Dupe thread n/t

Okay this thread was meant as a reply to something in another thread but somehow it wound up as its own thread.

So, everybody ignore it

I don't personally blame LBJ for Vietnam or the Dominican Republic. He was a captive of the dominant ideology of the time. I don't believe anyone else who would have likely been president at the same time could possibly have withstood the pressures to have a foreign policy significantly different. I fear that today we are in danger that the so-called "war on terror" could derail the Democratic Party and any moves forward just as the "cold war" derailed the Democratic Party and the Great Society in the 60's.

On social/domestic issues LBJ was by far the most progressive President in American history.

I remember watching a BBC documentary about the War on Poverty and Charles Wheeler the BBC correspondent for North America was interviewing Lady Bird. He straight out asked Mrs. Johnson if her husband, President Johnson was a socialist. She broke out laughing and then answered, "well we didn't call it that. But in his heart he certainly was".

...say too much more about him. He had absolutely no morals whatsoever, and he counted J. Edgar Hoover as one of his best friends. While a member of Congress, he was known as the "bagman" because of the cash he carried around to influence the votes of his fellow members of Congress. You should also do some research on the scandals involving Billy Sol Estes and Bobby Baker, and their connections to LBJ. You should also know that LBJ was backed by Big Oil and the Defense Industry.

The Civil Rights Act was JFK's program...LBJ got it passed because he knew he would need the support of black voters.

In summary, LBJ was a snake in the grass...he should have been a Republican. His good friend John Connally latter switched the the GOP.

civil rights legislation, he would lose the South for the Democratic Party forever. President Johnson, responded, "If that's the price we have to pay -- so be it".

link: http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/coldwar/interviews/episode-13/valenti2.html

LBJ pushed through the largest package of domestic social legislation of any American President in history, by far. As a Senator more than just about anyone else he put an end to Joe McCarthy's political career.

Although, he was certainly no saint.

The south was the democratic party's power base since reconstruction and signing the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act lost us the solid south once and for all. Johnson knew this when he signed the legislation. Giving African Americans the right to vote doesn't mean that they were going to win the southern states. Eventually we had a period where black and white southerners did vote together which helped Carter and to a lesser extent Clinton, but we never regained the hold on the south that we once had. And LBJ was far too populist to ever be a Republican. As far as the defense industry goes, I'm not surprised given that his fatal flaw, Vietnam.

And if these moral issues you speak of are true about LBJ then I would say that this is unfortunate. It doesn't mean, however, that his models for economic and social issues aren't what democrats today should be following.

The old liberals who started with FDR's model had good intentions, but they lacked vision and failed to get a look at the reality of the people who they were trying to help.
The people with disabilities who negotiated during the creation of the new deal were pissed. They were very angry to have been thrown into the same pool as "paupers" and needy.
They were looking for an end to job discrimination so that they could support themselves. Unfortunately, a program created by a disabled president was participating. Massive protests led to some progress, but the new deal relegated most people with disabilities to a needy welfare recipient class that they felt was undesirable.
Since employers decided that they were and should be taken care of by the gov't, there was little incentive to end job discrimination.
One could aregue that a similar lack of insight and vision applied to offering health care and child care to women who sought assistance because of a lack of child support and job opportunities.
Both of those contributions are essential to give people who have children an opportunity to explore education and employment. If those were the things that had been built-in in the beginning, the results over time may have been that the "welfare" program had been something of an equalizer.
It should be about empowerment and equal opportunity.
John Edwards is getting there.

I say Roosevelt administration, because you are correct in that Roosevelt ignored the plight of some people. I think that he still did an incredible amount of good for most Americans but someone with a mandate like his could have advanced social causes much more. That being said, Eleanor Roosevelt pretty much made up for everything that her husband missed. Her being in a position to influence FDR was a huge help to social advancement in this country and is the country would eventually come to accept things like the Americans with Disabilities Act.

As far as models go, Paul Wellstone is mine. But that said, Paul Wellstone was never in the democratic leadership and SaveElmer was asking about at what time people in the leadership of the party (particularly presidential candidates) were satisfactory to progressives. My response is that LBJ's economic stances are a lot more satisfactory than say Bill Clinton's.