LBJ And The Great Society - January 1965
(LBJ in 1965 - Great plans, great ideas - eclipsed by Vietnam)
(Until we get back to normal, Newstalgia is reposting a series of articles on the Health Care issue, in case you missed them the first time around.)
When Lyndon Johnson gave his first State Of The Nation address on January 4, 1965 after winning the 1964 election, it was filled with hope and optimism. Every good idea and plan for the American people was on the boards and ready to go. Many of the programs were implemented - Medicare, The Civil Rights Bill, the War on Poverty - a lot of programs still in effect today.
LBJ: “We must open opportunity to all our people. Most Americans enjoy a good life. But far too many are still trapped in poverty and idleness and fear. Let a just nation throw open to them the city of promise. To the elderly, by providing hospital care under Social Security and by raising benefit payments to those struggling to maintain the dignity of their later years.”
But there was that one element which would eventually turn the focus from all the good programs to what had become one very bad idea: Vietnam.
By the end of 1965 our involvement went from "training and advisers for the South Vietnamese Army" to increased draft calls and escalating weekly casualty figures of our own. We were in it and we were stuck in it. And by the end of 1965 there looked like no turning back.
The domestic programs were great. The Great Society was a wonderful idea. It's often been said that, had there been no Vietnam, LBJ would have gone down in history as a truly progressive President. Vietnam would become the thorn in his side and his eventual downfall.
It's one of those quirks of history - the ones that often repeat.
... After 20 years of studying America's history of the 1960s, I still cannot settle on how I feel about LBJ. Caro's three-volume history (so far) was riveting for me - particularly the first two volumes. I thought the story of his decades long affair, and its dissolution over Vietnam served as an excellent allegory for LBJ's entire career. It is interesting to me that Caro's fourth volume (covering the Presidency) is nowhere to be seen. I wonder if he uncovered inconvenient truths, or perhaps if Lady Bird's turning against him spread to the LBJ library in general...
ahead.
Johnson was trapped by the very military-industrial complex Eisenhower warned about.
Industry wanted to sell weaponry, and the Pentagon was full of high-ranking officers who worked hand in glove with them to persuade LBJ to back a corrupt government in Saigon. Just substitute "Kabul" for "Saigon" and history repeats itself.
The Viet Cong, while they were led by communist cels and North Vietnamese officers were essentially a peasant revolt against an elite cadre of high-ranking thieves. They acted the way we would have after throwing off a colonial power onlyh to be replaced by another colonial power. I often wonder if the American involvement in Vietnam would have happened had we backed Ho Chi Mihn against the French in 1946.
Democratic Party progressive, Vietnam veteran and proud Union member for 41 years
I wonder what the count is of other movements...leftist with nationalist leaders that wanted to pull their people out of poverty that we branded as communist and had overthrown?
A study of the common denominator of communism might find that over a long period of time...the US could one day find itself at that doorstep.....
http://www.britannica.com/bps/additionalconte...
I've heard this elsewhere too. Eisenhower was the original proponent of the "domino theory". Supposedly, “Eisenhower recorded in his memoirs that he knew that if there had been genuine democratic elections in Vietnam in 1956, Ho Chi Minh would have won around 80 per cent of the vote. In order to avoid a wholly Communist Vietnam, the US had sponsored an artificial political creation, the state of South Vietnam.” .
So, Eisenhower, in the pursuit of preventing the spread of communism through the domino effect, prevented elections, and proceeded with "nation building" in South Vietnam. The situation deteriorated from there, but it was the escalation by Johnson that turned the policy into a catastrophe. Point is, there's a little more to it then feeding the military-industrial complex endless sums of money, although, that aspect is and continues to be an aggravating circumstance.
Actually, I have to question the premise of your question. You say " I often wonder if the American involvement in Vietnam would have happened had we backed Ho Chi Mihn against the French in 1946."
That assumes that there was some Vietnamese civil war between north and south that the US decided to "get involved" in. But sorry that's not true. Without US involvement there would have been no North and South Vietnam to begin with, the country would have been unified as just Vietnam as they were supposed to be following the Geneva peace treaty with the French. It was the US that created a puppet government in the South that led to the war in the first place.
I'll agree with you on the fact that the US government set up a puppet government in the South. But why would we, as a country that fought off the yoke of British colonialism, ever favor the colonial French over the native population of Vietnam?
One of the provisions we should have made clear to the French is that once the Japanese were routed from Southeast Asia, they would not be allowed to recolonize the area. We should not have supplied the French with military material after the war that they used against the peasants of Vietnam. Or, simply blockaded the French when they tried to return. Could have saved a lot of American lives later.
Essentially, as a Vietnam Veteran, I'm pissed off there are 50,000 names of friends on a wall that fought a war that France lost in 1954.
Democratic Party progressive, Vietnam veteran and proud Union member for 41 years
...that Obama's legacy will mirror that of Johnson. I heard the secret tapes of Lyndon Johnson where he stated over the phone that "no way are negroes going to vote for me" or something to that effect, I guess that it was his Texas background that made him think this way. I do think he was a progressive.
Another interesting side note about Johnson was his Silver Star. Awarded the second highest military honor awarded in WWII and perhaps the most undeserved as well. He literally rode along on a B-17 in the Pacific that was to make a bombing somewhere on New Guinea, I believe, and the plane ultimately turned back short of its target due to mechanical problems. I often thought of that in 2004 when John Kerry was running for President
Radix Omnium Malorum Avaritia
What secret tapes are you talking about? Just as with Kennedy LBJ counted on and got a lot of the black vote when he was elected president.
I was doing some research today to try to figure out when this years State of the Union speech would be and I came across this doozie:
Some TV networks have tentatively planned for a January 26th State of the Union.
When the White House announced they might move the date to February 2, many fans of the TV show "LOST" were angered because the premiere of the sixth and final season would fall on that same date, and ABC would have to delay it!!!! (Oh God!!!!!!!! No!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)
However, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs did assure reporters on January 8 that it would not coincide with the three-hour season premiere of "LOST".
Obama/Rahm/Gibbs: "Here Johnny and Mary...take your sucker and go watch your teevee show and STFU...umkay?"
It is thought that Obama wishes to delay the speech to give Congress more time to work on health care reform, something he wishes to highlight in the State of the Union.
(Of course, now that Scott Brown is breathing down Martha Coakley's neck in the polls, Obama and Rahm may have decided to just go with the Senate bill in its current form so that there need be no nasty "delays" while awaiting a new CBO scoring, which would be mandatory and could take WEEKS TO ACCOMPLISH, if the House were to "amend" the Senate bill in any way).
Might there be a RUSH RUSH vote before Tuesday's election.....just in case???
The Dems wouldn't want to take any "chances" that the Brown campaign (should he win Tuesday) might actually challenge any "foot dragging" on the part of the Mass. Secty. of State to "certify" the election in federal court....right?
Right.
Especially considering that the certifying of Massachusetts federal elections has already established a NASTY PRECEDENT of "fast tracking" the certifying of Congresswoman Tsongas' election within TWO DAYS so she could be sworn in and cast the deciding vote to override Bush's veto of the SCHIPS legislation.
Aw-oh.
Stay tuned....
To "Lost".....
(Oh....the irony.)
"The US has an army of 90,000 soldiers in Afghanistan and is spending $100bn a year, but has still been unable to defeat 20,000-25,000 Taliban who receive no pay at all." - Patrick Cockburn
The fact that Martha Coakley's staff could not take the time to proof read a campaign poster for correct spelling (especially of the very state she is to represent) shows that she is already taking the Mass voters for granted. Nothing like handing the right wing idiots an issue.
a few nights ago in D.C. (a sign of the coming times?):
http://gatewaypundit.firstthings.com/2010/01/...
She's thick as thieves with the rotten for-profit insurance corporations.....
OMG.
They think we're not paying attention???
Hello??!!!
"The US has an army of 90,000 soldiers in Afghanistan and is spending $100bn a year, but has still been unable to defeat 20,000-25,000 Taliban who receive no pay at all." - Patrick Cockburn
http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/01/15/massac...
“A Suffolk University/7 News poll released Thursday night indicates that 50 percent of likely voters back GOP state Sen. Scott Brown. Forty-six percent support state Attorney General Martha Coakley, the Democratic nominee.”
Coakley appears to be vulnerable at this point.
If Brown were to win on Tuesday it would look bad for the Democrats if they "dragged their feet" on certifying him in order to allow Kirk to cast the decisive "Yes" vote on Obamacare.
To side-step all of this, Pelosi and Reid could force the House to cave and allow the Senate bill to prevail. A vote could happen in the House and the Senate QUICKLY if no new CBO score would be required. (My understanding is that if the House collectively decides to "change" any current parameters of their bill that in order for the House and Senate bills to then be combined there would have to be a NEW CBO score WHICH COULD TAKE FROM 7-10 DAYS).
If the Democrats have to wait for 10 days for a new CBO score, that would put them at a DEAD LOCK with the newly elected and "certified" Republican Brown (should he prevail).
Brown would be ready for a Biden swearing in and would be prepared to cast a resounding "NO" vote on Obamacare.
For those of us who are "news junkies", this should prove to be one helluva very long next four days.....
This one could go, literally, "down to the wire".
(And all this goes without mentioning the whole Tsongas/fast-track precedent).
"The US has an army of 90,000 soldiers in Afghanistan and is spending $100bn a year, but has still been unable to defeat 20,000-25,000 Taliban who receive no pay at all." - Patrick Cockburn
First, Obama couldn't have taken "single payer" off the table without the cooperation of the corporate owned media. That eliminated any cost comparison between the single payer approach and the current proposals, ensuring that the American population remain the most price-gouged consumer of health services within all of the industrial countries.
So, Brown may win the election, on account that health reform is too expensive, which could impair the passage of the health care bill that establishes, for the first time, the entitlement of citizens to access health care. While the issue of paying for this entitlement could be addressed later, beyond the hyperbole, this election is a direct challenge to the concept that people should have access to health care. The "death" party would rather let the uninsured die, or at the very least, go bankrupt. So, I hope that the citizens of Massachusetts recognize the "less evil" when they go to the polls and vote for Coakley.
... I think that it *could* have been about access to healthcare and medicine. In some form.
Mandates forcing private insurance company enrollment with virtually non-existent price controls or oversight, even with a "limited enrollment" "public option" which would be run by the same thicket of thieves, isn't access to healthcare or medicine.
This is about effective subsidy to the insurance industry and pharma, plain and simple.
If the progressives in Congress would grow a pair and decide that they wanted something which would actually *do* something, as opposed to just looking nice, this might do something. Cutting healthcare costs isn't going to do *anything* if we don't get rid of the huge money-suck that is the insurance industry.
(The only exception to this is the FQHC funding. They're doing good work, and I don't want to detract from that. But it's like feeding someone a pie made out of feces and telling them it's fine because they put some frosting on it.)
It doesn't really matter who wins in Mass, believe it or not... There's still morons like Lieberman who will block anything they don't like, and leadership can't strip away the 60-vote supermajority in the Senate. Nothing is going to get passed that doesn't suck, get used to it.
I wish.
Remember when LBJ signed the civil right bill he said "The democrats have lost the south for a generation" or something very close to that. Little did he know that is would be more than 2 generations and probably more than 3. The thing is there have not been many, if any, politicians who were/are willing to lay their career on the line (even though LBJ surely figured this was the last stop for his career bus) do do what was
rightcorrect. It sure would be nice to have a few of them right now. Who cares if they win the next election as long as they do the correct thing now.Absolutely correct. But how many are more concerned about how history will remember them instead of what they will be thought of tomorrow?
Precious few.
Radix Omnium Malorum Avaritia
Too bad LBJ didn't have the balls to take on the military . I think he figured he sold his soul and that is why he didn't run in 68. He probably thought they would kill him and after Martin and Bobby he was probably correct.
you're right - Lyndon was likely told...'do what you're told and remember Jack.' I think we could call him 'progressive', though, he did usher an era of social programs and civil rights legislation that have changed the course of this country. At least for a few decades.
I kind of liked LBJ, seemed sort of grandfatherly to me (I was in high school at the time), and he was very reassuring after Kennedy was killed.
"Egotism is the anesthetic that dulls the pain of Stupidity" - Frank Leahy
I just don't buy it. Stone's JFK was, to quote Sam Kashner, "a bouillabase of conspiracy theories" that sensationalized the tragedy. I was a colleague of Rex Bradford. Someone who is considered by many to be an authority on the Kennedy assassination. He is a font of information. Fantastic guy. Nevertheless, after hearing and reading many theories, after digesting a lot of assertions - some compelling and some outright crazy (read The Illuminoids by Neil Wilgus...hilarious!) - I have to defer to Occam's Razor. The implication that LBJ did what he did because he had some sword of Damocles hanging over him is specious and probably impossible to prove.
LBJ was a flawed and conflicted figure. Like any human, he made good and bad decisions. But there were initiatives he put in motion that set us on a path to a more egalitarian society. I think his legacy will always be one of mixed results. But everything I've learned tells me that the good that he accomplished outweighs the bad.
Occam's Razor is usually for pseudo-intellects.
Hence almost never used correctly.
LBJ fronted Ike's MIC and those Texans do not play. Nor the CIA re: 41 and 43
your name's Lebowski, Lebowski... and your wife is Bunny
Ad hominems are a poor substitutes for opposing arguments. If you disagree with my post then debate the substance of the post. But if you just want to insult my intelligence please do it directly. Occam's Razor may be for pseudo-intellects, but passive-aggressive dismissiveness is for pussies.
So do you have something to say to my face, or are we going to drop the matter and play nice?
whereas my post in-between is merely a stoner perspective on lost american ideals
i didn't like that he dissed you. did you see that he dissed you? Hey, he dissed you. Yeah, you saw...
your name's Lebowski, Lebowski... and your wife is Bunny
when one shaves with an occams razor?
EOM
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/archives/ar...
Bill Moyers had a show, I believe the Nov 20th, that had the tapes relating to LBJ's phone discussions regarding the Vietnam war. The tapes seemed to indicate that LBJ was reacting in part, to the goading of Nixon and Goldwater to escalate the war. I archived that episode.
LBJ kept the CIA from starting a nuclear war by diverting their plan to blame the assasination of JKF on Russia and Cuba. He did this without telling the country the truth about anything. Many with power in the military-industrial complex set up a coup in Viet Nam to push this country into the Viet Nam war, LBJ knew this, did not tell us, and continued with it. Perhaps he was afraid they would kill him, too. Some believe he was in on JFK's assasination, I don't know. He directed the Warren commisssion to come to the lone gunman conclusion to prevent a nuclear war, using a lie for control instead of the truth. It is very hard to know how to feel about LBJ.
The History Channel Aired a Program that Implicated Johnson to JFK Assesination to the point that was banned from TV and only aired once.
TMWKK, The Final Chapter, ep.9 The Guilty Men, seg.1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eaWUcyjAeIk&fe...
You can see the rest of segments.
I believe he was a "Crook Liberal"
NEVER, EVER, rely on the history channel for the truth about history.
statusquObama, change you can only pretend in
On any Source of Information BUT i ALWAYS,ALWAYS Listen to what ALL Parts have to say and what they say in all segments(If you let them play one by one, Probably Not)they have a point.
In any case every time i smell COVER UP i have my doubts.
What about Jim Garrison?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1zcEelhzzUg
By the way They got it right on the Anthrax Letters.
We would hope to find some source of information to be reliable.
If possible, multiple sources of fact, from which to draw a conclusion.
What those sources should be is the continuing question.
I start with caution. I start with questions, many times they are not satisfactorily answered.
I believe that Johnson was a fully conflicted politician who did considerable good with the second coming of the New Deal type politics finally addressing Civil Rights, something that was missing previously.
Also missing from the New Deal was Corporate/Government integration of the MICC. Which brought us Vietnam.
Put another way, the MICC was the antithesis of the New Deal.
The two disparate areas made for a very complicated situation, Johnson was a complicated person.
To call him a 'Crook Liberal', I am not sure where that gets us.
I am not going to rely on Television programs for history, other than as a rendering of a script done in a commercial medium.
In fact I stay away from Television altogether, I know a little too much of the background scenery to ever trust it. It is not, that there are never threads of truth, but the potential for conflicts of interest is too great.
I prefer hard copy in the form of books and essays.
If you can direct my attention in those directions I would be appreciative.
statusquObama, change you can only pretend in
The whole video you will see One by One credible witnesses.
These are Alive Witnesses on the Record.
Some saying he was at Murchison' house the day before the Murder and the Parties that took place after in that same House.
Some saying:
He also called the Hospital were LH Oswald was being treated and told them Doctors “Take a Death Confession of the presumed Murderer”
as being all that incriminating. Hoover was telling LBJ that Oswald was the lone assassin and its not at all surprising he would want to get a statement from the guy before he died.
As I recall virtually all the testimony about the secret party where everyone from Nixon to Hoover to JBJ plotted the hit on JFK was based on some woman of questionable credibility who claimed she was LBJ's mistress and was selling her memoirs.
BTW, I believe there was a conspiracy to kill JFK, just never thought the LBJ participation was convincingly proven. Could be but I doubt it. For one thing LBJ seemed to be definitely kind of freaked out the day it happen, via testimony from multiple credible sources. For another would you want to be behind a car that you knew was going to get caught in a cross fire by at least two guys with high power rifles?
If you watch it again (It will play one segment after the other automatically) you will see many more than one witness.
Again, this is from memory but the first time I saw it, it didn't pass my sniff test for conspiracy theories. Real conspiracies require compartmentalization and plausible deniability. The people at the top probably don't know the actual dates or places where the assasination is going to happen. So the idea of all these high level people getting together in Dallas as if LBJ was plotting out where the various gun men would be and providing them with rifles from his ranch just doesn't intuitively make much sense to me.
There was a recent book called something like JFK why he was killed and why it mattered that had very credible stories about hits that were planned in Chicago and Miami as well so the whole idea that it was always going to be in Dallas doesn't seem credible. But like I said not doing much today maybe I'll take another look at the video.
On this topic you can find it here :
http://www.jfkmurdersolved.com/index1.htm
I don't buy him (LBJ) taking nice pictures with Jackqueline K.
The pass of LBJ have many dart spots
Sorry if some folks here, love him but i don't like "No matter what" people.
Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it. America gets an F in history.
Republicans are liars and simply cannot be trusted.
Will they look back on Dubya and Obama in 40 years and say, "Hey, those guys weren't so bad"? Life can really bite you in the ass. Who would have thought it of Lyin' B Johnson and Tricky Dickey?
Google those names in relation to LBJ and you'll get a picture of what he really was. His civil rights initiatives were attempts at absolution, historically and personally.
LBJ had to spend a huge amount of political capital to get the Civil Rights Act passed, and in particular he had to give the southern bigots a long-term commitment in Vietnam. They were not only racists, they were terrified of Communism, and convinced that the world would end if the Viet Cong took over Vietnam. LBJ also thought that to some extent, I think, but he after the passage of the Civil Rights Act he was locked in to fighting in southeast Asia, whether he wanted to or not.
Nobody other than LBJ could have passed the Civil Rights Act at that time - nobody. He had the clout and he had the political savvy, and he had the will, which nobody else had. Kennedy didn't have the clout, particularly in the south, where he was hated and mocked. I'm not sure he had the will, either. LBJ got it done, but at a terrible cost.
I agree LBJ deserves the credit but you can't forget that the reason he had so much political capital was because JFK had been killed so recently and JFK was so closely identified with civil rights. And if you read a biography of JFK his stance on civil rights evolved, he was trying to work for them but also was concerned about losing the south and winning the next election. It was only after the violence in the south and the pleas and example from MLK that JFK came out unequivocally with his speech on civil rights that stopped talking about it as something that needed to be done some time and as a moral imperative. If JFK hadn't come out so strongly for civil rights and then been killed LBJ probably wouldn't have been able to get it passed.
LBJ had the political capital because he had been Senate Majority Leader, and had been in Congress for decades, thus he knew everyone and had markers everywhere, which he could call at will. In the south, Kennedy got no respect, and his assassination caused no mourning there. LBJ had to twist many southern arms to get it passed, and got no good will at all from Kennedy's memory. I still remember how much Kennedy was disliked in Texas and the rest of the south.
Tell that to the 2,000,000 Vietnamese who were killed, who were the targets of 9,000,000 tons of bombs and 48,000,000 liters of dioxin (agent orange) by a warmongering empire that invaded a small agrarian sovereign nation state that was in the midst of a civil war. A quirk??? Pure psychosis.
"Secular humanism -- a fearless, realistic world view replete with doubt and scepticism that attempts to attain an unachievable state of equilibrium between and among the human qualities of reason, intuition, imagination, memory, ethics and common sense.
I agree with everything you said except saying Vietnam was "in the midst of a civil war" makes it sound like the US decided to intervene in an ongoing conflict. Not true. Without US intervention there never would have been a war. Vietnam would have been unified after the Geneva peace accord that ended their war with the French. It was the US (CIA) that CREATED South Vietnam as an independent country with a government that was a US puppet from the very begining.
It was a colonial occupation by the French whose influence was greatest in the South.
The first Indochina war, between the French and the Vietnamese forces for independence began after the Japanese defeat in 1945.
After 1949 with the success of Mao the US began bankrolling the French.
The French were finally defeated and the peace accords of Geneva set about the terms for unification afterwards.
The US via its puppets didn't go along and took over from the French.
It was a anti-colonial war of liberation. Calling it a civil war misses the larger point but it is not completely inaccurate, except that the civil elements the US supported were not independent.
We not long afterwards set about with the second Indochina war.
statusquObama, change you can only pretend in
"...had there been no Vietnam, LBJ would have gone down in history as a truly progressive President."
And Hitler really made the trains run on time.
If it weren't for that holocaust...
Goodwin's law.
It was Mussolini who made trains run on time.
statusquObama, change you can only pretend in
I believe that law was named for Godwin, not Goodwin.
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