The Great Society (LBJ | Ann Arbor MI | 22 May 1964)

[struggle4progress]

... For a century we labored to settle and to subdue a continent. For half a century we called upon unbounded invention and untiring industry to create an order of plenty for all of our people. The challenge of the next half century is whether we have the wisdom to use that wealth to enrich and elevate our national life, and to advance the quality of our American civilization.

Your imagination and your initiative and your indignation will determine whether we build a society where progress is the servant of our needs, or a society where old values and new visions are buried under unbridled growth. For in your time we have the opportunity to move not only toward the rich society and the powerful society, but upward to the Great Society.

The Great Society rests on abundance and liberty for all. It demands an end to poverty and racial injustice, to which we are totally committed in our time. But that is just the beginning.

The Great Society is a place where every child can find knowledge to enrich his mind and to enlarge his talents. It is a place where leisure is a welcome chance to build and reflect, not a feared cause of boredom and restlessness. It is a place where the city of man serves not only the needs of the body and the demands of commerce but the desire for beauty and the hunger for community. It is a place where man can renew contact with nature. It is a place which honors creation for its own sake and for what is adds to the understanding of the race. It is a place where men are more concerned with the quality of their goals than the quantity of their goods ...

http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/lbjthegreatsociety.htm

[struggle4progress]

1. Do you ride the D.C. Metro? Thank the Great Society

By Katie Zezima
May 23 at 6:00 am

... Part of Johnson's vision for a great society involved rebuilding the nation's cities, many of which were blighted and decreasing in population. Mass transit agencies that served urban areas were on the decline and many were on the brink of shutting down.

The Urban Mass Transit Acts of 1964 and 1966 gave federal funds to public agencies that operated regional transit systems, helped public and private transportation companies improve facilities, funded research and development and provided fellowships for young people who wanted to study mass transit ...

The Great Society also helped construction of the BART in San Francisco and MARTA in Atlanta ...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2014/05/23/do-you-ride-the-d-c-metro-thank-the-great-society/

[struggle4progress]

2. How the Great Society Democratized Our Economy

May 23, 2014
by Jeff Faux

... Unfortunately, war-making — the one area of government most removed from public accountability — cut off the further refinement and development of the Great Society. The economic boom and national unity of World War II had validated the New Deal. Republican Dwight Eisenhower, who succeeded Roosevelt and Truman, actually enlarged the economic responsibilities of government.

But the divisive Vietnam War and its inflationary consequences pushed American politics to the right. A decade later, the election of Ronald Reagan began the process of slicing away at the Great Society, which the Democrats who succeeded him did not reverse.

The result is that government is now sometimes managed to fail ...

http://billmoyers.com/2014/05/23/how-the-great-society-democratized-our-economy/