Real Despair

[Max Sawicky]

CC, quoting Harvy:
" . . . The legislation
was not, in fact, an outcome of the class and sectional alliance policies
which had created the New Deal, but came at the tail-end of a decade
in which politics had shifted from universal programs (like social
security) to specially targeted programs to help regenerate the inner
cities (e.g., the Model Cities and federally funded housing programs),
take care of the elderly or the particularly impoverished (e.g.,
Medicare and Medicaid), and target particular disadvantaged groups
in the population (Head Start and Affirmative action). . . .

This is off the mark.  The launch of the War on Poverty
featured a very fragmented, decentralized system of
programs aimed at self-help and mobilization of the
poor.  Nixon's effect was to turn everything into
income support (cash and in-kind) which implied a
more passive recipient population, not a more fragmented
one.  The distinction between deserving and undeserving,
giving rise to social insurance for the former and
means-tested programs for the latter, predates Nixon.

The group phenomenon is associated more properly with
the rights-based movements (civil, women, gay, disabled,
etc.), towards which Nixon was not particularly
solicitous.  I'd say the left is more at the root of
such fragmentation than Nixon.

mbs