who thought Carter took us off the gold standard and blamed the mess that ensued on Carter - it took me about 3 years to finally straighten the guy out because Rush wouldn't ever lie...

      As far as the rescue of the hostages being completely fucked up by a commander, that resulted in Carter advising Obama to not trust the military so he insisted on sending in 2 choppers to get Bin Ladden. Obama might not have thought they'

    • While I realize that yes, the buck stops at the desk of the Commander in Chief, the US military at the time had no footing for fighting in the desert after decades of fighting in Asia (Korea and Vietnam).

      If operation Blue Light taught us anything, it's that we were unprepared for the challenge of the Middle East, and that we'd better get it together.

      Still, Carter would've had a hard time knowing that his military was completely unprepared for the mission he approved. It's unlikely his generals told him "yes

  • by AlanObject ( 3603453 ) on Sunday December 29, 2024 @11:02PM (#65049167)

    Wheeler reminded the audience of Carter's decidedly nontechnical background...

    What, no mention of his service on a nuclear powered submarine?

    He then served as executive officer, engineering officer and electronics repair officer aboard submarine SSK-1, which was laid down in 1949 by Electric Boat in Groton, Conn., as an experimental attack sub called Barracuda III and launched in 1951 as K-1.

    ...

    Naval History and Heritage Command, the young officer would be instrumental “in the design and development of nuclear-propulsion plants for naval vessels.”

    source [usni.org]

    But I bet he didn't know any javascript.

    • But I bet he didn't know any javascript.

      Well, I don't think he was a weapons officer.

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by MacMann ( 7518492 )

      What, no mention of his service on a nuclear powered submarine?

      Having served on a nuclear submarine he knew that the meltdown at Three Mile Island as a "nothing burger" but he didn't want to go against the Democrat Party policy of being anti-nuclear. His actions as POTUS likely set back the nuclear power industry by decades.

      Had he stood his ground in defending the safety of nuclear power then maybe we would not have had the global warming alarmism we've had for the last few decades. By not driving a stake through the heart of new nuclear power plant construction we m

      • Having served on a nuclear submarine he knew that the meltdown at Three Mile Island as a "nothing burger" but he didn't want to go against the Democrat Party policy of being anti-nuclear. His actions as POTUS likely set back the nuclear power industry by decades.

        Had he stood his ground in defending the safety of nuclear power then maybe we would not have had the global warming alarmism we've had for the last few decades. By not driving a stake through the heart of new nuclear power plant construction we may

      • by necro81 ( 917438 )

        he knew that the meltdown at Three Mile Island as a "nothing burger"

        I don't think you can call a core meltdown a "nothing burger", even if no one was directly hurt in the incident. A multi-billion-dollar reactor was totally ruined, the other reactor offline for a couple of years, and the incident required about $1 billion to clean up (in 1980s dollars). Anecdotally, anyone for miles around probably took a hit on their property values or business income.

        I know you're a pro-nuke guy, but please don't b

  • One of the authors of Carter's pre-written obituary at the New York Times died in 2017:
    https://www.nytimes.com/2024/1... [nytimes.com]

    By Peter Baker and Roy Reed

    Peter Baker is the chief White House correspondent for The Times; Roy Reed, who died in 2017, was a Times national correspondent who for many years covered the South.
    Dec. 29, 2024 Updated 7:24 p.m. ET

    Jimmy Carter, who rose from Georgia farmland to become the 39th president of the United States on a promise of national healing after the wounds of Watergate and Vi

    • That's a nothingburger. Every paper keeps an obit file on notables in their domain, so they're not caught flat-footed when someone passes.

      What, you think the guy who died in 2017 couldn't have outlined the basics since the 70s?

      • Re: NYT (Score:4, Informative)

        by maladroit ( 71511 ) on Monday December 30, 2024 @01:23AM (#65049331) Homepage

        My apologies - I should have made it clear that this was intended to be a mildly interesting factoid related to Carter's longevity, not something to be argued about. I am aware of how obituaries are prepared.

        Turns out the NYTimes isn't the only publication where this happened. The Washington Post, The Guardian, and The New Republic have all published Carter obituaries by deceased writers. The NYT author was 87 when he died; the original must have been written some time ago.

  • I was in the sixth grade when he left office...

    He was a decent man and honorable officer & citizen... I'll add that he may have been in over his head with what the our Government had become at that point...

    That said... He was the second worst President in my 55+ year lifetime. I'll let you decide who the 1st was... With a hint of "Herbert Walker" or "Robinette"...

    T

    • Re:Jimmy Carter... (Score:5, Informative)

      by timeOday ( 582209 ) on Monday December 30, 2024 @12:30AM (#65049259)
      I grew up hearing he was an objectively horrible president, but now I don't really get it. I heard two main reasons.

      1: stagflation. But now I think it was Carter who took the blame for the actions that fixed the economy - Volcker raising rates, which was painful. Whereas Reagan then came along, capitalized on the improved balance sheet, and made everybody feel good by turning on the firehose of government debt. Subsequent Presidents learned their lesson well, and here we are drowning in debt.

      2: Iran hostage crisis. Not a good look for America. Demoralizing. But had the rescue mission worked, his whole presidency would be seen in a very different light. Can we really expect the President to plan such things at a tactical level? And then, I always heard it was a debacle, but only learned much later that, in fact, no Americans died. Nobody died! On an objective basis, it was less harmful than 1 school shooting, or a car crash for that matter.

      So, politics is about image and messaging above results. And that's kind of depressing.

      • 1: stagflation. But now I think it was Carter who took the blame for the actions that fixed the economy - Volcker raising rates, which was painful. Whereas Reagan then came along, capitalized on the improved balance sheet,

        Reagan basically followed Carter's policies, keeping Volcker around and letting him do what he wanted. Reagan deserves credit for letting Volcker raise rates to a scary amount, but Carter deserves credit for choosing him in the first place.

      • Actually I'm going to put a finer point on it. How in the hell did the Hostage crisis (that killed no hostages) turn out worse for Carter than the Beirut bombing (that killed 220 Marines, so we retreated) did for Reagan?

        That contrast bothered me ever since I thought about it. And that's to say nothing about Iran/Contra, which is like a movie plot about a corrupt President that's too evil and ridiculous to be plausible. Illegal arms trafficking to Iran to raise black money to find a secret overthrow of N

        • How in the hell did the Hostage crisis (that killed no hostages) turn out worse for Carter than the Beirut bombing (that killed 220 Marines, so we retreated) did for Reagan?

          Sometimes all your choices are bad, but you still have to choose. Carter tried very hard to do the right thing, you know making choices that are always the least fun. Reagan was a happy meal clown, bankers stuck their hand up his ass and he moved his mouth, don't get me started on Nancy and her Astrologers. Soon we'll have another game show host making rich people great again.

      • I'm a Carter fan, but IIUC 8 American servicemen died when one of the operation Blue Light Sea Stallion choppers hit a C130 Hercules.

        Gotta get the facts right.

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by phantomfive ( 622387 )
      Bush Jr is definitely the worst president in recent history. People complain about Trump, but Bush spend a lot of time trying to justify pre-emptive war, and then following through by starting the war.

      Bush lied, people died. You could blame Johnson for escalating in Vietnam, but at least there he was ostensibly trying to protect people (or democracy). Bush didn't have a justification at all for invading Iraq, which is observable in the fact that the reason he gave for the invasion changed over time.

      Arg
      • Worth watching the Errol Morris documentary "The Fog Of War". Lays a lot of Vietnam during the Johnson administration at the ferry of MacNamara.

  • Love me some Jimmy Carter. He was a decent man that put decency back into the White House on the tail of the worst scandal in history.
  • Cannot say anything bad about him; cannot say anything good about this presidency.
  • by 93 Escort Wagon ( 326346 ) on Monday December 30, 2024 @03:23AM (#65049421)

    But, as an ex-president, Jimmy Carter absolutely had a huge positive impact on the planet - one that few people can even approach. Rest in Peace, Mr. President.

  • by Arrogant-Bastard ( 141720 ) on Monday December 30, 2024 @09:25AM (#65050029)
    I'm somewhat at a loss for words, so this probably won't be the most coherent thing I've ever written here. But it's worth noting that President Carter was, at his core, a decent man who did everything he could to follow his conscience. We may or may not like where that led him, but we can respect that he did more -- FAR more in many cases -- than his predecessors or successors in office -- to walk the path.

    He was educated and studious -- so much so that he was sometimes criticized for his attention to minute detail. (Compare and contrast with illiterate, uneducated buffoon Trump, who needed the President's Daily Briefing dumbed down to cartoons so that he could feebly attempt to grasp it.) Carter understood nuance, which is why he succeeded at Camp David. He knew the climate crisis was coming, and while it may have been largely symbolic, he had solar panels placed on the White House.. (Ignorant thug Reagan had them removed. Imagine where we'd be today if they'd remained in place and become a signpost marking the way that everyone should have been going for the last 45 years.) And, as we now know thanks to the NYTimes and others, his handling of the hostage crisis was undercut by Reagan and his cronies (the "October Surprise") in order to manipulate the election.

    But perhaps the most significant things about him are the things he did AFTER leaving office. The Carter Foundation has been quietly at work for decades helping to eradicate diseases. And he, as everyone should know, picked up a hammer and worked building houses -- for people. For random, unknown people. One board and one nail at a time. And in steadily doing this work, first for years and then for decades, he arguably did far more for some of the poorest people in America than any of us.

    As I said, he was a decent, humane, and studious man.
  • Some rank Former President Carter amongst the worst Presidents we have had. While I disagree with that assessment, I hope no one would dispute that as a Former President, he was clearly one of the best if not the actual best.

    When he went into Hospice care, I had presumed he would only have a few months, but then he had well over a year. I wish we had a gentler, kinder Nation, but hate seems to be multiplying these days.

  • It is a sad thing when many people do not have the ability to figure out that many people remember Jimmy Carter for him being president during a bad economic period here in the USA, and link him to it, which is why he only got one term in office. When times are good, people remember who the president was, and most people just link them to how things were while in office. When times are bad, the same thing happens. This is why so many people praise Ronald Reagan, who was president while the personal co

  • While he may not have been the best President, he was undoubtedly the last ethical person to hold the office.

    It's since been a parade of lying amoral corporate whores which will end with a fascist dictator.

  • I lived in Longview, WA in May of 1980. Those of you who are old enough to remember that date may remember that's when Mt. St. Helens erupted (Hard to believe we're coming up on 45 years since the eruption). Carter came to Washington to tour the disaster area and chose an elementary school to visit during his tour. Turns out it was my school. I don't know if he went by other schools or not. The teachers had all made a huge deal of the President of the US coming to our school (which it certainly was) but it

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