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Come gather 'round people

Wherever you roam

And admit that the waters

Around you have grown

And accept it that soon

You'll be drenched to the bone.

If your time to you Is worth savin'

Then you better start swimmin'

Or you'll sink like a stone

For the times they are a changin'.

Come writers and critics

Who prophesize with your pen

And keep your eyes wide

The chance won't come again

And don't speak too soon

For the wheel's still in spin

And there's no tellin' who that it's namin'.

For the loser now will be later to win

For the times they are a changin'.

Come senators, congressmen

Please heed the call

Don't stand in the doorway

Don't block up the hall

For he that gets hurt

Will be he who has stalled

There's a battle outside ragin'.

It'll soon shake your windows

And rattle your walls

For the times they are a changin'.

Come mothers and fathers

Throughout the land

And don't criticize

What you can't understand

Your sons and your daughters

Are beyond your command

Your old road is

Rapidly agin'.

Please get out of the new one

If you can't lend your hand

For the times they are a changin'.

The line it is drawn

The curse it is cast

The slow one now

Will later be fast

As the present now

Will later be past

The order is rapidly fadin'.

And the first one now

Will later be last

For the times they are a changin'.

Bob Dylan, The Times They are A-Changin’, (1963)

Modern American Political Ideology, 1945 - Present

Modern Politics 101 (1945-2016)

  • As we get closer to the present, history tends to focus more directly on political and economic narrative. Why?
  • World War II as “The Good War”
  • Americans share certain values: democracy and industrial capitalism. A rough “consensus.”
  • But there emerges a widening rift between notions of “conservatives” and “liberals”
  • BOTH IDEOLOGIES FOUNDED ON CONCEPT OF INDIVIDUAL FREEDOM
  • BOTH ARE “LIBERAL”
  • BOTH have cultural expressions that have little to do with politics and more to do with cultural changes of 1950s-1980s.

Three types of Conservatives

  • (1) “Organic” Conservatives(Edmund Burke)
  • Individual liberty is very real, very natural (organic), given by our Creator
  • Private property threatened in a modern society
  • An abstraction of “the state” or “the people” used to limit the freedom (property) of the very real individual
  • (2) “Cultural” Conservatives (most talk radio)
  • Specific group identities are “better” and SHOULD predominate
  • Focus on race, religion, sex, sexuality, language, “values” (such as those regarding science) not Natural Rights
  • “Culture Wars” driven by anger and fear
  • Create and use a powerful government to conserve cultural values of the majority (btw, also a core characteristic of fascism)

(3) “Neo-Conservatives” (form ~1970s)

  • U.S. and The World
  • Reject liberal WWII coalition foreign policy (UN, NATO, etc.), aka “The Realist School” (today considered “Liberal” foreign policy)
  • But also reject isolationism of old pre-WWII conservatives
  • U.S. to act unilaterally; founded on works of Leo Strauss
  • Strong MORAL TONE (“Evil Empire,” “Axis of Evil”) – Often compare situation to 1939 (before Hitler struck)(or is it like 12/7/41?) – NEO-CONS ARE “PROGRESSIVES” like Woodrow Wilson or TR
  • Not opposed to social legislation of New Deal or Great Society
  • Believe that free market is the better tool to produce real “opportunity”
  • Lower taxes, deregulate, prevent courts from mandating change
  • But otherwise, not opposed to Social Security, health care, “social uplift,” other forms of social policy
  • #1 and #3 ARE NOT CULTURAL CONSERVATIVES
  • They use them politically, but don’t advance their goals

Conservative Politics

  • Freedom the natural/organic state of man
  • We “own” ourselves, our labor, our property
  • “State” (only an abstraction) is, by definition, a loss of freedom
  • Modern state fueled by taxation
  • A redistribution of wealth (this is NOT socialism)
  • Tax = Theft = Forced Labor = Slavery
  • Most Organic Conservatives willing to grant the state modest powers (if not, then they are Libertarians)
  • U.S. Constitution: specified powers of the federal state
  • Social intercourse: Roads, sewers, water
  • Civil Defense: small military (!!), police, jails
  • Justice: courts

Modern Liberals

  • (1) “Classical” Liberals (John Locke)
  • All humans born free; endowed with right to life, liberty, and property
  • But Society is also real– no individual exists outside of their society (part of a “social contract,” “you didn’t build that” c.2012)
  • There is no pure 100% freedom
  • We owe an obligation to each other to protect our liberties
  • Most Classical Liberals consider social “order” and “security” also part of our natural rights (FDR, Atlantic Charter, WWII)
  • Government can play a positive role in advancing and protecting liberty (National Progressives)
  • Society steps in when it is clear that society is harming individuals – self-correcting, cares about abuse
  • Government a self-corrective, a positive good; includes free press, business, professions, sciences, medicine, etc.

(2) “Cultural” Liberals

  • Cultural Liberalism exists primarily as the opposite of Cultural Conservatism
  • All humans born as “blank slate” then absorb cultural values
  • No Culture is better or worse
  • Islam not better or worse that Christianity
  • All culture is relative
  • CL often take up “causes” (often insanely idealistic… personal “sacrifice” in order to feel good or for moral superiority, intellectually elitist)
  • 1960s “radical chic”
  • Political correctness – assuming a society can/should address concepts like personal self-esteem

(3) “Realist School” of Foreign Policy

  • Developed following WWII
  • Argues that U.S. has great advantages: political stability, education, wealth, military, good neighbors
  • It is realistic to use the power to STABILIZE international relationships
  • Insure that the world is playing by OUR RULES, we are already in the lead, we are confident our people will continue to out-work/out-think the rest of the world
  • Policies:
  • United Nations, GATT, World Bank, U.S. $ as global currency
  • Extend our military umbrella for our friends NATO, SEATO, OAS; use our power against our collective enemies
  • Failure of U.S. to lead allows regional powers to muck up our advantages (Germany, Japan)

Politics of Liberalism

  • Create and use an activist state, fully empower the Constitution:
  • To help individuals overcome the obstacles to their personal freedom
  • To access to legal justice
  • To maintain economic fairness
  • To regulate and tax behaviors that the majority believe are detrimental to personal freedom
  • These values are strengthened by lessons of World War II, Cold War
  • Challenged by Viet Nam
  • Challenged by economic crisis, 1968-1980
  • Challenged by “New Right,” 1980-2008+

Political Factions: 1945-present

  • Both beliefs based on concept of natural rights and individual freedom (both “liberal”)
  • Both committed to capitalism (“liberal” economic system)
  • Liberals fear: if unchecked, society will use abstract concepts like “money” or “race” or “terror” to take more and more freedom away from more and more people.
  • Government is useful to protect individual freedom (Social Gospel and National Progressives; WWII)
  • Conservatives fear: government is the most common and direct threat to individual freedom; a powerful society is a good thing (even if dominated by money), it will correct itself.
  • Government is the cause of declining freedom; a hindrance (Corporate Liberal Progressives)

Key point: language matters
(if you want to be taken seriously)

  • “Liberal” does not mean socialism, does not mean that Republicans are not liberals
  • “Conservative” does not mean fascism, does not mean that Democrats don’t advocate cultural ideals that restrict liberty

  • Biggest differences are internal: between “cultural” L/C and “organic” L/C
  • Exposed in times of political setbacks
  • Dems during 1960s, 1990s
  • Reps during 1950s, 1970s, late-2000s, early-2010s, NOW with Donald Trump

  • Rise of modern mass media (radio, cable TV, internet) makes it much easier (and profitable) for CULTURAL arguments to take center stage

“The Sixties”

JFK in Dallas, November, 1963

Apollo 11; August, 1969

A Decade of Impressions…

  • Political Impressions

Idealism

Liberalism (use the power of the federal government to advance the individual freedom of those harmed by society)

Civil Rights

  • Cultural Impressions

Youth

Music

Mass Media Key

  • Social Impressions

Interest Groups

Empowerment

…but also a decade of harsh realities

  • Viet Nam
  • Racial Violence
  • Assassinations
  • Drugs and Consumer Excess
  • Pollution
  • Cold War (a neo-con was once a liberal but “mugged by reality”)
  • Threat of Nuclear Annihilation

  • ONE THING VERY CLEAR: NO LONGER AN ERA OF SOCIAL OR POLITICAL CONSENSUS

John Fitzgerald Kennedy

  • Family critical to understand JFK

Mother: Rose Fitzgerald (Kennedy) daughter of powerful Boston political family

Father: Joe Kennedy

Millions as Wall St. stock manipulator, bootlegging, Hollywood, links to organized crime

Sells out in early 1929, uses money to create political influence

  • 8 Children (4 boys, 4 girls)

All driven to be the BEST, all compete with each other, very close

Reckless competition?

Four eldest (Joe, John, Kathleen, Bobby) meet violent deaths by 1968

  • Jack (John) always second to Joe, Jr.

Distinguishes self in WWII

Poor health: bad back, physical exhaustion, diagnosed with Addison’s Disease in 1950s

In early 1950s, he is in constant pain, older siblings both dead, why not live it up?

JFK’s Political Rise

  • Poor Health & Surgery keeps Sen. Kennedy out of limelight during McCarthyism

1956 writes Profiles in Courage, wins 1957 Pulitzer with help from father

Talk circuit shows handsome, intelligent, very likeable young man

Serious candidate for ’56 VP (if he had won VP and lost in national election, JFK’s Catholicism would have been blamed)

  • JFK Emerges as National Candidate

Serious, intelligent, witty, charismatic

But JFK sold like “soap flakes,” superficial

Personally reckless

Friends of the “Rat Pack” (Sinatra, Peter Lawford, etc.)

Constant womanizing; FBI warns him in Spring, 1962, that his current mistress was also sleeping with Sam Gianconna (Chicago mafia boss)

All kept from public by willing press (would they have done the same for Nixon? Certainly not today)

  • Once he proves his Catholicism would not be an issue:

Wins close nomination over LBJ

Wins closer election over Nixon

JFK’s “New Frontier”

  • Era of High Idealism – Even the term highlights the emotional aspects of American history

Generational change – JFK first president born in 20th c.

Take up the burdens of the Cold War (a war of ideals)

Take on the hardest problems that America faced:

Economic opportunity

Race/Gender

U.S. International leadership (military burden)

  • But Kennedy faced with huge problems:

Politically

LBJ an uncertain ally

Close Election: no mandate

Public willing to go with a new face, but he better not be incompetent

Southern whites flee Democratic Party and pursuit of Civil Rights

Cold War (Berlin , Cuba, Indochina, Middle East, S. America, etc.)

Civil Rights

Cities collapsing

Powerful Rhetoric & Idealism
Post-WWII Americans must lead the world that was created by the WWII generation (a mission)

“Camelot”

  • Idealistic

Youth (JFK youngest elected Pres.; TR assumes office)

Action

Family

  • “Eggheads”

Mostly outsiders from business and academic ranks

Management style loose, quick decisions rather than intense study (Eisenhower)

E.g., Sec’y Defense Robert McNamara was CEO of Ford Motor Co.

  • Little Substance

Min. wage

D.C. slum clearance (urban renewal)

Movement on Civil Rights by 1963

Space program

JFK and the Cold War

  • A very conservative, “Hard Line Realist” Administration
  • 1. Rapid Military Build-Up

U.S. faced “missile gap” with Soviets

Sec’y Defense Robert McNamara

“Flexible Response” (Green Berets and Special Forces)

  • 2. Move against Cuba

Bay of Pigs, April, 1961

Look foolish and incompetent (worst of both worlds in politics)

  • 3. Bring Latin America into the Cold War (Alliance for Progress, $20B)
  • 4. Berlin

most volatile

Following Bay of Pigs and US-Soviet Summit, Berlin Wall erected

REAL THREAT OF NUCLEAR EXCHANGE and/or WWIII

Cuban Missile Crisis (October, 1962)

  • Unexpected (but predictable) crisis

1961-1962, U.S. deploys 5000+ ICBMs

U.S. nuclear arsenal grows by 500%

In 1962, U.S. detonates 100 megaton device in the atmosphere (seen at right)

  • USSR responds

Rapid expansion of nuclear forces

Moves missiles into Cuba

Seen by USSR as similar to U.S. missiles in Turkey

Convinced JFK would not respond

15 minute striking distance

  • JFK plays and wins war of nerves with Soviet Premiere Krushchev

JFK’s single greatest legacy was in how he dealt with this crisis.

Suggested that he could be a very good President and world leader

Defense Secretary Robert S. McNamara on the Cuban Missile Crisis and the likelihood of a Global Thermo-Nuclear War in October, 1962
[“Mr. President” refers to Fidel Castro, 1992]

Bottom line: had Kennedy invaded Castro would have used at least one of the 162 nuclear bombs located in Cuba (90 “tactical” nuclear weapons are “in theater” and under the command of local officers, not the Kremlin)

Knowing what is coming, actions in Cuba prove important

  • “Operation Mongoose”

U.S. agrees not to invade Cuba, but didn’t say anything about Castro

  • CIA and Justice Department

Use mafia and CIA in both Cuba and U.S.

RFK “was the driving force behind the clandestine effort to overthrow Castro… he seemed like a wild man who was out-CIA-ing the CIA.” Sen. Harris Wofford

CIA denies it all to Warren Commission (evidence released with Church Commission Report, 1974)

JFK Assassination

  • November 22, 1963

Dallas, TX, to promote new “get tough” approach to Communism (i.e., Viet Nam)

  • 12:33pm; 3 shots (~7 seconds)

1st hits tree branch, ricochet (Connally turns)

2nd hits JFK in throat, then Connally (“magic bullet”)

3rd hits JFK in head, massive tissue damage, fatal

DOA, 1:00pm

The “It’s not significant but everyone wants to know it anyway” slide

  • Grassy Knolls, Open Umbrellas, E. Howard Hunt, etc. etc....
  • Two big questions:

How? (Lone gunman? Magic Bullet?)

Why? (Conspiracy)

  • Conspiracy theories:

The Mob

Military-Industrial Complex

USSR

Lee Harvey Oswald

  • Warren Commission (1964)

CIA paints Oswald a “madman;” acting w/o ideological motivation

  • House Select Committee on Assassinations (1976)

“Probable conspiracy”

Where is the conspiracy?

  • Occam's Razor: “Pluralitas non est ponenda sine neccesitate” (“plurality should not be posited without necessity.”)

Plain English: don’t look for complex answers if the simplest solution is plausible

  • Lee Harvey Oswald

Committed Marxist; Cuba was a “test case” for Marxism in the Americas

Oswald repeatedly acts out violently; sees himself in grandiose terms: 1957 argument in Marines leads to gunshots; 1958 court-martial for fighting with officers; 1959 defects to USSR, slits wrists; 1963 plans assassination Gen. Edwin Walker; then kills JFK – wants his life to “stand” for something big

Most people initially angry because Oswald wasn’t “important enough” to have killed the U.S. President

Jackie Kennedy: “[JFK] didn't even have the satisfaction of being killed for civil rights. It had to be some silly little communist.”

Dallas Ass't DA during questioning: “at times I had to walk out of the room because in another few minutes I was going to beat the shit out of him.”

  • CIA denies the very existence of Operation Mongoose in closed hearings!

Conclusions for 11/22/63

  • All wounds can be accounted from three shots
  • Oswald had a “motive” to kill Kennedy
  • Operation Mongoose, led by RFK, intended to “finish” Castro probably led Oswald to act when he did (passing book depository where he worked)

Malcolm X probably correct: assassination was a case of the “chickens coming home to roost” (as would be the Vietnam war, rising military costs, etc.)

  • When faced with a nervous public and the potential for WWIII, the CIA still lied to the Warren Commission!!

“Cover-up” existed, but not by the “killers”

THIS lying, more than anything, fuels wilder claims of a broader “cover up” (Oliver Stone, JFK)

  • (Or none of this is true because they got to me)

What are the 1960s?
(JFK edition, 1960-1963)

  • A period that first recognized that WWII had shifted Americans’ sense of their role in the world; willing to “bear any burden” to fix very difficult problems

But how? Idealism far more than realism

No significant federal legislation to address problems

  • A period that recognized the rise of a new post-war generation. One largely unified by 1950s conformity

Counter-culture and Modern Civil Rights Movement rejects this demand for conformity

No significant federal legislation to address problems

  • A period that expanded America’s military commitments abroad (Viet Nam, Cuba, Berlin), an expansion of the Cold War

Placed a large number of American soldiers at risk

Rapid military build-up quite expensive

Raised the real threat of nuclear war with the USSR

LBJ

Lyndon Baines Johnson

  • Born Stonewall, TX, 1908, near Johnson City

1st of 5 children

Parent’s personalities affect Lyndon’s

  • Politics: Populist!!!

Real concern for “the people,” sees himself as outsider, defender of the public interest

As a teacher, he focuses on under-served Mexican-American population in Cotulla

Active in New Deal

As his influence increases “the people” come to include gas & oil industries, defense contractors (Sun Belt), corporate farms

  • Seen as typical redneck Southern conservative by most Washington liberals. He wasn’t.

Steady Rise to Power

  • 1937 to U.S. House, 1948 wins Democratic Primary for Senate by 87 votes (“Landslide Lyndon”)

Style the same: mentor creates power base from within

Oddly, next opportunity often opened by death of mentor (conspiracy? Feelings of guilt and desire to “prove” oneself to be worthy of mentor’s acceptance?)

  • LBJ has strong faith in consensus

Compromise possible with USSR, racists, anyone!

Great at personal, one-on-one situations

Terrible at public speaking and mass politics

  • Internal/psychological pressures exposed when he campaigned

Bluffed or withdrew name from race in 1948, 1964, 1968

Physically ill 1937, 1941, 1966

1968 refuses to run for re-election for U.S. Presidency

LBJ & the National Forum

  • Probably most powerful Senator of the 20th Century

Controlled committees, agenda, perqs -- never forces opponents into ideological corners

  • Style not suited to national politics

JFK trounces him at “mass politics”

Vice-Presidency not a “mentor” position

Kennedy Administration works to marginalize him

Scarred by the Assassination

  • “I took the oath, I became President. But for millions of Americans I was still illegitimate, a naked man with no presidential covering, a pretender to the throne, an illegal usurper. And then there was Texas, my home, the home of both the murder and the murder of the murderer. And then there were the bigots and the dividers and the Eastern intellectuals, who were waiting to knock me down before I could even begin to stand up. The whole thing was almost unbearable.”
  • Vows to “out-Kennedy” Kennedy

Johnson’s Goals
(all “successful”)

Maintain “hard-line” against Communism

But blind to pitfalls of escalation in Viet Nam

Cold War: “limited war,” containment

Press for legislative action on points where Kennedy only paid lip service

But the agenda is set beyond the White House (e.g., King and Civil Rights)

Leaves LBJ very vulnerable

Redesign FDR’s “New Deal Coalition”

Emerging voters: youth, women, Hispanics, blacks

LBJ & Viet Nam

  • Johnson doesn’t understand (“have a feel for”) foreign policy

As Special Envoy to SE Asia, he believes foreign crowds “loved” him because he distributed ball-point pens and cigarette lighters

LBJ: “I felt a special rapport with all those Asians. I knew how desperately they needed our help and I wanted to give it. I wanted them to have all the dams and all the projects they could handle.”

  • Wants to keep war FROM the public

No war declaration, no taxes, no call for shared sacrifice

When trouble starts neither the U.S. public nor Congress feels compelled to support him

“The Great Society”

  • High Point of Modern Liberalism
  • All forms of progressivism align (consensus)

Environmental causes (Social Gospel Prog.)

Use the full power of the federal government (National Progressives)

Further the growth of U.S. business overseas and placate organized labor (Corporate Liberalism)

  • But GS responding to external pressures

Agenda already set for LBJ

Not a good political dynamic

But LBJ does act forcefully to pass legislation

Pressure #1: Civil Rights

  • 1964: Civil Rights Act

Title VII outlawed discrimination in the workplace re:

race

religion

national origin

sex

  • 1965 Voting Rights Act

  • Both driven to completion and passage by LBJ

Pressure #2: Science and the Environment

  • Industrial pollution and consumer waste
  • Aldo Leopold, Sand County Almanac (1949)

Losing “America”

  • Rachel Carson, Silent Spring (1962)

The science of Ecology

Pesticides and the “food chain”

  • LBJ:

Water Quality Act, 1964

Wilderness Preservation Act, 1965

Air Quality Act, 1965

Clean Water Restoration, 1966

Graphic representation of all water (including ice) on the planet

Graphic representation of all breathable air on the planet

An Inconvenient Truth (2006)
Director: Davis Guggenheim (“global warming” incorrect, “global climate change” correct)
The ONLY thing in this clip that is NOT scientific is the LAST thing that is said.

FMI Google “Hockey Stick Graph” or “Climategate” In 2003 and 2009, the study’s findings were confirmed. By 2009, eight separate investigations found “no scientific merit” to critics debunking the graph. Most thought critics “routinely misunderstood the scientific issues,” reached “faulty scientific conclusions”, and “often cherry-pick language that creates the suggestion or appearance of impropriety, without looking deeper into the issues.”

Great Society Environmental Legislation

  • Clear Air, Water Quality and Clean Water Restoration Acts and Amendments, 1964-1966
  • Wilderness Act of 1964
  • Land and Water Conservation Act of 1965
  • Solid Waste Disposal Act of 1965
  • Motor Vehicle Air Pollution Control Act of 1965
  • Endangered Species Preservation Act of 1966
  • National Historic Preservation Act of 1966
  • National Trails System Act of 1968
  • Wild and Scenic Rivers Act of 1968
  • Aircraft Noise Abatement Act of 1968
  • National Environmental Policy Act of 1969

Pressure #3: The Cost of Poverty

  • Meaningful and important to LBJ (he sees poverty in Texas)
  • Michael Harrington, The Other America (1962)

20-25% U.S. in poverty (35M !!!)

40% in poor housing

  • To be poor to be like “an internal alien, to grow up in a culture that is radically different from the ones that dominates the society.”
  • A “Great Society” simply does not tolerate one quarter of its family trapped in a state of constant need

MLK – Poor People’s Campaign based on Christian theology (Matthew 25: 31-46)

Social Gospel Progressivism

The “War on Poverty”

  • Economic Opportunity Act, 1964

OEO, Job Corps, Vista, Head Start (800k children fed each year)

  • Manpower Development and Training Act, 1964
  • Elementary and Secondary Education Act, 1965

Fed aid to local schools

  • Public Works Act, 1965 (ended by 1968)
  • Medicare for elderly, 1965 (amends Social Security Act)
  • Medicaid for poor, 1965 (amends Social Security Act)
  • Model Cities Program, 1966 (ended by 1968)

  • This is NOT writing checks but providing jobs, education, medical care, and job training: “opportunity”

“Welfare”

  • Two forms:

The Supplemental Security Income (SSI, 1974) program provides stipends people who are either aged (65 or older), blind, or disabled.

The Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF, 1997; replaces AFDC, 1935) provides cash assistance to indigent American families with dependent children.

Maximum of 60 months benefits (less in most states); most (54.2%) receive less than 24 months of benefits (meaning they get themselves above poverty threshold!)

Average monthly benefits adjusted for inflation (in 2006 dollars)

Poverty in America (2013-15)
Poverty Threshold (1 person) = $12,071/yr
Poverty Threshold (Parent, 2 children) = $19,073/yr

Poverty Rate Race of those Receiving Food Stamps Race of those Receiving Welfare (SSI/TANF)
Single Mothers 31%
People w/o HS education 29%
People w/ Disability 28%
African-American 26% 25.7% 39.8%
Hispanic 26% 10.3% 15.7%
ALL AMERICANS 14.8%
Asian 12% 2.1% 2.4%
White 10% 40.2% 38.8%
Avg. $ benefit $274/mo. $336/mo. (Parent, 2 children)

Growth in Direct Federal Assistance, 1975-2003

(Percentage of U.S. Federal Budget)

Politics of the Great Society

  • LBJ purposely works to help large non-voting segments the citizenry

Civil Rights Act, 1964: “I think we just gave the South to the Republicans”

EOA: Democrats “will probably lose a million votes a month” as a result

  • Economic programs harm Democratic political machines & key contributors

Community poverty programs undermine big city machines

LBJ pro-business, harms relations with organized labor

Cultural liberals (counter-culture) undermine allegiance to conservative Democrats

  • Political suicide by a political mastermind?

Only makes sense if we credit Johnson with acting for principles, not politics

Unintended Political Consequence #1: Great Society = Youth Protest

  • Jack Nicholson in Five Easy Pieces (1970)
  • She doesn’t “make the rules” but there is power in conforming to the rules (even if they are stupid rules)
  • Generational assumptions of 1940s and 50s too CONFORMIST

Unintended Political Consequence #1

  • The Voice of Protest = the Voice of “Youth”

Youth gain (too much) political legitimacy

  • Very vocal politically

1962, Students for a Democratic Society

Active as a result of Civil Rights

Free Speech Movement

1967-1973, Anti-War Protest

But little staying power

Radical elements only alienate moderates

  • A majority of elig. voters, 18-24YO, DO NOT VOTE

The “Counter-Culture” was “Cultural Liberalism,” nothing more

  • Affluent, college-educated, white
  • Upset with (in rank order)

parents

racism

corporate conformity (need to “sell out” individuality to get a job)

pollution

Vietnam (after 1965)

  • Response: Disillusionment

“Turn on, tune in, and drop out”

Psychedelic hedonism

Culture not Politics

1965: “Hippies” get start in Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco

1968: “The Summer of Love”

1969: Woodstock, NY

1969: Altamont, CA

  • By 1972-3, “movement” completely absorbed by U.S. popular culture

The Conquest of Cool, Thomas Frank

  • Riches to Rags lifestyle
  • Still: a lot of very idealistic and committed democrats

Abbie Hoffman

The “New Music”

Bob Dylan

Janis

Joplin

Miles

Davis

Counter Culture Becomes Mass Culture

  • Mixture of idealism and consumer culture

Desire to be “young”

Desire to develop individual interests

Ironically, desire to reject mass consumerism

Seen in late-1950s with Beats

  • Looking for “authenticity” (experiential)

Communes, folk music, natural foods, home-made goods, psychedelic drugs

  • Movement quickly turns cynical (radical chic, cultural liberalism)

Rolling Stone magazine, Hunter S. Thompson

The “Young Turks” on Madison Avenue

The Smothers Brothers, Laugh-In on TV

Many quickly abandon politics as a means of substantial social change

Calls for “cultural revolution” proliferate

Full Stop

  • LBJ’s Great Society was based on “Organic Liberalism”

Use the state to enforce reasonable reforms undertaken by a “Great Society”

Race

Environment

Poverty

  • By contrast, the “Counter-Culture” was an important and powerful example of “Cultural Liberalism”

Most of these values are mainstream today

General agreement about legal equality, freedom of personal expression, distrust of authority, “authenticity” better than mass consumerism

Full Stop: Counter-Culture and the “Sixties”

  • Lyndon Johnson’s “Great Society” focused on passing legislation

Civil Rights

Environmental

“War on Poverty”

This is “Organic Liberalism”

  • By contrast, the “Counter-Culture” was an important and powerful example of “Cultural Liberalism”

Race

Gender

Individual behavior

General agreement about legal equality, freedom of personal expression, distrust of authority, “authenticity” better than mass consumerism

Most of these values are mainstream today

“Unintended” Political Consequences #2

  • Civil Rights Model followed by others (the first of its two “ends”: legal equality)

Is it “American” to treat people unequally?

Is it legal? (not moral or racism but legal, Constitutional?)

  • Cesar Chavez

United Farm Workers

Grape boycott, 1965-70

  • 1969: La Raza Unida

“Chicano” instead of “Mexican-American” (not all approved on name change)

American Indian Movement (AIM)

  • AIM organized in 1968
  • 1973 standoff at Wounded Knee
  • “Native-American” replaces “Indian”
  • “1st Nations”

Gay & Lesbian Discrimination

  • 1969 Stonewall Riots, NYC
  • Sexual Practice Laws voided
  • APA rescinds view that homosexuality a “mental disorder”

“Women’s Liberation”

  • Most powerful of the groups

The majority of the human species

“First Wave” 1900-1920

“Second Wave” 1960-1970

“Third Wave” 1990-2000s

  • 1960 – FDA approves “the Pill”

Oral contraceptive now controlled by women

  • 1963: The Feminine Mystique
  • 1963: Equal Pay Act
  • 1964: Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (affirmative action)
  • 1965: Griswold v. Connecticut

Right to medical privacy, birth control, for women

Equal Rights Amendment (ERA)

  • Complete wording: “Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.”

Same as 15th Amendment for “race”

  • Proposed in 1923, dies in 1982

1972: Congress approves extension for state ratification

Supported by GOP until 1980 – Why would the GOP suddenly oppose? A: to gain a political advantage (it is what politicians do)

1982: defeated; not enough states ratify.

Ratified      

Ratified, then rescinded      

Not ratified, but approved by one house of state legislature      

Not ratified

1973 Roe v. Wade

  • Norma McCorvey (“Jane Roe”) raped, Dallas TX, pregnancy resulted
  • SCOTUS rules (7-2) that women control a portion of their reproductive capacities

Abortion legal up until the “point at which the fetus becomes viable” (can live beyond the mother’s body)

Ruling establishes trimester system:

First: No state can ban abortions (embryo)

Second: State can regulate abortions (now a fetus) “in ways that are reasonably related to maternal health” (parental notice?)

Third: State can restrict or outlaw abortion except “for the preservation of the life or health of the mother”

  • “Pro-Life”

Argue that SCOTUS fails to recognize that “personhood” is inviolable

Human being at the point of conception

FYI: ~25% of all embryos do not survive 6 weeks

  • McCorvey converts to Pro-Life stance, 1995 (dislikes use of abortion for birth control)

Reaction to “Great Society”

  • The tricky part of determining this reaction is the mixture of politics, economics, and culture

You can support women’s legal equality, BUT you can also dislike the greater economic competition they represent

You can support legislation to clean up the environment, BUT also dislike the expanded role played by the federal government in business

You can support legislation to alleviate the worst excesses of poverty, BUT still feel that no one is there to help those barely holding on in the middle class

  • Politicians exploit these cultural contrasts to win elections, it’s what they do

Great Society “Cultural Backlash” (Gender)

  • A very dramatic effect on unskilled (esp. white) men

Women’s Liberation undermines men’s status at home

Civil Rights undermines the advantage of being white

Economic collapse (1970s) undermines blue-collar, non-college educated workforce (traditionally Democrats)

Advantaged males (and females) now all COLLEGE EDUCATED

Great Society Cultural Backlash (Budgets)

  • Critics argue that Great Society only “throws money at problems.” But...

Most programs under-funded as result of Viet Nam war and steep recession in 1973 (like New Deal, GS doesn’t last a long time)

By 1968, funding already cut for most programs

$322,000 spent for every enemy soldier killed in Viet Nam

$53 spent for every American citizen living in poverty

Nixon fully funds EEOC and Head Start, and they work!

1970s – focus turns to the courts; are states required to provide services demanded by federal government?

Strong cause for rise of New Right

2012 Federal budget:

25% to Department of Defense

12% to Social Welfare

3% to Public Education

Great Society Cultural Backlash (Values – “real America”)

  • Great Society “undermines traditional values.” But...

America was changing well before 1964

Modernization, 1920-1960:

Pre-marital sex rates on the rise in the 1930s

Divorce rate rises in 1940s

Youth culture splits from adults in 1940-50s

Drugs and Alcohol abuse in the 1950s (date back to 1890s)

While some see the 1960s as a “Counter Culture,” they are really the culmination of sixty years of Modernization; hardly “counter” to the values of modernity

Made all the more powerful when COMPARING the 1960s to the odd decade of the 1950s, not so odd when compared to other decades (1910s, 1920s, 1930s, etc.)

  • Last 35 years dominated by GOP, but the same cultural trend continues! What’s up with that?

Teen Pregnancy Rate, 2013

2012 Election

Great Society Cultural Backlash
(Special Interest Groups)

  • GS unleashes “Interest Group Politics” that undermines democracy. But...

This is typical of American politics - Jas. Madison, Progressives

Federalist #10

Now more inclusive

Groups more varied

Politics more contentious

Consensus seems positively foolish

Political activism through BASE voters; seen clearly in 2000 and 2004 elections

But Cultural Backlash has real Political
Consequences for Democrats

  • Men vote their economic interests

This does NOT include giving women equal status

  • Opposition to the “Great Society” policies increasingly linked to race and culture

“Cultural Liberals” “Cultural Conservatives”

But Modern Civil Rights movement has little to do with Great Society; Youth culture has little to do with politics

  • Interest Group politics split Democratic coalition

1932-1968 – Only one Republican President

1968-2008 – Only two Democratic Presidents

  • Backlash (and Vietnam War) helps to rip apart Democratic Party, opens the door for the New Right

What are the 1960s?
(LBJ, 1963-1968)

1. Efforts to live in a “Great Society” are praiseworthy

Poverty in the U.S. falls, life expectancy rises, infant mortality falls

Opportunity extended to millions who otherwise were excluded

Sense of optimism and mission for the U.S.

Civil Rights legislation begins to overturn legal inequality

Conclusions

Benefits of Great Society

  • Education, 1965-2000

29,000,000 students benefit from college loans

65% of today’s students receive loans from GS programs

1965: 41% complete high school; 81% today

1965: 8% complete college; 24% today

  • Economic Opportunity

800,000 grade school children today have pre-school care through Head Start; school breakfast; school nursing

39 million have Medicaid; 79 million have Medicare

  • Quality of Life

420 playhouses, 120 opera companies, 400 dance companies, 230 orchestras

35 new National Parks, 155 scenic river valleys, 800 recreational trails

Environmental regulations begin to curb most problematic pollutants

30,000,000 families purchased homes for the first time under Ginnie Mae/Fannie Mae (“reforms” in 1999 help lead to 2007 crash)

  • Democracy

1964: 300 minority officials elected nationwide; 2000: 10,000+

Constitutional rights upheld through Civil and Voting Rights Acts

Conclusions (cont)

2. “Sixties” shift the meaning of “fitting into” America

Old view was assimilation – be like us or you will be an outcast

New view was multi-cultural – unity comes from acceptance of diversity (true American asset for the 21st century… this is hard to do, but we’ve been inching forward for 50+ years)

3. “Sixties” challenge much about new America, but rely on old assumptions

Progressivism – the future is better than the past

Authoritarian – Federal leaders will always do what is right

Cold War – fear of communist domination should the U.S. fail in containment

When these assumptions fail (domestic unrest, Watergate, and Viet Nam) U.S. confidence will be severely undermined

[Add in two major recessions and things get a little nasty]

Conclusions (cont.)

4. After all is said and done, LBJ still accomplished more than any other single President in the area of Civil Rights (with the exception of Lincoln)

LBJ: “That young hero I replaced may have done something, but I did more.”

  • If you think race relations are better today than in 1963, and if you understand where race relations were in 1963, then LBJ is chiefly responsible for the political changes.

Sadly, this legacy is destroyed by Viet Nam, culture wars of 1980-present