One of my biggest complaints about the evening shows on MSNBC (Rachel Maddow followed by Lawrence O’Donnell) or Fox News (Bill O’Reilly followed by Sean Hannity) is that they tend to repeat a lot of the same partisan news, criticisms and talking points. In fact, MSNBC might be worse than Fox News, because of those very liberally partisan “Lean Forward” promotional spots it features all day long by the same evening pundits ( my favorite being Al Sharpton’s “Blueberry Pie” )….and last month PolitiFact Texas took one of the claims in those spots by Lawrence O’Donnell to task: that there were critics of the ultimately very successful G.I. Bill who called it welfare (youtube video below).
At the time (end of World War II), the few critics of it called it “relief” and “dole.” Those two words can be found all over the net as synonyms for present day welfare. The underlying argument, however, is that this laid the groundwork for one of the foundational principles of the future Conservative/Republican party: the concept that any type of welfare is meant to breed dependency on government, which Republicans want you to think is how the Democrats keep their constituencies. The aversion to this dependency was epitomized by Ronald Reagan in his claims about “welfare queens” and glittering generalities about “rugged individualism.” It was also about, as the traditionally southern Democrats turned Republican in the wake of Civil Rights, a veiled type of racism. In other words, Republicans have made the word welfare a derisive one.
(Sidebar: I remember in my carpool days when my favorite right-wing loon Rich Peasel told me that he himself had seen black people driving Cadillacs and dressed in diamonds and fur coats at the grocery store paying with food stamps [they were buying steaks, too]. While I don’t believe this is what he actually saw [he was fibbing big time], this is the personification of that principle.)
The term welfare came into common usage about the time of Lyndon Johnson’s “Great Society/War on Poverty.” In 1944, it was a word that may have been viewed positively, as reported in one linguist’s blog who was reviewing PolitiFact’s ruling strictly from a “historical sentiment” view: “In 1944, "welfare" didn't appear to have a pejorative sentiment.” Well, knowing how that pejorative sentiment came to be, however, it may support the terms “relief” and “dole” which at that time may have been pejorative.
The critic to whom Lawrence O’Donnell refers for the most part is a Mississippi Democrat who PolitiFact quotes as being “an ardent white supremacist” named John Rankin—who I guarantee would have jumped to the Republicans had he been around in the mid 60’s—and who could just come out and say it back in 1944 before the advent of dog-whistle politics.
(Sidebar: I remember in my carpool days when my favorite right-wing loon Rich Peasel told me that he himself had seen black people driving Cadillacs and dressed in diamonds and fur coats at the grocery store paying with food stamps [they were buying steaks, too]. While I don’t believe this is what he actually saw [he was fibbing big time], this is the personification of that principle.)
The term welfare came into common usage about the time of Lyndon Johnson’s “Great Society/War on Poverty.” In 1944, it was a word that may have been viewed positively, as reported in one linguist’s blog who was reviewing PolitiFact’s ruling strictly from a “historical sentiment” view: “In 1944, "welfare" didn't appear to have a pejorative sentiment.” Well, knowing how that pejorative sentiment came to be, however, it may support the terms “relief” and “dole” which at that time may have been pejorative.
The critic to whom Lawrence O’Donnell refers for the most part is a Mississippi Democrat who PolitiFact quotes as being “an ardent white supremacist” named John Rankin—who I guarantee would have jumped to the Republicans had he been around in the mid 60’s—and who could just come out and say it back in 1944 before the advent of dog-whistle politics.
