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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsLaelth
(32,017 posts)-Laelth
OnlinePoker
(5,730 posts)He would have had momentum after California, but in the last Gallup poll before his assassination, he was still 3rd on the Democratic side. At the time, it was McCarthy 32%, Humphrey 29%, Kennedy 25%.
http://www.gallup.com/poll/9967/Timeline-Polling-History-Events-Shaped-United-States-World.aspx
madokie
(51,076 posts)I was stationed at the SERE school in Warner Springs California when this happened. I was to relieve another person for duty and when he came to wake me up he said you won't believe what just happened and in my half sleepy ass way I said what they shot Kennedy. No way could I have known this other that intuition cause there wasn't any radios or televisions or people talking about this in my space. It was one of the eeriest feeling I've ever had. It was right up there with the one I had when I was in the first grade when all of a sudden I had this weird feeling that I'd lived before and would live again.
MsLeopard
(1,265 posts)for what could have been....
southerncrone
(5,506 posts)A loss beyond comprehension for those of us who have vision for peace.
H2O Man
(73,715 posts)Thank you for this.
A lot died that day.
jwirr
(39,215 posts)his dream. I think it is significant that it is that dream that the rethugs are still trying to kill.
Lint Head
(15,064 posts)I think poverty in this country would be virtually nonexistent. Poverty cannot be totally eliminated but it would be nothing like it is today. I think income inequality would be much less.
I miss his comforting words and his vision for us.
jimlup
(7,968 posts)I was in 5th grade and I walked to school every morning with the older boy next door. He said "did you hear that Senator Kennedy was shot?" And I was like "WHAT ?????"
mountain grammy
(26,677 posts)saw suffering and tried to heal it, saw war and tried to stop it." from Ted Kennedy's eulogy for his brother.
undeterred
(34,658 posts)mountain grammy
(26,677 posts)lovemydog
(11,833 posts)They have killed so many great ones. John, Martin, Bobby, Medger, Malcolm. As someone said above, you keep going on even after hope feels gone. As an honor to them, yourself and others. Lord knows it's not always easy.
tweeternik
(255 posts)progressoid
(50,030 posts)Whisp
(24,096 posts)on my birthday.
tk2kewl
(18,133 posts)Whisp
(24,096 posts)90-percent
(6,834 posts)Can you imagine McConnell or Boeher ever saying such deep moving loving hopeful things in their entire lives? They could sooner flap their arms to the moon than come close to the goodness in bobby's heart.
-90% jimmy
magical thyme
(14,881 posts)for what might have been...
Paladin
(28,290 posts)LoisB
(7,256 posts)nolabear
(42,009 posts)I lived in Mississippi, and it was the worst year of my life. My mother had died in March, Dr. King had been killed and I sometimes thought I was the only person in the state who thought that a tragedy. My mother, who in almost all ways was a Southern good girl, had had an enormous crush on John and we had mourned his death together. Now here I was, mourning Bobby's alone. I don't know why I was different but I was more or less raised by TV and the radio, and they gave me a place to go when it was just all too much. Having that dream in some ways changed my life, or at least confirmed much of what I felt. (It literally was a news anchor announcing "Senator Robert Francis Kennedy...is dead. I was so startled I woke up. Next day it turned out to have been true. I'm not claiming anything; maybe I'd heard something w/o being aware of it, but it affected me deeply.)
virgdem
(2,130 posts)I was 16 and a huge Kennedy supporter. I was watching the election coverage and his speech before going to bed. I woke up very early that morning with a feeling of dread that something really bad had happened. I turned on the radio and heard the news that Bobby had been shot. I sat there in total disbelief. 1968 was a truly awful year-MLK was assassinated in April, the unrest over Vietnam, Kennedy's assassination and the sheer chaos of the Democratic convention that August. It was a year that is seared into my memory forever. My idealism died the day that Bobby was assassinated!
RufusTFirefly
(8,812 posts)The crushing of Prague Spring in Czechoslovakia by the invasion of Soviet tanks in August.
The great enemy of freedom is authoritarianism and the concentration of power. Unfortunately, it takes many forms. People who threaten entrenched power, whether they are in Prague or Memphis or Dallas or the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles are usually dealt with by those who wield that power and are unwilling to share it with the rest of us.
PatrickforO
(14,608 posts)liberaltrucker
(9,131 posts)But my hope certainty did. Bobby's death ultimately gave us
Nixon and the downward spiral of of any hope of a benevolent
America.
arthritisR_US
(7,303 posts)rbrnmw
(7,160 posts)I always wonder how different America would be had RFK lived.
RufusTFirefly
(8,812 posts)Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget
falls drop by drop upon the heart
until, in our own despair, against our will,
comes wisdom through the awful grace of God.
-- Aeschylus
(sorry about the Italian subtitles, but most of the recordings I can find of this extraordinary speech include an overly intrusive soundtrack)
"There are those who look at things the way they are, and ask why...
I dream of things that never were, and ask why not?"
lovemydog
(11,833 posts)of this great man, and the awful violence that felled him and Martin Luther King, Jr. I still fear for the safety of President Obama, too.
deutsey
(20,166 posts)pink-o
(4,056 posts)I was 13, and had just learned all about the Vietnam War in school, MLK had been killed 2 months before, Ray-gun was effing up my home state, the Summer of Love was still resounding thru our sensibilities, Berkeley, Black Panthers, et al. On the threshold of my own changes from a happy child to a rebellious teen, I was devastated and felt so helpless when I heard about Bobby.
Think of an America without: Wars for profit, Citizens United, Income Inequality, miserable poverty, shit wages, needless deaths from AIDS, religious whack-jobs with way too much power....and that would have been an America where Bobby Kennedy was president.
Alas, Bobby: we hardly knew ya.
villager
(26,001 posts)I was 8
Lifelong Protester
(8,421 posts)ïs another RFK
Clyde Tenson
(65 posts)Lifelong Protester
(8,421 posts)my hero, too! I am reading her book, and I like hearing that someone is fighting for the poor or near-poor.
CountAllVotes
(20,884 posts)Last edited Fri Jun 6, 2014, 04:05 PM - Edit history (1)
It was the assignment for the evening that day to watch the goings on in Southern Calif. for the night and the hoped for election of Robert F. Kennedy (by the teacher that is).
I remember that night, I did my duty and stayed up to watch what was going on that evening after RFK won Calif.
And then came that shot and the screams that RFK had been shot.
My parents were in bed and I went and knocked on their bedroom door and they awoke and asked me why was I bothering them so very late. I told them that RFK had been shot.
They both got up at once and ran into the living room to watch the TV and see what was going on and they both broke down and cried when they heard he was dead.
Some things you never forget in life and watching that evil Sirhan Sirhan get cuffed and taken away was not nearly justice enough.
I had not realized at the age of 11 years what a huge loss RFK was. It was beyond a huge loss, RFK would have changed America I believe in hindsight.
RIP Robert Francis Kennedy. We barely knew ye.
& recommend.
Le Taz Hot
(22,271 posts)and watched it live on TV. I'll never forget the utter disbelief that it could happen AGAIN! JFK, MLK and RFK murdered, all either about to go against or were against the war in Viet Nam. All assassinated within 5 years. Nothing suspicious there.
Leme
(1,092 posts)I was not happy that he joined the race for nomination as late as he did. I thought he saw the success of Eugene McCarthy and decided he could capitalize on the sentiment that Eugene was generating.
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In the years since, my estimation of him rose and fell just a little in my understanding of him and that era.
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His speech in Indianapolis, the night of Martin Luther King's murder was quite impressive (which I just saw a year or two ago). I suggest that for all to view. See post # 28
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For some context see 1:33 for portion on Indianapolis:
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Perhaps I am a bit too harsh in my thinking .
WinkyDink
(51,311 posts)niyad
(114,006 posts)same way I felt hearing about his brother). how very different our world would look today had he not been killed. I always thought how strange it was--the decision to take that particular path was made at the last minute--and there was the assassin.. .
Spitfire of ATJ
(32,723 posts)"People say I am ruthless. I am not ruthless. And if I find the man who is calling me ruthless, I shall destroy him."
- Robert Kennedy
thucythucy
(8,139 posts)This was during the JFK administration, when he was AG. JFK was overseas, Johnson was out of town, Rusk was off somewhere. RFK sent this telegram to his brother.
"You are in Europe. Vice President is in Texas. Secretary of State is in Japan. Have seized control. Bobby."
Can't recall if those were the exact words, but it was something along those lines. Cracked me up when I read about it.
young_at_heart
(3,777 posts)I had been watching on TV and realized that the sound of an airplane overhead had to be that one. I still remember the terrible feeling that washed over me.
RoccoR5955
(12,471 posts)We all miss you. Your constituents in NY, your constituents in the US, your fellow humans on planet Earth.
This was a great loss to our country, and our planet.
StarryNite
(9,479 posts)MrMickeysMom
(20,453 posts)I believe this was our last chance. After Smedley Butler warned that war was a racket, we looked to a new kind of candidate. Non dared call Kennedy's assasination treason in a mainstream fashion, but we know better.
Bobby was really going to be it ... Now we have to help ourselves.
MissDeeds
(7,499 posts)Trailrider1951
(3,416 posts)Warren Stupidity
(48,181 posts)We talked about how completely fucked up the country had become. Shortly after that the great uprising of '68 commenced, what followed was the five most interesting years of my life. Then, by the end of the 70's, the neocon/neolib counter revolution got underway and here we are, nothing at all like it could have been, almost the exact opposite of where we could have gone. It remains a crying shame.
L0oniX
(31,493 posts)abakan
(1,819 posts)To ever be allowed to fulfill his promise. The good do truly die young and then we are left with asswipes like Jon McIwasforituntilobamadidit.
Beacool
(30,254 posts)No Vested Interest
(5,167 posts)Little_Wing
(417 posts)I honestly believe our country has suffered from collective PTSD ever since, grievous wounds we've never recovered from. The only good thing I can say about 1968 is that I moved to California (from Michigan) the week after Bobby died. If I had the power to go back in time and change the events of one year in my lifetime, 1968 would be the one. Rev. King, Tet (Vietnam), riots and revolution everywhere (Paris, Czechoslovakia, etc.), summer Olympics in Mexico (Smith and Carlos protest), the Chicago police riots, Nixon winning. It was like standing in the middle of a cultural world-wide hurricane. So much possibility, so much destruction. Tears are not enough.
rhett o rick
(55,981 posts)colorado_ufo
(5,747 posts)Such a profound loss. As a president, he may have exceeded his brother. What an intellect, what a heart, what a principled human being.
Compare the giants of that decade, the thought processes, the ideals, with what we have today that serves an excuse for politics and politicians.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Now, watch this drive!" George W. Bush
colorado_ufo
(5,747 posts)The wedding went ahead, but in all our honeymoon photos, the flags were at half-mast.
Boomerproud
(7,987 posts)The revisionists can write and talk all they want but it doesn't change the reality. I feel so bad for my niece and nephews who only think of Bobby as a opaque figure from a distant past. At least my generation heard his voice and saw his visage.
KamaAina
(78,249 posts)As had William McKinley before he was assassinated.
rickyhall
(4,889 posts)The From the Earth to the Moon episode "1968" pretty much said it for me about that year with MLK, RFK, Tet, Nixon, etc. Seems the only good part was Apollo 8 orbiting the moon right before Christmas.
The Wizard
(12,556 posts)in his determination to end the Vietnam War without any wind down dance. He said if elected the war would be over. The Military industrial Complex was unhappy that he would cut off their gravy train.
SunSeeker
(51,824 posts)Skittles
(153,321 posts)what if he had been president
AverageJoe90
(10,745 posts)Skittles
(153,321 posts)HUGE Lincoln fan here
Puglover
(16,380 posts)I got to shake his hand.
He was the real deal.
What a hideous loss.
mnhtnbb
(31,428 posts)when he was brought in to Good Sam--as it was referred to in LA--she never got over it.
It was about 5 years later that I knew her.
And Rosey Grier--who tackled Sirhan Sirhan--called one of my roommates one time in '70 or '71, I think it was? She
was an Olympic gold medalist athlete. I couldn't believe it when he told me who he was when asking for her.
japple
(9,850 posts)My senior year of high school, Sept. 1967-June 1968. I went to HS in Macon, Georgia, home of Otis Redding (and other fine musicians.)
The last performance of Otis Redding, December 9, 1967 (he died on December 10, 1967) and IMHO the best soul song ever.
Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.
April 4, 1968
http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1964/king-bio.html
Sen. Robert F. Kennedy
June 6, 1968
http://rfkcenter.org/rfk-3?lang=en
A bit of tenderness and a homage to Otis Redding
http://www.whitehouse.gov/photos-and-video/video/2013/07/25/cyndi-lauper-and-charlie-musslewhite-perform-try-little-tenderness
struggle4progress
(118,379 posts)on the 7th
RoccoR5955
(12,471 posts)On the news?
Octafish
(55,745 posts)By Joseph Lazzaro
International Business Times, December 20 2013 1:44 PM
One week after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in Dallas, Texas, former first lady Jacqueline Kennedy and Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy privately communicated to the leadership of the Soviet Union that they did not believe accused assassin Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone.
Jacqueline Kennedy and RFK wanted the Soviet leadership to know that despite Oswalds connections to the communist world, the Kennedys believed that the president was felled by domestic opponents.
Publicly, Jacqueline Kennedy endorsed the Warren Commissions conclusion that Oswald acted alone, and it was not until 1999 that her and RFKs private views were made known, when they were revealed by historians Aleksandr Fusenko and Timothy Naftali in their book on the Cuban Missile Crisis, One Hell of a Gamble: Khrushchev, Castro, and Kennedy, 1958-1964.
In the book, the historians reported that when Jacqueline Kennedys artist friend William Walton traveled to Moscow on a previously scheduled trip a week after President Kennedys assassination, Walton carried the above felled by domestic opponents message from Jacqueline Kennedy and RFK to another friend of the Kennedy administration, Georgi Bolshakov, a Russian diplomat. Bolshakov served as a back-channel link between the White House and the Kremlin during the October 1962 missile crisis.
Jacqueline Kennedys Analysis: Little Media Coverage
At the time of the books publication in 1999, Jacqueline Kennedy and RFKs private views received very little attention from U.S. media outlets.
Further, in 2013, despite the enormous amount of media coverage of the recent 50th anniversary of JFKs assassination, when hundreds of media outlets sent reporters and TV crews to Dallas, there was relatively little coverage of what Jacqueline Kennedy, RFK or other public officials in office in 1963 thought occurred on Nov. 22, 1963, in Dealey Plaza in Dallas, even though many public officials have made their opinions and analyses known publicly since then. Here are a few of note:
I think the [Warren Commission] report, to those who have studied it closely, has collapsed like a house of cards ... the fatal mistake the Warren Commission made was not to use its own investigators, but instead to rely on the CIA and FBI personnel, which played directly into the hands of senior intelligence officials who directed the cover-up."
-- U.S. Sen. Richard Schweiker, R-Penn., and former member of the Church Committee, which investigated U.S. intelligence community activities, including illegal operations (1976)
CONTINUED...
http://www.ibtimes.com/jfk-assassination-jacqueline-kennedy-rfk-did-not-believe-only-one-person-assassinated-president-john
awoke_in_2003
(34,582 posts)it was not a good year.
AverageJoe90
(10,745 posts)Woulda made a great President, IMHO.
Cha
(298,139 posts)dflprincess
(28,095 posts)freshwest
(53,661 posts)hopemountain
(3,919 posts)i was listening to my little transistor radio with it pressed to my ear listening to the primary results live report from the hotel when the shots were heard and chaos ensued. i did not sleep the rest of the night. we (democrats & the country) had already lost so much. i was 16 and indeed, it was a terrible time in the world and in my personal life. hmmmm. i wonder what was up with the planets at the time.
lastlib
(23,393 posts)...what could have been............He has always been my political idol. The gulf is so great between what could have been with him as President, and what has been, with Nixon, Reagan, et al. Such a loss to the whole world.
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RIP, Bobby. The path you offered us was better.
Iwillnevergiveup
(9,298 posts)that I'm not sure we've ever recovered from. I remember vividly his time spent with Cesar Chavez - it was partly this that brought awareness to migrant workers' plight and the great grape boycott. For those of us who were alive at that time and paying attention, we must pass along our stories and memories of an exemplary man.
americannightmare
(322 posts)I recommend reading, if you haven't yet, "The Last Campaign," and watch his speeches from those final 3 months of his life - he was humbled by what he had seen in our country and it affected him in profound ways, which seem to appear almost as plaintive cries in the dark. Did he give his life in vain? So far, it appears so...
hedgehog
(36,286 posts)he saw things when he traveled the country that changed him. Too many politicians today haven't learned anything new or changed an opinion since they were 19 1/2!
RoccoR5955
(12,471 posts)A path between peace and prosperity, and war and privilege for the rich.
With Kennedy's assassination, the country took the wrong path.
I am convinced that had Kennedy been elected, many awful things that have happened since the days of Nixon, Reagan and the two Bushes, might not have happened.
And so it goes.
Wolf Frankula
(3,605 posts)Please explain his admiration for this man.
The one in the middle.
Wolf
americannightmare
(322 posts)Because he's sitting next to him???
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/09/09/382631/-RFK-versus-J-Edgar-Hoover
Wolf Frankula
(3,605 posts)That's Joe McCarthy. And Bobby was a big admirer of McCarthy.
Wolf
americannightmare
(322 posts)read "The Last Campaign" and then tell me if it matters whether he was an "admirer" of McCarthy.