Lyndon B. Johnson: 1908 – 1973
“The Great Society”
The presidency of Lyndon B Johnson marks the second phase of the United States Government’s participation in the construction of “The Machine”. During the Cold War, when Communism was the most feared force of evil to approach mankind, Lyndon B. Johnson would push huge measures to bring this most fear evil onto our shores.
During Lyndon B Johnson’s political career he was able to witness many horrible atrocities of Stalin, Hitler, Mao Zedong, Khrushchev, Castro, and Ho Chi Minh. Instead of fighting the spread of Communism in the East and even off the coast of Florida, Johnson simply saw the spread as a political thorn. As noted in Joshua Zeitz’s article in American Heritage Magazine “1964 The Year the Sixties Began”, Johnson states his political scorn.
“I knew from the start that I was bound to be crucified either way I moved. If I left the woman I really loved-the Great Society-in order to get involved in that bitch of a war on the other side of the world, then I would lose everything at home. All my programs…. But if I left that war and let the Communists take over South Vietnam, then I would be seen as a coward and my nation would be seen as an appeaser and we would both find it impossible to accomplish anything for anybody anywhere on the entire globe.”
”Great Society”
Johnson’s prize and claim to fame is the launching of a series of Socialist programs under the name “The Great Society”. I would not argue the need for some of these programs because I do feel that they do supply some relevance and importance to protecting Americans legitimately. I will however say that many of the programs were seeds to further government expansion, usurpation, fraud, and abuse. One of the most important and legitimate programs implemented was the civil rights programs. When the public was extremely sensitive to the changes in civil rights concerns with leaders like Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, and his predecessor John F Kennedy vocalizing the need for legitimate solutions to racism, Johnson saw this feature of his plan as the flagship to launch a fundamental change to America’s future.
1. War on Poverty
Economic Opportunity of 1964– Some of the programs that were started under this legislature are the Job Corps, Neighborhood Youth Corps, Volunteers in Service to America, Peace Corps, Model Cities Program, Upward Bound, Food Stamps, Community Action Program, and Project Head Start.
2. Education
Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 – This act greatly increased public school funding.
Higher Education Act of 1965 – This act increased funding to universities in way of scholarships and low interest loans for students. It also created the National Teachers Corps.
3. Arts and Cultural Institutions
National Foundation on the Arts and Humanities Act of 1965 – This act created the National Endowments for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities.
4. Healthcare
Social Security Act of 1965 – This act created Medicare and Medicaid.
5. Public broadcasting
The Public Broadcasting Act of 1967 – Created the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) and the Public Broadcasting System (PBS). Both are federally funded. Later National Public Broadcasting (NPR) would be created.
6. Transportation
Urban Mass Transportation Act of 1964 - This act funded large scale urban public and private rail projects. This act created the Department of Transportation and the Federal Transit Administration.
National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act of 1966 – This act set up National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and introduced regulatory standards for automobiles to protect public safety.
7. Environment
Wilderness Act of 1964 – This act created the The National Wilderness Preservation System protecting 9 million acres of federal land.
Endangered Species Preservation Act of 1966 – This act set up the National Wildlife Refuge System in order to protect endangered species.
National Trails System Act of 1968 – This act created the National Trails System which recognized and protected historic resources around the country.
Wild and Scenic Rivers Act of 1968 – This act established the National Wild and Scenic Rivers System which was meant to preserve scenic, recreational, geologic, fish and wildlife, historic, and cultural assets in the country.
Solid Waste Disposal Act of 1965 – This act established regulations concerning underground storage tanks, landfills, incinerators and other disposal systems.
Motor Vehicle Air Pollution Control Act of 1965 – This act amended the Clean Air Act of 1963. The amendment would set vehicle emissions standards for the first time. It set to reduce hydrocarbons by 72%, carbon monoxide by 56%, and crankcase hydrocarbons completely in all automobiles created after 1968.
National Historic Preservation Act of 1966 – This act would preserve archaeological sites around the country.
Aircraft Noise Abatement Act of 1968 – This act would limit the public from aircraft noise levels over 90 decibels.
National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 – This act set up the environmental standards for all government agencies.
What must be communicated with this post is the understanding of government’s process of implementing long term usurpation of liberty. All of these programs at face value seem to be legitimate and needed. What many Americans fail to realize is that many of these programs fail to address the problems that it wishes to fix. It destroyed the Great Society and did so with the vehicle of Socialism.
One of the biggest failures of Johnson’s policies was that of the War on Poverty. This plan has been a dismal effort and a complete economic failure as it has only reduced poverty by only .4% from 1966 to 2005 show in this government census report.
This chart from the report shows the dismal effects on the poverty rate.
What is also interesting is the dismal effects on dropout rates. This PDF shows a gradual decrease of drop out rates where the education program was supposed to eliminate it. 12th grade dropouts actually got significantly worse. What is interesting is the average SAT reading and math scores since 1972.
While the math scores have improved slightly, the reading scores have gradually fallen. It is also hard to miss the plummet from Lyndon Johnson’s plan implementation to the end of Jimmy Carter’s presidency. You will also see a dip during George W Bush’s presidency with his program, “No Child Left Behind” program. The Washington Post even wrote an article about the extreme dip in SAT scores.
The sole intention of the education system is to bring our youth into society in a responsible, self sufficient, moral and ethical way to propagate the prosperity of America. In a collection of FBI reports since 1960 to 2008, crimes have increased from 3,384,200 in 1960 to 11,149,927 in 2008. See them here. If you research the same reports from the Justice department you will notice a significant contradiction. You would think that these two agencies would be on the same page.
This is a very interesting statistic from ed.gov that shows the inefficiency of the education system.
As you can see, the increase has been exponential. What has it accomplished? It has accomplished very little for the enormous amounts of money. Ed.gov shows how funding has grown from 248.9 Billion for Elementary and Secondary education in 1990 to 536 Billion. Imagine the private education that these children could have received with this money instead of public school funding. $9000 a student could do that.
Lyndon B. Johnson took faith out of the American people and into government. He put into place huge programs for Socialists to take the nation on the path to Communism. His intentions were good but opened up the doors for possible radical successors in the Presidency and other governmental roles. “The Machine” discussion will bring you behind those doors where the radicals are operating within these programs and within government subsidized agencies.
