posted on November 20, 2001 12:27:55 PM new Nation never recovered from RFK's death
by Halton Adler Mann, 1998
You've seen me. I'm sure you've seen me. I'm sure you have if you've seen -- as so many millions have, that film of Robert F. Kennedy's victory in the California Democratic presidential primary 30 years ago today in a Los Angeles hotel. His last exit was through the Ambassador Hotel's kitchen, where a typically violent American death waited for him -- and where American life would be sent into a tragic centrifugal trajectory from which it would never recover.
You've seen me, as I've seen myself in this tableau vivant video, dark-haired and intense, as the film cuts to losing candidate Eugene McCarthy's headquarters in the Beverly Wilshire Hotel. I was one of his campaign workers. I am seen holding another volunteer, a young woman, as we share our shock again and again.
You've seen me, as I've seen myself in the years since the year that shock died, reacting the same way to the same Richter scale shock to the American psyche over and over and over again, in an unrelenting reprise of the unspeakable.
You've seen me, as I've seen myself, frozen, frightened in time and space, as tragedy trespassed on American democracy and another American dream drowned just two months after the murder most foul of Dr. Martin Luther King.
You've seen me, as I've seen myself, at the mindless moment of the assassination of the only man, with the possible exception of Hubert H. Humphrey, who could have ended the war in Vietnam immediately and begun the peace in America.
With his single, savage murder of the man he thought would champion Israel's reason for being and territorial integrity, in a cataclysmic irony beyond belief or bearing, Sirhan Sirhan may have sent thousands of Israelis and Palestinians to their deaths and murdered the chance for a Palestinian homeland that could have been realized a generation ago.
Sirhan feared Kennedy would win the Democratic presidential nomination in Chicago and then win the presidency, as all the polls predicted. Richard Nixon, the Republican nominee who defeated Humphrey in November, would have remained a footnote for losing twice to the Kennedy brothers.
If we could reverse life's violent videotape of the murder, it might be possible to see how Kennedy's profound empathy for its persecuted black majority could have initiated South Africa's liberation from bondage a generation before Nelson Mandela was freed from prison.
Kennedy's Irish heritage, along with Ireland's pride in the Kennedys, might have mitigated and possibly prevented the internecine terrorism that for two generations has afflicted Northern Ireland.
When Sirhan murdered Robert Kennedy, he murdered the four young people who died two years later at Kent State while protesting the Cambodian incursion that he would not have ordered. Cambodia might have remained stable and neutral and a million of its innocents would not have perished in the Pol Pot holocaust.
Watergate would have remained the name for a luxury apartment complex. The resignations of a vice president and a president within 10 months of each other would never have happened. Years of black-white schism could have been healed by a President Kennedy determined to forge a racial reconciliation.
With Robert Kennedy's assassination, the rest of this century's history was written in blood and sorrow. The place where peace and hope, freedom and reconciliation died -- the Ambassador Hotel -- is still there on Wilshire Boulevard, a mute but immutable reminder of a dreadful deed, its physical deterioration symbolic of the great American tragedy that occurred there 30 Junes ago and has devastated the destiny of the American people.
You've seen me, frozen in those frames of the video. But, after Los Angeles, I returned as a political nomad to McCarthy's anti-war infantry. I joined in the shouting at the convention in Chicago -- after it was all over except the shouting. America would never return to what it had been before the King and Kennedy atrocities, to what it would never be again.
posted on November 20, 2001 04:58:18 PM new
Considering this is all based on the "promise" of RFK (or actually maybe his speechwriter) this is all high praise in deed.
I will give you this, compared to the murderer, the booze-running collaborator, the rapist, the assorted drunks and druggies, and the dolt, he probably was the family highpoint.
In the conspiracy circles, wasn't he the one kneeling on MM's chest pushing the pills down her throat??
Tribute to Senator Robert F. Kennedy
By Senator Edward M. Kennedy
St. Patrick's Cathedral
New York City
June 8, 1968
This is an excerpt....
This is the way he lived. My brother need not be idealized, or enlarged in death beyond what he was in life, to be remembered simply as a good and decent man, who saw wrong and tried to right it, saw suffering and tried to heal it, saw war and tried to stop it.
Those of us who loved him and who take him to his rest today, pray that what he was to us and what he wished for others will some day come to pass for all the world.
As he said many times, in many parts of this nation, to those he touched and who sought to touch him:
"Some men see things as they are and say why.
I dream things that never were and say why not."
posted on November 20, 2001 06:07:54 PM new DeSquirrel, since your initial snide remark to this thread did not generate the attention you sought and are obviously still seeking by posting to it a second time, I will go ahead and respond to you.
No one knows what RFK might have accomplished. His presidential candidacy represented hope for many, and your comments are just another example of the cynicism and lack of hope abounding in this country today.
Give me the days when national politicians led flawed personal lives -- they ALL did, you know -- but held and conveyed a sense of vision for our country, and were successful in their roles as leaders. We haven't had a true leader for decades, IMO, (with the recent exception of Rudy Giuliani, who's done a hell of a job as mayor of NYC since September 11) -- our presidents are corporate lackeys anymore. We live in an oligarchy, not a democracy, and once upon a time -- when I was a child -- there were men (and women) who still saw their phenomenal wealth and privilege as an obligation to serve.
krs is right, we won't see the likes of Bobby Kennedy again, nor will we have another Martin Luther King, Jr.; I'd've voted for either of them -- had I not been UNDEMOCRATICALLY denied the opportunity.
Let me ask you something, DeSquirrel, how old were you when MLK and RFK were killed?
posted on November 20, 2001 06:49:49 PM new
Getting killed makes you famous, not great. It is absolutely absurd to wring hands and cry out about how great someone WOULD be.
RFK was a crafty, conniving politician, just like all the rest. When you place the crown of greatness on what is basically your own desires and feelings, it kind of cheapens it for those who earned such a mantle by deeds.
RFK as one of the greatest of the CENTURY?????? If I started naming names (Gandhi, Mother Teresa, Salk, Sabin, ...) I might get around to RFK in the 5000-10000 range.
posted on November 20, 2001 07:14:21 PM new
Okay. You won't answer a simple, direct question.
As to putting Gandhi on the same page as Mother Teresa, well, let's just say the history book you might write wouldn't at all jibe with mine.
posted on November 20, 2001 07:28:30 PM new
I didn't put them on the same "page". Just example of some people who could have made the top 5000-10000. As to the simple (and totally irrelevent) question, probably 13-14.
What did RFK do????
And don't tell me how he gave you goosebumps every time his hair fell into his eyes, or how his accent made you swoon.
posted on November 20, 2001 07:43:39 PM new
DeSquirrel,
This is a brief excerpt from the JFK library site about Robert Kennedy's work with civil rights , labor raketeering and organized crime. He worked very closely with JFK and was helpful in avoiding war with Cuba and Russia during the Cuban missle crisis.
The close working relationship of John and Robert Kennedy was one of the most unusual and successful in the history of American public life. In 1952, Robert directed his older brother’s upset victory over Henry Cabot Lodge in the Massachusetts senatorial contest. They challenged labor racketeering together when Robert Kennedy became chief counsel to the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Improper Activities in the Labor and Management Field.
In the race for the White House in 1960, Robert served again as campaign manager. After the election, the President-elect appointed his 35-year old brother attorney general of the United States.
Robert Kennedy’s influence in the administration extended well beyond law enforcement. Though different in temperament and outlook, the president came to rely heavily on his brother’s judgement and effectiveness as political adviser, foreign affairs counselor, and most trusted confidant. After the Bay of Pigs debacle, Robert Kennedy became an intimate adviser in intelligence matters and major international negotiations. His efforts during the Cuban missile crisis in October 1962 were crucial in shaping a peaceful outcome.
Equality Before The Law
“For on this generation of Americans falls the burden of proving to the world that we really mean it when we say all men are created free and equal before the law.”
Robert F. Kennedy
When Robert Kennedy became attorney general, the civil rights struggle was entering a new phase of activism. In February 1960, four black college students in Greensboro, North Carolina sat in at the “whites only” section of a segregated Woolworth’s lunch counter and launched a national wave of similar protests. Fifteen months later, in May 1961, a small group of Freedom Riders left Washington, D.C. by Greyhound bus aiming to integrate interstate bus terminals throughout the South. The mob violence they encountered, and local police indifference to it, precipitated Justice Department involvement in protecting them and upholding their rights.
Relations between the Justice Department and the growing civil rights movement were both close and heated. Challenged by the courageous actions of movement activists, the attorney general and his staff helped to desegregate schools and public facilities, integrate the public universities of Alabama and Mississippi, shape new civil rights legislation, and support the registration of black voters throughout the South. Although many civil rights workers questioned the Justice Department’s depth of commitment, the two groups shared common goals and worked closely together.
Fighting Organized Crime
To meet the challenge of our times, so that we can later look back upon this era not as one of which we need be ashamed but as a turning point on the way to a better America, we must first defeat the enemy within.” Robert F. Kennedy
Robert Kennedy brought to the Justice Department a reputation as a relentless fighter against crime and corruption. As Chief Counsel for the U.S. Senate’s “Rackets” Committee he had direct experience of the influence of organized crime on America’s economy and government. Upon entering office he was determined to change the department’s previous neglect of these issues and assigned a high priority to an aggressive campaign against mobsters.
Through speeches and writing, such as his book The Enemy Within, he alerted the country to the existence of a “private government of organized crime with an annual income of billions, resting on a base of human suffering and moral corrosion.” He established the first coordinated program involving all twenty-six federal law enforcement agencies to investigate organized crime, overcoming FBI indifference to the pursuit of racketeers. He significantly increased funds and manpower for the department’s Organized Crime Section, assigned a special team of prosecutors to handle the entire process of investigating and prosecuting cases against key racketeers, and successfully lobbied Congress for legislation expanding federal powers against organized crime.
posted on November 20, 2001 08:04:45 PM new
And maybe if he had not cheated Nixon on the election, he may still be alive. Then the whole world would be a better place. Just imagine, no more famine, no more abuse, no more Bin ladens. Oh, if only it had been.
posted on November 20, 2001 08:16:49 PM new
ARKANSAS CITY (AP) --
A Little Rock woman was killed yesterday after leaping through her moving car's sun roof during an incident best described as "a mistaken rapture" by dozens of eye witnesses. Thirteen other people were injured after a twenty-car pile up resulted from people trying to avoid hitting the woman who was apparently convinced that the rapture was occurring when she saw twelve people floating up into the air, and then passed a man on the side of the road who she claimed was Jesus.
"She started screaming "He's back, He's back" and climbed right out of the sunroof and jumped off the roof of the car," said Everett Williams, husband of 28-year-old Georgann Williams who was pronounced dead at the scene. "I was slowing down but she wouldn't wait till I stopped," Williams said.
"She thought the rapture was happening and was convinced that Jesus was gonna lift her up into the sky," he went on to say. "This is the strangest thing I've seen since I've been on the force," said Paul Madison, first officer on the scene. Madison questioned the man who looked like Jesus and discovered that he was dressed up as Jesus and was on his way to a toga costume party when the tarp covering the bed of his pickup truck came loose and released twelve blow up sex dolls filled with helium which floated up into the air.
Ernie Jenkins, 32, of Fort Smith, who's been told by several of his friends that he looks like Jesus, pulled over and lifted his arms into the air in frustration, and said , "Come back here," just as the Williams' car passed him, and Mrs. Williams was sure that it was Jesus lifting people up into the sky as they passed by him, according to her husband, who says his wife loved Jesus more than anything else.
When asked for comments about the twelve sex dolls, Jenkins replied "This is all just too weird for me. I never expected anything like this to happen."
posted on November 20, 2001 08:30:52 PM new
scrabblegod
icksnay on the eatingchey. Everyone is trying to forget the Chicago-Daly thingie of 1960.
Helen,
I know a lot about history. It was a favorite subject long before I even went to school. There is nothing you mentioned that is a manifestation of greatness. And as to the conquest of organized crime, let's just say that if those thugs were black or hispanic and you were transported in time, you would be leaping to the barricades attacking Mr Kennedy for his "creative" methods in fighting crime.
posted on November 20, 2001 08:59:26 PM new
desquirrel
<quote>
What did RFK do????
And don't tell me how he gave you goosebumps every time his hair fell into his eyes, or how his accent made you swoon.
<end quote>
Your question, What did Robert Kennedy do, (along with instructions to leave out goosebumps and hair and accents) indicated to me a level of ignorance that might be helped by a brief history of Robert Kennedy's accomplishments which I provided.
If you will read the beginning of the thread you will find that this was intended as a tribute to Robert Kennedy, not a search for the greatest man or woman of the century.
posted on November 20, 2001 11:03:10 PM new
What is greatness? This old quotation sums it up for me:
Once there was a man whose neighbors held him to be a great man... "We know he is a great man," they said, "because when we are with him we ourselves feel bigger. (James M. Spinning)
Yes DeSquirrel, the question about your age is relevant.
posted on November 21, 2001 12:01:06 AM new
To hold a couple of admittedly persistent scientists up and say that they may have been great in their respective field, or to say that an expedient planner was great because his plan succeeded, or even to say that a humanitarian of supreme self-sacrifice who gains reknown for committment over time has greatness in focus may be fallacious or true. But all of those are shortsighted.
But see a person simple in committment to ideals for himself inspire a nation, a generation, people across all political, racial, or moral demarcations to follow his example and you see the most rare form of greatness.
Robert Kennedy had that. He surpassed his brothers--according to Schlesinger they held him in awe. His good will extended around him like an aura and it was a completely amazing thing.
What did he do? He gave hope; he brought a real sense of the community of man that anyone could grasp; he believed in us.
And you know, he never even seemed to be trying. He was a reluctant politician.
Yeah squirel, you had to be there, it was a completely relevant question.
(I'd have answered earlier except that when I posted above I'd just come from doctors who did electrifying things to me (lobotomy) and I unexpectedly conked out right after that)
posted on November 21, 2001 03:42:08 AM new
Don't get all ruffled about the Chicago vote stealing; The Republican machine stole just as many votes in Southern Illinois as the Daley crew did in Chicago. That's why Nixon didn't go for a recount in Illinois, while he had several other states recounted.
posted on November 21, 2001 04:58:24 AM new
I was a Eugene McCarthy fan who felt that Bobby Kennedy let McCarthy test the waters and then jumped in when it looked like a win was feasible. However, Kennedy probably was the only Democrat who could have pulled off a win. I certainly think we would have been left with a more positive legacy than that of Watergate.
posted on November 21, 2001 09:20:31 AM new
Ken, etc
My exception was in using the term 'great'. And basically your response was to define a cult of personality. This was exactly my point.
The next generation will say "didn't he get shot?" and to the generation after that it will like Truman's vice-president: who? (assuming of course our educational system stays the same).
posted on November 21, 2001 09:49:07 AM new
True, but isn't that possible in about all cases? I'm sure that if a survey were done of high school students asking "Who is Michaelangelo" many of them would talk about beer.
