There's no need to rehash the utter insanity of what good ole Hillary implied with her ill conceived remarks the other day about the assassination of RFK in 1968. I'll even give her the benefit of the doubt and assume she didn't mean to imply it.... despite the obvious and justified reaction provoked by even uttering those word at this moment.
But rather than brush it away I think this is yet another opportunity for brother Obama and, more importantly, the United States, to take a potential disaster and use it to talk about the things that we as a nation rarely talk about. Our lack of national intellectual curiosity still amazes me at times. So let's talk...
Bobby Kennedy. What could have been.
For me and other history conscious political ranters, Brother Bobby represented the last real chance the United States had at becoming a truly progressive nation with truly progressive leaders willing to take the risks and address the ills of this land. That moment, early Spring 1968... Martin Luther King forcefully speaking out against Vietnam and raising the consciousness of the movement to formerly unseen levels; Bobby Kennedy announcing he would join that movement and provide the political leadership that this nation sorely, desperately needed to perhaps, finally, live up to some of its promise. I have read that as the talks began leading up to Kennedy entering the presidential race, there was discussion of a Kennedy/King ticket. I don't know if this was true, but wow is it wonderful to imagine...
It is rare in this nation that we have political leaders who actually listen to the people and represent our interests. Tragically rare. It has been a national struggle since 1789. Most often unsuccessful. But we at least have the struggle. So for RFK to transform himself from an arrogant Kennedy kid to a white man who could enter any black community anywhere in the nation and speak heart to heart with that community and be seen as a man who truly understood what needed to be done; for him to meet with Cesar Chavez and Martin Luther King on a regular basis and discuss policy and social change, well, that represented a truly amazing opportunity for this scarred nation.
What could have been.
Imagine had there not been: Richard Nixon and his exploitation of the racial and social polarization of this nation, no Watergate, no more Vietnam post 1969, no radical right backlash that has lasted now 40 years, no Ronald Reagan and his dismantling of our social programs and covert wars abroad, all the way to possibly none of the national disgrace that is George Bush. 1968 began a long, slow, painful, shameful downward spiral for this nation. The "dream" ended in that year, and a long national nightmare began. Its natural conclusion, of course, has been the last 7 years of the un-elected idiot imperial "president". But our history might have been radically different. We might be leading the world in progressive politics. TODAY. Imagine, if you will...
Perhaps. One never knows for sure. But it seems to me that this is what a rare, rare politician such as Bobby Kennedy at least offered a glimpse of. However fleeting it turned out to be. It has been 40 years since this country had a politician (who are most often the least wise and good among us) who could ignite a mass movement that wasn't based on hate and division and fear and ism ism ism.
Maybe we have another one among us. Maybe? Hope dies last, they say.
So let's talk about Bobby Kennedy. And how massively important he is TODAY.