Let’s go back to the early 1960s. Here’s legendary comedian Lenny Bruce making fun of the racial politics/style of Lyndon Johnson, the President who would sign
- the Civil Rights Act of 1964
- the Voting Rights Act of 1965
- the Fair Housing Act of 1968
- the Immigration Act of 1965, which ended racial quotas
- and Medicare and Medicaid, which ended Jim Crow admission policies in thousands of American hospitals.
In fairness to Lenny, who knew? US Senator Lyndon Johnson had been a pig in the late 1940s and 1950s when it came to civil rights. The best that could be said for him up to then was that he did not back Strom Thurmond’s segregationist Presidential campaign in 1948. All the good, smart people looked at Lyndon Johnson take the White House in November of 1963 and said “What an asshole; we’re doomed.”
But once installed, Johnson, a politician first and foremost, knew what time it was and what he would be remembered for.
Any lessons for the present? #joebidensucks #anybodybutbiden
In 1966, ten percent of all SWP members were government informers. Five percent of all Young Socialist Alliance members (the SWP’s youth group) were snitches, too (70).