The Presidency Analyzed

In the American historical imagination, the Vietnam War stands out as one of the most significant and memorable events of the entire Cold War. Internationally, it inflicted massive damage on the United States' image. Repugnant photos of Vietnamese civilians being laced with napalm and agent orange while having to watch their country be torn apart by imperialist forces appalled the outside world. The south was being raided and occupied by troops aligned with the United States, Australia, and New Zealand, while the north was being carved out as a puppet for the Soviet Union and China. As this was going on, the two coalitions of expansionist thieves clashed with one another, attempting to force the other half of Vietnam under their rule. At home, the country became sharply divided between those who supported the war and wanted to harshly punish draft dodgers and those who denounced the war and called for compassion for those resisting it. There were bright spots, such as the expansion

On July 2, 1964, Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. This piece of legendary legislation functioned as a magnificent sword, retrieved by the nation from the Arthurian stone of Congressional turmoil and wedged into the centerfold of the Jim Crow system. With the swipe of the president's pen, the 90-year-old tyrannical apparatus of segregation was split in half, slain and never to reign over the south again. Since the end of Reconstruction in 1877, a massive ocean of toxins and boiling blood sat between white southerners and black southerners, keep these two sections of the working class split apart and miring southern society in tyranny. But no more! The Civil Rights Act of 1964 banned segregation, prohibited companies from denying employment to people due to their race and blocked federal financial aid to organizations engaged in racial prejudice. A year later, Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act, which dismantled a series of loopholes instituted by southern st

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. This famous phrase, birthed in the opening sentence of Charles Dickens' cherished novel A Tale of Two Cities , serves not only as a symbol of Dickens' literary impact but also as a perfect summary of America's time amidst the Great Depression. It was certainly the worst of times. Overproduction in the agriculture sector spurred on by World War 1, a debt-based stock market, needless gluttony in industrial production, and increased interest rates had tossed the economy into its worst crisis ever, a fact intensified by the failure of the banking industry due to depositors' panicked riots and trade wars catalyzed by Herbert Hoover 's staunch protectionism. The entire nation sat like Tantalus in his pool, presented with a cornucopia of foods, but unable to reach them and enjoy. But this situation was not the punishment handed down by a pantheon of mythical gods, as in Greek myth. It was, instead, the product of very re