DON'T EXPECT ANOTHER WAR ON POVERTY FROM AN OBAMA ADMINISTRATION
DON’T EXPECT ANOTHER GREAT SOCIETY OR WAR ON POVERTY FROM AN OBAMA ADMINISTRATION -- A RESPONSE TO A HIGHLY INACCURATE ARTICLE First, the War on Poverty was liberal, but certainly not left-wing, and the Democratic Party is currently neither. As someone who was a VISTA Volunteer and then trained as a city planner based on that experience, the entire thrust of the War on Poverty was the liberal view that poor people had a culture of poverty. The purpose of the War on Poverty was to teach them middle class values, such as running meetings and lobbying. Privates like me in these programs were always knocked down when we tried to organize communities to confront institutions, as opposed to enhancing individual skills. Thus, you can see that affirmative action, which was actually instituted by the Nixon administration, comes from the same blame-the-victim outlook. Get the poor and minorities some individual skills and a leg up, but for, God's sake, don't organize people