President Lyndon Baines Johnson (LBJ) - a big THANK YOU 50 years later!
Dear LBJ,
Thank you for your war on "poverty" and other major progressive laws passed by your political leadership and perseverance 50 years ago this week. Even though your administration is mostly still remembered for the "wretched" war in Vietnam, as time marches on, history is looking more kindly on your years in office. One might say that you were the most "liberal" president of the 20th century including FDR. The irony today is that you were a "native" Texan, making your progressiveness then seem so unbelievable today.
You said it best 50 years ago regarding poverty.
"PRESIDENT LYNDON JOHNSON: You never forget what poverty and hatred can do, when you see its scars on the hopeful face of a young child. I never thought, then, in 1928, that I would be standing here in 1965. It never even occurred to me in my fondest dreams that I might have the chance to help the sons and daughters of those students and to help people like them all over this country. But now I do have that chance. And I’ll let you in on a secret: I mean to use it."
And oh how you did use your power very effectively back then. Many people have forgotten that over the years, but more so when you were in office and living. The bad news over shadowed the good deeds of your term. Furthermore, your legacy proudly lives on today even though the GOP is still trying to dismantle it.
"JUAN GONZÁLEZ: We turn now to look at poverty in the United States. This week marks the 50th anniversary of when President Lyndon B. Johnson declared a "war on poverty." His administration created many of the federal and state initiatives low-income Americans rely on today. They include Medicaid, Medicare, subsidized housing, Head Start, legal services, nutrition assistance, raising the minimum wage, and, later, food stamps and Pell grants. During his first State of the Union speech, that President Johnson called on Congress to support his war on poverty."
http://www.democracynow.org/2014/1/9/50_years_after_lbjs_war_on
"A fiercely proud Texan, who in the course of his rise to power openly backed reactionary and retrograde legislation on race, union labour and protectionism, he was eventually responsible for establishing some of the most important cornerstones of liberal American legislation, the most significant of which was groundbreaking anti-poverty and civil rights legislation, whose effects can still be felt in the United States today"
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/presidents/lyndon-b-johnson-the-uncivil-rights-reformer-1451816.html
However, many people in the country today still do not realize that you died a broken man having to live with horrors of the war on your watch that your compassion for people could not overcome. You were only 64 years old when you left this earth. So, it is time to say "thank you" LBJ all these mostly forgotten years later. Your domestic agenda changed the lives of many forever. For that we are eternally grateful!
Read much more on LBJ: http://www.lbjlibrary.org/