One would be hard pressed to find a single American that has not benefited from Great Society programs. Yet, somehow Democrats have allowed Lyndon Johnson’s presidency to be remembered as a failure.
[Election 2012]
“He who controls the present, controls the past. He who controls the past, controls the future” –George Orwell
Conservatives have a unique understanding of Orwell’s quote. Their strategy for gaining control of our government is based on Orwell’s truth. Ever since Lyndon Johnson pushed his Great Society programs through Congress, conservatives have worked to gain control of the future, by altering our perceptions of the past.
Conservatives have systematically infiltrated and taken control of county and state boards of education, allowing them the ability to approve the history books that our children read in school, rejecting those books that don’t forward their version of historical events.
They use repetition as a tool to recreate history and influence how events and people are reported. This has proven to be an effective strategy in changing people’s perceptions about the past. They promoted Ronald Reagan as one of the greatest president in our history, even though anyone who cares to study the condition of the country under the Reagan Administration will discover that we were not in good shape in terms of the economy, unemployment and out of control drug use. Today, even Democrats honor Ronald Reagan.
Under the Johnson Administration, Americans benefited from a national commitment to Education, declared a War on Poverty, created Medicare and Medicaid, introduced measures to reclaim our heritage of clean air and water and focused on early childhood development through the Head Start Program. One would be hard pressed to find a single American that has not benefited from Great Society programs. Yet, somehow Democrats have allowed Lyndon Johnson’s presidency to be remembered as a failure.
I would be the last person to argue that Johnson’s presidency should not be diminished by the Vietnam War. Despite their partnership in producing Great Society programs, the war put Johnson at odds with Martin Luther King, Jr., who believed that the war was “immoral” and “an enemy of the poor”. However, conservatives don’t hate Johnson because of Vietnam, they hate him because of all of the social legislation that he was able to pass.
During the first three years of the Obama Administration, Conservatives have made huge investments in controlling how we perceive the Obama Presidency. They have been marginally successful, in part because of the president’s reluctance to trumpet his own successes.
By controlling the message, Conservatives have sought to erase the previous eight years under their policies that lead us to the economic downturn from which we are still trying to recover. If the Conservatives are successful in this election, they will seek to secure their futures by reversing legislation that provided monies to the less fortunate. Regaining control of the monies used to fund Great Society programs that benefit the poor and middle-class is their ultimate end game. Think of what would have happened if we had allowed George W. Bush to privatize Social Security.
Unfortunately for Conservatives, the demographics are not in their favor. A younger, more diverse population tends to vote democratic. That’s why the attack on ACORN, the community activist, non-partisan group that operated nationwide to encourage the disenfranchised to vote became a target of Conservatives.
While it was against ACORN’s charter to promote political parties, a majority of ACORN’s clients tended to vote for democrats. Busting up ACORN along with creating new voting requirements in Republican controlled states has been part of the Conservative strategy to delay the inevitable. They already know that the numbers don’t work in their favor.
All of which brings us back to the 2012 election. During the first presidential debate, Mitt Romney used the country’s present condition to try to make us forget the past. If he is successful, he and other rich people such as the Koch Brothers will have guaranteed their futures.
Unfortunately for the rest of us, they also guarantee ours.
“Speaking Truth To Empower.”
