Mix the best from the left and right

I take issue with Mr. Piagari's response in the July 26 Fence Post.

The Fair Deal, Great Society and New Frontier were mentioned with such disdain and condemnation that I feel a sense of duty to respond.

Roosevelt inherited the worse depression in history.

In a nation of 128 million people, 13 million were unemployed. Almost every bank was closed. Millions of people lost everything they had in the stock market and through bank failures. People were starving in the streets.

The Fair Deal was a program that kept people alive.

It provided funds for farmers to plant crops and keep their farms and for large and small businesses to continue operating.

It provided financial relief to the unemployed, work relief programs like the Civil Conservation Corps that rebuilt much of the nation's infrastructure while providing work for a fair wage.

It created the FDIC, FHA, TVA and Securities and Exchange Commission, which are all still serving the American people.

The Great Society was described as "A social program designed to provide everyone with everything, including education, medical care, urban programs and transportation" by Mr. Piagari.

LBJ's program had a lot of faults, but it did provide aid to education, Medicare, voting rights and the war on poverty.

JFK's New Frontier created the Alliance for Progress, the Peace Corps and a revised, stronger Civil Rights Bill. What's to hate there?

The vast majority of Democrats and Republicans are not extremists like so many of the talking heads on TV and radio.

They, along with us independents, have a great view of America.

Where we stand, there is room to look to the left and look to the right and select what makes sense to us, regardless of where it comes from.

Blaming the liberals and LBJ for the Social Security mess and ignoring the fact that the present administration is taking $3 trillion from the Social Security Trust Fund with no intention of repaying it, is typical of how the extremes shave reality to fit their "truth."

The blame belongs to the past 40 years of Republican and Democrat presidents and every member of Congress since 1968.

That said, we can still put a great big circle around George W. Bush because he is the poster boy as Social Security's newest and biggest Prince of Thieves.

Len Brauer

Palatine