http://ctheory.net/ctheory_wp/through-the-dark-mirror-ufos-as-a-postmodern-myth/
By Daniel White and Alvin Y. Wang
Ubi Cogito, ibi sum. (“Where I think, there I am.”)
– Jacques Lacan, The Language of the Self(182)
Friday, July 19, 2019
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Building the Great Society 2
It has seemed clear, to me at least, from early on in the Bush administration, as the country bgan its general social genuflection to the New Pharoah - The Corporation, and away from Government as a necessary function, that things, no matter how badly, how relentlessly market-driven, and capital-motivated they become, will eventually go so far to the right that some kind of correction would be inevitable. Well, that day has come. Even under the Clinton Administration, government was viewed as Too Damn Big. The 44th President of the US seems less concerned about whether government is Big or small, just that it is effective.
As we take a deep breath and we, and the administration, sees where this amazing moment in our nation's history takes us, let's step back a minute and reflect on the Thoughts of that Pre-eminent Philosopher of the 1960s, whose overall success was tainted by the debacle of the Viet Nam War, but whose efforts in pressing Civil Rights legislation and using government as a tool to build a Great Society cannot now be underestimated. Although he is less heralded and less admired than JFK, or Lincoln, his efforts in supporting civil rights legislation, education and social programs in the 60s, have to be viewed as having a direct impact upon January 20, 2009:
Did you ever think that making a speech on economics is a lot like pissing down your leg? It seems hot to you, but it never does to anyone else.
Lyndon B. Johnson
No member of our generation who wasn't a Communist or a dropout in the thirties is worth a damn.
Lyndon B. Johnson
The CIA is made up of boys whose families sent them to Princeton but wouldn't let them into the family brokerage business.
Lyndon B. Johnson
The guns and the bombs, the rockets and the warships, are all symbols of human failure.
Lyndon B. Johnson
We have entered an age in which education is not just a luxury permitting some men an advantage over others. It has become a necessity without which a person is defenseless in this complex, industrialized society. We have truly entered the century of the educated man.
Lyndon B. Johnson
This administration here and now declares unconditional war on poverty.
Lyndon B. Johnson
Only two things are necessary to keep one's wife happy. One is to let her think she is having her own way, and the other is to let her have it.
Lyndon B. Johnson
We have talked long enough in this country about equal rights. It is time now to write the next chapter - and to write it in the books of law.
Lyndon B. Johnson
We have the opportunity to move not only toward the rich society and the powerful society, but upward to the Great Society.
Lyndon B. Johnson
We live in a world that has narrowed into a neighborhood before it has broadened into a brotherhood.
Lyndon B. Johnson
We must open the doors of opportunity. But we must also equip our people to walk through those doors.
Lyndon B. Johnson
There are no problems we cannot solve together, and very few that we can solve by ourselves.
Lyndon B. Johnson
Until justice is blind to color, until education is unaware of race, until opportunity is unconcerned with the color of men's skins, emancipation will be a proclamation but not a fact.
Lyndon B. Johnson
If one morning I walked on top of the water across the Potomac River, the headline that afternoon would read: "President Can't Swim."
Lyndon B. Johnson
Finally, I have a copy of "Quotations from Chairman Lyndon," a takeoff of course on the "Quotations of Chairman Mao." The little red book, which features LBJ in a Mao jacket on the cover, was published as a satire since, at the time, LBJ had a bit of what we know today as "W" in him---that Texas folk wisdom and mistrust for intellectuals. But in some ways, his work was prescient, so let's remember one last quote:
If the American people don't love me, their descendants will.
Lyndon B. Johnson
--Brooklyn Beat
As we take a deep breath and we, and the administration, sees where this amazing moment in our nation's history takes us, let's step back a minute and reflect on the Thoughts of that Pre-eminent Philosopher of the 1960s, whose overall success was tainted by the debacle of the Viet Nam War, but whose efforts in pressing Civil Rights legislation and using government as a tool to build a Great Society cannot now be underestimated. Although he is less heralded and less admired than JFK, or Lincoln, his efforts in supporting civil rights legislation, education and social programs in the 60s, have to be viewed as having a direct impact upon January 20, 2009:
Did you ever think that making a speech on economics is a lot like pissing down your leg? It seems hot to you, but it never does to anyone else.
Lyndon B. Johnson
No member of our generation who wasn't a Communist or a dropout in the thirties is worth a damn.
Lyndon B. Johnson
The CIA is made up of boys whose families sent them to Princeton but wouldn't let them into the family brokerage business.
Lyndon B. Johnson
The guns and the bombs, the rockets and the warships, are all symbols of human failure.
Lyndon B. Johnson
We have entered an age in which education is not just a luxury permitting some men an advantage over others. It has become a necessity without which a person is defenseless in this complex, industrialized society. We have truly entered the century of the educated man.
Lyndon B. Johnson
This administration here and now declares unconditional war on poverty.
Lyndon B. Johnson
Only two things are necessary to keep one's wife happy. One is to let her think she is having her own way, and the other is to let her have it.
Lyndon B. Johnson
We have talked long enough in this country about equal rights. It is time now to write the next chapter - and to write it in the books of law.
Lyndon B. Johnson
We have the opportunity to move not only toward the rich society and the powerful society, but upward to the Great Society.
Lyndon B. Johnson
We live in a world that has narrowed into a neighborhood before it has broadened into a brotherhood.
Lyndon B. Johnson
We must open the doors of opportunity. But we must also equip our people to walk through those doors.
Lyndon B. Johnson
There are no problems we cannot solve together, and very few that we can solve by ourselves.
Lyndon B. Johnson
Until justice is blind to color, until education is unaware of race, until opportunity is unconcerned with the color of men's skins, emancipation will be a proclamation but not a fact.
Lyndon B. Johnson
If one morning I walked on top of the water across the Potomac River, the headline that afternoon would read: "President Can't Swim."
Lyndon B. Johnson
Finally, I have a copy of "Quotations from Chairman Lyndon," a takeoff of course on the "Quotations of Chairman Mao." The little red book, which features LBJ in a Mao jacket on the cover, was published as a satire since, at the time, LBJ had a bit of what we know today as "W" in him---that Texas folk wisdom and mistrust for intellectuals. But in some ways, his work was prescient, so let's remember one last quote:
If the American people don't love me, their descendants will.
Lyndon B. Johnson
--Brooklyn Beat
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