Word: carterized
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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When he gave his so-called malaise speech on television five years ago, Jimmy Carter wanted to inspire. But many Americans felt the President was blaming them for his failures of leadership. The hortatory language was a little bewildering too. A crisis of confidence? The heart and soul of our national will? A rebirth of the American spirit? A great many citizens had already come to think of the President as a bit of an oddball, attuned more to metaphysics than to politics. After that impassioned, fretful analysis of the country's bad mood in the summer...
...clear now that Jimmy Carter was on to something real and powerful. Americans did feel defensive and dispirited about their nation: cynical about its faded grandeur, alarmed by what felt like the beginnings of economic chaos and despairing of prospects for improvement. The notion of even a quiet national contentment and pride seemed quaint, implausible, slightly foolish...
...Philip Sousa is permissible. The Zeitgeist has turned zesty. The U.S. is at peace, and between rising employment and fading inflation, the economy is aglow. Americans are feeling more sanguine and comfortable about their country than they have felt in two decades. A rebirth of the American spirit, as Carter dearly hoped five summers ago? It sure feels like it. Even the walkouts called against General Motors last weekend were reluctant and selective (see ECONOMY & BUSINESS). "People seem to be enjoying themselves more," says Mel Hagen, 35, an auto worker from Keego Harbor, Mich., a working-class town outside Detroit...
...turn lead to a concern about change, whether political, economic or social." So far, however, the current spirit, patriotic and otherwise, shows little sign of being harnessed purposefully. Says Sam Brown, who was director of ACTION, the federal volunteer agency that operates the Peace Corps and VISTA, during the Carter Administration: "With all this sense of feeling good about ourselves, I haven't seen a growth of generous spirit toward the least privileged among us, and that has the risk of turning into an 'Everything's O.K., we don't have to worry about anybody else...
After three days of hammering and sawing, Jimmy Carter, 59, looked more like a seasoned construction worker than a former President, with good reason. While most Americans were using Labor Day to putter around the house or relax, Carter and about 40 members of a Georgia volunteer group spent their holiday renovating a six-story tenement building in downtown Manhattan. "I'm liking the work," said Carter, who was joined on the second day by former First Lady Rosalynn, 57. "I've done a lot of carpentry before, but not like this. The tallest building in Plains...