June 6, 2018
The last thing we want to do here at Paying Attention is to
get serious, but desperate times call for depressing measures. In those few moments when we do get serious
here, we hand things over to our benefactor and unwitting overlord Steve
Gallop. A humorless and merciless
observer of politics and humanity, Steve has set the basic tone for what you
see here on a regular basis. We felt the
need to hand the reins over for some serious bizness.
The Beginning of The
End
It was 50 years ago today that saw what I still feel was one
of the most significant crossroads in American history. As is so often the case, that moment was the
consequence of gunshots and a bloody death.
On June 5, 1968 Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated
immediately after winning the California primary, and very likely on his way to
the Democratic nomination to run against Richard Nixon. He was laid to rest 50 years ago today. Bobby Kennedy, from what I can tell, was the
real deal. By the time he decided to run
for president, he had moved himself to the right side of history. He would have taken this country, or tried to
at least, in a more honorable, more egalitarian and less war-based
direction. Kennedy brought positivity,
empathy and hope in the face of the Vietnam War, the civil rights movement
–punctuated barely a month earlier by the assassination of Martin Luther King –
and of course, the still lingering shock resulting from his own brother’s
assassination just a few years earlier.
No one is perfect, and Bobby Kennedy surely had his skeletons,
but he truly seemed to have evolved leading up to his tragically shortened run
for the White House. He supported civil
rights, workers’ rights and peace in Vietnam.
His death left the Democrats with the milquetoast Hubert Humphrey, and
ultimately, the nation with the depraved, hateful and paranoid Richard
Nixon.
Obviously, no one knows what might have been, but everyone
knows what actually has been. Nixon
changed the landscape forever. He gave
us Henry Kissinger, Watergate and Roger Ailes (the future head of Fox News and
a man whose very name is a succinct statement of fact, if not warning). Nixon and Ailes intensified and perfected
political dirty tricks. Nixon fucked
himself and this nation with tremendous aplomb and severity.
The road from RFK to today would have likely brought us to a
very different place than the one we inhabit today. We would have had 50 years of trying instead
of festering. And now, thanks to the
current part-time occupant of the White House, backsliding faster and farther
than anyone in their right mind could imagine, let alone tolerate.
“A revolution is
coming. A revolution which will be
peaceful if we are wise enough; compassionate if we care enough; successful if
we are fortunate enough. But a
revolution which is coming whether we will it or not. We can affect its character; we cannot
alter its inevitability.”
Bobby
Kennedy, May 1966
Obviously Kennedy was sadly mistaken about the last line in
this quote. If there ever was an
inevitability to the revolution he saw, and was poised to have a hand in, that
inevitability was shot to death the night of June 5, 1968, and laid to rest the
following day. Perhaps the unmitigated
gall of the current administration will awaken the America that Bobby Kennedy
saw off in the distance. Perhaps, we are
now poised to fulfill an entirely different destiny – the one imagined by
people like John C. Calhoun, Joseph
McCarthy, Jesse Helms, Strom Thurmond, George Wallace, Newt Gingrich, Dick
Cheney, Grover Norquist, Roy Moore, Wayne LaPierre, Sean Hannity, Ann Coulter, Joe
Arpaio, Steve Bannon, Mitch McConnell, Paul Ryan, Mike Pence, Vladimir Putin and
their fellow travelers. I did not
include Donald J. Trump in this list because he has no vision for America. Only a vision for himself, for that is the
only thing he can ever see when he looks anywhere. Nonetheless, I suspect our answer will become
known on November 7, 2018.
It takes an incredible amount of effort to move forward, to
try to do the right thing to make positive change in a life, let alone in a
society. Bobby Kennedy had done the
former, and was poised to give his best effort to do the latter. But, it only takes a moment, the blink of an
eye, the flash of a muzzle, the end of a life, to start a downward spiral that
can last a lifetime or a century.
If you have ever talked politics with me, you know that I
believe the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy was a watershed moment in
American history that sent this country swirling down the drain into the
cesspool that is now Donald J. Trump. Yes, we have managed to come up for air for brief spates, just long enough to avoid brain death...so far. Donald
Trump may be but a symptom, but so is angina. Such symptoms, left untreated…well, you know.
We now return you to your regularly scheduled mayhem/merriment.
Steve Gallop
Concerned Citizen
Concerned Citizen
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