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So now that all thos barriers are, for the most part, non-existent, whats the excuse? While Johnson's intents were noble, the execution then and since went off the rails. Barriers to entry started dropping right after affirmative action, school integration, and bussing were enacted. Add 30-40 years and there is clearly egions of gains for those that were previously excluded to the core fundamentals of success.
My point sir, is that there were millions of Americans that were denied similar avenues, had no social support, and came out "okay" in the end.
Today's "poor" are yesterdays middle class. All paid for.
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Much poverty has in fact been eliminated by the War on Poverty programs. Or did you miss that part of this discussion?
Eliminating the structural barriers to joining the middle class was critical, but there was another element. That element is simply giving these programs time to work. If you pass a law that prevents employment discrimination it may take years for employers to get the message that they can't discriminate. If you pass laws that mandate equality in schools, it may take decades to see the result which would be better educated poor and minority children. Rightwingers think you can snap your fingers and all these problems should be magically resolved. Unfortunately, the real world doesn't work that way. Implementing reforms takes time. Always has been the case. Always will be the case.
I agree that many groups did find ways to climb out of poverty prior to the War on Poverty. There are multitudinous reasons for such occurrences. In some cases, these people had very large family structures that were all committed to working to that end. In other cases,some cultures were extraordinarily committed to education and made nearly unbelievable sacrifices to see that their children got it. Seldom were these groups denied the right to vote though. Most of these groups had no history of slavery. Others came at a time when the American economy needed labor more than at other times because of economic expansion.
I also think there are people out there who are so idealogically committed to an agenda that if they could show that 1% poverty remained after these programs had been implemented, they would still call the War on Poverty "a failure". Of course, they'd be wrong, but that would be their position. In reality, we reduced poverty by about 60-65%. That is monumental achievement. Whatever Johnson's failings in Vietnam, his War on Poverty was a noble and a great achievement.
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