Does this movie show his opposition to the 1957 Civil Rights bill where he, as leader of the Senate, fought it tooth and nail. Or does it address the reason for the change? Was it pragmatism and a chance for his party to get credit for it? I never rely on Hollywood for accurate history.
shareUh, yes it does mention him gutting the 1957 Bill and the distrust of MLK and his people from it. It also shows all the problems with getting his party in line and the fight at the Democratic Comvention in Atlantic City.
shareWhere do you get your history from? Fox News?
The 1957 Civil Rights Act was weak. It was also the FIRST civil rights act to be passed since Reconstruction. 121 bills had been killed off by the Dixiecrats.
It was LBJ who got it through the Senate. Without him, there would have been 122 bills killed off by the Dixiecrats.
Read "Master of the Senate" by Robert Caro.
As for LBJ's beliefs on civil rights, as a senator from racist Texas, he was obliged to feign racism to get re-elected. If he didn't get re-elected, he was powerless to make a change. Once he became President, all the hostility he had nurtured his whole life towards racists since he taught elementary school to the children of Mexican itinerant workers, could be manifested.
Unlike JFK who had no connection to minority communities and who didn't risk losing votes in Massachusetts when he espoused equality and who, once he was in the White House, only gave lip service to issues of equality, LBJ felt these issues deeply as he had grown up witnessing them.
Robert Caro wrote of LBJ: "power corrupts but power also reveals" and power revealed LBJ was still the New Dealer (he had been a protege of FDR) he had started out as. When Roy Wilkins asked LBJ why he was pushing so hard for the civil rights act, LBJ quoted MLK back to him: "I'm free at last. Thank God Almighty, I'm free at last".
STOP WHITEWASHING HISTORY! I HAVE READ THE CARO BOOKS AS WELL AND YOU ARE SELECTIVE ABOUT LBJ. LBJ WAS NEVER FREE FROM SCANDAL: BILLIE SOL ESTES AND BOBBY BAKER. LBJ WAS ABOUT TO REMOVED FROM THE VICE PRESIDENT TICKET BY BOBBY KENNEDY BECAUSE THE BOBBY BAKER SCANDAL. IN 1961, HUNTER MARSHALL, A GOVERNMENT OFFICIAL WAS MURDERED DUE TO BUSINESS SCANDALS TIED TO LBJ. LBJ WAS VERY MUCH A RACIST BECAUSE HE WAS GROOMED BY RICHARD RUSSELL.
shareYADDA YADDA YADDA. Get back to the Conspiracy Forum.
shareWELL YOU GET BACK TO THE DUMB BOX, THAT IS THE EXTENT OF YOUR KNOWLEDGE!
shareHe's the same nut that is screaming about LBJ being the worst president ever. I guess he doesn't know much about past presidents.
I just threw up a little in my mouth.
The conspiracy theorists all have a sandwich missing from their picnic.
shareROFLMAO! That's a great one. I've never heard that one before. I'll have to steal if from you and use it in the future. LOL.
Maybe all of the sandwiches are in a pile on the grassy knoll. Heh heh.
I just threw up a little in my mouth.
Excuse me, it's not a conspiracy theory, any of what that fella said. Johnson was extremely corrupt, right from his first election to political office. His very first election was rigged. Fact. Nobody disputes this today. The Bobby Baker and Estes cases are solid fact, and both conveniently went away when he became President. Johnson also had his pal Mac Wallace murder several people, including Johnson's own sister. Again, documented fact. Look up Mac Wallace if you dare. The Gulf of Tonkin Incident was faked to give LBJ a pretext to start active involvement in Vietnam. Yet again, fact. Not even the CIA pretend the "attack" on the US warships in August '64 was anything but a deliberate hoax any longer. The controversial theory is that he was somehow innocent of these crimes, not that he was involved in them. He was not innocent. He is indeed guilty of those crimes and probably of several other felonies, or at best (for him) strongly suspected of being involved. The above are just the ones that can be proved. The man was a total crook.
shareYou take it too far. Johnson was corrupt, but not as corrupt as you claim.
There were two Tonkin Gulf incidents in August 1964. The first was minor but quite real. The second was a false sighting report. Those happened from time to time. It was not a hoax, but it is very clear that Johnson and Congress drastically over-reacted to it by passing the Tonkin Gulf Resolution that permitted Johnson to send combat troops to Vietnam.
Entropy ain't what it used to be.
Please calm down.
sharePlease calm down.
Thanks for your timely post, DCHARACKY
I've read the Caro books as well. LBJ was in line to be removed from the 1964 ticket provided that there was another way open to win. As much as the Kennedy Brothers hated old 'bull' Johnson they hated losing, more. Cranston is brilliant in this movie, however the facts are bent to our times instead of accurately addressing the mid-60's. I realize the need for heroes however LBJ just ain't that kind of feller. Not by a country mile.
STFU you shouting imbecile.
I didn't even bother to read what you typed. You do not deserve to be read. Ignorant moron that you are.
"I care about the law. It's justice I don't give a toss about." Cleaver Greene
LBJ selected a Japanese man as his personal photographer.
http://www.newyorker.com/culture/photo-booth/yoichi-okamoto-lyndon-johnsons-photographer
:|
La-dee-dah.
Maybe, instead of posting on a message board about how you don't like LBJ, you could watch the movie first. Just a thought.
"Boy that was really exciting. I bet you're a big Lee Marvin fan aren't ya."
THIS PICTURE LIKE THE PLAY ARE ATTEMPTS TO RE-WRITE HISTORY TO SAY SOMETHING GOOD ABOUT LBJ WHEN REALITY SUGGESTS OTHERWISE. PERHAPS INSTEAD OF THE DUMB BOX MAYBE PICK UP A BOOK INSTEAD
share[deleted]
I don't think it's a case of whitewashing it. The film is supposed to be about LBJ's first year in office. The Viet Nam war took a few more years to grow, and become the horror that it was.
shareYou didn't even take the time to watch the movie before crying about whitewashing? That is some serious stupidity. In today's world, people are anxious for something to be pissed about, to rage about. They sit on their computers refreshing for content they can comment on, someone that violates some new code about social issues. Educate yourself.
The rug really tied the room together.
I have already educated myself since I read real books instead of depending on the dumpbox for propaganda. Do not lecture me!
Lol, don't cry about people "lecturing" you over claiming a movie you've never seen is whitewashed is an act of stupidity. You are so self-absorbed and entitled that you expect people to listen to you when you're being an immature, overly hostile jackass? No, that's not how the world works. Grow the *beep* up.
shareThat is NOT whitewashing. That is focus -- just as "Hyde Park on Hudson" was not whitewashing because it did not say anything about the Japanese internment camps -- it was briefly alluded to in the film, but that's not what the film was about -- it was about his involvement with MLK and the Civil Rights movement.
share