Johnson's Great Society Programs - Essay Example

Download file to see previous pages... After Johnson’s success in the 1964 election he decided to fulfill the above three basic purposes through some well thought out strategies like development of new Medicaid and Medicare programs to provide health care facilities to all, funds were provided for education and urban development. Creation of new cabinet offices as the Departments of Transportation, and new agencies like Equal Employment Opportunity Commission were created to help people and at the same time they expanded the powers of the federal government to achieve the objectives. Poverty was reduced though programs like Head Start, job training, legal services, and scholarships for poor college students which were under the Office of Economic Opportunity (p. 972). Equality was achieved through the Voting rights Act of 1965 and immigration reforms through the Hart Celler Act of 1965. 2. What were the sources and significance of the rights revolution of the late 1960s? Despite the efforts for equality and freedom by Johnson during his tenure, there were still some major groups that felt dissatisfied, who had never spoken up for themselves and who were finally realizing in this new wave of liberalization that their freedom was also lost and for getting that freedom back they had to do something. Blacks had always been prejudiced and finally they were getting their due back though slowly. However, other groups like feminists, homosexuals, Mexican-Americans, Indian-Americans never got a chance to talk about their freedom and it was in the late 60s that with developments like Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique, formation of the Mattachine Society, latino activism, upsurge of Indian militancy laid the foundation for the rights revolution. One of the major significance of the rights revolution was that indirectly the judiciary system established itself as the system capable of upholding what’s right for the society gaining their trust. With landmark rulings in cases like New York Times v. Sullivan and Loving v. Verginia, the court sought to achieve civil rights and racial equality. “The Court simultaneously pushed forward the process of imposing upon the states the obligation to respect the liberties outlined in the Bill of Rights. It required states to abide by protections against illegal search and seizure, the right of a defendant to a speedy trial, the prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment” (p.996). Besides policing the states, the court also upheld the right to privacy. “The rights revolution completed the transformation of American freedom from a set of entitlements enjoyed mainly by white men into an open-ended claim to equality, recognition, and self-determination (p. 997). 3. In what ways was 1968 a climactic year for the Sixties? The Sixties brought major changes to American society and the changes weren’t just good, progressive changes in the attitude of the people but the decade also saw rise of drug culture all in the name of freedom. The decade was about freedom: freedom from poverty, freedom from racialism, freedom from inequality and freedom from all sorts of restrictions. And all the developments and changes throughout the decade came to a climax in 1968. The long subdued rebellion in Vietnam finally came into full power in January 1968, which strengthened ...Download file to see next pagesRead More