Rest in Peace Jimmy Carter, 39th President of the United States, & True American Hero

 

Perhaps I should have had this post ready for some time. I had thought about preparing something in advance, because it seemed obvious that Carter's health was not going to improve after he was put on hospice.

Somehow, though, it was a post which I had a hard time preparing for beforehand. It felt like bad luck, even though I knew - everyone knew, really - that this was coming.

Jimmy Carter, the former President of the United States, and to me truly an American hero a man who truly embodied the very best of what we all can be, died earlier today. He was 100 years old.

In the interest of time, of getting something published on this day - the day that he died - I will use some of what I have written about the man in past blog entries, although there may be some alterations. This is an important blog entry to me. Again, I knew that this one was coming sooner or later. I also knew that I would feel sad, and that it would feel like this country lost a truly great man at a time when it needs real heroes.

Carter grew up in a different America than the one that exists now. Not all of it was better, but certainly, it can be said that not all of it was worse, either. He believed that the nation could improve, and worked hard to bring about those improvements that he felt it could make. He still worked towards those ends untul recently, although now, the United States is a vastly different nation. The technological innovations, of which Jimmy Carter was a part in working with the nuclear submarine program, have radically changed the face of the country and, indeed, the world. Conveniences, and even luxuries, are more readily available to us here in the West, and even in much of the underdeveloped world. it can be argued that progress is being made in the underdeveloped world, and here, Carter too, has been very active. Yet, the world is also a much scarier place than it probably was when Carter was a child, growing up in Plains, Georgia, or as an adult before and after World War II. It is even a very different place than it was when he assumed the Presidency. There are more people competing in a world that seems at times to be shrinking. Everything seems to be growing more and more expensive. These changes have also been reflected in politics, as well, where money is everything, and everywhere. Again, not all of the changes are necessarily good, or welcome. Yet, they are the reality.

The common consensus for many Americans in regards to Jimmy Carter follows along these lines, roughly: he is a very decent man and does a lot of good, both here and abroad, but he was a lousy President.

Many may overlook Carter, may dismiss him, or his Presidency. But I think we can do worse than to study this time and his approach, because he was a man who had some answers. Answers that we, as Americans, rejected at the time, but which have proven to have a lasting quality to them that, in essence, have lent them a prophetic quality. Carter advocated a different approach towards new problems, and it speaks volumes that thus was many ago. Those very same problems that he then warned us about and tried to nip in the bud before they became huge problems have grown old, and we are only now coming around to trying it out his way. Time has proven him right, yet no one wants to talk about it.

The years under President Carter were difficult and tumultuous years. The United States, under President Richard Nixon, had needed to come to terms with two sobering chapters in it's history - Vietnam and Watergate. There had been a major energy crisis in 1973, and America also had to adjust, and rather suddenly, with the seemingly sobering idea of being more reliant than they were comfortable with on foreign oil, given the greater reliance on oil imports from foreign lands - particularly the Middle East. That was what Jimmy Carter walked into on that day when he took the oath of office, just before becoming the first President to get out of the limousine and walk the mile and a half or so to the White House, which was to become the new home for the Carters for the next four years.

Initially, approval ratings for the Carter Presidency were quite high. His walking along the parade route, as well as wearing a more common suit, rather than an expensive, tailored one, seemed to make him moe approachable, more of an every man.

But that did not last for too long.

Personally, I feel that Carter is not given enough credit for many of his accomplishments during his tenure in the Oval Office. People do not seem to give Carter enough recognition for unwaveringly championing human rights. Nor is he given credit for his instrumental role in the first major breakthrough for peace in the Middle East (an opportunity that we could have built upon, but which feels laergely squandered since). Nobody seems to give him credit for coming up with a real solution which reflected well on the United States by finding a peaceful and manageable way of transferring the Panama Canal to Panama. And people seem to have ignored, and since subsequently largely forgotten, his ultimately successful efforts to free the hostages, although Iran displayed both pettiness and vindictiveness by making a point of waiting until Ronald Reagan had officially been sworn in before surrendering the hostages. 

Carter was best known for two speeches during his presidency: the Energy policy speech, where he asked Americans to sacrifice until the United States could achieve energy independence, after Mideast turmoil had compromised American stability. The other speech was the "Crisis in Confidence" speech, often also known as the "malaise speech".

Listen to them now, or read their words. Watch it on Youtube, and see if those words do not resonate with our times, if his dire  predictions for what lay ahead for the nation if they did not face the problem head on then and there have not come true. Is such a visionary truly a failure, as modern day politicians would have you believe? Or is the truth, perhaps, that we should reexamine this man and his Presidency, to see what he saw, to understand what he obviously already grasped back then?

Carter's Presidency came during troubled times, of course. When people think back to those times, they remember first and foremost the American hostages taken in Iran, and they blame Carter's approach as ineffective. Yet, it as him, not Reagan, who brought the hostages back home, although many seem to still feel that it was Reagan who brought them back since, technically, Carter was no longer President (for mere minutes) when the hostages were finally freed.

Let us not forget that those are not his only successes, although many of these have come to be appreciated only in retrospect, looking back. This man foresaw the energy crisis to come and urged Americans to conserve energy and to find new solutions for producing energy that would not rely on oil from the Middle East. Had we as a nation collectively listened to him enough to take him and his message seriously, we very likely would have a healthier and less polluted planet. Also, we would very likely have avoided the costly (in every sense of that word) wars related to oil in the Middle East in the decades to come.

Also, his so-called "malaise speech" was decades ahead of it's time. It also serves as proof that unlike most typical politicians, Carter actually was concerned enough about the future of the country beyond his own term in office - in other words, beyond his own narrow political ambitions - to try and address serious issues and problems which he saw well down the horizon. Some people liked what Carter had to say, while others felt it was moralizing, or perhaps even took a tone of lecturing. Once again, it took a few decades before it became clear to many people. He warned that too many Americans were growing overly greedy, and that they were growing exclusively self-interested. This, he argued, was not good for the country. And he tried to warn us about this growing crisis and threat to the nation. 

Now, it is my personal belief that had we collectively listened to President Carter at the time, had we actually followed up on that and seriously tried to do at least some of what he was suggesting, this nation would be far better off now then it presently is. Americans today, blinded by their own perceptions of themselves, and be their sense of superiority, judge Jimmy Carter for what he was not able to control - most obviously the Iran hostage situation. But I will go so far as to say that history will judge that very American sentiment - some might call it arrogance - that instead turned to his successors to bring the illusion of a superpower that had everything, the whole world really, under it's control. That selfish, blind, and presumptuous desire is the main reason that we are in the huge mess (or perhaps series of messes) that we now find ourselves under, and which has at least partially buried much of the high standard that this nation used to enjoy in it's glory days.

These are things that people recognized as both intelligent and prophetic only too late. It began an unfortunate trend of Americans learning too late that they might have benefited to give more serious thought to at the time. Carter actually tried to prepare us for a better future beyond just his own chances at winning re-election (some might argue at the expense of chances of being re-elected). That, too, seems to be a rare quality these days, when politicians appear to be a lot less about substance and a lot more about shameless self-promotion and self-interest. Carter himself admitted as much in one of his books, although I forget which one. But he recalled how Rosalyn, his wife and at the time, the First Lady, tried to warn him to pace himself, and leave some things for the second term. Jimmy reminded her that a second term was not necessarily guaranteed, and so he felt it imperative to do everything he possibly could do to improve the state of the country while he had the chance to do that during his four years at the helm, as the most powerful man in the world.

Finally, let us not forget that the Carter years were largely devoid of any major presidential scandals. He promised a transparent presidency, and it feels like he delivered that to the American people. Given how Nixon had just resigned two short years before Carter took office, and that Reagan and Bush were plagued by the Savings & Loan Scandal and the Iran-Contragate Scandal, that Clinton was rocked by major scandals like Whitewater and the Lewinsky scandal, that Bush Jr. was plagued by numerous corporate scandals (Enron, Blackwater, Halliburton), by the scandal of lying about his justifications for the war in Iraq, and then the scandal of him running the economy into the ground, and that Trump never seemed to tire or take a break from courting countless scandals during his years in office, this is no small feat on the part of Jimmy Carter. Looking back, it almost feels like a more innocent time in this nation's history.

Still, Carter's presidency is regarded by too many - particularly in a self-serving manner by self-identified conservatives - as a failure. They point to inflation, and claim that Carter was responsible for low morale and supposed weakness regarding his handling of the hostage situation. Personally, I believe that they have made too much of all of this, making a point of exaggerating his faults and stubbornly refusing to acknowledge his triumphs and positive points.

Still, he was chastised for allegedly blaming others, for finger pointing, and never accepting the fault for things when they went wrong. Yet, the fact of the matter is that those who created problems that would need to be dealt with sometime in the future should not get away with it scot free, simply because they are no longer in power. When, for example, it is said today that we cannot afford the massive tax cuts for corporations and the wealthiest among us, it indeed is the American people who supported them who deserve the blame.

I never understood that, of course, because frankly, most problems do not just suddenly pop up, but in fact, do have origins years and sometimes decades earlier than when they really hit the fan, so to speak. Yet, for a nation with apparently short-term memory, and with a nation that seems to feel entitled to instant results, trying to explain this does no good. Might as well talk to a brick wall.

But that is not Carter's fault. I don't really know that it's anybody's fault in particular, although I have more respect for Jimmy Carter, who was willing to speak frankly and tell the nation what would happen in the future, if they did not take steps to take control over their own addictions, than for the man who succeeded him, who knew how to deliver before a camera, and was willing and able to flash his winning smile and tell America what it wanted to hear, rather than what it needed to hear. The 1980 election was not so much about a failed presidency, as it was style over substance. Jimmy Carter had substance, and really thought about the predicaments that faced the nation, and he tried at least to come up with real solutions. Perhaps people did not like the solutions that he came up with (and again, it seems to me that it was because they could not be bothered to so much as lift a finger to sacrifice anything to make our situation more workable in the long term), and so they rejected him. But Reagan offered nothing in terms of long-term solutions himself. He was the consummate politician, although many people would think it blasphemy to suggest such a thing. he was a handsome and recognizable face, who could act the part of a warm father (or maybe Grandfatherly) figure. He could smile before the cameras and tell you that things are okay, that whatever the problems America is facing, he believed it's best days were ahead of it, although he himself did numerous things to assure that the best days were, in fact, behind it. Reagan offered style, at a time when Americans were increasingly turning to style over substance, to mindless consumerism and selfishness over sacrificing in order to do what was best for the nation. Perhaps, the 1980 election was the turning point in the history of the United States, when America became too inward looking, and took the first step down an inevitable path that saw America lose much of it's muster.

I would argue that, in this case, it was the American people that were wrong. At least as wrong as they assumed Jimmy Carter to be, in any case. They failed the leader that they had elected. Failed to listen to his prognostications, which turned out, in fact, to be accurate.

We are all still paying the price for it, collectively. We as a nation would have been better off had we followed the directions of our elected leader, and had we been able to curb our own selfish desires in order to think about what is truly best for the country.

Instead, we chose someone who had a handsome face and a magnetic smile, and could deliver some good conservative soundbites in his speeches, although his policies were far often neither conservative nor liberal, but the first seeds of a very elitist corporate agenda that has come to seem more obvious now, all these years (even decades) later.

As Carter's Presidency ended, he could have gone into retirement mode, and perhaps lived out his days working on his swing on some sunny golf course or other. Most would not have blamed him.

Instead, he devoted himself entirely to the purpose of trying to do his part to improve the world in any way that he could. Thus, the Carter Center, and his own personal, tireless efforts to bring about the most positive change that he could to see things through. To make the world a better place in any way that he could. To this end, he personally traveled to distant places in the world to help fight diseases and grinding poverty, to help bring education, and to help give the people a voice in fair elections. Often times, he put himself in personal danger, yet his commitment has never wavered. Americans should feel proud to have such a universally respected and revered man representing them. Shame on any who would try to cast aspersions on him for political gain.

Jimmy Carter has been a lot of things in his life. A white boy in a segregated land where white domination was the socially accepted norm, as well as the law of the land. He grew up to be a man who fought against that kind of segregation and racism. He became a naval officer, and a peanut farmer. Eventually, yes, he became a politician, and reached the office of Governor of Georgia, before being a dark horse candidate for President who worked both hard and smart and snuck up on everyone to take a lead and to surprise many in taking the Democratic nomination, and then eventually going on to win the Presidency itself. He was then the 39th President of the United States, and enjoyed some notable successes while in office, although his achievements are often overlooked because of his low approval ratings, and the events that seemed to loom over his Presidency, as well, of course, as the fact that he lost his bid for re-election. Still, he did not go silently into the night, although he had every right to. He went on to be more active than ever in the wake of his Presidency, and became a prolific author, as well as a beacon of hope. He tirelessly gave of himself with efforts to make the world a better place, whether it was with Habitat for Humanity, or with the Carter Center, or even officially working with the government to negotiate peaceful settlements in potential looming conflicts, as he did in Haiti and North Korea. Now, Carter is a member of "The Elders", an independent group who, like the Carter Center, try and work towards bettering humanity in general. It was founded by Nelson Mandela, and also features another South African, the former archbishop Desmond Tutu, who serves as the Chair for the Elders. Other members include Kofi Annan, Martti Ahtisaari,Ela Bhatt, Lakhdar Brahmini, Graca Michel, Fernando Cardosa, Gro Harlem Brundtland, and Mary Robinson. Jimmy Carter is the only American member of the distinguished group, which is quite the privilege.

One thing that few people dispute is that Carter's post-presidency was one of the most active in history. The consensus for many people is that it also is the most successful post-presidency in history. He helped to set up the Carter Center, which has gotten involved all around the world in trying to improve lives. From going to dangerous war zones to try and promote peaceful solutions to overseeing fairness in elections to combatting diseases in remote regions of the world, to trying to fight poverty and educate people and provide clean and reliable drinking water, the Carter Center has become something that all Americans can be proud of. And Carter himself often was present for these things, including going to trouble spots in the world in order to help promote peace, as he did in Haiti in 1994. 

Also, he and his wife Rosalyn were very active in Habitat for Humanity. They helped to build affordable housing for disadvantaged people. This feels like something which Carter did in the true spirit of his Christian faith, which is clearly important to him. In addition, Carter often was active in his local church in Plains, Georgia, and he was a fairly prolific author for years. 

For all of this, Jimmy Carter won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002, and it was well-deserved. He did not do it alone, yet, he was obviously the main impetus behind the efforts that saw him eventually win this award. It is to this man's honor that he was so distinguished, and it is to this nation's honor that such a man as this has come to represent the nation, and embody it's most positive qualities.

In the truest and most sincerest sense, his wife and he lived according to their principles, which were based on Christianity as they saw it. You do not have to agree or believe in their religion to accept and respect that they truly abided by what their religion taught them, how it guided them in life. It made them both do good works and deeds right to the end, right to old age.

Jimmy Carter was placed into hospice care over one year ago, but still managed to reach 100. That is an impressive accomplishment. To me, this man is nothing short of an inspiration. Truly someone we can all look up to, both for his accomplishments in life, as well as for the decency with which he lived that life. The tireless dedication that he and his wife showed in trying to help the lives of others, here and around the world. He became one of the Elders, and was one of the positive faces and voices from the United States at a time when our national reputation seemed to suffer greatly, from unjust wars being fought, to tiresome nationalist policies that often seemed to reflect a modern day imperial mindset, to the circus-like atmosphere of politics under Trump, when hatred and xenophobia seemed to run amok. Through it all, Carter remained the person he always was.

I, for one, am truly grateful for this man. Grateful that he was the elected face and voice of the country while he served in the White House. Grateful for his activism and intelligence and thoughtfulness (those two are not necessarily the same thing) before and after the years of his presidency. To me, his post-presidency is without doubt the greatest and most amazing post-presidency of them all. So successful, it seems to me, that Bill Clinton tried to copy his example, creating the Clinton Foundation, and recently having written a book called "Beyond the Oval Office," which felt like it so closely borrowed a very similar title of a book by Carter ("Beyond the White House") that it almost feels like plagiarism, frankly. 

Personally, I prefer Carter over Clinton or, indeed, over any other recent president and presidency. In my lifetime, Carter feels like the most sincere, most honest, and most actively heroic in his endeavors, and in how he carried himself, regardless of his titles and achievements, or the years after his presidency ended. 

I wanted to take this opportunity not only to mourn the loss of, but to honor the memory of Jimmy Carter with this post, and share my own words and thoughts about this true living inspiration. Personally, I believe that the United States became a better country as a result of Jimmy Carter, and that goes well beyond merely his four years serving as the president (which I admittedly do not even remember).

Rest In Peace, Jimmy Carter. You truly were a real American hero, and I was proud to call you Mr. President. You will be sorely missed.

Below are some pictures from some of the times when I went to book signing events of President Jimmy Carter, including the one time when my son went with my to New York City for one of those book signings, as well as to meet a real former president. It was one of those special days, and I am still pleased for having made a point of doing that. 

Here are the pictures.

Enjoy.

My son and me, posing in front of the sign advertising the appearance by President Jimmy Carter. It was a bit chillier than expected, as well as noisy. But in the end, it was definitely worth it! 



I think that this was the clearest shot that I had of President Carter. He is the man with the white hair, seated and signing books. There are obviously plenty of people all around him. Some, I believe, were secret service agents they were around, and were around, The others are employees of the store. There was a very limited window of opportunity to take pictures, and you could only do it from a bit of a distance. That is why there are no straight on shots, or anything. Also, there were so many people standing in the way for much of it, that I took what I could get, when there were clearings (usually, all too brief). Still, this one came out okay, given the circumstances.

I had been hoping to sneak one picture after the signing, but they put up the curtains all around the President, to make it more difficult. Security precautions, surely, and that is understandable. You can see the curtains in the background. 

Not going home disappointed - here is the autograph that President Jimmy Carter gave for my copy of his latest book,  "A Call to Action"! 

President Jimmy Carter Visits Yale & Princeton - originally published on December 5, 2014:

   

A picture that I took during the Jimmy Carter booksigning event at New Haven, Connecticut in early December, 2014. I wrote a blog entry about this, which was oublished on December 5, 2014. 

Here is the link: President Jimmy Carter Visits Yale & Princeton

  http://charbor74.blogspot.com/2014/12/president-jimmy-carter-visits-yale.html

A photo that I took from a booksigning with Jimmy Carter at Barnes & Noble on Fifth Avenue in New York City last year, which I took my son to go see (and get a few books signed by a former President). I wrote a review on it, on March 27, 2014, titled: 

President Jimmy Carter Book Signing, New York, NY - March 25, 2014: 

http://charbor74.blogspot.com/2014/03/president-jimmy-carter-book-signing-new.html