Progress at Home and Abroad
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This study will argue that between 1960 and 1974 the United States was an effective champion of progress at home, but did little to promote it abroad. Specifically, with respect to progress at home, political and social leaders and activists advanced the cause of civil rights during this period. The civil rights movement affected for the better the lives of blacks and other minorities and women, groups which had been restricted in their freedoms and rights in the past. The reason for the lack of the promotion of progress abroad was that the United States was fixated in those years on the Cold War. Foreign policy was based not on the desire to help the people of other nations politically, socially or economically, but rather to fight the communists, particularly the dreaded Soviet Union, and to fight them specifically in the poor nations of the Third World. Those nations were the very nations that needed help the most, that needed progress the most, but instead of helping them, the United States (and the Soviet Union) engaged in a struggle which drained the energies of all involved--the United States, the Soviet Union, and the poor Third World nations. The example from this period which encapsulates this Cold War obsession and the emphasis on war rather than progress was Vietnam. The year of 1960 marked the seminal election which brought John Kennedy into the White House. The end of the Eisenhower era was also the beginning of a sense that a new and dynamic leadership and s
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dents among both white and black youth.
Nixon took over the White House from a Johnson who had been so beaten by the Vietnam struggle that he chose not to run for re-election. Nixon entered the Presidency on a campaign rooted in foreign policy, not domestic issues. Vietnam continued to dominate the politics of the United States throughout the Nixon era, until the Watergate scandal consumed the nation and the White House and led to Nixon's resignation in 1974.
However, as with Kennedy and Johnson, the progress on the domestic front continued under Nixon, just as Vietnam continued to dominate foreign policy. Whatever Nixon's conservative campaign criticism's of Johnson's domestic policy might have been, in fact Nixon "expanded" the programs of the Great Society. Wright writes that "the only Johnson program he killed was a Job Corps summer camp." Nixon increased Social Security payouts by over 50 percent, raised expenditures on the arts by 500 percent, reduced or eliminated taxes for poor families and raised the minimum wage for workers. Nixon created the Environmental Protection Agency, increased the jobs program enrollment, expanded the school lunch program, and, in general, continued a domestic policy which was clearly based
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Some common words found in the essay are:
Vietnam War, Johnson Nixon, Cold War, Rights Act, Soviet Union, Kennedy Johnson, , Kennedy Bernstein, Congress Johnson, House Johnson, civil rights, cold war, johnson nixon, vietnam war, soviet union, foreign policy, kennedy johnson, vietnamese people, social programs, war ideology, united soviet union, cold war ideology, civil rights movement, fear hatred communism, third world nations,
Approximate Word count = 2554
Approximate Pages = 10 (250 words per page)
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