44 years ago, President Lynden B. Johnson delivered a speech describing a Great Society where equality, civil rights, elimination of poverty and quality education for all children as a way of life. Great Society programs include Medicare, Medicaid, and federal funded education.
This vision of a caring helping society has long since been replaced by a culture of blame and a determination to look the other way when faced with the suffering of others.
Part of this ignoring is a failure to acknowledge the lives of soldiers and Iraqi citizens that have been lost since the Iraq War began 5 years ago. On the cusp of Memorial Day Day weekend, what will you tell your children about the war?
This is the first year I face Memorial Day with children old enough (6) to understand something about war and peace and the price we pay for our prosperity. I've talked to them about our duty as a family to help out others, but this weekend, I'm going to talk to them about why people go to war, what happens there, and what we can do to thank them. If we fail to care for each other, we'll continue to create a world nearly impossible to inhabit.
President Johnson was hated as the architect of the continued failure in Vietnam yet his legacy of social programs and a vision for the future of our country is quite beautiful:
The Great Society is a place where every child can find knowledge
to enrich his mind and to enlarge his talents. It is a place where
leisure is a welcome chance to build and reflect, not a feared
cause of boredom and restlessness. It is a place where the city
of man serves not only the needs of the body and the demands of
commerce but the desire for beauty and the hunger for community.
Is it possible to aspire this greatness again? Somehow I think it is linked to honoring those who've given their lives fighting for our country, regardless of our views of the rightness of those wars.
