LBJ’S LEGACY IS BIGGER THAN ANYONE, INCLUDING GEORGE WILL, EVER ANTICIPATED

 

…President Lyndon Baines Johnson

 

The conservatives only find fault in the "Great Society" and they never take any responsibility for causing any of society’s woes.

I have to say I was truly appalled by a recent column from the infamous ultra-conservative, Mr. George Will. 

The reason I was so upset was that, as usual, the reasoning that Mr. Will uses is based on his unsubstantiated, wild-ass assumptions.

As an example, this recent article is based on his assumption for what he refers to as, “The slow decline of America since LBJ launched the Great Society.”

In his assertion, he says, “In 1964, 76% of Americans trusted government to do the right thing “just about always or most of the time”; today, 19% [of Americans] do. The former number is one reason Johnson did so much; the latter number is one consequence of his doing so.”

Now, just think about what he is assuming. 

 

Mr. Will assumes out of nowhere, that the 19% today that think that the US government can occasionally do the right thing, versus the 76% of 1964, is due to LBJ’s development of his Great Society. 

Of course, this 19% attitude of today’s average American has nothing to do with the fact of all the US jobs that have moved overseas since the 1960’s; or the lack of US wages for decades not keeping up with the nation’s productivity and with the on-going increasing inflation rate; and please let’s not forget the latest Great Recession that was mostly caused by all the George Will types on Wall Street. 

Of course, these issues had nothing to do with Will’s wild-ass assumption about what caused the currently small, 19% of public government trust.

As the old saying goes, “Making assumptions, makes an ass of both you and me.”

Mr. Will does admit that it was, “Fifty years ago this Thursday, at the University of Michigan, Lyndon Johnson had proposed legislating into existence a Great Society. It would end poverty and racial injustice, “but that is just the beginning.” It would “rebuild the entire urban United States” while fending off “boredom and restlessness,” slaking “the hunger for community” and enhancing “the meaning of our lives” — all by assembling “the best thought and the broadest knowledge.”

But according to Mr. Will, all of what LBJ did is the reason that America is in the negative state it is in today. 

For some strange reason, this supposedly astute conservative doesn’t seem to feel that the GOP’s political idol, Ronald Reagan’s 8 years as president, or George H.W. Bush’s 4 year and his sons 8 year administrations and their 3 foreign wars had anything to do with the nation's current, state of the union.

No siree, those issues had nothing to do with the nation’s societies today.

Per Mr. Will, “When Johnson became president in 1963, Social Security was America’s only nationwide social program. His programs and those they subsequently legitimated put the nation on the path to the present, in which changed social norms — dependency on government has been de-stigmatized — and have changed America’s national character.”

So, it was the nation's dependency on LBJ’s programs, and the subsequent social programs, that has brought us to our current situation?  Nothing else that occurred after the 60's Great Society or LBJ’s, War on Poverty had anything to do with the current status of the American society today? 

Is that right?

According to Mr. Will, “29% of Americans — about 47% of blacks and 48% of Hispanics — live in households receiving means-tested benefits. And “the proportion of men 20 and older who are employed has dramatically and almost steadily dropped since the start of the War on Poverty, falling from 80.6 percent in January 1964 to 67.6 percent 50 years later.” Because work — independence, self-reliance — is essential to the culture of freedom, ominous developments have coincided with Great Society policies.”

So, let me get this straight:  The fact that this nation lost over 50,000 factories just since 2000, and that today there are 3 available American workers for every available job today, none of that has to do with the drop of American men 20 years and older, being unemployed?  And that doesn’t take into consideration that in the 1970's, going to a 4 year, state college cost about $100 per semester and today that cost can be $10,000 per semester.  None of that counts for today’s un-educated, un-trained or the US unemployment issues?

Mr. Will also refers to the conservative think-tank, American Enterprise Institute’s Nicholas Eberstadt’s, new booklet “The Great Society at Fifty: The Triumph and the Tragedy,”  According to Mr. Will, “Eberstadt says LBJ, more than FDR, profoundly recast the common understanding of the ends of governance.”

Actually, I don’t disagree with that statement by Eberstadt. LBJ did have a large effect on today’s American society and governance.  But I don’t agree with him that it was the Great Society that caused, “the earthquake that shook family structure in the recent era that has seen out-of-wedlock births increase from 7.7 percent in 1965 to more than 40% in 2012, including 72% of black babies.”

Apparently to Mr. Eberstadt, all of these negative results were caused by the LBJ Great Society programs that were started in the 1960’s and 70’s.  Of course, this was the period when the US was the manufacturing back-bone of the world, and back then every man, woman and child, that could get themselves through High School, could easily find a job that could support a family of four through the parent’s retirement. 

 

This was the terrible Great Society that Eberstadt was referring to?

Yes, this is the same Lyndon Baines Johnson whose legacy includes the triumphant Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965.  Yes, the same acts that today’s conservative and activist US Supreme Court are trying to destroy. But according to Mr. Eberstadt, “The male flight from work and family breakdown have coincided with Great Society policies, and that dependence on government is more widespread and perhaps more habitual than ever? 

 

Really, where’s your proof on that one?  (The conservatives are great at making statements like this without providing any substantiation.)

As is usual with the conservative organizations such as the, American Enterprise Institute, they always fail to state that the conservative GOP political administrations have ever caused any negative changes to this nation’s societies.  These problems have only occurred due to the efforts of the liberal or progressive Democratic administrations such as LBJ’s.

This is a very convenient attitude, from their wearing of political blinders, for this conservative group to always assume. 

I, of course have a different opinion.  And all I have to do, is to ask everyone to take a look at what this nation’s status has been at the end of each of the past liberal Democratic administrations, starting back with that of FDR.

History has shown, the conservatives tend to be great at screwing up the country, while it takes the liberals to get things back into a forward gear.

So, anybody and everybody, please try to prove my position wrong against that of Mr. George Will and his conservatives. 

 

However, I seriously doubt that you will be very successful.

Copyright G.Ater  2014