The Democratic Party: My Third and Current Paradigm (Part 7)
Parts 1-6: https://caucus99percent.com/content/democratic-party-my-third-and-curren... ; https://caucus99percent.com/content/democratic-party-my-third-and-curren... ; https://caucus99percent.com/content/democratic-party-my-third-and-curren... ; https://caucus99percent.com/content/democratic-party-my-third-and-curren... ; https://caucus99percent.com/content/demaocratic-party-my-third-and-curre...
https://caucus99percent.com/content/democratic-party-my-third-and-curren...
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Writer's block caused by thoughts of Franklin Delano Roosevelt has halted more than one of my series of essays, but I will try to soldier through this time. Alas, fitting him into my third paradigm, even very superficially, will require more than one essay.
I have learned considerable contempt for early Democrats and their Presidents. You may well say, "Yes, yes, HAW, but all that is only ancient history--the racism, the unseemly, perhaps criminal, treatment of women, the party machines and bosses, the corruption. The only history of the Democratic Party really worth mentioning today began with the First Hundred Days of the first term of the incomparable President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, whom historians rate with Presidents Washington and Lincoln. They were so gobsmacking that media and historians have ever since assessed the first hundred days of every new President's first term." Maybe. Or maybe we are all, in one way or another, products of our entire history, including the Democratic Party. And FDR.
First, the man. If the Kennedys were "American royalty," the Roosevelts (among others) beat the Kennedys to it, IMO. Few Americans of FDR's era grew up with as much "white male privilege" as FDR enjoyed. He was born on January 30, 1882 in Hyde Park, in Dutchess County, in New York's Hudson Valley. Earlier that month, Theodore Roosevelt had been sworn in as a New York assemblyman. Although Teddy and Franklin were only fifth cousins, sharing a surname with fellow New Yorker Theodore was another favor of FDR's birth, along with the Roosevelt family coat of arms, bloodlines and inherited fortune.
In turn, Theodore was the grandson and great grandson of very wealthy men and the nephew of a U.S. Representative, a heritage of both wealth and politics, much like the the descendants of Samuel Bush. I would include the Kennedys here, but for the anti-Irish Catholic bias with which they were forced to contend, for at least their first four generations among U.S WASPs. (Joseph Kennedy, Sr. once said, "I was born here. My father was born here. What do I have to do before they stop calling me an Irishman?" or words to that effect, per True Compass, by Ted Kennedy. )
The Roosevelts were not FDR's only pedigreed and wealthy ancestors, but also the Aspinwalls and his mother Sara's family, the Delanos. The Delano family tree alone boasts three signatories of the Mayflower Compact, Republican Calvin Coolidge (President from August 2, 1923 to March 4 of the fateful year of 1929) and astronaut Alan Shepherd. The full Aspinwall family tree includes, in addition to the Roosevelts, names like Astor, DuPont, Goodyear, Lowell* and more. Roosevelt's father was a Bourbon Democrat (conservative, pro-business Democrat) with enough clout and connections to take young Franklin to the White House to meet fellow Bourbon Grover Cleveland , another early Democrat whom I do not esteem .
Even the dry wikipedia version of Franklin's early years reads to someone who grew up as I did like a fairy tale Prince Charming's bio: Riding, sailing, frequent trips to Europe--you name it. I perhaps am most wistful about his education. Like European royals, lads who were scions of the U.S. patrician class were first schooled at home by governesses until they were off to prep school, preferably in New England. In FDR's case, it was an Episcopal school, Groton, in Groton, Massachusetts, Episcopal, of course, being America's version of Anglican, the religion of British royals.
After prep school, FDR attended Harvard College (duh), where he edited the Harvard Crimson, managed the baseball team and played football, followed by Columbia Law School and then on to a Wall Street law firm. In between, FDR married a cousin (fifth, once removed), Anna Eleanor Roosevelt, again like many European royals. (We can't know for certain where the bloodlines of outsiders to our own families have been, n'est-ce pas?) Then incumbent President Theodore Roosevelt gave the bride away (but not very far away).
FDR's "birthright" obviously included an extraordinary mind and skills, along with good looks. Short of being a monarch's eldest offspring, FDR hit the genetic jackpot. None of the above, however, is intended to denigrate Roosevelt's abilities, motivation or the like. As we all know, more than one wealthy, well-connected, well-educated heir has run both the family fortune and good name into the ground. On the other hand, brilliant and ambitious people have been known to end up on "Skid Row;" so I don't dismiss his unearned advantages, either.
FDR's wikipedia article nicely summarizes FDR's career before he became the Democratic Party's choice to challenge incumbent Herbert Hoover, so I will just copy and paste that bit, with the hope that I will be able to get to the next essay about FDR sooner than I got to this Part Seven:
He won election to the New York State Senate in 1910 , and then served as Assistant Secretary of the Navy under President Woodrow Wilson during World War I (with no military training}. Roosevelt was James M. Cox's running mate on the Democratic Party's 1920 national ticket {at age 38}, but Cox was defeated by Republican Warren G. Harding (whose death made relative Cal President}. In 1921, Roosevelt contracted a paralytic illness, believed at the time to be polio, and his legs became permanently paralyzed. While attempting to recover from his condition, Roosevelt founded the treatment center in Warm Springs, Georgia, for people with poliomyelitis. In spite of being unable to walk unaided, Roosevelt returned to public office by winning election as Governor of New York in 1928. He was in office from 1929 to 1933 and served as a reform Governor, promoting programs to combat the economic crisis besetting the United States at the time.
* "Here's to dear old Boston, the home of the bean and the cod, where Lowells speak only to Cabots, and Cabots speak only to God." https://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/letters/3585589/Home-of-the-bean-and...
Comments
Hints of American royalty occur in history. FDR brings the
concept into crisp focus mixing business, politics, land ownership and marrying within the class. I have often thought without his illness he would have had no compassion to any Americans other than those in his social and economic class. It may have been his class identity that lead to the lack of punishment for those individuals who plotted his assassination.
Enjoying your series and looking forward to the next installment.
Still yourself, deep water can absorb many disturbances with minimal reaction.
--When the opening appears release yourself.
I am so pleased that you've been enjoying the series. I love
doing the essays because I almost always learn something new, sometimes lots, sometimes just one or two things. Believe it or not, I'd never heard of an attempt on FDR's life until this year. So, that is something I will need to delve into for this series.
It's hard to know for certain, isn't it? Because his paralysis came before the Great Depression. There was the concept of noblesse oblige. Also, he had considerable incentives, IMO, to try to help some of the millions devastated by the Depression, but another part of the series will address that.
Assassination plot
-- not sure to what you refer. The Bankers' Plot? That wasn't an ass'n attempt but a non-bloody coup attempt. And, iirc, the attempt on his life in the president-elect period of late '32/early '33 was a solo effort.
The attempted assassination of FDR
occurred during a motorcade in which FDR was sitting in the backseat along with the the mayor of Cicero, Illinois Anton Cermak. The car was a large convertible and the top was stowed. A shot was fired into the back of the car, passing FDR completely but killing Mayor Cermak. Theories in Chitown (my home town) are that the hit was a deliberate attempt to kill Cermak, not FDR, because of Cermak's cracking down on Al Capone's businesses. Al was one of Anton's constituents.
Yes, aware of it.
Solo assassin. Iirc, the early history had it that he was shooting for the mayor, but I seem to recall reading of a person standing near the assassin, seeing him raise his gun in the crowd, acted to nudge him as the shot rang out. The implication being that he was aiming for FDR.
Does seem strange that a) someone would want to kill the mayor of Cicero and then b) wait to do it in Miami of all places. But I haven't read up on this case lately. Caution however is in order as the establishment historians have a tendency to downplay things, thus the first histories holding that the mayor was the intended target.
And on the Bankers' Plot -- someone will have to fill me in whether recent histories/bio of the FDR period mention it, or give it much credence. The major historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr, who never finished his expected complete series on the FDR presidency, always denied it was of consequence.
Dusting off the cobwebs, I researched this some
Now I must admit a mistake: Anton Cermak was the mayor of Chicago, not Cicero as I said above.
That confirms my earlier assertion about the intended victim.
Interesting case
and a real shame that the assassin was executed so swiftly after the deed, with little time to get a solid sense of his motivations. Re the theory he was a hired hit man to target the mayor, why then send out a small stature guy to stand in the crowd at a distance using a hand gun?
Re the Bankers' Plot, which is what the post above seemed to be referring to, not though an actual assassination plot but rather a coup with Roosevelt slated to become just a figurehead president while the group of fascists would do the actual work behind the scenes, another case of far too little information and a serious scrubbing of the case from the history books.
It would seem that after the congressional investigation, which did find it was a real plot even if unlikely to succeed, FDR may have decided there was too much already on his plate digging out of the Depression, and the plot being foiled, it might be better just to move on. I'm not sure he expressed a desire to protect fellow members of his social class, although this could have been an unconscious motivation. Interesting that Prescott Bush may have been among the plotters, he the Poppy of Poppy H.W. Bush. If so, it would be the second major crime he committed with impunity -- the other being allegations of his trading with Nazi Germany.
Allegations?
And so the Nazi invasion continued after the war
with Operation Paperclip. Why use homegrown fascists when you can have the deal including Werner von Braun an SS member--this is an organization for which you must volunteer and then be chosen by Himmler, Heidrich, et. al.
How brave does someone have to be, to hit the arm of a
man with a gun in his hand, aimed at the President-Elect of the United States? I'm truly impressed by Ms. Cross.
I really don't have anything to add
but walking through his home at Hyde Park above the Hudson was an interesting experience.
Gëzuar!!
from a reasonably stable genius.
I'd love to know more about your visit.
A view Presidential libraries and museums are on my bucket list. (A vague superstition in the back of my mind correlates a long bucket list with a longer life.)
I've never been to the Hudson Valley, imprinted on my mind as a child as home to Roosevelt's fellow American of Dutch ancestry, Rip Van Winkle. (-:
After seeing a PBS documentary about giant Pete Seeger, however, I can envision only Seeger leading residents in song as he and they remove some of the debris from the Hudson. Actually, maybe Seeger and Van Winkle look something alike? http://www.hvmag.com/Hudson-Valley-Magazine/Pete-Seeger/
I was struck by how small it was/is
Sure, it's a large house, but nothing like a stately, historic house in the UK. The Jacobean house a stone's throw from my parents' house, looks more impressive.
In the end, a very comfy place to be.... with servants.
(Edited)
Gëzuar!!
from a reasonably stable genius.
When I saw the Fort Meyers, Fl. homes of Ford and Edison,
I was stunned. They'd entertained President Teddy Roosevelt there!
Not only were the structures modest, but Edison's, now a museum, was furnished very sparsely and with far simpler things than I have in my own home--which is not furnished lavishly. My companion informed me that was very much the custom among the uber wealthy of the time. Maybe it was supposed to be something of a vacation for their servants, too? Such a contrast from the mansions of Newport Rhode Island, which were also vacation homes!
I realize that you are talking about "year-round homes" but one reminded me of the other. I guess it depends on the vogue of the time and what the owner wanted to accomplish.
An acquaintance is easily worth about $100 million (inherited). A mom of three boys, she is terrified of kidnapping. Her home in Massachusetts, where real estate costs are high, was in a nice town, with a good school system, didn't even have a pool. Her home in St. Louis, where real estate is somewhat less expensive, and the weather somewhat warmer, does.
In other words, in her homes (and clothing, car, etc.), she will signal a comfortable level of income, but nothing like what she can easily afford. When she and her family travel, though, it's another story entirely. Only the very best hotels, restaurants, etc.--unless she is visiting a town in which she used to live.
Not speaking from
personal experience, but there's definitely an attitude among some of the established, old money types which seeks to be understated and not flashy or garish in displaying its wealth. It's an attitude of such complete self-confidence that they don't find it necessary or proper to engage in any vulgar material displays which attempt to impress others, as the nouveau-riche tend to do. The attitudes of others really don't matter; they are who they are, atop the social pecking order, proud of it, and what others might think is of no consequence. They have been so U-class for so long that they long ago stopped bothering announcing it.
Something of this understated attitude was seen at the Kennedy compound in Hyannis Port (speaking of what's now old money), per the posthumous memoirs of a top LBJ aide, as the author noted his great surprise seeing how plainly the large house was furnished -- nothing at all fancy and bordering on shabby -- and old basic American cars in the driveway. Given all the Kennedy playful roughhousing he witnessed and experienced, the simple furnishings were a smart idea.
Just FYI, in Massachusetts, Kennedy money is not old money
and may never be.
A teacher from a Massachusetts Mayflower/social register family that had lost its money along the way mentioned telling his mom that he had voted for JFK. She replied, "Edward, the Kennedys are lace curtain Irish with a whiskey fortune. You did not not vote for him and that is that." And that is the difference between a Boston Brahmin and the rest of us, who would have been impressed in the Sixties by Joe's fortune, ambassadorship to the Court of King James, and a son in White House.
Even FDR, who had appointed Kennedy first head of the SEC and ambassador to the Court of St. James also referred to Joe Kennedy as "that Irishman." It must have been especially difficult for Joe to know he would not be welcome at area country clubs, nor could his daughters debut where the daughters of Boston's elite would debut. However, I imagine that Joe, resenting all that as he did, would have tried to behave the way that the WASP wealthy did.
Like the Edison home in Fort Myers, the Hyannis compound would not have begun housing the Kennedys as a "year-round" home. Rose Kennedy grew up in Boston's North End, then a poorer neighborhood that, like Harlem, saw batch after batch of immigrants, Jewish, then Irish then Italian. And even though her Dad had become Mayor, she had also gone through the Depression. Though Joe weathered that far better than some who had leapt from their Wall Street windows on Black Friday, the Depression left it impression on everyone. Besides, with all those kids and their friends running around inside on a rainy Cape day, I imagine furnishing the place with hand me downs from the Boston and Bronxville homes would have been less stressful for everyone in the family, as well as less wasteful.
HenryAWallace,
I haven't read your series of essays yet, but I truly want to and plan to. Here is a source on FDR, however, that you might appreciate. I haven't finished reading it either, but so far I am not surprised to learn FDR was a Wall Street opportunist, especially in the field of fleecing the taxpaying public.
Antony Sutton is the historian of Wall Street's connections to Hitler and to the Soviet Union, and he is a conservative who uses the word "socialist" as a pejorative. I consider myself to be a socialist, so I disagree with his use of that word, but what he consistently does is show the corruption between the powerful in industry and the bribable in our roll-over government. The NRA referred to in this work is FDR's National Recovery Administration.
Thank you, Linda Wood. Once I was too sanguine about
the Democratic Party to look behind the curtain. Heck, I was blissfully unaware of the existence of any curtain.
In recent years, however, I've considered the Russian revolutions and the well-being of the wealthy to have been in the forefront of the minds of FDR and Kennedy (Joe Sr., in this case) as to the New Deal. I believe the Great Migration drove his manipulation of the black - white racial situation. That gives away what I am about to write, but I am not a mystery writer in any event.
If I live to be 2500, I will not have time to read the books I want to read, so it is an excellent bet that I will not read Sutton's book before I finish this series--assuming that I ever finish it. So, I will be very interested to know your thoughts on my theories.
Does Sutton pull away the curtain only on leftists, or does he expose conservatives as well? Also, does he ever come close to admitting that so called conservatives and Democrats are more alike than most in either camp see or admit? Neither of those questions, of course, alters the information and theories in his book, which are either valid or not. However, they do bear on his character and may bear on his intelligence. It's fine to discuss Wall Street and Hitler, even the US government and Hitler, even FDR and Joe Kennedy and Hitler. But, if you don't mention Senator Prescott Bush while you do, a big question mark will be floating over my head, cartoon style, while I read your book. (Using "you" generically, and not to refer to the wonderful Ms. Wood or to Mr. Sutton.)
Antony Sutton
documents the collusion of U.S. corporations and the Third Reich as well as with the Soviet military industrial complex, in answer to your question,
What he exposes is treason on the part of our military industrial complex.
To make sense of the dichotomy of the exact same companies supporting Hitler and Stalin simultaneously, both before and during WWII, you have to have read Averell Harriman's memoirs, in which he explains how he could, as an American capitalist, work with Trotsky, who understood the need for industrial development, but that his problem was the Soviet workforce. The Soviet workforce had been through war, famine, revolution, and civil war. They were tough as nails, but they had also been through Bolshevik schools. Thus they believed they owned the means of production. This concept Harriman and his industrial colleagues could not work with. Hence they produced a terror machine, through German rearmament and support of Hitler, in order to destroy the labor movement in Europe, Asia and throughout the world, and in order to replace the Soviet system with slave labor.
Thank you for elaborating. You have so much interesting
information at your fingertips, It's awe-inspiring.
Wonderful research and well-written
Henry, you must be an encyclopedia about the Democrat party. There is one consistent thread running through the Democrat Party, and the Repugnant Party, which is that money buys you anything.
If government were music, it would be cacophony. But, if limits were imposed on tonality, then one could call the History of the D Party (or any political movement) variations on a theme.
Played in the key of green. Orchestra consisting of 535 members, chorus of thousands, one conductor, only one.
Thank you, Alligator Ed. You have been very kind
about my essays. So far, I've been writing about the Party mostly from Lincoln to Hoover, as seen through its Presidents; and not many Democrats got elected President during that time, only Cleveland and Wilson. Andrew Johnson was in the mix only because of John Wilkes Booth. So, I haven't done that much; and I'm no scholar. And my adult ADD is severe. Linda Wood's recommendation is no doubt light years beyond all my posts combined.
Money and power (which, of course, feed each other) must by now be hard-wired, I think. Whenever I think of "hard-wired," my imagination wanders to what little I know of our cave-dwelling forbears, scrabbling for survival. Even then, I imagine, it was good to be the "king."
As far as the Democratic Party alone, I see the common threads so far as racism and corrupt machines. I believe I will continue to see them in "folks" like Obama and Rahm, both products of the Cook County machine. And, if we look at what Biden and Harry Reid both said about Obama, things like clean, articulate, able to speak English without an accent, if he wishes, etc., we still see racism, I think. That is not changed because Democratic PTB did anoint a nominee who became the first black President (albeit a Hawaiian raised by a white family with a Mayflower connection, though.)
And, once the Democratic Party all but gave up any pretense of being the party of union laborers, etc. the thread of persistent, pervasive hypocrisy was added--the "public position" very much at odds with the "private position," something Wall Street groks very well, and many voters don't grok at all.
But, I'm rambling. (Did I mention severe ADD?)
Thanks, again, Ed for your encouraging, kind words.
Your rambling
makes my day every day that I have the good fortune to read it. From my perspective you have no deficit, nor a disorder, but a fluid ability to stay focussed on very difficult subjects and make them understandable to others. Plus I have respect for your namesake, which informs a lot of what you say, at least for me.
Linda Wood, I have so much respect for you that I have
no idea how to thank you for that praise. I am just that humbled by it. Thank you so very much is all I can think to post.
If this be ADD, then I want some
Henry may have self-diagnosed his ADD or perhaps he had "professionals" do the labelling. But I am at a total loss as to how someone with ADD could put together a long, coherent, well-organized essay such as this. I know I'm only an armchair alligator, but I wouldn't agree with that diagnosis.
BTW, Linda, I concur with Henry's assessment of your c99 work also. Please don't tell me you have ADD.
What I am
is a Very Angry Pacifist in a lifelong state of disbelief that we continue to make war profitable.
I want to respond also that your visual aids, especially the sharp-toothed ones, when combined with your razor sharp wit, are extremely important in the fight for peace and justice. When words don't faze them, images of what justice might involve are exactly what the doctor ordered for the merchants of death.
Thanks for the kind words, Linda
Keep on keepin' on.
I too am an angry pacifist. My anger shows through perhaps too much but JtC is a kind soul who forgives me my trespasses. Thanks to him muchly also.
Just FYI, I am not self-diagnosed.
or professionally diagnosed. I will explain.
Someone who had had heard a lecture about ADD opined that I suffered from it, which I dismissed immediately (but, in hindsight, stupidly). I mentioned that to a psychiatrist, who then asked me a couple of pointed questions that resonated so strongly with my educational experience, it became obvious to me and to her that I did indeed have ADD, and a markedly strong case of it. Since then, everything I've learned about ADD has confirmed. It has been, for me, at least as much a blessing as a curse, so I'm not sure I'd rid myself of it, if I could. so, I'm not complaining However, sometimes, I catch myself being caught up in it while I post. And that is when I'm likely to ask, "Does my ADD look fat in this post?"
I am glad I was not diagnosed until after I got out of school. I goofed off a lot in school, perhaps because of the ADD; and a diagnosis would have given me an excuse to goof off even more.
Apparently Sara Delano Roosevelt
Was a force to reckon with and FDR was a bit of a Mama's boy. I imagine Eleanor thought she hit the jackpot when she first married him. I also imagine having "Mom" in the next room took the shine right off of that juicy apple. Interesting that Franklin thought nothing odd about moving his young bride into his family home and letting Sara run roughshod over an excruciatingly timid Eleanor. What a threesome they must've made with the adored golden boy, Franklin, in the middle of it.
There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier
Sara held the power
of a major inheritance for Franklin in her hands, and wielded it overtly and subtly in ways designed to influence her son's decision making. If not for Sara and all that money waiting for Franklin, he and Eleanor would have divorced years before he reached the WH as his mum refused to allow FDR to divorce.
And how about the crowded marriage when ER found out about Franklin's mistress? Or the several women who came later in the WH?
How about the crowded marriage when ER invited her close friend(?), the newswoman, to live with her in the WH? Judging just by the rather steamy letters between them, published only in recent years, that likely wasn't a mere platonic relationship in the innocent Victorian manner.
I should think far and away FDR and ER had the most interesting and complex relationship of any (technically) married couple in the WH.
He was Sara's only child and Sara did dote on him.
One of the things I learned while doing this essay is that Sara was a second wife. I didn't check if FDR had step-siblings or not, though. In early photos, Eleanor does not look ugly to me. In fact, she doesn't look ugly to me in her much later photos, either. In those, she simply looks like an older woman.
But, she saw herself as ugly and, as the pic above this essay shows, no one would have considered young Franklin ugly. Nonetheless, Franklin had been turned down by the first woman to whom he had proposed. So, Eleanor likely knew she was not his first choice. And, then, there was his long-time and not well-hidden affair with her one-time secretary, abetted by Eleanor's daughter during the White House years. The secretary was with him when he died. Yuck.
I see Robert Kennedy the same way
in that I think his trip through Appalachia changed him for the better.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
There's never a substitute
for seeing first-hand how some of the less fortunate live. His brother JFK had an eye-opening experience campaigning in the primaries of 1960 in WVA, visiting with coal miners and their families. It's the sort of gut-punch one can't get from listening to others talk about it or reading about it in books.
Nice to see you, CStMS!
All else aside, I admire the way that Rose Kennedy raised her children. She required much of them, such as assigning them topics every day for discussion at dinner. She also taught them public service. That they doted on her anyway is clear from Ted Kennedy's memoir.
Nice to see you too!
I think my earlier comment about FDR got lost.
That's what I meant when I said I saw RFK in "the same way." I had argued that FDR's experience with polio made him a better person, and, through that, a better president, than if he had simply continued to be luck's darling.
That kind of constant pain can make a person worse, as well as better, of course, but in this case, it seems to have made him better.
In RFK's case it was seeing horrors, rather than experiencing them. What the two things have in common is a bursting of the bubble that such privileged people grow up in.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
We all know the classic case of that, don't we?
Prince Siddhartha, who was carefully cosseted and protected from anything that might disturb him, because it had been prophesied that he would grow up to become either a great warrior or a great religious leader - and his father wanted the former outcome.
So one day on an unscheduled walkout he saw a poor man, an old man, and a dead man, and chucked the whole "warrior prince" thing to meditate on how such things could be. Once he got his answer, they called him - Buddha.
I'm sure you saw that coming....
There is no justice. There can be no peace.
I knew what you were referring to, but I thought it was
student of earth's comment about FDR's paralysis.
I've always seen Robert as perhaps the best of the three
Kennedys brothers who survived World War II. His civil rights work as attorney general was unprecedented. I once saw a video of him in Appalachia during his remarkable and fatal Presidential campaign. He asked a little boy standing outside if the boy had had anything to eat yet that day; and the boy shook his head no, whereupon RFK looked physically ill. I believe that look was the reason that that particular vignette made it into a documentary about RFK. IMO, it spoke volumes about RFK.
I agree. A person of remarkable integrity
pretty much as much integrity as you can have as a wealthy person and politician.
This blows my mind. Try and imagine any of the current politicians, with the possible exception of Bernie Sanders, doing this:
Some people say this speech is where Robert Kennedy signed his death warrant.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Thank you for posting this video
of Robert Kennedy. It sure brings back the memory of the sudden atrocity of Dr. King's death and the realization of how threatening the power of the war machine was to our world. Total annihilation of everything good is the hallmark of the Nazi war effort, of ISIS under the Sauds and the CIA, and of our military industrial cartel as it operates today. I can't help but feel as I see RFK's face in this video that he understood he was next. From the moment he decided to run for president, I'm sure he knew what he was up against.
You're welcome.
To me, that's what it seems RFK was saying when he said a member of his family had also been killed by "a white man."
Since MLK's murder was supposedly motivated by racism, it wouldn't make sense to compare the two cases, and RFK was smart enough to know that. Therefore the two cases had to have something else in common. Not just both being killed by a white man--both being killed by the same faction of white men, for the same reason.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
I don't know if that signed his death warrant.
Weird. To this day, Sirhan Sirhan says he has zero recollection of shooting RFK and I believe him, although I could not tell you why.
I don't either. Others, who were alive then, have said it to me
Personally, I suspect that if he'd withdrawn from the presidential race, he'd have lived to a ripe old age.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
I did not mean that his speech was *not* his death warrant.
I literally meant that I have no idea, one way or the other. However, I will say that being alive at the time does not necessarily give anyone special insight into events of the time. Based upon my personal experience as a poster, sometimes it does and sometimes it blinds people because they formed their opinion when they lacked perspective and maturity and feel threatened when their youthful conviction about then-current events is challenged.
Anyway....
Sirhan supposedly killed RFK because of what Sirhan imagined RFK's policies as President toward Israel might be. Candidly, that does not ring true to me because, if anyone would have favored Israel more, it would have been the religious right; and most politicians of the time were favoring Israel anyway. You'd have had to bomb Washington, D.C. to turn the tide, not shoot RFK. In fact, even bombing Washington, D.C. would not have done the job.
I think it far more likely that RFK was killed for his civil rights or anti-mob activity as AG, or his stand against poverty. I would have loved to be able to have seen RFK's presidency, to see if it would have been what everyone imagines or not. It's amazing that the assassination of his two older brothers (along with the deaths of Joe, Jr. and Kathleen) did not stop Ted Kennedy from giving the Presidency a shot. (Yikes. Talk about "pun not intended!)
But, given all the health care legislation Ted wrote and got passed, I'm grateful he failed. Then again....he had blocked Nixon's health care plan by his own admission and Carter's (according to Carter after Ted passed). Jeebus, but politics is complicated!
BTW, some of the amazing things about that speech: RFK had been on his way to give a campaign speech. RFD did not learn that King was dead until RFK got off the plane. Many people at the venue thought they were there for a campaign speech, not learning of King's death until RFK began speaking. That city did not erupt into violence that night, unlike many cities in the country. Even Joe Scarborough, before he allegedly became a political "independent" acknowledged that. Don't know if Morning Foe would have done that if RFK were not assassinated, but only a past Democratic President, but still....