LBJ
Originally published at Asylum (........transcendental maggot........). Please leave any comments there.
We got to talk about one of my favorite historical figures today: Lyndon B. Johnson.
I don’t know why, but he is one of the most forgotten president’s in recent history. People don’t give him enough credit for what he accomplished. Lyndon B. Johnson is just a hazy figure between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon. We hear so, so much about those two, but all we hear about Lyndon was that he led us into the Vietnam War (ignore, of course, that every president since Roosevelt had increased American presence and participation in Vietnam). Johnson made a mistake. A BIG mistake. Because of him not wanting to be the President to lose the Vietnam War, he ended up killing a lot of boys. The Vietnam war was sort of the event that really humbled America; it knocked us down from the pedestal we had put ourselves on after two successful wars and affluence.
It wasn’t Kennedy who passed the Civil Rights Act or the Voting Rights Act. True, he messed up when he decided to support both his Great Society and the Vietnam War, but I sincerely believe that underneath his boorish and self-gratifying persona was a man who did genuinely want to do something GOOD. LBJ started Head Start. Those are only three pieces of a very large series of legislative accomplishments.
Unfortunately, most of what LBJ did turned out for nothing. Some had modest success, some had to be completely cut (Community Action, for one), and some where later revoked by successive Presidents. I do agree, too, that some of Lyndon’s programs (loosely Affirmative Action) encouraged a welfare state. I think so.
But, I still think that it’s a shame we overlook him as one of the greatest Presidents.
And for you:
Tom Paxton- Lyndon Johnson Told the Nation <- Anti-War/Anti-LBJ protest song set during Vietnam war