http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x3235324Oh my.
The burdened primitive:
Tyler Durden Donating Member (1000+ posts) Fri May-02-08 09:04 AM
Original message
The Republic has been brain dead on life support since 1968
You want to see a perfect example of how one person can change the course of history?
Sirhan Sirhan singlehandedly murdered the United States, June 5th, 1968, by assassinating the presumptive Democratic Party Candidate for President, Robert F. Kennedy.
It didn't die right away with Kennedy. It was comatose, but hope still remained until the nomination of Hubert Humphrey as the replacement Candidate. National brain swelling set in, and with the election of Richard M. Nixon as President, it went into a vegetative state on life support.
Since then, there have been instances of "Teri Schiavo" type false hope for some recovery with a rally in the 90's, but all in all, these have been recoveries from seizure and infections: the Nation's basic "medical" condition has been unchanged for over three decades.
Anything that has happened in the nation since the halcyon days of the Robert Kennedy Campaign has largely been a "blip" on the EEG monitor. Sorry: lights on, nobody home.
*Since STONEWALL, hard-fought GLBT rights have been back-pedaled and back-burnered.
*The lessons of VIETNAM have not only been forgotten, the Body Politic has been taught to be ASHAMED of our LOSS there.
*Russia, the ancient "Bugbear" of the cold war, would have died on its own trying to out spend us: we can't take any credit for that.
*Corporations and the Military Industrial Complex (the power behind the throne) now don't even bother to HIDE as they influence policy.
*Oil crisis? WHAT Oil crisis?
*Welfare, the SALVATION of the poor, is slashed to starvation level, and the homeless are legion.
If this list is taken to the limit, nothing else will be written here.
Kennedy promised real change, and a new paradigm of the Republic, where we all had a real stake in making things work RIGHT. So many disasters would have been averted DECADES after he left office (almost a guaranteed two-termer). The Nation would have gone down a different road, not to Nationalist Glory, but to a new and better definition of the nation as the culmination of the people.
Instead, we are left with the "POTTERVILLE" of our current reality, and no angel can take us back and remove the bullet from Robert F. Kennedy. The tragedy of the stolen opportunity is almost paralyzing in its enormity.
A precocious young person at that time, I was just getting into party politics as a High School Freshman. My Democratic Party mother, and my "Rockefeller" Republican father both hated Nixon and were fine with Kennedy, and encouraged my fold the flyer, wet the stamp, walk the neighborhood participation in the local Kennedy Campaign.
What they did not know was that my study of politics was years old, encouraged by their frank and reasonable discussions. I had lost my faith in Religion and God as a grade school child, and I did not trust in some deity or faith in some deity to save the nation. I BELIEVED in Robert Kennedy. I knew his policies, and I understood his platform. I looked forward to living in a nation that now seemed to be smart enough to elect him as president.
The morning of the assassination, I heard the news at breakfast. My father's face was grim and my mother had been crying. I hid in the bathroom, shaking, and alternated between tears and vomiting. How could this have happened? AGAIN?? I almost felt religion again, thinking the nation damned. How little I suspected at the time how truly awful it could become.
The option of the great crossroads of 1968, with the new highway blocked off forever/Sirhan flagging us down the dusty road to decline, has not since been repeated, and is not now offered. We long now for someone to save us: Kennedy wasn't a savior; he was a guide on the new highway, driving the bus to the new definition of the republic. Presidents do not SAVE us; they guide the process. Their egos are not the motivator. Obama and Clinton are not, and should not be "leaders," but the Presidency is no longer an office of SERVICE: now the job isn't working for US, but US supporting the OFFICE. The Founders would spit on us.
One day in the fairly near future, if we are very, very lucky, the population of the Republic, revising the way the nation is run will breath a sigh of relief as THEY dodge Sirhan's bullet, and heal the country. Otherwise, history shall pull the plug, and all we will be left to do is grieve at our missed opportunities, both for the Republic and the world.
I dunno. I think the burdened primitive, like the mountain man primitive, is a Kennedy cultist.
Rejecting God, the burdened primitive made this one guy god.
That's all there is to it; an easy-as-pie psychological analysis.
Other primitives comment at this bonfire, but I'll just stick with the burdened primitive:
Tyler Durden Donating Member (1000+ posts) Fri May-02-08 09:33 AM
Response to Reply #3
4. All counter theories to the side....
.38 bullets (the guard's gun) do not shatter inside the skull; they go THROUGH the skull at that range. .22 bullets do exactly what happened to Kennedy: that's why they are the covert assassin's weapon of choice.
While doubts can remain, and to give you the benefit of the doubt, does it really matter who pulled the trigger? The results are the same.
Tyler Durden Donating Member (1000+ posts) Fri May-02-08 11:26 AM
Response to Reply #12
14. Not many fancy .38 slugs in 1968,
But it's all kind of moot, isn't it? Say RFK went to the convention and Humphrey still got the nod: Same results.
From my experiences at the time, I have to believe there was a better than good chance RFK would have been nominated.
Tyler Durden Donating Member (1000+ posts) Fri May-02-08 10:35 AM
Response to Original message
6. One last bump for Bobby.
In some alternate Universe, he gently guided us in the direction of peace and brotherhood.
I dunno.
Does a primitive who refuses to acknowledge God believe in some alternative universe?
That sounds contradictory to me, but maybe it's just me.
Tyler Durden Donating Member (1000+ posts) Fri May-02-08 10:57 AM
Response to Reply #8
9. I believe if he had lived, with his primary votes, McCarthy would have declared for Kennedy.
Without a single "primary" win, and with the delegates of McCarthy added to his (with "THE WHOLE WORLD IS WATCHING" on every TV Screen in the world) it would have been seen that to nominate Humphrey would have been suicide.
Zynx Donating Member (1000+ posts) Fri May-02-08 11:02 AM
Response to Reply #9
10. I really don't know about that.
Even the Kennedy campaign was not optimistic about the chances of pulling that off. Also, McCarthy personally despised Bobby Kennedy as did many Democrats. I'm not at all convinced that RFK would have won against Nixon.
franksolich was going to say this earlier on, but as I worked my way down, I was hoping to see a primitive say it.
Tyler Durden Donating Member (1000+ posts) Fri May-02-08 11:15 AM
Response to Reply #10
11. Whatever the discussion, 1968 was the turning point.
I, as a Kennedy worker, looking at the party aligned against RFK would still have to say we had our hope.
Tyler Durden Donating Member (1000+ posts) Fri May-02-08 11:27 AM
Response to Reply #13
15. The Party and the State as Sauron, so to speak? Works for me...
No, the Party and the State as saurian, one supposes.
Tyler Durden Donating Member (1000+ posts) Fri May-02-08 11:48 AM
Response to Reply #16
17. Exactly.
That being so, there is no more Republic. Just a Potemkin Village.
You know, one suspects the burdened primitive went through some sort of deep personal private agony over his long-ago god. Just about every single post the burdened primitive made at his bonfire was subsequently "edited," and more often "updated."
The burdened primitive's got such a little mind.
