By William Haupt III
The only thing great about LBJ's Great Society was to further drive a greater wedge between our races by scourging punishment upon all ethical middle class Americans." (Walden Thomas)
Fifty years ago Lyndon B. Johnson (LBJ) gave his infamous "Great Society" speech that ushered in his massive system of government outreach programs.
With focus on a "War on Poverty," he claimed his improved Great Society would "totally transform America" into a liberal utopian land of equality.
He launched a myriad of non-means-tested welfare programs, including Medicaid, federal housing, Head Start, and other schemes to metamorphose his growing flock.
But we found out quickly, free is not free when DC gifts it.
To stimulate equal opportunity for minorities and those in lower-income communities, he manufactured a permanent American subculture dependent on Federal spending at the expense of the middle class.
Today there is more social and cultural disarray in our country than when LJB took office.
Johnson's formula to prevent poverty and promote equality with federal spending showed America:
"I (don't) have the power to make America a Great Society." (LBJ)
President Johnson presided over the most aggressive progressive platform America has seen since President Franklin D. Roosevelt's reign.
Johnson's liberal logic was to enlarge the size of the economic pie with social engineering and cultural manipulation where everyone would gain from federal intervention and increased regulation. He confusedly believed that if income grew without change in relative shares, there would be no increase in equality.
His chameleon party felt only government could emancipate those who had been chasing the elusive bluebird of equality that America had been seeking for years. He bamboozled America into believing his plan was, not to divide and conquer, but to bridge the wedges of inequality sanctioned by Republican governments for years.
"We have the opportunity to move not only toward the rich society and the powerful society, but upward to the Great Society." (LBJ)
In his first State of the Union Address, Johnson promised "no increase in spending" to gain progressive momentum and move the Democratic Party's narcissistic calendar forward. He captivated most minority and special interest groups around the US, declaring he planned to give gratuities to everyone.
Each time he needed to corral more gullible voters into his stable, he appealed to a specific subdivision of American society. At the height of his reform antics, he trumpeted, "Let's do more for civil rights than Congress has done the last hundred years." He went on, ''Let's create schools and jobs for everyone. Let's care for the elderly, and let's increase affluence of the middle-class." Yes indeed he had something for everyone. Even though they only wanted a hand up, he gave them a hand out.
"It is the genius of our Constitution that under its shelter of enduring institutions and rooted principles there is ample room for the rich fertility of American political invention." (LBJ)
America was a segregated country when LBJ inherited the throne from John F. Kennedy. The history of why such segregation existed has been re-written to hide the fact that the Democratic Party is at the root of that discrimination. Democrats fought to keep blacks in slavery, passed Jim Crow laws and fought against civil rights legislation from the 1860s to the 1960s that were pushed by Republicans. For details see the article "The Republican Party is The Party of Civil Rights."
Notably, after passage of the landmark 1964 Civil Rights Act championed by Republican Senator Everett Dirksen, LBJ signed that law and proudly announced this meant "equality for all." His action and statement comforted a nation that was licking the wounds of centuries of discrimination and segregation.
However, LBJ thought that integration was not the answer to combat decades of segregation. Instead he supported the progressive quest to destroy all existing Americans institutions as the path forward. His destructive beliefs caused confusion and, before long, Americans learned LBJ would detour them down a backward road to insecurity and subculture government dependence.
LBJ did not understand that evoking his sinister equality schemes throughout America would eventually lead to the rejection of the progressive agenda by average Americans and turning the South red.
The only remaining transmigration is the rejection by minorities of the Democratic Party's destructive progressive agenda that has trapped them in poverty.
Since the election of LBJ, the GOP has not once carried the majority of the black vote. For years, Republican efforts to reach out to black voters have been thwarted by Democrats who have not only rewritten civil rights history to falsely accuse Republicans of racism, but also brainwashed them into believing that big government is the messiah.
LBJ bought the black vote when he decreed:
"These Negroes, they're getting pretty uppity these days and that's a problem for us since they've got something now they never had before, the political pull to back up their uppityness. Now, we've got to do something about this; we've got to give them a little something, just enough to quiet them down, not enough to make a difference." (LBJ)
That's why Obama reincarnated LBJ's failed "Great Society."
Obama was reared by radical far left activists who taught him that elusive false promises made to minority groups to provide for them would cement their allegiance to the lefty Democrats for years.
In his book "Dreams from My Father," Obama described what he and other Democrats do to poor blacks as "plantation politics."
In his eight years of office, Obama transgressed America back to the days of both LBJ and FDR, his fellow progressive, by seizing every opportunity to undermine allegiance to America in favor of reliance on the Democratic Party.
"I have become a symbol of the possibility of America returning to our best traditions." (Barack Obama)
Obama's sentiment is a cleaned-up version of what LBJ expressed to a group of supporters:
"If you can convince the lowest white man that he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll even empty his pockets for you." (LBJ)
