Captain Future posted a diary today about RFK and his 80th birthday. (Robert Kennedy and This Lonely America) I originally posted the first draft of this diary as a (too long) comment on that thread.
Now I was and remain a great admirer of RFK. Much more than I am of his brother. I think RFK managed to get on the other side of the mirror to some degree before his death, and I think that the reverence in which he was held by so many members of the racial minorities of this country is evidence of that.
My current reply and comment sig line…”Whenever a feeling of aversion comes into the heart of a good soul, it is not without significance. Intuition-a Divine attribute, not vain suspicion.”, which is roughly taken from the Sufi poet Rumi, has many corollaries. One of them could easily be `”Whenever a feeling of admiration comes into the heart of many good souls, it is not without significance. Intuition-a Divine attribute, not vain hero worship.”
BUT…as I say below, he was a man of his times.
And reading the speech excerpt included in this diary really brought home what he…AND his times…were really missing.
The REAL revolution.
The Female Revolution.
Freeing the REAL slaves.
And literally nearly doubling the efficiency of our human ecology…how we use and treat human beings…at the same time.
Plus it focused in for me something about which I have been thinking for some time.
Which Democrat to support for President in 2008. (Which is obviously, from the title of this diary, Hillary Clinton.)
Read on for more.
Notice which sex is emphasized and exclusively referenced in this speech excerpt. (Go (read it if you have not done so.)
We have come a long way.
It would be inconceivable for someone today who was in RFK’s place to make the same speech in the same way.
“…this poisons relations between men… “
“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.”
“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…”
“We learn, at the last, to look on 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 must admit the vanity of our false distinctions among men and learn to find our own advancement in the search for the advancement of all.”
Do you think that he was speaking to an all male audience that day?
Of course not.
Now this is not exactly a “criticism” of Robert Kennedy. More of an observation. An attempt at explanation. Did the women in the audience…or within his national audience, for that matter…stand up and say “Yo, KENNEDY!!! What about US!!!”
Nope.
They did not.
Should they have done so?
Should we…women and men alike…stand up and protest every time a politician makes the same error, every time some national politician like Small K kerry or Semi-President Butch gets up on a podium with the little wifey in a $1000 haircut next to him rooting him on? And don’t give me that bullshit about Teresa Heinz being a “liberated woman”, either. Please. She made the her money and achieved her position the old-fashioned way. She married it. Just like Small K. (And that’s the NICE description.)
RFK was a man of his time. Like Thomas Jefferson or Abraham Lincoln or anyone else. Like you. Like me. A man or woman of a particular place and time. He had a mother named Rose and an in-law named Black Jack. And a father who fucked movie stars and God only knows what else. A run-runner. A successful gangster who managed to do what Don Corleone could not do. Cross over. Rum runner one decade, Ambassador to the Court of St. James the next. And yet, I have to wonder…
Had he come up ABOVE that male-centric “It’s A MAN’S World” (James Brown) thing…would he have survived? Would that have been enough to put him in a position where he could NOT be assassinated?
Just an observation…a comment engendered by my first reaction when reading this post.
We’ve come a long way. baby.
But has it been far enough?
Someday…if we all survive this situation…maybe the historians will write the story of Bill Clinton’s presidency as a SEXUAL drama. The story of a man caught in the greatest revolution of all. The first U.S. President to be married to a woman as strong, intelligent and independent as himself.
Maybe MORE so.
And he fell because he couldn’t handle it.
Couldn’t handle the greatest revolution of all.
“Free the slaves?”
That was only about ten percent of the population.
Talk about human ecology!!!
What if we almost DOUBLED our brain and work power?
Talk about REVOLUTION!!!
“But…but…who will raise and bear the children?”
I thought we had too MANY people on this earth.
There are about twice as many people in the U.S. as there were in 1968, says this diary.
OK…
If EVERY COUPLE only had one child…in about 50 years we would be back to a manageable level of population once again.
Halved.
I’d go for that. I can barely find a parking spot as it is now. Can”t drive ANYWHERE without encountering a serious traffic jam. Too many cars, not enough road.
Too many people, too much load.
If for NO OTHER REASON…I support Hillary Clinton for President.
The REAL Abe Lincoln.
21st Century version thereof.
Free the slaves?
Yup.
Let’s.
We shall see…
AG
