Racism, Sexism, And The 50-Year Campaign To Undermine The War On Poverty

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2014/01/08/3122111/war-poverty-race-sexism/

It has been 50 years since Lyndon Johnson first declared that the nation could, “for the first time in our history,” conquer and win a war on poverty, pledging a “total commitment by this President, and this Congress, and this nation, to pursue victory over the most ancient of mankind’s enemies.”

 In the years that followed, lawmakers weaved a social safety net that still endures to this day, providing educational opportunities for low income Americans, retirement and health care security to the low income and elderly, and food assistance to the hungry.

Through the 1930s and 40s, most national politicians embraced welfare policies, since the federal programs of the New Deal — the 1935 Social Security Act and other initiatives — excluded the black population and were largely seen as acceptable by the white majority. 

But following World War II and the rise of the Civil Rights movement, welfare programs opened to African Americans, triggering a counterattack from conservatives in both political parties who sought to portray these programs as wasteful, unnecessary, and encouraging government dependence.

there was an obvious need to keep a segment of the population in a more subservient status, if you do nothing to remedy a situation are you not the real culprit guilty of it's proliferation? 

so to misdirect the blame for the part of society they created that is the down trodden working poor and those who need assistance medical or otherwise, they blame those they have ignored for decades call them lazy, shiftless, rather live high on the hog with unemployment or public assistance, welfare queens these are the buzz words and phrases that conjure up White America's incensed attitude toward helping, just like they are doing with health care. 

Beginning in 1964 and stretching through today, conservative leaders systematically undermined the programs that shaped Johnson’s War on Poverty, frequently deploying racist and sexist arguments to take away public assistance from the poorest Americans. Their rhetoric didn’t directly undo these social programs, but it chipped away at their foundation and altered Americans’ perceptions about the proper role of government.

                                                                       1960s

In 1964, Congress passed the Economic Opportunity Act, establishing the Office of Economic Opportunity, to run Johnson’s “community action program.” The initiative established a “community action agency” in each city and county to coordinate all federal and state programs designed to help the poor.

Most Republicans voted against the effort, arguing that “it would be wasted money, it would be used as pork,” Michael Katz, a University of Pennsylvania professor and the author of The Undeserving Poor: America’s Enduring Confrontation with Poverty, explained. With the Republicans united against it, Johnson pushed through the program by appealing to southern Democrats who were very fearful of any federal program,

“but who had very poor white constituents and saw that as a benefit,” Julian Zelizer, a professor of history at Princeton University said. “In the end, the initial War on Poverty was passed not with Republicans, but around them.”

Afterward, Republican presidential candidate Barry Goldwater ran his 1964 presidential campaign against Johnson’s War on Poverty, criticizing it for being wasteful and filled with programs that weren’t going to work. Ronald Reagan, who travelled the country campaigning for Goldwater, put it succinctly in a rousing 1964 speech.

“The Founding Fathers knew a government can’t control the economy without controlling people. And they knew when a government sets out to do that, it must use force and coercion to achieve its purpose.” In the same address, titled A Time Of Choosing, Reagan tapped into the anxieties about the role of women during that day, suggesting that they would divorce their husbands to receive more government assistance:

Now—so now we declare “war on poverty”… But seriously, what are we doing to those we seek to help? Not too long ago, a judge called me here in Los Angeles. He told me of a young woman who’d come before him for a divorce. She had six children, was pregnant with her seventh. 

Under his questioning, she revealed her husband was a laborer earning 250 dollars a month. She wanted a divorce to get an 80 dollar raise. She’s eligible for 330 dollars a month in the Aid to Dependent Children Program. She got the idea from two women in her neighborhood who’d already done that very thing.

and the beat goes on and we again have a champion for those in need, this time he's the Pres. and the one driving factor for republicans to continue this bigoted behavior he's a twp time champ and he's Black and a champions for all not just a few of his kind that is a republican staple not Progressive.  looking back at rebuttals of future lies makes you wonder how they have the audacity to deny the acts not by slave holders but their fathers and grandfathers. saying it ain't so does not erase history.