Sublime
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The fact is, Farley was centralizing the party structure to a degree unprecedented in American politics, and it was more effective to work with organizations already in place than to create something new.
Jean Edward Smith • FDR
When President Franklin Roosevelt, originator of the American safety net, called welfare a drug and “subtle destroyer of the human spirit”; or when Arizona senator Barry Goldwater said in 1961 that he didn’t like how his “taxes paid for children born out of wedlock” and complained about “professional chiselers walking up and down the streets who do
... See moreMatthew Desmond • Poverty, by America
The End of History?
According to the spy agency itself, post-Marxist French theory directly contributed to the CIA’s cultural program of coaxing the left toward the right, while discrediting anti-imperialism and anti-capitalism, thereby creating an intellectual environment in which their imperial projects could be pursued unhindered by serious critical scrutiny from t
... See moreThe CIA Reads French Theory: On the Intellectual Labor of Dismantling the Cultural Left - The Philosophical Salon
Following the trail left by those overlooked documents in Moses’ files, the hard-riding reporters had come at last upon the secret that would destroy the heart of the Moses legend: the fact that this man who supposedly scorned politicians had allowed the top echelon of New York’s politicians to reap fortunes from his Title I program.
Robert A. Caro • The Power Broker
He was offended by someone campaigning on the ground that he could get more money—in the form of federal projects—for Texas. “The best job is going to be done for Texas in the United States Senate by sending there a man of individual courage, personal convictions and moral stamina to do what he believes is right.… Not political pull but personal in
... See moreRobert A. Caro • The Path to Power: The Years of Lyndon Johnson I
“In the terms that mattered to Johnson—which senators got things done in the Senate—Kennedy didn’t measure up,” Kennedy’s aide Ted Sorensen was to say. “So Johnson underestimated him; he, who had done everything, felt that he didn’t have to take him seriously.” When, in January, 1957, another vacancy opened on Foreign Relations, Joe Kennedy importu
... See moreRobert A. Caro • The Passage of Power: The Years of Lyndon Johnson IV
Whatever the reason it ended the way it did, his fight with Robert Moses was one of the best things that ever happened to Joe Papp. By making him the hero of the city’s wealthy liberals, it gave him the money—both from private contributions and, after the Fifth Amendment flurry had faded from public consciousness, from a Wagner-prodded city governm
... See moreRobert A. Caro • The Power Broker
The gulf between Kennedy and party liberals came partly from an unbridgeable difference in perspective. New Deal–Fair Deal Democrats thought in terms of traditional welfare state concerns—economic security, social programs, racial equality. But as Jack told Harris Wofford, “The key thing for the country is a new foreign policy that will break out o
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