It was even more haphazard than the New Deal, which at least could draw on
longstanding movements (and some existing programs in the states) for social
insurance, unemployment, and widows' pensions. In typical American fashion,
Shriver et al got instructions `to do something about poverty.' Lacking the
slightest clue about its real political/economic roots, they made it up as
they went along. Within three years, the counterattack set in, and the window
of opportunity closed-- in part, because they had begun to stumble on the very
structural issues that they were so oblivious to.
Joel Blau
Timework Web wrote:
> Max Sawicky wrote,
>
> > A basic point in MFM is the duelling social theories, bureaucracies,
> > and political interests underlying the launch of the War on Poverty
> > (as reflected in the evolution of the Mobilization For Youth project
> > in the Lower East Side of NYC). There was nothing so coherent as
> > a single 'model,' Ford's or anyone's, underlying what unfolded.
> > And Ford's influence was well-eclipsed early in the process.
>
> Right. Coherent model wouldn't be the word. Let's say instead that the
> model provided the founding rationale for the participatory rhetoric. It's
> been more than 10 years since I read MFM, but I seem to recall that nobody
> (except the planners who drafted it) really knew what MFP was supposed to
> mean. Maybe not even the planners.
>
> What I was getting at is that participation was used to evoke organic
> democracy even as it implemented functional compliance. Militant
> posturing and gangsta' attitude can easily be assimilated under the broad
> rubric of participation, "Gee, Officer Krupke, Krup you!" becomes Fuck tha
> police without much imagination.
>
> Naturally, my impressionistic collage of events, institutions and social
> theories may deviate at times from Daniel Patrick Moynihan's. He was
> up there, I was only down here. Gee, Senator Moynihan, Moyn you!
>
> Tom Walker
