Thinking About Bobby
http://www.truth-out.org/thinking-about-bobby65677
Tuesday 07 December 2010
by: William Rivers Pitt,
Last week, I kicked President Obama squarely in the teeth for his
decision to abdicate the economic argument to the GOP by wasting
everyone's time with a freeze of Federal wages, his absurd apology
for causing the noxious tenor that has defined the political
conversation in America of late, his pathetic willingness to wave the
white flag on the issue of Bush's rich-people tax cuts, and worst of
all, the revelation that he and his people actively thwarted a
genuine search for justice that is most sorely needed: the
investigation into war crimes perpetrated by the Bush administration,
initiated by the Spanish government before being derailed by the
Obama administration.
In retrospect, I think I actually went soft on him and the people
currently polluting the White House with their abject inability to
get out of their own way. I make no apologies, and am now of a mind
to spend the next two years in full attack mode - no quarter given,
none expected - if they continue to behave the way they did last
week....last month...and, yeah, this whole last year. Sure, the
president and his crew can claim some moments of success here and
there, but the overall picture being painted thus far is that of an
administration hopelessly in over its head, bereft of direction and
integrity, drowning like a bunch of toddlers who wandered into the
deep end of the pool without their water wings.
Mr. Obama, for all his myriad faults and failures, does not deserve
to shoulder the entire budget of blame, however. The entire
Democratic Party, with a few notable exceptions (of late: Grayson,
Franken, Feingold, the lost Mr. Wellstone, and Dean, to name a few),
has been in the weeds since time almost out of mind.
Why?
I can think of a few reasons. The pervasive corruption caused by the
damfool idea that "Money = Speech," validated by Supreme Court
decisions like Buckley v. Valeo in 1976 and the larger caustic
concept that corporations are people - with the same rights and
privileges of people - created a scenario where everyone involved in
national power politics is bought, and so nobody is guilty. They have
to be, if they want to get anywhere...but once they get somewhere,
they're already gone. The so-called "liberal" Democratic Party has
been as much at that filthy trough as any of the worst Republicans
who could be named. The difference is only a matter of inches; they
are all bought and paid for to one degree or another, and that
unavoidable fact defines our current political reality as solidly as
slavery defined the American political realm 150 years ago...except
this time, we are the slaves - white, black, brown, men, women, gay,
straight...everyone who lacks a seven-figure bankroll - all of us
wreathed in chains we cannot see, even as those chains restrain us
fully and rob us of our freedom completely.
I also have an idea to explain why an entire generation of Democrats
haven't been worth a pot of piss, compared to those who came before.
It has to do with five bullets, and the aftermath of that violence.
The GOP, for the last fifty years, has enjoyed the privilege of a
brain-trust comprised of some seriously heavy hitters. Richard Nixon,
Barry Goldwater, Henry Kissinger, along with any number of what
Hunter S. Thompson once called "awesome political mechanics," have
been on speed-dial to GOP headquarters since before the time of
Reagan. Love them or hate them (and I'm no fan, believe me), but
those men represented a vast ocean of political experience that was
available to be tapped at any time of day or night. They are all
mostly gone now, but that core of Wise-Old-Man leadership paid
incredible dividends for the Republicans over the last five decades.
The Democrats, on the other hand, have been bereft of similar
white-haired wisdom, thanks to five kill-shots that stole away
individuals who, had they not been murdered, would have been an
invaluable source of strategic thinking and backbone for the party.
John Kennedy died in Dallas. His brother Robert died on a dirty
kitchen floor in Los Angeles. Medgar Evers died in his driveway.
Malcolm X - who, just before his murder, was moving away from open
confrontation on the subject of race but still retained a level of
intimidation and justified fury that demanded respect - was shot down
after his Hajj compelled him to find a way past hatred and division.
And, of course, Martin Luther King, who died in Memphis while
standing up for garbage men, and the rest of us as well.
Jack. Bobby. Medgar. Malcolm. Martin.
Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang.
Imagine what the Democratic Party would be like today if this
generation of leadership had been able to enjoy the privilege of that
generation's wisdom. At a minimum, having a man like Dr. King, who
preached about economic inequalities as eloquently as he preached
about racial inequalities (because, in the end, those inequalities
amount to the same thing), being available on the phone to talk
something over, might have saved the current Democratic Party from
selling itself to corporations. Having a man like Robert Kennedy, who
went from being a right-bent Red-chaser and architect of the war in
Vietnam to being an advocate for the poor and for peace, might have
saved today's Democrats from drowning all too deeply in the blood and
death of Iraq and Afghanistan. Alas, we lost them, and here we are.
It's enough to make one believe in conspiracies...but I digress.
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It's a degraded age we live in, a time that many have been describing
as the collapse of all that ever was America. It's a hell of a time
to be alive, a time that reminds one of the Chinese curse, "May you
live in interesting times." It is a curse, indeed, and those of us
who cleave to liberal and progressive ideals feel entirely abandoned,
betrayed, demoralized...pick the word, and it will fit. Take the long
view, however, and it becomes clear that this is not something that
came about because of Mr. Obama or the current crop of "liberal"
leaders. They are merely avatars of a long-festering cancer. We have
been without effective leadership for the length of this generation,
and in a republic, that lack of leadership is the equivalent of
having our throats cut. We have no voice within the leadership caste,
and we are dying in a pool of our own American blood.
And yet, even now, I do believe the wisdom of those lost leaders can
save us, restore our leadership, and bring us out of this darkness.
Even now, I think about Bobby Kennedy, who was himself a walking
contradiction, an example of the way leaders can function in a
disreputable vein, change course, and finally emerge as true
progressive leaders.
Had Bobby Kennedy died in that car with his brother in Dallas in
1963, modern liberals would not have a favorable opinion of him, I
suspect. He allied himself with Joseph McCarthy during the
Red-baiting era. He gutted the power of unions with his vendetta
against Jimmy Hoffa and the Teamsters. He owned a much-deserved
reputation as a ruthless assassin during his time as John F.
Kennedy's campaign manager, and in his time as Attorney General
during his brother's truncated administration. He was one of the
principal architects of the assassination of Diem and the Vietnam War
that followed. His wife and children loved him, but in the first half
of his time in politics, very few others did. Robert Kennedy enjoyed
a reputation for being a brass-bottomed bastard for many, many years.
For sure, the modern Left would have little love for him had his
career come to an end in 1963. But then his brother died, and
something happened.
Bobby retreated into himself to nurse the unimaginable agony of yet
another traumatic family loss. When he emerged, he journeyed to the
poverty-raped places in America we only hear about in Woody Guthrie
songs. He explored the abscess of poverty and racial inequality. He
took a long look at the Vietnam War he helped create. He came to know
the true nature of pain by way of his own sense of unspeakable loss.
And he came out the other side a different man, a genuine progressive.
A leader.
A book from 2008 by Thurston Clarke titled "The Last Campaign: Robert
F. Kennedy and 82 Days that Inspired America," describes a scene from
the earliest moments of Bobby's 1968 presidential campaign. Kennedy
was to speak at Kansas State University. His advisors were
understandably concerned about the content of his speech - KSU was,
and remains, a reliably conservative university - but Bobby went out
and laid it on the line.
Page 45:
He opened his attack on President Johnson's Vietnam policy with a
confession and an apology. "Let me begin this discussion with a note
both personal and public," he said. "I was involved in many of the
early decisions on Vietnam, decisions which helped set us on our present path."
He acknowledged that "the effort may have been doomed from the start"
and admitted that the South Vietnamese governments that his brother
had supported had been "riddled with corruption, inefficiency and
greed," adding, "If that is the case, as it well may be, then I am
willing to bear my share of responsibility, before history and before
my fellow-citizens. But past error is no excuse for its own
perpetuation. Tragedy is a tool for the living to gain wisdom...Now,
as ever, we do ourselves best justice when we measure ourselves
against ancient texts, as in the Antigone of Sophocles: 'All men make
mistakes, but a good man yields when he knows his course is wrong,
and repairs the evil. The only sin is pride.'"
His apology elicited the loudest cheers of the morning, perhaps
because these students appreciated hearing an adult admit to a
mistake, or because they, too, had been wrong.
"I am willing to bear my share of responsibility, before history and
before my fellow-citizens."
"Tragedy is a tool for the living to gain wisdom."
"All men make mistakes, but a good man yields when he knows his
course is wrong, and repairs the evil."
"The only sin is pride."
Imagine that.
Imagine a leader able to stand before God and the people to proclaim
the depth and breadth of their own personal failures. Imagine them
able to say they were wrong, and they have changed, and here now is
how it should be instead. Imagine the cheers from a modern American
audience that has, all too often, shared in those bad choices, both
in opinion and at the ballot box, and can find within themselves the
ability to admit those errors and move in a better direction because
they have a leader before them willing to do the same.
Imagine a leader.
The Democrats once enjoyed the presence of Bobby Kennedy. They would
do well to remember him today. The same lessons are available to
Republicans, if they have ears to hear.
Despite all evidence to the contrary, it is not too late.
.
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