JFK, RFK... Where Are We Going?
Forty five years ago John Fitgerald Kennedy was assassinated on the streets Dallas, Texas by a nutcase who flitted around the fringes of political extremeism. Forty years ago Robert Francis Kennedy was assassinated by another nutcase who thought he was making a ploitical statement for a cause he never has been able to articulate.
The common political thread that runs through these tragedies has continued to weave through the fabric of American discourse, growing thicker and more vehement until today it is a rope around the neck of rational debate. In many ways today's verbal violence is equal to, if not in excess of, yesterday's physical violence. Today the bullets have been replaced by innuendo, smear and lies.
Many see Carl Rove-like tactics as "hardball politics' with a "win at any cost" attitude that is merely a good, competitive, All-American mind set. Others see it for what it really is: the desperate, pathetic, shameful last resort of inferior minds. Physical violence has ended the lives of good men, accomplished men, men who gave us the best and brightest leadership and a vision for the future that shined with a white hot glow that still smolders among the embers of the American spirit. Rove-esque character assassination, when successful, has deprived us of those who may have fanned those embers into that white hot glow that shone for all the world to see; a glow that gave hope to the world that here, in this great country, peaceful solutions to violent problems can be achieved. In many ways the Camelot edict that "Might does not make right... it is might FOR right that should be the code" is what the verbal violence has assassinated.
In one of his last speeches (to the Cleveland City Club on April 5, 1968) Bobby Kennedy, speaking on violence, said:
For there is another kind of violence, slower but just as deadly and destructive as the shot or the bomb in the night. This is the violence of institutions; indifference and inaction and slow decay. This is the violence that afflicts the poor, that poisons relations between men because their skin has different colors. This is a slow destruction of a child by hunger and schools without books and homes without heat.
This is the breaking of a man's spirit by denying him the chance to stand as a father and as a man among other men. And this, too, afflicts us all. I have not come here to propose a set of specific remedies nor is there a single set. For a broad and adequate outline we know what must be done. When you teach a man to hate and fear his brother, when you teach that he is a lesser man because of his color or his beliefs or the policies he pursues, when you teach that those who differ from you threaten your freedom or your family, then you also learn to confront others not as fellow citizens but as enemies - to be met not with cooperation but with conquest, to be subjugated and mastered.
We learn, at the least, to look at our brothers as aliens, men with whom we share a city, but not a community, men bound to us in common dwelling, but not in common effort. We learn to share only common fear - only a common desire to retreat from each other - only a common impulse to meet disagreement with force. For all of this there is not final answer.
Today that final paragraph is being exploited by ignorant, fear mongering talk show hosts; by rabid 'my way or the highway' politicians; by self righteous, 'holier than thou' religious zealots and by 'I've got mine, the hell with the rest of you' fat cats who do little or nothing to further the common good.
The violence done by those who would turn disagreement into hatred; by those who imply that a difference of opinion must somehow be anti-American or by those whose positions or agendas or motives are weak, tennuous or suspect is NOT the American way. This kind of violence is insipid, shameful and as dangerous as any bullet.
The common political thread that runs through these tragedies has continued to weave through the fabric of American discourse, growing thicker and more vehement until today it is a rope around the neck of rational debate. In many ways today's verbal violence is equal to, if not in excess of, yesterday's physical violence. Today the bullets have been replaced by innuendo, smear and lies.
Many see Carl Rove-like tactics as "hardball politics' with a "win at any cost" attitude that is merely a good, competitive, All-American mind set. Others see it for what it really is: the desperate, pathetic, shameful last resort of inferior minds. Physical violence has ended the lives of good men, accomplished men, men who gave us the best and brightest leadership and a vision for the future that shined with a white hot glow that still smolders among the embers of the American spirit. Rove-esque character assassination, when successful, has deprived us of those who may have fanned those embers into that white hot glow that shone for all the world to see; a glow that gave hope to the world that here, in this great country, peaceful solutions to violent problems can be achieved. In many ways the Camelot edict that "Might does not make right... it is might FOR right that should be the code" is what the verbal violence has assassinated.
In one of his last speeches (to the Cleveland City Club on April 5, 1968) Bobby Kennedy, speaking on violence, said:
For there is another kind of violence, slower but just as deadly and destructive as the shot or the bomb in the night. This is the violence of institutions; indifference and inaction and slow decay. This is the violence that afflicts the poor, that poisons relations between men because their skin has different colors. This is a slow destruction of a child by hunger and schools without books and homes without heat.
This is the breaking of a man's spirit by denying him the chance to stand as a father and as a man among other men. And this, too, afflicts us all. I have not come here to propose a set of specific remedies nor is there a single set. For a broad and adequate outline we know what must be done. When you teach a man to hate and fear his brother, when you teach that he is a lesser man because of his color or his beliefs or the policies he pursues, when you teach that those who differ from you threaten your freedom or your family, then you also learn to confront others not as fellow citizens but as enemies - to be met not with cooperation but with conquest, to be subjugated and mastered.
We learn, at the least, to look at our brothers as aliens, men with whom we share a city, but not a community, men bound to us in common dwelling, but not in common effort. We learn to share only common fear - only a common desire to retreat from each other - only a common impulse to meet disagreement with force. For all of this there is not final answer.
Today that final paragraph is being exploited by ignorant, fear mongering talk show hosts; by rabid 'my way or the highway' politicians; by self righteous, 'holier than thou' religious zealots and by 'I've got mine, the hell with the rest of you' fat cats who do little or nothing to further the common good.
The violence done by those who would turn disagreement into hatred; by those who imply that a difference of opinion must somehow be anti-American or by those whose positions or agendas or motives are weak, tennuous or suspect is NOT the American way. This kind of violence is insipid, shameful and as dangerous as any bullet.
So much strength and truth from the Kennedy's.
If they were only here now. I can't remember in my lifetime a time period like the U.S. is going through now. So much has been lost by our own transgressions. I find no one to believe in and only hope that someone on a white horse will appear. The congress and so called leaders can't look beyond themselves and regulate the country in it's own best interest. What a poor selection of individuals to have one become our commander in chief. Thanks to you I'm having a glass of Yukon Jack.......
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