The only just war (in my eyes)

Is the war on poverty.

America celebrates the 50th anniversary of what I consider to be its one and only just war--the war on poverty. One of the many points of inception of America's war on poverty was the passing of the food stamp act in 1964.

Food stamps, along with Medicaid and Head Start, among others, were foremost among the anti-poverty programs primarily conceptualized during the presidency of Lyndon B. Johnson.

The first recipients of the food stamps program were residents of McDowell County, the poorest county in West Virginia. 

LBJ took a poverty tour of West Virginia in 1964 and was appalled to see first hand the desolation of the Appalachian region.

The Times has an interesting look at McDowell County fifty years later.