Wasps (White Anglo-saxon Protestants) Maintain The Status Quo

In the 1970’s there was an acronym used to identify people who were in the power structure and controlled most of the politics and economy in America. WASP was heard often then when referring to the power structure who worked hard to maintain the status quo. They opposed anything, seemingly, that would help the poor, sick, homeless, hungry, uneducated, homeless, unemployed and underemployed. They were, mostly, White Anglo-Saxon Protestants, thus the acronym. It only took a few years for them to dismantle and make ineffective most of the programs in President Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty. Funding was diverted to the private sector and contractors and away from community based non-profit corporations. But for a while, the programs were working very well: Head Start, housing, family planning, adult education, job training, senior citizen programs (with a lot of assistance from AARP) high school equivalency test training and others. Nixon and Reagan made certain that funding was redirected to the same old power structure that reined over the nation when the poverty and related problems had grown so severe. President Johnson, who had done so much for the poor and underprivileged while in the Senate and while serving as Vice President under John F. Kennedy, was thrust into the presidency by the assassination of President Kennedy. Johnson made tremendous progress, including the Civil Rights Acts that finally eliminated the White supremacy “Jim Crow” laws in many states, but the ill-advised war in Vietnam killed him, both politically and physically. Since the War on Poverty programs ended or were rendered ineffective, the same old poverty related problems have increased sharply: crime, drugs, homelessness, hopelessness, lack of education resources for so many. The WASPs have pretty much maintained the status quo for the duration of the History of the United States. The White power structure passed the wealth and power to their own families as time passed in America, beginning with the Puritans.

The Puritans were White, primarily Protestant Christians and Anglo Saxon. The governors were either ministers in the church which was dominant in each colony or controlled them. Politics and religion were so tied together that fear was a major means of control. People could be tortured, killed or expelled from the colony for what is now considered very minor “sins” and unwise political positions or statements. The Native Americans were demonized… They were not White and they were not Christian. Most chose not to accept the Christian missionaries invitations to become Christians, either. They often used examples of cruelty and evil committed by the Christians as good reason to not want to be a Christian. They also did not like the idea of Hell fire…They did not have such a belief and it scared many of them out of their wits. Ah, but this gave the White Christians license to do as they chose, including such atrocities as massacres and the taking of Indian homes, land, crops and even food stores. They were “heathen” godless devils, they were. The preachers said it constantly.