Tearing Apart the Great Society

 

Who else remembers Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society? I was 8 when President Johnson was sworn in after President Kennedy was assassinated. I was 13 when Johnson decided not to run for re-election. Although he accomplished a great deal, he was most connected to the Viet Nam war.

After JFK was assassinated, Johnson was determined to carry out programs Kennedy had wanted to get off the ground. In 1964, Johnson announced the beginning of The Great Society. New and revolutionary programs need creative names, like The New Deal during FDR’s administration.

Johnson had a lot of experience and power. He’d been the Senate Majority leader before becoming JFK’s Vice President. He knew how to negotiate with or strong-arm opponents into voting for sweeping social reforms.

I was busy being a little kid and then an insecure teenager during the Great Society. I didn’t really become aware of what was going on in the country until Rev. Martin Luther King and then Senator Bobby Kennedy were both gunned down and assassinated.

Here is what was created or passed during the Great Society:

Civil Rights Act

Voting Rights Act

Job Corps (as part of the War on Poverty)

Affirmative Action

Medicare/Medicaid

Head Start

Elementary/Secondary Education Act

Housing and Urban Development Act

National Endowment for the Humanities/Arts

Water Quality Act

Consumer Product Safety Commission

Child Safety Act

Immigration & Naturalization Act

I’m sure I haven’t listed all of Johnson’s accomplishments. He was a better President than he gets credit for because of his ability to get so much done.

The Great Society was meant to make lives better for people, especially those marginalized or living in poverty. Of course, Republicans hated it.

By the time Johnson left office and Nixon was voted in, I had begun following the news more closely. However, I didn’t see that, behind the scenes, Nixon and his party began working to tear the Great Society down. Nixon found favor with Judge William Lewis Powell.

Why?

Powell was irritated with activist Ralph Nader. I totally remember Nader. He was the activist lawyer that labored for consumer protection rights. He went after the auto industry’s poor safety record. I remember news stories focusing on his exposure of the Ford Pinto’s danger issues. Nader was instrumental in the National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act passed in 1966.

Powell saw Nader’s successes and the formation of Nader’s Raiders to fight consumer safety issues with other corporations as a dangerous path to (gasp!) socialism. So, Powell wrote a memo. I have read articles that Powell’s memo is a blueprint for conservatives to infiltrate political offices, local, state, and federal with people who would work to take down Great Society social reforms. Ultimately, the strategy would be to place conservatives on the Supreme Court which could sway and undo all of these acts and programs.

It was to be a long game. It would take years to accomplish.

The Powell memo went from the Dept of Commerce to President Nixon’s desk. Nixon was most favorably impressed. He nominated William Lewis Powell to the Supreme Court in 1971, not too long after Powell had written that memo.  That was a bare blip registering with me that fall of my junior year in high school, but it was the beginning of the long game to upend democracy in favor of some kind of conservative right-wing rule.

Now fast forward 40-50 years. We have an ultra-right-wing corrupt majority on the Supreme Court. The Civil Rights Act of 1965 was eviscerated, making it harder AGAIN for people of color to vote. The Court has made decisions to weaken the Water Quality Act in favor of corporations.

Most recently, the court overturned affirmative action in college admissions. That’s probably going to lead to the same thing when it comes to employment.

The Court and Rethuglicans in Congress are bound and determined to gut any and all of the programs that would benefit “regular” people—people like you and me. Cases in point: forced changes to the SNAP (food stamps) and WIC programs that would make it more difficult for low-income people to feed themselves and their children.  Think of it: Rethuglicans are okay with hungry children.

We know that Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are the number one targets of the thugs in power. They are waiting breathlessly for the first opportunity to do make seniors and the disabled suffer more than they already do.

Democracy hangs on by a thread.

President Biden is making headway trying to reverse the Rethuglican machinations of the last 40-50 years. Sadly, he gets little credit and continues to suffer a low approval rate.

Thanks to President Biden’s efforts to rebuild the middle class, unemployment has gone down, new jobs are being created every month, and the economy is better. We haven’t gone into a period of inflation. I don’t understand why half the country has a poor opinion of Biden.

Helpful accomplishments:

Lower the cost of prescriptions, especially for Medicare/Medicaid recipients.

Inflation Reduction Act, a broad program that addresses climate change, credits, and incentives for companies to develop energy-saving products, financing for homeowners to switch to more environmentally friendly sources of heating/air conditioning/electricity, infrastructure (repairing roads & bridges)

Gun safety—doesn’t go far enough but it’s a start. It does provide funding for mental health.

An attempt to cancel the horrendous student debt. I call it an attempt because, of course, the conservatives are yelling and screaming and challenging it in courts. I believe it’s a case before the Supreme Court now.

The CHIPS Act will encourage growth in American companies.

American Rescue Act, which provided stimulus checks to everyone suffering from the covid pandemic and quarantine. It also provided funds to help stimulate the economy, and it worked.

Veterans from the wars in Afghanistan and Iran suffered side effects from the burn pits. Rethuglicans didn’t care to help with the vets’ health issues resulting from the burn pits. The PACT Act helps vets get the care they need.

When SCOTUS overturned Roe v. Wade, other fundamental rights could be endangered. So, President Biden signed the Respect for Marriage Act into law. It protects same-sex and interracial marriages, which was a possible next target.

Bidenomics: a total rejection of Reaganomics (the trickle-down strategy that only benefits corporations. Nothing ever trickles down to the people who need it)

These are just a few of what President Biden has managed to get done in spite of strong opposition from the Rethuglicans. Biden negotiates for what he wants and has been successful. Yet, he is denigrated and put down because of his age, never mind the fact that Congress and 2024 presidential candidates are close in age.

President Biden is trying to uphold the vision of the Great Society.

Why does half the country think it puts us in the wrong direction? These are people who would benefit from these programs. They vote against their own best interests, supporting greedy and criminal white men who are interested only in giving tax cuts to the rich. I just don’t get it.

Do we want to go down the road of fascism and suppression, where the 1% live in luxury and the middle class continues to disintegrate? Or do we want to save the Great Society? I think we Democrats need to become a lot more vocal and drown out Rethuglican noise. And we need to vote, vote, vote.

 

 

 

 

Day 5: Numb

Day Five

 

I am feeling uncomfortably numb today. It hasn’t anything to do with the hectic schedule I’ve had all week. It has to do with the daily news.

The ridiculous Battle of the Budget continues to drag on.

Two-thirds of SCOTUS is corrupt, and no one is doing anything about it. The proper person to begin to act would be Senate Judiciary Committee chairperson Dick Durbin, but he seems paralyzed. Crooked Media helpfully provided his phone number.

We must worry about going to school, to the store, to a church or synagogue, to a concert, to a club, and now to our front yard. Neighbors had the NERVE to ask a man to stop shooting his gun off outdoors in the middle of the night because it was waking the baby. The neighbor paid back this insult by invading the house and killing nearly everyone in the family with a gunshot to the head.

So much for asking a neighbor to turn down the music. Now we must worry about that too because, of course, no one is going to do a damn thing to stop the gun violence.

Rethuglican legislatures across the country continue to put the lives of trans/LGBTQ kids and adults at risk with their outrageous so-called ‘protect the kids’ laws. Not only that, but they also continue to put the lives of pregnant women in danger with their strict abortion laws.  Doctors are afraid to intervene and perform an abortion even when the woman’s life is at risk. This morning I read an article about obstetricians wanting to leave Idaho and about two of their hospitals shutting down obstetrical/maternity care.

It's obvious they want to keep their voters and future voters ignorant and stupid with the book banning and restrictions on what can and cannot be taught. Here’s a link to a study showing how poorly students are doing in their knowledge of civics and history. Yes, let’s keep everyone stupid and voting for Rethuglicans like lemmings falling over a cliff.

Their other plot to get rid of us god-awful liberals and Democrats is to have us thrown out of legislative bodies for disagreeing and for limiting where, when how and how old we can be to vote.  Rethuglicans are scared to death of Gen Z, powerful young people who THINK and ACT with their votes.

So why am I feeling numb? It’s overwhelming. It’s too much. My heart breaks when there are needless deaths due to gun violence. I get angry at Rethuglicans’ evil shenanigans. I am outraged when I read about women who nearly die trying to get decent obstetrical care to save their lives.  I am frustrated about having to wonder whether I’ll get shot if I ask my neighbor to stop driving so damn fast down our street.

I am numb because there’s only so much, I can take before my brain steps in and says: enough.  Time to detach.  Time to turn off the emotions.  Time to not care for a while.

I must do it to save my sanity and my physical health.

I am participating in the American Cancer Society’s challenge to write for thirty minutes each day in May. I do a lot of writing and I can meet this challenge. What I plan to do is make a blog entry each day with what I’ve written.

I wanted to participate in memory of loved ones who fought cancer bravely but succumbed:

My brother-in-law Jeff

My sister-in-law Ann

My dear friend Kay

My Uncle Bob

My Uncle John

I also wanted to help raise money to support research and a cure for all those who are currently fighting this vicious disease.

My Facebook to the fundraiser is here.

 

When did Missouri become part of Iran or the Taliban?

It's not just Missouri. This has been happening over the past year in the red states. Fascism. Control of anyone not a white male Protestant.

Focusing just on the Missouri House for a moment, there is a new dress attire just for women. I don’t think it has become the rule yet, but it was proposed that female legislators would have to make sure their arms are covered. I mean, WTAF? Women must be controlled and not allowed to make choices in dress for themselves now.  This is still the United States, right? Well, for white misogynistic men, but wait! A woman introduced this. Now my mind is truly blown.

This was the total rotten cherry on top of toxic icing on a poisonous cake called GQP Gone Wild.

Look at all the red states that have restricted or outlawed a woman’s right to choose. They were champing at the bit to do it even before the corrupt Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. I just read a heart-breaking story of a pregnant mother who, learning that her baby was going to be born without a skull, was told she could not end the pregnancy. She was sent home to endure a heart-breaking pregnancy and to bid her baby goodbye at birth because he or she would either be born dead or die within minutes.  She’s not the only one that has to endure a pregnancy with the outcome of delivering a dead or dying baby. It’s cruel and inhuman.

And what about the mothers who begin to miscarry, but it’s not completed? In these red states, doctors’ hands are tied, and they are unable to help these mothers. Many of them develop life threatening complications and the doctors are still not supposed to intervene. Inhuman. Cruel.

Then there are the women and children who are raped and are now forced to carry their rapist’s child. Nowadays, said rapist can sue for visitation. That adds insult to injury.

“It’s a man’s world.” That’s the Rethuglican point of view. We are stuck with them for the next two years.

It isn’t only women the Rethuglicans seek to oppress. It’s also children, people of color, members of the LGBTQ community, non-White-Anglo-Saxon-Protestants, the elderly, and the physically/mentally challenged.

Children? They are being denied correct knowledge. They are forbidden to learn the country’s true history. This is ridiculous and pathetic: Gov. Ron DeSantis of FL had math books scoured for anything that might remotely be related to CRT. CRT isn’t taught in any public school anywhere in the country, yet Rethuglicans yell and scream about it all the time. Death Santis proudly proclaims that CRT comes to Florida to die.

Not just Florida. In Ohio, a third-grade teacher was reading Dr. Seuss' book The Sneetches to her class. Do you remember that story? The star-bellied Sneetches were elite. They got the best of everything and looked down their noses at the plain bellied Sneetches. The two groups were the same except for the stars. Plain bellied Sneetches suffered bigotry and discrimination from their star bellied brothers and sisters.

And so, the plain bellied Sneetches began to wear stars on their bellies so that they could be treated equally, with respect. Did that happen? No, the star bellied Sneetches had theirs removed and continued to ostracize the others. A gentle lesson in what racism can do.

One of the little ones figured it out. He raised his hand and when called on, saw this is how the white people were treating the Black people. This kid was astute and totally right on. If only his little mind continues to expand with exposure to books like this and classes taught with true history, not whitewashed, he would grow into an open-minded young man.

But no. There was a school district official sitting there, and now she jumped up and stopped the discussion. What was she afraid those kids would learn from an open discussion? Her excuse for stopping the discussion was because the teacher was supposed to focus on the economics in the story. Who decided economics and racism couldn’t be discussed together? I think the students of Ohio are about to be as cheated as the ones in Florida and the other red states that moved to have any discussion of slavery, Jim Crow, Japanese internment, and so many other topics removed from school curriculums.

That’s not what America’s about. Presidents from Abraham Lincoln to John Kennedy to President Joe Biden have emphasized the importance of a quality education. But the Rethuglicans would like to keep everyone stupid and swallowing their Kool-Aid. Now the GQP-Rethuglicans are running the House.

In addition to some of the most ridiculous posturing and vindictive bills they’ve been introducing (which won’t pass the Senate or President Biden and so are wasting time), they have no legislative agenda other than to force the US to the brink of defaulting. Why would they do that? They want to extort the Senate and President so that they can make massive cuts into Social Securityand Medicare.

It doesn’t matter that those dependent on Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security can barely support themselves. It doesn’t matter that they want to take away money we’ve been putting into the system for years and years. It doesn’t matter that seniors already are on the verge of losing their homes because prices have gone so high, they have to decide between paying the rent or mortgage or food. The gas and electric bill or prescriptions. Once again, it’s cruel and inhuman.

I feel a heavy weight on me. Every day the news is full of just awful stories. If it’s not this, it’s about the corrupt tRump, unscathed and living the life of Riley, thumbing his nose at justice. It’s more white cops killing more innocent black men. 2023 seems to be a continuation of 2022, a year filled with GQP evil. Now I must go lie down and pull the covers over my head.