Freethought (sometimes spelled free thought ) is an unorthodox attitude or belief.
154-460: Paul Krassner (April 9, 1932 – July 21, 2019) was an American writer and satirist. He was the founder, editor, and a frequent contributor to the freethought magazine The Realist , first published in 1958. Krassner became a key figure in the counterculture of the 1960s as a member of Ken Kesey 's Merry Pranksters and a founding member of the Yippies , a term he is credited with coining. Krassner
308-409: A New Deal platform and was effectively aided by his wife. He served as a U.S. Representative from April 10, 1937, to January 3, 1949. President Roosevelt found Johnson to be a political ally and conduit for information, particularly regarding the internal politics of Texas and the machinations of Vice President John Nance Garner and House Speaker Sam Rayburn . Johnson was immediately appointed to
462-460: A " pope ": what I am concerned with is the doctrine of the modern Communistic Party, and of the Russian Government to which it owes allegiance. According to this doctrine, the world develops on the lines of a Plan called Dialectical Materialism , first discovered by Karl Marx , embodied in the practice of a great state by Lenin , and now expounded from day to day by a Church of which Stalin
616-511: A 1968 interview with Rolling Stone she expressed her desire for Krassner to write the liner notes for her new solo album. "I met him with Timothy Leary ," Elliott said, "and I fell instantly in love with his entire mind and body, and I would do anything for him. He's a hopeless idealist. I asked him to write my liner notes and he was delighted. He asked me what to write. I said write about the Yippies or write about anything; just write what you would like people to read, it doesn't have to do with
770-423: A 1995 interview for the magazine Adbusters , Krassner commented: "People across the country believed – if only for a moment – that an act of presidential necrophilia had taken place. It worked because Jackie Kennedy had created so much curiosity by censoring the book she authorized – William Manchester's The Death Of A President – because what I wrote was a metaphorical truth about LBJ's personality presented in
924-562: A Bachelor of Science in history and his certificate of qualification as a high school teacher. He briefly taught at Pearsall High School in Pearsall, Texas before taking a position teaching public speaking at Sam Houston High School in Houston. When he returned to San Marcos in 1965, after signing the Higher Education Act of 1965 , Johnson reminisced: I shall never forget the faces of
1078-528: A Raving, Unconfined Nut: Misadventures in Counter-Culture . In July 2009, City Lights Publishers released Who's to Say What's Obscene? , a collection of satirical essays that explore contemporary comedy and obscenity in politics and culture. He published three collections of drug stories. The first collection, Pot Stories for the Soul (1999), is from other authors and is about marijuana . Psychedelic Trips for
1232-854: A U.S. representative, he was called to active duty three days after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941. His first orders were to report to the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations in Washington, D.C. , for instruction and training. Following his training, Johnson asked Undersecretary of the Navy James Forrestal for a job in Washington, D.C. He was instead sent to inspect shipyard facilities in Texas and on
1386-609: A day laborer. In 1926, Johnson enrolled at SWTSTC. He worked his way through school, participated in debate and campus politics, and edited the school newspaper, The College Star . The college years refined his skills of persuasion and political organization. For nine months, from 1928 to 1929, Johnson paused his studies to teach Mexican–American children at the segregated Welhausen School in Cotulla, Texas , 90 miles (140 km) south of San Antonio . The job helped him to save money to complete his education, and he graduated in 1930 with
1540-470: A free thinker. Fred Edwords , former executive of the American Humanist Association , suggests that by Russell's definition, liberal religionists who have challenged established orthodoxies can be considered freethinkers. On the other hand, according to Bertrand Russell , atheists and/or agnostics are not necessarily freethinkers. As an example, he mentions Stalin , whom he compares to
1694-478: A hostile position towards civil rights legislation like almost all other Southern Democrat legislators; voting against anti- lynching legislation, anti- poll tax legislation and the Fair Employment Practice Committee . In April 1941, incumbent U.S. Senator Morris Sheppard from Texas died. Under Texas law, a special election for a vacant Senate seat must be held within a few months of
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#17328693552851848-540: A landmark in the era of modern free thought. It was the year of the execution in Italy of Giordano Bruno , a former Dominican friar, by the Inquisition . Prior to World War II , Australia had high rates of Protestantism and Catholicism. Post-war Australia has become a highly secularised country. Donald Horne , one of Australia's well-known public intellectuals , believed rising prosperity in post-war Australia influenced
2002-675: A literary context, and because the imagery was so shocking, it broke through the notion that the war in Vietnam was being conducted by sane men." In 1966, he reprinted in The Realist an excerpt from the academic journal the Journal of the American Medical Association , but presenting it as original material. The article dealt with drinking glasses, tennis balls and other foreign bodies found in patients' rectums. Some accused him of having
2156-423: A majority of one (29–28). The state Democratic convention upheld Johnson. Stevenson went to court, eventually taking his case before the U.S. Supreme Court , but with timely help from his friend and future U.S. Supreme Court Justice Abe Fortas , Johnson prevailed on the basis that jurisdiction over naming a nominee rested with the party, not the federal government. Johnson soundly defeated Republican Jack Porter in
2310-571: A mission similar to that of the Truman Committee in the Senate. He probed the peacetime "business as usual" inefficiencies that permeated the naval war and demanded that admirals get the job done. Johnson went too far when he proposed a bill that would crack down on the draft exemptions of shipyard workers if they were absent from work too often; organized labor blocked the bill and denounced him. Johnson's biographer Robert Dallek concludes, "The mission
2464-510: A movie camera to record conditions, and reported to Roosevelt, Navy leaders, and Congress that conditions were deplorable and unacceptable. Some historians have suggested this was in exchange for MacArthur's recommendation to award the Silver Star. He argued that the southwest Pacific urgently needed a higher priority and a larger share of war supplies. Warplanes that were sent there were "far inferior" to Japanese planes, and U.S. Navy morale there
2618-558: A natural freedom from all negative and illusive thoughts acquired from society. The term first came into use in the 17th century in order to refer to people who inquired into the basis of traditional beliefs which were often accepted unquestioningly. Today, freethinking is most closely linked with agnosticism , deism , secularism , humanism , anti-clericalism , and religious critique . The Oxford English Dictionary defines freethinking as, "The free exercise of reason in matters of religious belief, unrestrained by deference to authority;
2772-417: A normal job where I had to be interviewed and wear a suit and tie. I became their managing editor and also did freelance stuff for Mad magazine. But Mad was aimed at a teenage audience, and there was no satirical magazine for adults. So it was a kind of organic evolution toward The Realist , which was essentially a combination of satire and alternative journalism. During the late 1950s and early 1960s, he
2926-456: A note that said "I hope you get a chuckle out of the enclosed patriotic poster." Krassner's hope was that he would be arrested for sending obscene material through the mail, which would allow him to get publicity for his magazine. He was disappointed when no prosecution resulted. Krassner's most notorious satire was the article " The Parts That Were Left Out of the Kennedy Book ", which followed
3080-503: A perverted mind, and a subscriber wrote "I found the article thoroughly repellent. I trust you know what you can do with your magazine." Krassner revived The Realist as a much smaller newsletter during the mid-1980s when material from the magazine was collected in The Best of the Realist: The 60's Most Outrageously Irreverent Magazine (Running Press, 1985). The final issue of The Realist
3234-484: A prostitute for the night as a birthday gift for a male friend, or who, like Paul, reels off the names in alphabetical order of people in the women's movement he has fucked, reels off names in the best locker-room tradition—as proof that he's no sexist oppressor. Krassner married Jeanne Johnson in 1963 and had one daughter named Holly. They later divorced. In 1985, Krassner moved to Venice, California where he met his wife of 32 years, artist and videographer Nancy Cain, one of
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#17328693552853388-617: A secular " confirmation " ceremony, and atheist funeral rites. The Union of Freethinkers for Cremation was founded in 1905, and the Central Union of German Proletariat Freethinker in 1908. The two groups merged in 1927, becoming the German Freethinking Association in 1930. More "bourgeois" organizations declined after World War I , and "proletarian" free thought groups proliferated, becoming an organization of socialist parties. European socialist free thought groups formed
3542-590: A small farmhouse on the Pedernales River . He was the eldest of five children born to Samuel Ealy Johnson Jr. and Rebekah Baines. Johnson wasn't given a name until he was three months old, as his parents couldn't agree on a name that both liked. Finally, he was named after "criminal lawyer—a county lawyer" W. C. Linden, who his father liked; his mother agreed on the condition of spelling it as Lyndon. Johnson had one brother, Sam Houston Johnson , and three sisters, Rebekah, Josefa, and Lucia. Through his mother, he
3696-654: A study of nature rather than from religious revelation. In the 18th century, "deism" was as much of a 'dirty word' as "atheism", and deists were often stigmatized as either atheists or at least as freethinkers by their Christian opponents. Deists today regard themselves as freethinkers, but are now arguably less prominent in the free thought movement than atheists. Among freethinkers, for a notion to be considered true it must be testable, verifiable , and logical. Many freethinkers tend to be humanists , who base morality on human needs and would find meaning in human compassion , social progress , art, personal happiness, love, and
3850-462: A week. Johnson was announced the winner by 87 votes out of 988,295, an extremely narrow margin. However, Johnson's victory was based on 200 "patently fraudulent" ballots reported six days after the election from Box 13 in Jim Wells County , in an area dominated by political boss George Parr . The added names were in alphabetical order and written with the same pen and handwriting, at the end of
4004-689: Is included as a member in the umbrella organization of free humanists. In 1881 in Frankfurt am Main , Ludwig Büchner established the Deutscher Freidenkerbund ( German Freethinkers League ) as the first German organization for atheists and agnostics. In 1892 the Freidenker-Gesellschaft and in 1906 the Deutscher Monistenbund were formed. Free thought organizations developed the " Jugendweihe " (literally Youth consecration ),
4158-399: Is independent of revelation, tradition, established belief, and authority , and considers it as a "broader umbrella" than atheism "that embraces a rainbow of unorthodoxy, religious dissent, skepticism, and unconventional thinking." The basic summarizing statement of the essay The Ethics of Belief by the 19th-century British mathematician and philosopher William Kingdon Clifford is: "It
4312-466: Is insufficient evidence to support the existence of supernatural phenomena. According to the Freedom from Religion Foundation , "No one can be a freethinker who demands conformity to a bible, creed , or messiah . To the freethinker, revelation and faith are invalid, and orthodoxy is no guarantee of truth." and "Freethinkers are convinced that religious claims have not withstood the tests of reason. Not only
4466-422: Is not necessarily an atheist or an agnostic, as long as he or she satisfies this definition: The person who is free in any respect is free from something; what is the free thinker free from? To be worthy of the name, he must be free of two things: the force of tradition, and the tyranny of his own passions. No one is completely free from either, but in the measure of a man's emancipation he deserves to be called
4620-876: Is the Fédération nationale de la libre pensée , created in 1890. In Germany, during the period 1815–1848 and before the March Revolution , the resistance of citizens against the dogma of the church increased. In 1844, under the influence of Johannes Ronge and Robert Blum , belief in the rights of man, tolerance among men, and humanism grew, and by 1859 they had established the Bund Freireligiöser Gemeinden Deutschlands (literally Union of Free Religious Communities of Germany ), an association of persons who consider themselves to be religious without adhering to any established and institutionalized church or sacerdotal cult. This union still exists today, and
4774-454: Is the Pope. […] Free discussion is to be prevented wherever the power to do so exists; […] If this doctrine and this organization prevail, free inquiry will become as impossible as it was in the middle ages, and the world will relapse into bigotry and obscurantism. In the 18th and 19th century, many thinkers regarded as freethinkers were deists , arguing that the nature of God can only be known from
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4928-401: Is there nothing to be gained by believing an untruth, but there is everything to lose when we sacrifice the indispensable tool of reason on the altar of superstition. Most freethinkers consider religion to be not only untrue, but harmful." However, philosopher Bertrand Russell wrote the following in his 1944 essay The Value of Free Thought : What makes a freethinker is not his beliefs but
5082-495: Is to date the only President in U.S. history to be sworn in by a woman. Johnson was convinced of the need to make an immediate show of transition of power after the assassination to provide stability to a grieving nation. He and the Secret Service , not knowing whether the assassin acted alone or as part of a broader conspiracy , felt compelled to return rapidly to Washington, D.C.; this was greeted by some with assertions that he
5236-631: Is widely regarded a symbol of the victims of Christian religious intolerance ; La Barre along with Jean Calas and Pierre-Paul Sirven , was championed by Voltaire. A second replacement statue to de la Barre stands nearby the Basilica of the Sacred Heart of Jesus of Paris at the summit of the butte Montmartre (itself named from the Temple of Mars ), the highest point in Paris and an 18th arrondissement street nearby
5390-504: Is wrong always, everywhere, and for anyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence." The essay became a rallying cry for freethinkers when published in the 1870s, and has been described as a point when freethinkers grabbed the moral high ground. Clifford was himself an organizer of free thought gatherings, the driving force behind the Congress of Liberal Thinkers held in 1878. Regarding religion , freethinkers typically hold that there
5544-550: The Collins English Dictionary , a freethinker is "One who is mentally free from the conventional bonds of tradition or dogma, and thinks independently." In some contemporary thought in particular, free thought is strongly tied with rejection of traditional social or religious belief systems. The cognitive application of free thought is known as "freethinking", and practitioners of free thought are known as "freethinkers". Modern freethinkers consider free thought to be
5698-430: The 1932 U.S. presidential election , Johnson became a lifelong supporter of Roosevelt's New Deal . Johnson was elected speaker of the "Little Congress", a group of Congressional aides, where he cultivated Congressmen, newspapermen, and lobbyists. Johnson's friends soon included aides to President Roosevelt as well as fellow Texans such as vice president John Nance Garner and congressman Sam Rayburn . In 1935, Johnson
5852-505: The 22nd Bomb Group base, which was assigned the high-risk mission of bombing the Japanese airbase at Lae in New Guinea . On June 9, 1942, Johnson volunteered as an observer for an airstrike on New Guinea. Reports vary on what happened to the aircraft carrying Johnson during that mission. MacArthur recommended Johnson for the Silver Star for gallantry in action; the citation indicated that
6006-574: The Cannabis Cup in Amsterdam. He received an American Civil Liberties Union Uppie ( Upton Sinclair ) Award for dedication to freedom of expression, and, according to the FBI files, he was described by the FBI as "a raving, unconfined nut". George Carlin commented: "The FBI was right, this man is dangerous – and funny; and necessary." In 2005 he received a Grammy nomination for Best Album Notes for his essay on
6160-566: The Church , and the literal belief in the Bible . The beliefs of these individuals were centered on the concept that people could understand the world through consideration of nature. Such positions were formally documented for the first time in 1697 by William Molyneux in a widely publicized letter to John Locke , and more extensively in 1713, when Anthony Collins wrote his Discourse of Free-thinking, which gained substantial popularity. This essay attacks
6314-639: The Civil Rights Acts of 1957 and 1960 to passage — the first civil rights bills to pass Congress since the Enforcement Acts and the Civil Rights Act of 1875 during Reconstruction . Johnson negotiated a middle course between Northern liberal senators and the Southern bloc of senators who had opposed such legislation by removing key enforcement provisions, such as Title III, which authorized
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6468-589: The Korean War began in 1950, he called for more troops and for improved weapons. Johnson ensured that every report was endorsed unanimously by his committee. He used his political influence in the Senate to receive broadcast licenses from the Federal Communications Commission in his wife's name. In the 1952 elections , Republicans won a majority in both the House and Senate. In January 1953, Johnson
6622-646: The Naval Affairs Committee . He worked hard for rural electrification , getting approval to complete the hydroelectric Mansfield Dam on the Colorado River near Austin. Johnson also sponsored projects that gave his Texas district soil conservation , public housing , lower railroad freight rates , and expanded credit for loans to farmers. He steered the projects towards contractors he knew, such as Herman and George Brown , who financed much of Johnson's future career. During this time Johnson maintained
6776-452: The Sacré-Cœur is also named after Lefebvre de la Barre. The 19th century saw the emergence of a specific notion of Libre-Pensée ("free thought"), with writer Victor Hugo as one of its major early proponents. French Freethinkers ( Libre-Penseurs ) associate freedom of thought, political anti-clericalism and socialist leanings. The main organisation referring to this tradition to this day
6930-592: The Southern Caucus within the Conservative coalition that dominated the Senate. With Russell's support, Johnson won election as Democratic whip in 1951, serving in this capacity until 1953. While serving as whip, Johnson increased his ability to persuade people to reach agreement. As a member of the Senate Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce , he was chairman of the Senate subcommittee that refused
7084-490: The Unitarian Universalist Association ) in 1955. D. M. Bennett was the founder and publisher of The Truth Seeker in 1873, a radical free thought and reform American periodical. German freethinker settlements were located in: Lyndon B. Johnson Lyndon Baines Johnson ( / ˈ l ɪ n d ə n ˈ b eɪ n z / ; August 27, 1908 – January 22, 1973), also known as LBJ ,
7238-502: The United States House of Representatives , he appointed Johnson as his legislative secretary. This marked Johnson's formal introduction to politics. Johnson secured the position on the recommendation of his father and that of state senator Welly Hopkins, for whom Johnson had campaigned in 1930. Kleberg had little interest in the day-to-day duties of a Congressman, instead delegating them to Johnson. After Franklin D. Roosevelt won
7392-608: The Vrije Universiteit Brussel , along with the two Circles of Free Inquiry (Dutch and French speaking), defend the freedom of critical thought, lay philosophy and ethics , while rejecting the argument of authority . In 1873, a handful of secularists founded the earliest known secular organization in English Canada , the Toronto Freethought Association. Reorganized in 1877 and again in 1881, when it
7546-637: The West Coast . In the spring of 1942, President Roosevelt decided he needed better information on conditions in the Southwest Pacific , and wanted a trusted political ally to obtain it. Forrestal suggested Johnson. Roosevelt assigned Johnson to a three-man survey team covering the Southwest Pacific. Johnson reported to General Douglas MacArthur in Australia. Johnson and two U.S. Army officers went to
7700-399: The "Oracle of The Div(in)e Bottle", he learns the lesson of life in one simple word: "Trinch!" , Drink! Enjoy the simple life, learn wisdom and knowledge, as a free human. Beyond puns, irony, and satire, Gargantua's prologue- metaphor instructs the reader to "break the bone and suck out the substance-full marrow" (" la substantifique moëlle "), the core of wisdom. The year 1600 is considered
7854-611: The 19th century, free thought in the Netherlands has become more well known as a political phenomenon through at least three currents: liberal freethinking, conservative freethinking, and classical freethinking. In other words, parties which identify as freethinking tend to favor non-doctrinal, rational approaches to their preferred ideologies, and arose as secular alternatives to both clerically aligned parties as well as labor-aligned parties. Common themes among freethinking political parties are "freedom", "liberty", and " individualism ". With
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#17328693552858008-429: The 19th century. François-Jean Lefebvre de la Barre (1745–1766) was a young French nobleman, famous for having been tortured and beheaded before his body was burnt on a pyre along with Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary . La Barre is often said to have been executed for not saluting a Roman Catholic religious procession, but the elements of the case were far more complex. In France, Lefebvre de la Barre
8162-587: The 6-CD package Lenny Bruce : Let the Buyer Beware . Krassner was criticized, along with many males on the Left, in Robin Morgan 's feminist manifesto, "Goodbye to All That," written in 1970: Goodbye to lovely "pro-Women's Liberationist" Paul Krassner, with all his astonished anger that women have lost their sense of humor "on this issue" and don't laugh any more at little funnies that degrade and hurt them: farewell to
8316-599: The American labor movement". At the same time as his vice presidential run, Johnson also sought a third term in the U.S. Senate. According to Robert Caro: Johnson won an election for both the vice presidency of the United States, on the Kennedy–Johnson ticket, and for a third term as senator (he had Texas law changed to allow him to run for both offices). When he won the vice presidency, he made arrangements to resign from
8470-683: The Chinese (note for example the seafaring renaissance of the Southern Song dynasty of 1127–1279), on through heretical thinkers on esoteric alchemy or astrology , to the Renaissance and the Protestant Reformation pioneered by Martin Luther . French physician and writer Rabelais celebrated "rabelaisian" freedom as well as good feasting and drinking (an expression and a symbol of freedom of
8624-581: The House, which permitted him to maintain numerous allies, including George Berham Parr , who ran a political machine in the Lower Rio Grande Valley in South Texas. U.S. Senator W. Lee O'Daniel became unpopular during his time in the Senate, and decided to forgo a bid for re-election in 1948, so Johnson began preparing for a close Senate runoff by arranging for his supporters who controlled votes, including Parr, to withhold their final tallies until
8778-519: The International of Proletarian Freethinkers (IPF) in 1925. Activists agitated for Germans to disaffiliate from their respective Church and for secularization of elementary schools; between 1919–1921 and 1930–1932 more than 2.5 million Germans, for the most part supporters of the Social Democratic and Communist parties, gave up church membership. Conflict developed between radical forces including
8932-521: The Mind (2001), is written by Krassner himself and collects stories on LSD . The third, Magic Mushrooms and Other Highs (2004), is by Krassner too, and deals with magic mushrooms , ecstasy , peyote , mescaline , THC , opium , cocaine , ayahuasca , belladonna , ketamine , PCP , STP , " toad slime ", and more. In 1962 Krassner published an anonymous interview with Dr Robert Spencer detailing his involvement in illegal but safe abortions. Subsequent to
9086-586: The Navy Reserve, where he was promoted to commander on October 19, 1949, effective June 2, 1948. He resigned from the Navy Reserve effective January 18, 1964. In 1948 , Johnson again ran for the U.S. Senate and won the general election after being declared winner in a highly controversial Democratic Party primary election against the well-known former governor Coke Stevenson . Johnson drew crowds to fairgrounds with his rented Sikorsky S-51 helicopter, dubbed "The Johnson City Windmill". He raised money to flood
9240-552: The Nazis until the mid-1930s. In the 19th century, received opinion was scandalized by George Ensor (1769–1843). His Review of the Miracles, Prophecies, & Mysteries of the Old and New Testaments (1835) argued that, far from being a source of moral teaching, revealed religion and its divines regarded questions of morality as "incidental"--as a "mundane and merely philosophical" topic. In
9394-450: The Netherlands, free thought has existed in organized form since the establishment of De Dageraad (now known as De Vrije Gedachte ) in 1856. Among its most notable subscribing 19th century individuals were Johannes van Vloten , Multatuli , Adriaan Gerhard and Domela Nieuwenhuis . In 2009, Frans van Dongen established the Atheist-Secular Party, which takes a considerably restrictive view of religion and public religious expressions. Since
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#17328693552859548-453: The Oval Office and to employ a full-time staff within the White House. In 1961, Kennedy appointed Johnson's friend Sarah T. Hughes to a federal judgeship. Johnson tried but failed to have Hughes nominated at the beginning of his vice presidency. House Speaker Sam Rayburn wrangled the appointment from Kennedy in exchange for support of an administration bill. Many members of the Kennedy White House were openly contemptuous of Johnson, including
9702-418: The Senate and, with Democrats winning the majority in the Senate, he became majority leader . President Dwight D. Eisenhower found Johnson more cooperative than the Senate Republican leader, William F. Knowland of California. Particularly on foreign policy, Johnson offered bipartisan support to the president. Historians Caro and Dallek consider Johnson the most effective Senate majority leader ever. He
9856-427: The Senate rendered him a potential Democratic presidential candidate. James H. Rowe repeatedly urged Johnson to launch a campaign in early 1959, but Johnson thought it was better to wait, thinking that Senator John F. Kennedy 's candidacy would create a division in the ranks that could then be exploited. Johnson's strategy was to sit out the primaries and to rely on his legislative record as Senate Majority Leader ,
10010-402: The Senate, as he was required to do under federal law, as soon as it convened on January 3, 1961. Johnson was re-elected senator with 1,306,605 votes (58 percent) to Republican John Tower 's 927,653 (41.1 percent). Fellow Democrat William A. Blakley was appointed to replace Johnson, but lost a special election in May 1961 to Tower. After the election, Johnson was concerned about
10164-408: The Senate. The lieutenant governor, Coke R. Stevenson , was not in favor of prohibition, making his possible promotion to Governor a key selling point for the state's business interests in manipulating the election results. In the final vote tally, Johnson fell short by just 0.23% of the vote. While Johnson's loss in the 1941 Senate race was a stinging defeat, he did not have to give up his seat in
10318-419: The South. President Kennedy was assassinated on November 22, 1963, in Dallas , Texas. Later that day, Johnson took the presidential oath of office aboard Air Force One . Cecil Stoughton 's iconic photograph of Johnson taking the oath of office as Mrs. Kennedy looks on is the most famous photo ever taken aboard a presidential aircraft. Johnson was sworn in by District Court judge Sarah T. Hughes and
10472-528: The Soviet League of the Militant Godless and Social Democratic forces in Western Europe led by Theodor Hartwig and Max Sievers . In 1930 the Soviet and allied delegations, following a walk-out, took over the IPF and excluded the former leaders. Following Hitler's rise to power in 1933, most free thought organizations were banned, though some right-wing groups that worked with so-called Völkische Bünde (literally "ethnic" associations with nationalist, xenophobic and very often racist ideology) were tolerated by
10626-407: The Toronto association, T. Phillips Thompson , became a central figure in the city's labour and social-reform movements during the 1880s and 1890s and arguably Canada's foremost late nineteenth-century labour intellectual. By the early 1880s scattered free thought organizations operated throughout southern Ontario and parts of Quebec , eliciting both urban and rural support. The principal organ of
10780-494: The Turks read the Quran and think about it, they will leave Islam. Atatürk described Islam as the religion of the Arabs in his own work titled Vatandaş için Medeni Bilgiler by his own critical and nationalist views. Association of Atheism ( Ateizm Derneği ), the first official atheist organisation in Middle East and Caucasus, was founded in 2014. It serves to support irreligious people and freethinkers in Turkey who are discriminated against based on their views. In 2018 it
10934-522: The U.S. House of Representatives in 1937. In 1948, he was controversially declared the winner in the Democratic primary for the U.S. Senate election in Texas before winning the general election. He became Senate majority whip in 1951, Senate Democratic leader in 1953 and majority leader in 1954. Senator Kennedy bested Johnson and his other rivals for the 1960 Democratic presidential nomination before surprising many by offering to make Johnson his vice presidential running mate. The Kennedy–Johnson ticket won
11088-597: The United States declined in the early twentieth century. By the early twentieth century, most freethought congregations had disbanded or joined other mainstream churches. The longest continuously operating freethought congregation in America is the Free Congregation of Sauk County, Wisconsin, which was founded in 1852 and is still active as of 2020 . It affiliated with the American Unitarian Association (now
11242-531: The Vietnam War. In the 1960s, Krassner was a regular contributor to several men's magazines including Cavalier and Playboy . Cavalier hired Krassner for $ 1,000 per month to write a column called "The Naked Emperor." In 1971, Krassner worked as a weekend radio personality and disk jockey at San Francisco's ABC-FM radio affiliate, KSFX , (subsequently KGO-FM). Under the pseudonym "Rumpelforeskin", he satirized culture and politics while espousing his atheism. He
11396-693: The abolition of slavery. The " Golden Age of Freethought " in the US came in the late 1800s. The dominant organization was the National Liberal League which formed in 1876 in Philadelphia. This group re-formed itself in 1885 as the American Secular Union under the leadership of the eminent agnostic orator Robert G. Ingersoll . Following Ingersoll's death in 1899 the organization declined, in part due to lack of effective leadership . Freethought in
11550-421: The adoption of the principles of a free-thinker." Freethinkers hold that knowledge should be grounded in facts, scientific inquiry , and logic. The skeptical application of science implies freedom from the intellectually limiting effects of confirmation bias , cognitive bias , conventional wisdom , popular culture , prejudice , or sectarianism . Atheist author Adam Lee defines free thought as thinking which
11704-534: The album." Krassner is the only person to have won awards from both Playboy magazine (for satire) and the Feminist Party Media Workshop (for journalism). In 2000, he was given a Firecracker Alternative Book Award for High Times Presents Paul Krassner's Pot Stories for the Soul . In 2001, he was the first living man to be inducted into the Counterculture Hall of Fame , which took place at
11858-602: The attorney general to initiate civil action for preventive relief in a wide range of civil rights matters. Being a Southerner was seen as an impossible barrier for a presidential candidate and towards the end of his Senate career as well as not signing the Southern Manifesto, he distanced himself further from the Southern Caucus in 1959 by joining the Democrat's Western regional conference. In 1960 , Johnson's success in
12012-442: The boys and the girls in that little Welhausen Mexican School, and I remember even yet the pain of realizing and knowing then that college was closed to practically every one of those children because they were too poor. And I think it was then that I made up my mind that this nation could never rest while the door to knowledge remained closed to any American. After Richard M. Kleberg won a 1931 special election to represent Texas in
12166-677: The building of the Berlin Wall . He also attended Cabinet and National Security Council meetings. Kennedy gave Johnson control over all presidential appointments involving Texas, and appointed him chairman of the President's Ad Hoc Committee for Science. Kennedy also appointed Johnson Chairman of the National Aeronautics and Space Council . The Soviets beat the United States with the first crewed spaceflight in April 1961, and Kennedy gave Johnson
12320-558: The censorship of William Manchester 's 1967 book on the John F. Kennedy assassination , The Death of a President . At the climax of the grotesque -genre short-story, Lyndon B. Johnson is described as having sexually penetrated the bullet-hole wound in the throat of John F. Kennedy 's corpse. According to Elliot Feldman, "Some members of the mainstream press and other Washington political wonks, including Daniel Ellsberg of Pentagon Papers fame, actually believed this incident to be true." In
12474-646: The clergy of all churches and it is a plea for deism . The Freethinker magazine was first published in Britain in 1881; it continued in print until 2014, and still exists as a web-based publication. The freethought movement first organized itself in the United States as the "Free Press Association" in 1827 in defense of George Houston, publisher of The Correspondent , an early journal of Biblical criticism in an era when blasphemy convictions were still possible. Houston had helped found an Owenite community at Haverstraw, New York in 1826–27. The short-lived Correspondent
12628-525: The creation of Medicare and Medicaid . Johnson made the Apollo program a national priority; enacted the Higher Education Act of 1965 , which established federally insured student loans; and signed the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 , which laid the groundwork for U.S. immigration policy today. Johnson's stance on civil rights put him at odds with other white, Southern Democrats . His civil rights legacy
12782-410: The decline in church-going and general lack of interest in religion. "Churches no longer matter very much to most Australians. If there is a happy eternal life it's for everyone ... For many Australians the pleasures of this life are sufficiently satisfying that religion offers nothing of great appeal", said Horne in his landmark work The Lucky Country (1964). The Université Libre de Bruxelles and
12936-571: The encouragement of Bruce, Krassner started to perform standup comedy in 1961 at the Village Gate in New York. In 1963, he created what Kurt Vonnegut described as "a miracle of compressed intelligence nearly as admirable for potent simplicity, in my opinion, as Einstein 's e=mc2 ." Vonnegut explained: "With the Vietnam War going on, and with its critics discounted and scorned by the government and
13090-487: The executive branch. He drafted an executive order for Kennedy's signature, granting Johnson "general supervision" over matters of national security, and requiring all government agencies to "cooperate fully with the vice president in the carrying out of these assignments". Kennedy's response was to sign a non-binding letter requesting Johnson to "review" national security policies instead. Kennedy similarly turned down early requests from Johnson to be given an office adjacent to
13244-566: The fight to make access to abortion free and legal in Canada. In France, the concept first appeared in publication in 1765 when Denis Diderot , Jean le Rond d'Alembert , and Voltaire included an article on Liberté de penser in their Encyclopédie . The concept of free thought spread so widely that even places as remote as the Jotunheimen , in Norway , had well-known freethinkers such as Jo Gjende by
13398-784: The first national freethinkers organization, the "United States Moral and Philosophical Society for the General Diffusion of Useful Knowledge". It was founded on August 1, 1836, at a national convention at the Lyceum in Saratoga Springs with Isaac S. Smith of Buffalo , New York, as president. Smith was also the 1836 Equal Rights Party 's candidate for Governor of New York and had also been the Workingmen's Party candidate for Lt. Governor of New York in 1830. The Moral and Philosophical Society published The Beacon , edited by Gilbert Vale. Driven by
13552-600: The free thought movement in Canada was Secular Thought (Toronto, 1887–1911). Founded and edited during its first several years by English freethinker Charles Watts (1835–1906), it came under the editorship of Toronto printer and publisher James Spencer Ellis in 1891 when Watts returned to England. In 1968 the Humanist Association of Canada (HAC) formed to serve as an umbrella group for humanists, atheists, and freethinkers, and to champion social justice issues and oppose religious influence on public policy—most notably in
13706-422: The furtherance of knowledge . Generally, freethinkers like to think for themselves, tend to be skeptical, respect critical thinking and reason, remain open to new concepts, and are sometimes proud of their own individuality . They would determine truth for themselves – based upon knowledge they gain, answers they receive, experiences they have and the balance they thus acquire. Freethinkers reject conformity for
13860-461: The general election . Vice President Johnson assumed the presidency in 1963, after President Kennedy was assassinated. The following year, Johnson was elected to the presidency in a landslide , winning the largest share of the popular vote for the Democratic Party in history, and the highest for any candidate since the advent of widespread popular elections in the 1820s. Johnson's Great Society
14014-547: The general election in November and went to Washington, permanently dubbed "Landslide Lyndon". Johnson, dismissive of his critics, happily adopted the nickname. During his two terms in the Senate, Johnson drifted rightward. He felt he had to tread carefully lest he offend politically powerful conservative oil and gas interests in Texas , and in part to curry favor with the chamber's powerful southern chairmen, most notably Senator Richard Russell , Democrat from Georgia and leader of
14168-520: The genius of analogy made The Treatment an almost hypnotic experience and rendered the target stunned and helpless. In 1956, during the Suez Crisis , Johnson tried to prevent the U.S. government from criticizing Israel for its invasion of the Sinai Peninsula . Along with much of the rest of the nation, Johnson was appalled by the threat of possible Soviet domination of space exploration implied by
14322-688: The head of the President's Committee on Equal Employment Opportunities , where Johnson worked with African Americans and other minorities. Kennedy may have intended this to remain a nominal position, but Taylor Branch contends in his book Pillar of Fire that Johnson pushed the Kennedy administration's actions further and faster for civil rights than Kennedy originally intended. Johnson went on multiple minor diplomatic missions, which gave him some insights into global issues and opportunities for self-promotion. During his visit to West Berlin on August 19–20, 1961, Johnson sought to calm Berliners who were outraged by
14476-447: The hint of threat. It was all of these together. It ran the gamut of human emotions. Its velocity was breathtaking and it was all in one direction. Interjections from the target were rare. Johnson anticipated them before they could be spoken. He moved in close, his face a scant millimeter from his target, his eyes widening and narrowing, his eyebrows rising and falling. From his pockets poured clippings, memos, statistics. Mimicry, humor, and
14630-558: The introduction of cantonal church taxes in the 1870s, anti-clericals began to organise themselves. Around 1870, a "freethinkers club" was founded in Zürich . During the debate on the Zürich church law in 1883, professor Friedrich Salomon Vögelin and city council member Kunz proposed to separate church and state . In the last years of the Ottoman Empire , free thought made its voice heard by
14784-579: The late 1800s. The reasoning behind the pansy as the symbol of free thought lies both in the flower's name and in its appearance. The pansy derives its name from the French word pensée , which means "thought". It allegedly received this name because the flower is perceived by some to bear resemblance to a human face, and in mid-to-late summer it nods forward as if deep in thought. In the 1880s, following examples set by freethinkers in France, Belgium, Spain and Sweden, it
14938-469: The launch of Sputnik 1 , the first artificial Earth satellite , and used his influence to ensure passage of the National Aeronautics and Space Act of 1958 , which established NASA . Johnson helped establish the Senate Aeronautical and Space Committee , and made himself its first chairman. During his tenure as Majority Leader, Johnson did not sign the 1956 Southern Manifesto , and shepherded
15092-594: The lead... They kept changing the results, and our lead got smaller and smaller and smaller. Finally, on Wednesday afternoon, we wound up on the short side of the stick and lost the election by 1,311 votes. I'm basically responsible for losing that 1941 campaign. We let them know exactly how many votes they had to have. In addition to O'Daniel's allies, state business interests aligned with former impeached and convicted Texas Governor "Pa" Ferguson had been concerned with O'Daniel's support of prohibition as Governor; they believed that he could do much less damage to their cause in
15246-614: The list of voters. Some on this part of the list insisted that they had not voted that day. Election judge Luis Salas said in 1977 that he had certified 202 fraudulent ballots for Johnson. Robert Caro made the case in his 1990 book that Johnson had stolen the election in Jim Wells County, and that there were thousands of fraudulent votes in other counties as well, including 10,000 votes switched in San Antonio . The Democratic State Central Committee voted to certify Johnson's nomination by
15400-460: The mass media, Krassner put on sale a red, white and blue poster that said FUCK COMMUNISM. At the beginning of the 1960s, FUCK was believed to be so full of bad magic as to be unprintable. ... By having FUCK and COMMUNISM fight it out in a single sentence, Krassner wasn't merely being funny as heck. He was demonstrating how preposterous it was for so many people to be responding to both words with such cockamamie Pavlovian fear and alarm. The Realist
15554-399: The memory of his "Instant Pussy" aerosol-can poster, to his column for the woman-hating men's magazine Cavalier , to his dream of a Rape-In against legislators' wives, to his Scapegoats and Realist Nuns and cute anecdotes about the little daughter he sees as often as any properly divorced Scarsdale middle-aged father; goodbye forever to the notion that a man is my brother who, like Paul, buys
15708-450: The mind) in defiance of the hypocrisies of conformist orthodoxy in his utopian Thelema Abbey (from θέλημα: free "will"), the device of which was Do What Thou Wilt : So had Gargantua established it. In all their rule and strictest tie of their order there was but this one clause to be observed, Do What Thou Wilt; because free people ... act virtuously and avoid vice. They call this honor. When Rabelais's hero Pantagruel journeys to
15862-401: The mission came under attack and Johnson's aircraft experienced mechanical problems, forcing it to turn back before reaching its objective. Others claim that the aircraft turned back because of generator trouble before encountering enemy aircraft and never came under fire, an account that is supported by the aircraft's official flight records. Other airplanes that continued came under fire near
16016-584: The only ballot at the Democratic convention to Kennedy's 806, and so the convention nominated Kennedy. Tip O'Neill was a representative from Kennedy's home state of Massachusetts at that time, and he recalled that Johnson approached him at the convention and said, "Tip, I know you have to support Kennedy at the start, but I'd like to have you with me on the second ballot." O'Neill replied, "Senator, there's not going to be any second ballot." After much discussion with party leaders and others, Kennedy offered Johnson
16170-588: The original Videofreex and founder of Camnet. They moved to Desert Hot Springs, California in 2002. Krassner suffered for several years from a neurological disease, and died on July 21, 2019, at his home in Desert Hot Springs. Stand-up comedy recordings: Freethought A freethinker holds that beliefs should not be formed on the basis of authority , tradition , revelation , or dogma , and should instead be reached by other methods such as logic , reason , and empirical observation . According to
16324-574: The president's brother, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy , and they ridiculed his comparatively brusque and crude manner. Then Congressman Tip O'Neill recalled that the Kennedy brothers "had a disdain for Johnson that they didn't even try to hide.... They actually took pride in snubbing him." Kennedy made efforts to keep Johnson busy and informed, telling aides, "I can't afford to have my vice president, who knows every reporter in Washington, going around saying we're all screwed up, so we're going to keep him happy." Kennedy appointed him to jobs such as
16478-521: The public became frustrated with both the Vietnam War and domestic unrest, including race riots in major cities and increasing crime. Johnson initially sought to run for re-election; however, following disappointing results in the New Hampshire primary he withdrew his candidacy . Johnson retired to his Texas ranch and died in 1973. Public opinion and academic assessments of Johnson's legacy have fluctuated greatly. Historians and scholars rank Johnson in
16632-563: The publication, he received calls from women asking to be put in contact with the interviewee. Krassner was later subpoenaed to appear before grand juries investigating abortion crime. In 1965 he contributed to the Free University of New York a lecture entitled "Why the New York Times is funnier than Mad Magazine". In 1968, Krassner signed the " Writers and Editors War Tax Protest " pledge, vowing to refuse tax payments in protest against
16786-468: The race resulted from his fear of losing. Johnson attempted in vain to capitalize on Kennedy's youth, poor health, and failure to take a position regarding McCarthyism . He had formed a "Stop Kennedy" coalition with Adlai Stevenson , Stuart Symington , and Hubert Humphrey, but it proved a failure. Despite Johnson having the support of established Democrats and the party leadership, this did not translate into popular approval. Johnson received 409 votes on
16940-806: The re-nomination of Leland Olds as Chairman of the Federal Power Commission on the grounds that he had been sympathetic towards Communism. Johnson was appointed to the Senate Armed Services Committee , and became increasingly concerned with the country's military preparedness in the Cold War with the Soviet Union . He became chairman of the Senate Preparedness Investigating Subcommittee , and conducted investigations of defense costs and efficiency. After
17094-555: The religious beliefs that his family , especially his grandfather, had shared with him. Johnson grew up poor, with his father losing a great deal of money. Biographer Robert Caro described him as being raised "in a land without electricity, where the soil was so rocky that it was hard to earn a living from it." In school, Johnson was a talkative youth who was elected president of his 11th-grade class. He graduated in 1924 from Johnson City High School , where he participated in public speaking , debate , and baseball . At 15, Johnson
17248-504: The revolutions of 1848 in the German states, the 19th century saw an immigration of German freethinkers and anti-clericalists to the United States (see Forty-Eighters ). In the United States, they hoped to be able to live by their principles, without interference from government and church authorities. Many Freethinkers settled in German immigrant strongholds, including St. Louis , Indianapolis , Wisconsin , and Texas , where they founded
17402-488: The sake of conformity, whereby they create their own beliefs by considering the way the world around them works and would possess the intellectual integrity and courage to think outside of accepted norms , which may or may not lead them to believe in some higher power . The pansy serves as the long-established and enduring symbol of free thought; literature of the American Secular Union inaugurated its usage in
17556-549: The state with campaign circulars and won over conservatives by casting doubts on Stevenson's support for the Taft–Hartley Act (curbing union power). Stevenson came in first in the primary but lacked a majority, so a runoff election was held; Johnson campaigned harder, while Stevenson's efforts slumped due to a lack of funds. The runoff vote count, handled by the Democratic State Central Committee, took
17710-416: The statewide results were announced. By waiting until the statewide result was reported, Johnson was able to know the figure he had to surpass and so could add as many votes as necessary to his total. It would prove consequential, as Johnson would win the Democratic primary in 1948 by just 87 votes. Johnson was appointed a lieutenant commander in the U.S. Naval Reserve on June 21, 1940. While serving as
17864-680: The support of Southern Democrats , and the favors owed by Democratic senators to him and by Democratic representatives to his close ally Sam Rayburn, the Speaker of the House. In July 1960, Johnson finally entered the campaign. Johnson's late entry, coupled with his reluctance to leave Washington, D.C., allowed rival John F. Kennedy to secure a substantial early lead in securing support from Democratic state party officials. Johnson underestimated Kennedy's endearing charm and intelligence in comparison to his perceived crude and wheeling-dealing "Landslide Lyndon" style. Caro suggests that Johnson's hesitancy to enter
18018-414: The target about the same time Johnson's plane was recorded as having landed back at the original airbase. Johnson's biographer Robert Caro was quoted as saying "I think that the weight of the evidence at this moment is that the plane was attacked by Zeroes and that he was cool under fire", but also "The fact is, LBJ never got within sight of Japanese forces. His combat experience was a myth." Johnson used
18172-511: The task of evaluating the U.S. space program and recommending a project that would allow the United States to catch up or beat the Soviets. Johnson recommended that the United States gain the leadership role by committing to landing an American on the Moon in the 1960s . Kennedy assigned priority to the space program, but Johnson's appointment provided cover in case of a failure. In August 1963, Johnson
18326-555: The town of Comfort , Texas, as well as others. These groups of German Freethinkers referred to their organizations as Freie Gemeinden , or "free congregations". The first Freie Gemeinde was established in St. Louis in 1850. Others followed in Pennsylvania, California, Washington, D.C., New York, Illinois, Wisconsin, Texas, and other states. Freethinkers tended to be liberal, espousing ideals such as racial, social, and sexual equality, and
18480-490: The traditionally ineffective nature of his new office and sought authority not allotted to him as vice president. He initially sought a transfer of the authority of Senate majority leader to the vice presidency, since that office made him president of the Senate, but faced vehement opposition from the Democratic Caucus, including members whom he had counted as his supporters. Johnson sought to increase his influence within
18634-400: The upper tier for his accomplishments regarding domestic policy. His administration passed many major laws that made substantial changes in civil rights, health care, welfare, and education. Conversely, Johnson is heavily criticized for his foreign policy, namely escalating American involvement in the Vietnam War. Lyndon Baines Johnson was born on August 27, 1908, near Stonewall, Texas , in
18788-482: The vacancy, meaning that the election would not be held during a normal November election, giving Johnson the chance to run without forfeiting his seat in the House. The election would be held without party primaries, and with no runoff, meaning that Johnson would have to compete against every Democrat — without the chance of facing the frontrunner, Governor W. Lee "Pappy" O'Daniel, in a 1-on-1 runoff election. The first pre-election polls showed Johnson receiving only 5% of
18942-476: The vice presidential nomination at the Los Angeles Biltmore Hotel on July 14, the morning after Kennedy was nominated, and Johnson accepted. From that point to the actual nomination that evening, several facts are in dispute, including whether convention chairman LeRoy Collins ' had the two-thirds majority required to begin the convention's proceedings. Kennedy's choice of Johnson as his running mate
19096-446: The vote tallies. Connally told them to report the votes, which allegedly allowed O'Daniel's political allies among the South and East Texas party bosses to know the exact number of fraudulent votes needed for O'Daniel to catch up to Johnson. According to Connally, The opposition then — Governor O'Daniel and his people — knew exactly how many votes they had to have to take
19250-481: The vote, but Johnson ran a fierce campaign, barnstorming the state and emphasizing his close relationship with President Roosevelt. On Election Day, Johnson held a strong lead in the returns throughout the whole night, and with 96 percent of the ballots counted, Johnson held a 5,000-vote lead. According to John Connally, future Governor and Johnson's campaign manager, local election officials began calling Connally's office and asking him about whether they should report
19404-400: The way in which he holds them. If he holds them because his elders told him they were true when he was young, or if he holds them because if he did not he would be unhappy, his thought is not free; but if he holds them because, after careful thought he finds a balance of evidence in their favour, then his thought is free, however odd his conclusions may seem. A freethinker, according to Russell,
19558-463: The works of distinguished people such as Ahmet Rıza , Tevfik Fikret , Abdullah Cevdet , Kılıçzade Hakkı, and Celal Nuri İleri . These intellectuals affected the early period of the Turkish Republic . Mustafa Kemal Atatürk – field marshal , revolutionary statesman, author, and founder of the secular Turkish nation state , serving as its first President from 1923 until his death in 1938–
19712-492: Was "The Treatment", described by two journalists: The Treatment could last ten minutes or four hours. It came, enveloping its target, at the Johnson Ranch swimming pool, in one of Johnson's offices, in the Senate cloakroom, on the floor of the Senate itself – wherever Johnson might find a fellow Senator within his reach. Its tone could be supplication, accusation, cajolery, exuberance, scorn, tears, complaint, and
19866-507: Was #146 (Spring, 2001). Krassner was a prolific writer. In 1971, he published a collection of his favorite works for The Realist , as How A Satirical Editor Became A Yippie Conspirator In Ten Easy Years . In 1981 he published the satirical story Tales of Tongue Fu , in which the hilarious misadventures of the Japanese-American man Tongue Fu are mixed with a wicked social commentary. In 1994, he published his autobiography Confessions of
20020-586: Was a child violin prodigy and performed at Carnegie Hall in 1939 at age six. His parents practiced Judaism , but Krassner chose to be firmly secular, considering religion "organized superstition". He majored in journalism at Baruch College (then a branch of the City College of New York ) and began performing as a comedian under the name Paul Maul . He recalled: While in college, I started working for an anti-censorship paper, The Independent . After I left college I started working there full time. So, I never had
20174-676: Was a columnist for The Nation , AVN Online and High Times . He also blogged at The Huffington Post and The Rag Blog . Krassner wrote about the Patty Hearst trial and possible connections between the Symbionese Liberation Army and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Krassner's legs appeared in John Lennon and Yoko Ono 's 1971 film Up Your Legs Forever . Singer Cass Elliot greatly admired Krassner. In
20328-553: Was a great-grandson of Baptist clergyman George Washington Baines . Johnson's paternal grandfather, Samuel Ealy Johnson Sr. , was raised Baptist and for a time was a member of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) . In his later years, Samuel Sr. became a Christadelphian ; Samuel Jr. also joined the Christadelphian Church toward the end of his life. Johnson was influenced in his positive attitude toward Jews by
20482-574: Was a temporary exposure to danger calculated to satisfy Johnson's personal and political wishes, but it also represented a genuine effort on his part, however misplaced, to improve the lot of America's fighting men." In addition to the Silver Star, Johnson received the American Campaign Medal , Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal , and the World War II Victory Medal . He was discharged from active duty on July 17, 1942, but remained in
20636-479: Was active in politically edged humor and satire. Krassner was a founder of the Youth International Party (Yippies) in 1967, even credited with coining the word "Yippie," and a member of Ken Kesey 's Merry Pranksters , famous for prankster activism. He was a close protégé of the controversial comedian Lenny Bruce , and the editor of Bruce's autobiography, How to Talk Dirty and Influence People . With
20790-477: Was aimed at expanding civil rights, public broadcasting, access to health care, aid to education and the arts, urban and rural development, consumer protection, environmentalism, and public services. He sought to create better living conditions for low-income Americans by spearheading the war on poverty . As part of these efforts, Johnson signed the Social Security Amendments of 1965 , which resulted in
20944-649: Was also a contributor to early issues of Mad magazine . He often appeared as a stand-up comedian, and he was among those featured in the 2005 documentary The Aristocrats . Krassner was also a prolific lecturer and was a frequent speaker at both the Starwood Festival and the WinterStar Symposium . In 1998 he was featured at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame with Wavy Gravy during their exhibit entitled I Want to Take You Higher : The Psychedelic Era 1965–1969 . He
21098-519: Was appointed head of the Texas National Youth Administration , which enabled him to create government-funded education and job opportunities for young people. He resigned two years later to run for Congress. A notoriously tough boss, Johnson often demanded long workdays and work on weekends. He was described by friends, fellow politicians, and historians as motivated by lust for power and control. As Caro observes, "Johnson's ambition
21252-404: Was chosen by his fellow Democrats as Senate Minority Leader ; he became the most junior senator ever elected to this position. He reformed the seniority system so that Democratic senators, including freshmen, were more likely to receive a committee assignment that closely aligned with their expertise rather than an assignment based solely on their seniority. In 1954 , Johnson was re-elected to
21406-462: Was in too much haste to assume power. In response to the public demand for answers and the growing number of conspiracy theories , Johnson established a commission headed by Chief Justice Earl Warren , known as the Warren Commission , to investigate Kennedy's assassination. The commission conducted extensive research and hearings and unanimously concluded that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone in
21560-494: Was intended to attract Southern votes. Kennedy was a liberal Bostonian and a Roman Catholic . Johnson was more conservative, a Southerner , and a member of the Disciples of Christ . Nevertheless, labor leaders were unanimous in their opposition to Johnson. AFL-CIO President George Meany called Johnson "the arch-foe of labor", and Illinois AFL-CIO President Reuben Soderstrom asserted Kennedy had "made chumps out of leaders of
21714-479: Was planning on dropping Johnson from the Democratic ticket in the 1964 presidential election . However, on October 31, 1963, a reporter asked if he intended and expected to retain Johnson on the ticket. Kennedy replied, "Yes to both those questions." There is little doubt that Robert Kennedy and Johnson hated each other, yet John and Robert Kennedy agreed that dropping Johnson from the ticket could produce heavy losses in
21868-546: Was poor. Johnson told Forrestal that the Pacific Fleet had a "critical" need for 6,800 additional experienced men. Johnson prepared a twelve-point program to upgrade the effort in the region, stressing "greater cooperation and coordination within the various commands and between the different war theaters". Congress responded by making Johnson chairman of a high-powered subcommittee of the Naval Affairs Committee, with
22022-582: Was proposed in the United States as "the symbol of religious liberty and freedom of conscience". Critical thought has flourished in the Hellenistic Mediterranean, in the repositories of knowledge and wisdom in Ireland and in the Iranian civilizations (for example in the era of Khayyam (1048–1131) and his unorthodox Sufi Rubaiyat poems). Later societies made advances on freedom of thought such as
22176-516: Was published on a fairly regular schedule during the 1960s, then on an irregular schedule after the early 1970s. In 1966, Krassner published The Realist ' s controversial " Disneyland Memorial Orgy " poster, illustrated by Wally Wood (he later made this famed black-and-white poster available in a digital color version). Krassner published a red, white and blue poster that read "Fuck Communism", and enclosed copies with an issue of The Realist . He also mailed one to FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover with
22330-557: Was renamed the Toronto Secular Society, the group formed the nucleus of the Canadian Secular Union, established in 1884 to bring together freethinkers from across the country. A significant number of the early members appear to have come from the educated labour "aristocracy", including Alfred F. Jury, J. Ick Evans and J. I. Livingstone, all of whom were leading labour activists and secularists. The second president of
22484-510: Was reported in some media outlets that the Ateizm Derneği would close down because of the pressure on its members and attacks by pro-government media, but the association itself issued a clarification that this was not the case and that it was still active. The term freethinker emerged towards the end of the 17th century in England to describe those who stood in opposition to the institution of
22638-513: Was shaped by the Civil Rights Act of 1964 , the Voting Rights Act of 1965 , and the Civil Rights Act of 1968 . Due to his domestic agenda, Johnson's presidency marked the peak of modern American liberalism in the 20th century. Johnson's foreign policy prioritized containment of communism, including in the ongoing Vietnam War . Johnson began his presidency with near-universal support, but his approval declined throughout his presidency as
22792-732: Was superseded by the Free Enquirer , the official organ of Robert Owen 's New Harmony community in Indiana, edited by Robert Dale Owen and by Fanny Wright between 1828 and 1832 in New York. During this time Robert Dale Owen sought to introduce the philosophic skepticism of the Free Thought movement into the Workingmen's Party in New York City. The Free Enquirer' s annual civic celebrations of Paine's birthday after 1825 finally coalesced in 1836 in
22946-424: Was the 36th president of the United States , serving from 1963 to 1969. He became president after the assassination of John F. Kennedy , under whom he had served as the 37th vice president from 1961 to 1963. A Democrat from Texas , Johnson previously served as a U.S. representative and U.S. senator . Born in Stonewall, Texas , Johnson worked as a teacher and a congressional aide before winning election to
23100-500: Was the practitioner of their ideas. He made many reforms that modernized the country. Sources point out that Atatürk was a religious skeptic and a freethinker. He was a non-doctrinaire deist or an atheist , who was antireligious and anti-Islamic in general. According to Atatürk, the Turkish people do not know what Islam really is and do not read the Quran . People are influenced by Arabic sentences that they do not understand, and because of their customs they go to mosques. When
23254-480: Was the youngest in his class. Pressured by his parents to attend college, he enrolled at a "sub college" of Southwest Texas State Teachers College (SWTSTC) in the summer of 1924, where students from unaccredited high schools could take the 12th-grade courses needed for admission to college. He left the school just weeks after his arrival and decided to move to California. He worked at his cousin's legal practice and in odd jobs before returning to Texas, where he worked as
23408-487: Was touched by a Senate scandal when Bobby Baker , the Secretary to the Majority Leader of the Senate and a protégé of Johnson's, came under investigation by the Senate Rules Committee for alleged bribery and financial malfeasance. One witness alleged that Baker arranged for the witness to give kickbacks for the Vice President. Baker resigned in October, and the investigation did not expand to Johnson. The negative publicity, however, fed rumors in Washington circles that Kennedy
23562-409: Was uncommon – in the degree to which it was unencumbered by even the slightest excess weight of ideology, of philosophy, of principles, of beliefs." In 1937, after the death of 13-term congressman James P. Buchanan , Johnson successfully campaigned in a special election for Texas's 10th congressional district , which included Austin and the surrounding Texas Hill Country . He ran on
23716-470: Was unusually proficient at gathering information. One biographer suggests he was "the greatest intelligence gatherer Washington has ever known", discovering exactly where every senator stood on issues, his philosophy and prejudices, his strengths and weaknesses, and what it took to get his vote. Bobby Baker claimed that Johnson would occasionally send senators on NATO trips so they were absent and unable to cast dissenting votes. Central to Johnson's control
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