I doubt that RFK would have pulled out of Viet Nam sooner than Nixon
didl. He might even have stepped up the military effort. The Kennedys
were a pretty aggressive lot in those days. His philandering probably
would have gotten him in trouble at some point. The Marilyn Monroe
stories wold have gotten more exposure. Clinton is a choir boy compared
to Kennedy.
Paul
On Jan 16, 2006, at 5:41 PM, frank theriault wrote:
On 1/16/06, Tom C <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Not taking anything away from what you said Frank. But I wonder...
if they
hadn't been assasinated, would they be viewed as such stellar
figures? We
shall never know as their works ended abrubtly.
You're right. Here's my thoughts (not that you asked...):
I think that RFK would have won the Democratic ticket in '68. Had he
done so, I think he'd have beaten Nixon. He'd have gotten the US out
of Vietnam much faster than Nixon was able to. He'd have also brought
in comprehensive social programmes. He'd have increased US support
for Israel. How all of those things would have played out is hard to
say. I think the US (for better or worse?) would have been a far
different place than it is today.
As for MLK Jr., that's harder to say. By the time of his
assassination, he was increasingly being seen as "old guard" in the
Civil Rights Movement. More radical groups and individuals were
pushing him out of the spotlight somewhat. The inner cities of the US
were burning, and he and his fellow-advocates of non-violence didn't
seem to have any answers to that.
In any event, all I was thinking (even if I didn't quite say it <g>)
is that the assassination of those two figures changed America in a
way that we will never fully comprehend: for better or worse, who
knows?
What I do know is that Martin Luther King accomplished more in his 39
years than most of us could accomplish in 10 lifetimes. No matter how
his legacy might have changed were he not assassinated, his life
speaks for itself; in my eyes he was one of the towering figures in
the 20th Century (or any other century, for that matter).
cheers,
frank
--
"Sharpness is a bourgeois concept." -Henri Cartier-Bresson
