power. zimbabwe depends on it for transports and import and export and those sorts of things. if victoria had the political will to resolve the zimbabwe crisis it could be in a matter of weeks or months. >> host: why don't they? if the of the trade unions in south africa that have enormous power frankly, they have been very clear that the mugabe crisis has to be solved and mugabe has to go. >> guest: even supportive of the opposition, however, the problem with that is they are one of three strands within the amc government now getting more and more restless with the amc come and defend openly discussing and debating the possibility that they might withdraw from the amc and set up themselves as an independent opposition party, which is of course exactly the genesis of the opposition in zimbabwe. it started and so i think the

south african president feels very uncomfortable at the prospect of an mdc government in zimbabwe and would much rather try to figure out a way to reform from within or to find some technocrats to rule it which i don't think will happen. there's another problem which is a sort of systemic one which is of all the southern african nations that fought on the intercolonial war, litigation wars were you had political parties that then came into power, all of those parties who have a kind of liberation are still in power. amc in south africa and libya goes on to zimbabwe and mozambique and it's not in the interest of any one of them that any other of them leave power because it is a bad precedent so that is the sort of wide political conflict. >> host: well for the sake of zimbabwe i hope there's a solution soon. thank you so much, peter godwin for being with me today. >> guest: thanks for having

me. that was "after words," booktv signature program which authors of the latest nonfiction books are interviewed by journalists, public policy makers, legislators and others familiar with their material. "after words" airs every weekend on book tv at 10 p.m. on saturday, 12 p.m. and 9 p.m. on sunday at 12 a.m. on monday. you can also watch "after words" online. gough to booktv.org and click on "after words" in the book tv series and topics list on the upper right side of the page. up next on book tv, brad martin presents a history of political activism during the 1980's. he explores many of the decades political movements from aids activism and the nuclear freeze campaign to the denouncement of american corporate relations with south africa's apartheid government. this is about 45 minutes.

[applause] >> thank you. i want to thank you for having me and my publisher, hughford lang. i was encouraged to do some reading from the book and what i'd like to do is a couple of readings from the introduction and then a couple from inside the book, and i think a good thing to start off with would be the sort of story of the book's origins, and happily enough, the very first paragraph tells that story so i'm just going to start with that. this book started with a challenge. discussing the modest output in the historical literature on the 1980's and editor friend of mine announced any book on the 80's inevitably turns into a reagan

book. a substantial portion reena true. in many ways the singular figure of ronald wilson reagan, the most popular president in a generation, dominated life during the decade. the president's advocates credited him with monumental accomplishments, no less than restoring prosperity, gaining national pride and spearheading the cold war victory. the beaming accounts of his presidency and achievements only intensified after his death in 2004, generating a wave of tributes and the popular media. still, a look at the presidential popularity during reagan's two terms reveals a sizable swath of the american public disapproved of the way that he handled his job even at moments of his greatest triumphs. this suggested that there was more to the story, that there was another 1980's, the history

buried under the sell laboratory narrative of reagan and conservative ascendancy, with the gauntlet thrown at my feet i picked it up determined to craft the untold account of the decade opposition. ..

and i go on to say that this book examines the last old story of americans who oppose the decades prevailing political ties so that -- then i framed a series of question, the sort of questions that lead the inquiry of what was the nature of opposition's reagan conservatism in the 80s? what recurring teams, ideas and sensibilities? what were its accomplishment, limitations and downright failures? and why has this opposition been so overshadowed in the decade dominated merited? and then i go on to say the country and stepping out of the realm of orthodox politics because there is a whole long paragraph of the of the mainstream democratic party in

the 1980s and that is sort of epitomized by the tendering democrats. okay, so this is the other little section i'd like to just read when i get to do my central argument. for this reason, "the other eighties" focuses on reagan conservatism is broadly construed. this encompasses a range of voices and extensions of traditional politics, lobbying congress and support a nuclear freeze and celebrating geraldine ferrero is the first woman to make presidential party ticket in those who fought in the cultural realm for bruce springsteen two minutes in portraits of the decades, the angry artists at grant's theory and of rage as inadequate government response to the aids

epidemic. the essential argument is despite the decades reputation for conservative ascendant in reagan's personal popularity, there was another 80s, when in which the opposition played a key role. often this involves playing defense, engage in any tactical struggle to preserve the liberal and progressive games of the 60s and 70s. the mayor's initiatives to make permissible government for more responsive to their constituencies and pro-choice women's efforts to have abortion rights against an ever more conservative judiciary in a fairly prolific countermovement exemplified the struggle for field submission. responding to reagan's foreign policy commit 80s activists team, tempered and constrained most bellicose and ambitious aspects of the administration's design. it is a notable outcome of this

area that announcements do not speak of the nicaragua war. and then went thing they are saying before i get to the other side of this book is threadbare, from the ietf of being progressive liberals in the 80s, i do want to sort of actual games and victories in the realm from popular culture in higher education, it cetera. so what i want to do, just to get a sampling of the insight of the book is read a couple quick selections from sort of recognizable figures and not nursing care or is in the 80s and then towards the end, you know, talk about the last chapter, the last collection

that is in some ways more representative of the spirit of "the other eighties." the first of these passages is spam what more or less amounts to the chapter on popular culture in the 80s is featured and has a pretty large section. and then there is a section called the giver and the bus. that sort of tells the story. i'll just read this little passage. at a 1984 new jersey rally, looking to cement his lead over the democratic presidential candidate, walter monteiro enhances legitimacy in a traditionally democratic industrial state. ronald reagan's grasp at the start power of the favorite son. american's future rests in the 1000 green says inside your

heart come the president exhorted. the rest of the message of hope and songs of a man's so many young americans admire the new jersey zone bruce springsteen. in a warm gesture of appreciation, reagan summarized, helping you make those streams come true is what this job of mine is all about. then segued into a call response with the audiences rating ticked off a list of his administration's achievements, supporters were prompted to reply, u.s.a. eyes and ears, the spectacle resembles 13 so much enjoyed their performance is with their impassioned rituals of audience participation. more savvy onlookers recognized the irony in the president's attempt to float himself in the popular recognition. why should a cold warrior value that traits you guys a

working-class hero rockstar? sympathetic chronicle or a serial murderer laid out autoworkers turn criminals, downtrodden vietnam veterans and nostalgic losers. and so i go on to sort of talk about the 1984, dear that bruce springsteen's born in the u.s.a. album was released with the best-selling angle from that album, born in the u.s.a. and the biggest juncture between the chorus and the verses was taken and appropriated as the patriotic affirmation as the downtrodden be it known that. and so, there is a lot of commentary on that when george will tries to sort of claim

mr. springsteen for reagan and some rights. and that's part of the story that's pretty well known. what is less well known is the way in which that incident or that episode really transforms bruce springsteen's career, which is that i'm not too worried, it really led to his politicalization insert it being public about it. and he ends up not only speaking politically to the live audiences more and more about both domestic matters and foreign policy, but he ends a disorder that tenet out through really with of course the help of his staff, sort of researching local groups that

helped the labor unions, homeless down the line and using his concert as a platform to talk about the work of local organizations and raising $25,000 a night. so there is a transition. it is sort of indicative of some of this complexity. you know, even his impressions of inks about the direction of the country can be appropriated for conservative causes and yet at the same time there is an undercurrent of criticism that's the exact of that.

okay, another figure recognizable that one chapter were false around his jesse jackson and when i just said that, it are for an different people different reactions and there is a comment here from a former jesse jackson aide that speaks to that but says he repels and attracts in equal measure. if you feel like you want an argument to any tavern, so with that as a starter who could mean, i go on to talk about his two campaigns for the democratic presidential nomination. the somewhat largely symbolic one in 1984, even though the

much more legitimate one in 1988 and i just want to review the flinching paragraph of that session, summary paragraph. jackson was far from the perfect candidate. so even as the ultimate disease and globalization behind dukakis, behind dukakis' candidacy as the 1984, jackson object did the democratic discussion with progressive moral convictions about economic justice and stopping militaristic interventionist foreign policy. in doing so, he kept the fire life for what powered the generation later caught the democratic wing. additionally, jackson played an important trailblazing robe for future minority candidates. one columnist apologized, no one

who has seen the white pants and farmers of the utterly straining to catch jackson could doubt his campaign would flee the country less recess in the senate found it, adding though that jackson may have to settle for being the one initial players others tend to climb through. so there is much in the sort of mainstream politics and much of the mainstream democratic politics is actually pretty resonant with the last presidential election to go around and the next little section i want to read from this another one of those in episode. and this is about as mainstream as the book yet in terms of describing the 80s supposition

. and that's the historic christ presidential nomination in 1984. and one of my favorite sort of groups of sources in this book that i use is i made a trip to the manhattan college for geraldine ferraro park hyatt is, and the length of mary manhattan and there are all kinds of letters from women in office he states and dozens of foreign countries about the importance of that campaign 2002 women. before you read a sampling from a couple of those letters, just a little i guess back to the task to reset your mindset in 1984 for a second.

i said that "newsweek" ran a 25 page special. this is when in 1984, as soon as mondale announced for geraldine ferraro would be sharing with him. "newsweek" ran a 25 page special report documenting all aspects of how mondale popped the questions that frosted blonde. to be fair, the hokey references to the candidate and the gender anxiety didn't begin and end with the press, but were shared by politicians and the american public. on the campaign choke him in taking for, for our separate from the mississippi agriculture commissioner that her blueberry muffin capabilities with a shirt not for balancing feminism and femininity, for over a probably not a female vice presidential candidate before.

so i go on to talk about the 84 campaign and ferraro's role in it. and as i'm sort of semi-not the aftermath, i felt urged some of the meaning it had really for the women that have been supporters as well as a couple republican women and that was one of my techniques that i try to find letters from what most of us would consider contemporary speak, sort of red state women, more conservative parts of the country to sort of make the case that this was not

as they try to do throughout the book really that the other 80s opposition was both coasts, but there was considerable support in the heartland in other parts of the country. so just a sampling, a republican woman from alabama not only declared that she could not have been any prouder had forever offended gop candidate, she compared the vice presidential run to a first step on the moon for american women and men a kansas woman expressed gratitude to for our 04 inspiring her to try and send what she assumed to be professional limits of her career. my female colleagues and i never cease to be amazed at how you have altered our perceptions of ourselves she wrote. it has never happened in our adult lifetime that we derive

such pride from a public figure. and then really the final selection that i wanted to read from the last chapter of the book and that's the chapter, the title of that chapter. the shots truths of direct action. one of the sort of said sub themes through the book one of the operations of the 80s opposition takes that the circuit dance with the 60s that some end is sort of to it, at least republicans ambivalence to it and sort of uncannily i found it a lot of cases,

publicly a lot of 80s activists profiling the boat on the truth of it at least we weren't really focusing on it. we were trying on the 60s for coming out, for attack dixon strategies and movement and culture and things of that. at the same time, a lot of the way that the tactics and strategies actually happened from these 80s movements and candidly paralleled their 60s forebears, so whether it was conscious or not comes sometimes it wasn't sometimes it was sent, a lot of those type dixon strategies ingrain themselves in the culture to the benefit that 80s act to this were available to sort of draw and sort of knew

then almost via osmosis. so more specifically, one of the things i talk about in the first book and symbolic protesters and active episodes but they take a page from the playbook from the diggers, including this one. in one episode infiltrated the republican national convention using fake badges with the kinko's staff that act up members and invented fake names and posed as republican women to gain admittance to what fermata was speaking. act up member were a little red

shift in these shoes, inventing a cover story to explain away her nose during a subterranean downtown new york as she told the pastor father had served in india during the nixon administration. when d'amato began from the strip away the facilitated passing as republicans to reveal a giant buttons proclaiming for bush and posted up an assortment of posters and players. so theatrical protest was part of the package. in terms of really big accomplishments though, really sort of the light they shed on expedient testing and approval process for promising aids drugs was one of the biggest accomplishments and the very

last paragraph has a brief sort of conclusion applauded after. the very last paragraph of the book guess that some of that. plus, some of the value of act to disarm and not take q&a after this one. so this is really encompasses a lot of the spirit of the book. many act up activists locate the groups most important achievement in extra body initiatives. the successful pressure to reform the fda's practices for the testing approval and availability of new medication. the impact on the health care bureaucracy and changing of course the public debate surrounding aids. yet these considerable accomplishments represent part of the group's legacy. at daybreak the public visibility of the aids epidemic and improved the epidemic at a

time when more hostile responses royal above the surface. jean carlin is still, all the people mentioned are people that rack is. did an enormous amount to really shake up people about their. are you so you are glad these folks are dying she said? moreover activism itself pioneering innovations in political art, video documentation of that design, organizational strategy, politics and approaches to the media. this provided a powerful object lesson in the value of activism, educating a whole generation of people with a sense of activism works. michaelmas lane observed that act to retain a vehicle for younger people to get a sense of

what it means to be politically active in to presume some power they can impact the political life of our culture. mark carrington concurred in a setting own experience. before a act up, i didn't have any faith in that political action, in any political action. about the politics with the realm of the. by contrast, herington remarks on what impressed him. i was in a roomful of young people who didn't subscribe to the immediate view that our generation was a political, careers and materialistic and anybody could speak your anybody could run for office. it was like ancient athens such mainstream political culture was overwhelmingly against them testified remarkable. [applause]

thanks. >> if you have any questions, please stand up so we can hear. >> yes. >> thanks for sharing that first of all and i look forward to reading this book. it's very interesting. i am wondering though if you could talk a little bit if you think the 80s are unique, are the other 80s more important than the other 50s? we have 30s, you know, is there something different about the 80s from other decades of the 20th century? >> well, yes because i think, you know, all the acclaim, certainly acclaim of reagan and you're going to hear it next week on the 30th anniversary. you know, really position tennis most important and influential

president and therefore the 80s becomes the most important transitional, transformative. in american politics since the 30s in a lot of ways. and so, i think it is -- i think it does have, you know, it stands out among decade with the 30th and for that reason the story of the other 80s deserves to be saltines and the pulp fiction. yes, jeff. [inaudible] >> you make a good case for the 80s activists. i don't think anyone. reagan was followed by bush,

followed by clinton who was a middle-of-the-road democrat, followed by a very conservative cheney and bush who are followed by, obama. who is the democrat? has the democrat ever covered from the carter years? >> well, i think part of what i'm trying to get at sort of is that i am telling this story of, you know, what happens to the left, what happens to liberalism and what is generally acknowledged as a conservative actiq and i think the value of doing that has to do with sort of illustrating the push and pull them as i was talking about in the introduction, dysphagia

of claiming defense and i think it amounts to -- i think it amounts to a statement on behalf of the value of being engaged in a lot of ways. and certainly an epilogue, sordid chapter by chapter and say whatever sort of movement or episode i discuss in that chapter, you know, with the last thing accomplished was for. and i do do some speculation about obama. the last time i got to revise the epilogue before it went to print with roughly a year ago. so it'd just gone through. i didn't really have the pitfalls of doing recent history is that, you know, i certainly

could have anticipated, but i didn't have opportunity to, you know, really delve into things like the rise of the tea party or the tremendous backlash into health care occasions. but one thing i do say is the kind of sort of rescue and the kind of government involvement to the financial crisis of 2008 i say in the epilogue that obama pursued. the fact that it wasn't able to at least go through before the backlash that we now know was his testimony to the incomplete reagan revolution. so that is my best answer for that question.

so i just think it's always a push and pull. nothing ever happens very fast. the victories are never complete. even on the other side though, you know, certainly the clinton administration ends up being a more centrist democratic administration, even as the republican managed to ship the center to the right and that would be an example, you know, the state trees are incomplete and that's really the evidence for the value of remaining engaged. >> i am curious to hear your thoughts and i guess i should preface my question. my understanding in the way i come to think about politics in

the late 20 opposition and so on his earlier parts if you look in mention with animating a lot of protest movement, it's really tied into economics. it's the great depression obviously so that's covering a lot of what's going on. the consent of of the populist movement. a lot of it comes out of economics is really animating the communist party and so on in the united states and the like. and when i look at the conservative era from the 1970s on up until the present day really, one of the things that could be about that area is economics gets sorted removed from staff, you know, everybody sort of has assumption that the free market reign supreme and

they sort of, these morbidly conservative ideas about opposition to government regulation, opposition to government intervention in the market and sell them to come about with the new deal, that is sort outbreak in amicus to reduce really wanted to achieve and they didn't care as much about despite lipservice to cultural issues whether it was abortion or gay writes. i'm wondering if you would agree with the idea that part of the view you are describing in here is they operate in the realm outside of economics third of that allows for some of this generational ship we see now in terms of acceptance of terms like gay marriage, acceptance of the different roles for women, you know and so one here. what i wonder is it the consequence of that is losing

sight of some of that economic side of progressivism and so on. i don't know if that makes sense. >> that's a great question and actually there is a lot of answer was can tangent in the question. you could definitely come out. and there it. i do, you know, points out that i do distinguish and maybe this will shed some light on the previous question as well but between politics and political economy, where especially national politics for the triumph of conservatism was more clear-cut and this sort of more subtle realm of culture and social change were again many of the social and cultural changes and transformations of the 60s

and 70s were deep end and really ratified in the 80s and beyond with gay liberation being the status of gay americans being a great example. it's interesting how you frame it as a question about is that a consequence of these issues more sorted economic justice and maybe that's true, especially if you take the word into the books in terms of periodization, my 80s cuts off at 1992 and the clinton administration seems like there's some things in the george h.w. bush administration then i want to talk about. i haven't talked about the goal for, some of the activities in the late 80s and carry on to the 90s. but things seem to change with

the clinton administration. are you really do have a democratic president and administration that sort of commits to liberalism, the few market principles, welfare reform and aims of this nature. i think that's a good way of framing it that potentially the economic outlook is a casualty of the social, cultural transformation, which is not to minimize the transformation. >> yeah, so from what i heard, what do you think are the primary accomplishments for the long term accomplishment of the book? >> yeah, boy, so, you know, i

could go through group by group. maybe i should talk about some of -- maybe i should talk about some of the ones that i haven't mentioned. like for instance, the nuclear freeze, which is the first chapter that has the big sort of exclusion, this grassroots social movement in the early 80s, only can be sort of co-opted by democratic allies in congress and passed in a very watered down version, but it does get issues of arms control onto the map and into the public debate. and you know, even though reagan shrewdly managed the upper hand with his "star wars" strategic defense initiative after that, despite the fact that he didn't seem to have much, you know,

connection to the landscape of what is really path double, but has allowed them to claim that he was of arms control, too. it's very different her reagan came into office where he was boasting that he had opposed every arms control measures to that point. so that's okay. circuiting arms-control into the public discussion, that's one kind of achievement. you go to the last chat to her, the group that he did talk about. i mean, i think there's some clear-cut things they are. there's some reform and testing of the approval process phase. there's also, which i didn't mention, some of the active people that get involved in research the issues gets those

sort of in the do-it-yourself way, get so technologically -- technically proficient at these issues that they managed to become -- they managed to professionalize their interest in it and get jobs and health care benefit policies and issues that they care about. and that's, you know, the chapter that really deals with basically what happened to feminism in the 80s, you know, that is part of the story as well, sort of the professionalization and institutionalization of a lot of things are really radical in the 60s and 70s and very grassroots in an ad hoc way. harassment, the term didn't even exist until 1975 when the feminist focus groups came up by

the end of the 80s, you know, the majority of fortune 500 companies had trained the programs in harassment and the law of the land, important supreme court decisions had come down, not only on stances, but also hostile work environments. so that is sampling a thing. yes? [inaudible] >> oddly enough, not everyone on the right was with reagan. they hated the panama canal, but some of them didn't like the s.t.a.r.t. treaty. they were upset about sandra day

o'connor's appointment to the supreme court. and then culturally for more turned majority in the antiabortion movement really got organized. it was more a day, you know, mobilization to the right of the reagan administration. >> that is one of those things that they say is outside the scope of the book, but i will say in one review that that is the story that really needs to be told, you know, the organization on the right during that era as well. could be. okay, thanks. [applause] >> this event was hosted by books on the square in providence, rhode island