Charlie Rose

BENEZRAA  06/01/2012 04:35 PM Report

ADDENDUM

It is important to note that regardless of speculations as to whether or not the passage of Civil Rights legislation may have led to some favorable minority opinion towards the Viet Nam War, it is a fact of history that there was much opposition to the Viet Nam War by our minorities, and some of that opposition -- before and after the passage of Civil Rights legislation -- was based in strong sentiment that there was a racist element to the Viet Nam War that pitted non-white Americans against the Viet Namese "Gook". The majority of American soldiers serving in Viet Nam were white and were not racist. Yet, it is not difficult to perceive that for many non-whites, their subjective view based on their own experience of discrimination may have been that "the enemy (Viet Namese) of my enemy (white Americans) is my friend". In a more extensive way today this may well be a significant part of the American social and political landscape.

BENEZRAA  06/01/2012 02:53 PM Report

IS THERE A PARALLEL BETWEEN THE CIVIL RIGHTS LEGISLATION OF LYNDON JOHNSON AND THE EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN?

It is probably not the case, as suggested by a commentator below, that the Civil Rights legislation of the Lyndon Johnson presidency was put through in order to feed the military machine with non-white cannon fodder. There was no impediment to drafting non-whites at that time. Although, with respect to the realm of public opinion vis-a-vis Viet Nam, some may ask, if Johnson may have thought that the favor of minority Americans to support the Viet Nam War could be gained by the passing of Civil Rights legislation, and that such support could be vital. Given the paranoia of the Cold War thinking of the time, it is plausible to suppose that Civil Rights legislation could have made a difference in preventing a fully-fledged second Civil War from occurring simultaneously to the Cold War. This is an hypothetical in that Johnson did pass Civil Rights legislation, a fully-fledged Civil War did not erupt (despite terrible repressions and divisions in our Nation that exist to this day), and the Cold War has been prosecuted with recorded successes and failures (the consequences of which form the current tapestry of world war). There does not exist an alternative history for comparison.

The Emancipation Proclamation of Abraham Lincoln applied to the Confederate States, which in the eyes of the Confederacy meant that the United States sought to instigate a slave uprising within the Confederacy; in the eyes of the Confederacy this was not only an effort by the North to create a fifth-column against the South, it was an additional affront to the South against southern property.

It is plausible to ask, if in passing the Civil Rights legislation of the 1960's, a critical difference may have been made in prevention of the proliferation of a left-wing fifth-column inside the USA sufficient to wage fully-fledged Civil War. This plausibility parallels the New Deal of the Franklin Roosevelt administration, which New Deal blunted the left-wing labor movement, and without which the USA may not have been sufficiently united as a nation to fight Hitler and rebuild Europe (the Marshall Plan).

Which then brings us to the question, how will the USA resolve it's present divisions for the present time? There are those, who paint the Obama administration and the Democratic Party as the Communist Plantation in power; on the flip side, there are those, who paint Romney and the Republican Party as born-again white, racist, colonial, imperial, power hungry Corporazis. It can benefit no one, if either of these megalomaniacal imaginations should actually become real. Nor can it benefit anyone to fail to perceive that, "where there is smoke, there is fire". Our domestic reality is not independent of the world at large, and our domestic difficulties are a measure of the difficulties of the world at large and the interests, foreign and domestic, that share our values.

We may also ask to what extent we may learn from the example of Lyndon Johnson's political acumen with respect to herding the cats of Congress and overcoming gridlock. One prescient unpleasant example is the health care legislation now before the Supreme Court. Whatever good and bad exists in the Bill, the process of it's passage infuriated the Nation; Lyndon Johnson would have managed a superior Bill and bipartisan consensus.

Setting aside this theoretical commentary, I would like to express my gratitude to Robert Caro for his work and to Charlie Rose for sharing this conversation.

Ricardo_Amaral  05/31/2012 05:44 AM Report

Gelles, I hope you are well.

I recommend that you take the time to watch the entire lecture with Satyajit Das, since you will not be able to get anywhere a better presentation regarding what is happening today in the world economy and financial markets.

Excellent lecture and presentation by Satyajit Das:

The End of Growth? A CIS Talk by the Author of "Extreme Money" – May 28, 2012

http://youtu.be/RBKwmZDZvW0

Time: 1 hr 30 min.

Join risk analyst and "not your average banker" Satyajit Das for an indepth and highly troubling look into the toxic state of global financial markets. Das is the best-selling author of Traders, Guns and Money, and will discuss his recent book, Extreme Money: The Masters of the Universe and the Cult of Risk.

.

anne4444  05/30/2012 10:57 PM Report

“All human are created equal.” It is the law of the universe.

Hopefully, someone will step up to do research on human soul. Maybe we all carry little Greys as our souls.

SharkswithfrikingLazers  05/30/2012 02:13 AM Report

From this conversation it sounds like Johnson was a good 'ol boy from Texas who made his million(s) from public service/corruption/inside deals. He was "folks" while the Kennedys were already "one percenters" from their illegal activities.

A true test, of what we heard was Johnson's genius, would have been to break into the Kennedy inner sanctum instead of spending three years outside their clique. His fear of being dropped from the ticket in 1964 seems to show he was way over his head with the Ivy League rich boys and therefore his genius was limited.

If Johnson could have handled the Kennedys then perhaps he would not have been 'made ill from a lack of power, wear suits that were too big and take shorter steps'.

Perhaps another book might be to compare Dick Cheney and LBJ as Vice Presidents . . . that or a Saturday Night Live sketch.

zb1  05/29/2012 07:57 PM Report

CORRECTED

I enjoyed watching the show. I've always thought the Civil Rights legislation was really about the need to have a pool of young men to draft for Vietnam. You might say it was not unlike the Emancipation Proclamation by Lincoln. They couldn't very well have drafted young black men and send them off to VN without also giving them equal rights and the right to vote. Lincoln did not do the Emancipation Proclamation until it became clear he needed a new pool of soldiers to fight the war.

I wonder what Mr. Caro's thoughts are on that.

zb1  05/29/2012 07:55 PM Report

I enjoyed watching the show. I've always thought the Civil Rights legislation was really about the need to have a pool of young men to draft for Vietnam. You might say it was not unlike the Emancipation Proclamation by Lincoln. They couldn't very well have drafted you black men and send them off to VN without also giving them equal rights and the right to vote. Lincoln did not do the Emanscipation Proclamation until it became clear he needed a new pool of soldiers to fight the war.

I wonder what Mr. Caro's thoughts are on that.

REMant  05/29/2012 11:30 AM Report

This points up why it is thought, and probably always will be thought, that since Johnson benefited so much from the assassination, his elevation was in some manner the intention of it. All the more so because of what happened to the assassin. As for civil rights, it was in his blood. He was never a bubba, tho he was, according to accounts, a pretty crude guy. I think his "power" lay mostly with the southerners he knew best, which looking at it from the opposite perspective, we think more remarkable than it was. Indeed, I think the author is still imbued with the Kennedy aura. The war on poverty and Vietnam were begun by others. Johnson had every right to think the Kennedy family usurpers. It might well be that he had no idea of passing their programs, but rather using the best and brightest to help pass his.