Disabled And Handicapped

56th Anniversary Of Medicare And Medicaid: A Salute To Lyndon B. Johnson And The Great Society!

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The nation is celebrating the 56th Anniversary of Medicare and Medicaid, a time to salute President Lyndon B. Johnson and the Great Society of the 1960s.

It is impossible to imagine how much worse off this nation would be if Johnson had not used his powers of “Wheeling and Dealing” to accomplish the health care legislation which has saved millions of American lives in the past half century, and made the lives of the elderly, the disabled, and the poor far better.

Government is not there just for the wealthy to get tax breaks, but also to serve the needs of the American people, and it is soothing to know how much Medicare and Medicaid have changed the lives of the American people.

Along with Social Security, passed into law under Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal in 1935, Medicare and Medicaid have transformed lives over the decades, despite the naysayers, mostly conservatives and Republicans, who love to call these laws “Socialism”!

If these transformational legislative achievements are “Socialism”, so be it!

The Senate Filibuster Designed For Obstruction, And Historic Denial Of Basic Civil Rights

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The US Senate is the greatest deliberative legislative body in the world, but also condemned in history for promoting denial of civil rights for people of color, particularly, but not only for African Americans.

The filibuster was used to prevent federal anti lynching laws in the years after Reconstruction and through to the 1950s by Southern Democrats, and then it was used to prevent basic civil rights laws, until Lyndon B. Johnson showed great courage, and used various tactics to overcome the denial of civil rights, and accomplish the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Now, the Republicans have used it in the past decade to stop progress under President Barack Obama, and now are threatening the same under Joe Biden, and specifically in areas including voting rights, and inhumane treatment of various minorities, including people of color, women, gays and lesbians, disabled people, and immigrants from Latin America, Asia and Africa.

They claim the mantle of “minority rights”, but only for their narrowminded effort to promote white supremacy, and refuse to accept the reality of a multi ethnic and multi racial and diverse future America in the next 25 years.

The Senate has been an obstructionist legislative body, where Senators who represent far less than a majority of the population are able to prevent what a clear majority of the population wishes to see in the promotion of human rights and work against racism, nativism, misogyny, homophobia, antisemitism, and Islamophobia!

So a change, requiring a “spoken” filibuster, which used to be the norm, needs to be revived, and that will bring about the ability to overcome the filibuster in a short period, and allow for progress on so many important issues the Senate needs to address to advance American democracy!

Rush Limbaugh And The Ultimate Right Wing Agenda: Reverse The Social And Economic Progress Since World War II!

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Radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh is on a roll with the Debt Ceiling Crisis and the Stock Market Crisis of the past few weeks, and he has declared war on all social and economic progress for the past 65 years, since World War II! Other right wing radio talk show hosts also promote what he does!

Actually, showing his total ignorance, Limbaugh probably means the past 80 years, since the New Deal of Franklin D. Roosevelt in the 1930s!

By declaring, in any case, that it is time to reverse the past 65 years, that means the following:

1. The Harry Truman improvements on the New Deal programs of FDR.
2. Reversal of Truman’s executive order to enforce racial integration in the military.
3. Reversal of racial integration as ordered by the Supreme Court and enforced by Presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy and Johnson.
4. Reversal of Eisenhower’s acceptance of the New Deal and institutionalizing it.
5. Wiping out of the programs of the New Frontier of JFK and the Great Society of LBJ–including Medicare, Medicaid, Federal Aid to Education, Consumer Protection Laws, Civil Rights and Voting Rights Act, programs to fight poverty, Environmental laws, National Public Radio, Public
Broadcasting, and other programs.
6.Ending of Richard Nixon’s domestic reforms–including the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, Environmental Protection Agency, Consumer Products Safety Commission, Affirmative Action programs, and others.
7.Ending of programs to aid the disabled and handicapped, begun under George H W Bush.
8. Other reforms passed under Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, and now Barack Obama.

This is totally insane, and the progressive movement MUST fight tooth and nail to prevent such total destruction of everything which has made America a better nation, a more tolerant nation, a more compassionate nation!

We cannot afford to go back to the 1920s, and there is no way that this agenda of Rush Limbaugh and his ilk can be allowed to triumph!