On this day in 1965, in his State of the Union address, President Lyndon Baines Johnson lays out for Congress a laundry list of legislation needed to achieve his plan for a Great Society. On the heels of John F. Kennedy’s tragic death, Americans had elected Johnson, his vice president, to the presidency by the largest popular vote in the nation’s history. Johnson used this mandate to push for improvements he believed would better Americans’ quality of life.
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Following Johnson’s lead, Congress enacted sweeping legislation in the areas of civil rights, health care, education and the environment. The 1965 State of the Union address heralded the creation of Medicare/Medicaid, Head Start, the Voting Rights Act, the Civil Rights Act, the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the White House Conference on Natural Beauty. Johnson also signed the National Foundation of the Arts and Humanities Act, out of which emerged the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities. Through the Economic Opportunity Act, Johnson fought a War on Poverty by implementing improvements in early childhood education and fair employment policies. He was also a strong advocate for conservation, proposing the creation of a green legacy through preserving natural areas, open spaces and shorelines and building more urban parks. In addition, Johnson stepped up research and legislation regarding air- and water-pollution control measures.
Under Kennedy, then-Vice President Johnson led the government’s quest to develop American excellence in the sciences. As president, the ongoing technology race with the Soviet Union spurred Johnson to continue the vigorous national program of space exploration begun by Kennedy. During Johnson’s presidency, the National Air and Space Administration (NASA) achieved the extraordinary and unprecedented accomplishment of orbiting a man around the moon.
Though many of Johnson’s programs remain in place today, his legacy of a Great Society has been largely overshadowed by his decision to involve greater numbers of American soldiers in the controversial Vietnam War.
I grew up in Detroit, and personally witnessed the destruction of a once-great city. There are a number of reasons for Detroit’s decline that have never been explored or discussed.
1. “Blockbusting” by greedy real estate agents. Real estate agents would send out postcards with the following: “A new family is moving into your neighborhood. If you want to sell your house, please call me at xxx-xxxx”. A “new family” was a euphemism for black families, and was used to “encourage” whites to sell their homes.
2. HUD (Housing and Urban Development) speculators and real estate hustlers conspired to “buy up” and raze the best houses on every block, in certain sections of the city. Quite often, “shacks” were left standing while decent housing was purchased by HUD and razed. This was done purposely to depress property values, to make it easier for speculators to purchase properties at “bargain basement” prices.
I realize that items 1 and 2 counteract each other and are at cross purposes, but they were a reality in 1960s Detroit.
3. The 1967 riots did much to push whites out of Detroit. A little-known aspect of the Detroit riots was the application of spray-painted words on the exteriors of black-owned businesses. The words “soul brother” was spray-painted on businesses owned by blacks so that the “angels of death” (actually rioters) would spare them from destruction. Whole business districts around the city were destroyed, never to regain their former selves.
4. The election of Coleman Alexander Young, Detroit’s first black mayor, who was overtly racist to Detroit’s white citizens while “getting along just fine” with the “movers and shakers” (big business people) of the day (as long as the campaign donations kept coming in)….
5. The abolition of the STRESS (Stop The Robberies, Enjoy Safe Streets) program. This anti-criminal program was put in by mayor Young’s predecessor and was quite successful in “cleaning up the streets” of criminals. In this program, police officers would disguise themselves as vulnerable old people and walk through neighborhoods as “decoys”. Predatory criminals would attempt to rob these elderly citizens and quite often, were dispatched to “the great hereafter”. One of Young’s campaign promises was the abolition of the STRESS program as too many of “his people” were being eliminated. Upon the election of Young, the program was disbanded.
These are 5 reasons for this once-great city’s demise, thanks to LBJ’s “Great Society” and “Model Cities” programs.
The “Great Society” was a highly successful program, here is one current report from it:
http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/brooklyn/cheerleaders-spark-wild-brawl-brooklyn-high-school-article-1.3736377
There are many, many others if you want to look for them, and you won’t have to look very hard.
Just another ‘chimp-out’.
Its funny how the guh’mint always names it what it is not-and even more-the name is usually the opposite of the actual consequence. The patriot act and dept of education spring to mind. LBJ’s NWO-ian ploy to enslave the masses through welfare and thereby play his part in the destruction of our republic stands as one of the most egregious acts of any president. The fun part is this sort of crap is foisted upon us it and then gets passed off as failure, incompetence, ineptitude and unfortunate lack of foresight. I’m pretty sure we can count on the fact that generally speaking the consequences are exactly what they had planned them to be from the outset.
I’m convinced he has something to do with JFK’s assassination.
The Great Society was the beginning of the end – it provided the fuel to drive down what ever decency blacks once had – into the abyss where it is now.
Was it a success by LBJ’s standards?
“I’ll have those niggers voting Democratic for 200 years.”
You tell me.
Here’s another taste:
He reportedly referred to the Civil Rights Act of 1957 as the “nigger bill” in more than one private phone conversation with Senate colleagues. And he reportedly said upon appointing African-American judge Thurgood Marshall to the Supreme Court, “Son, when I appoint a nigger to the court, I want everyone to know he’s a nigger.”
This portends that MF LBJ breaking the lock on the box of Social Security, putting said funds into the General Fund and spending those funds on bullshit social programmes . His “Great Society” was nothing but a shill for giving money to his black constituency. We are still suffering today for his and his Dimorat friends in Congress that allowed this travesty to occur.
Republicans most certainly don’t vote against any of these abominations….even when they control the House, Senate, and the Presidency. Guns and butter isn’t just a democratic party thing.
in gross numbers, Honki’s receive majority of handouts
All we need to do to end poverty is give the poor people money, and it will go away. Ah, if it were only so simple. This is the tragedy of the War on Poverty. It removed incentives to work and keep families together, based on the premise that a government check could replace a father. Well, we all know what happened. Unwed births skyrocketed, with a large portion of black kids growing up without fathers. At the same time, these kids failed to learn the basic work ethic–that wealth is the result of creating a commodity, be it a good or service, that consumers desire. Teaching the basic work ethic, not a government check, is the only way to end poverty.