The Republic has been brain dead on life support since 1968

You want to see a perfect example of how one person can change the course of history?

Sirhan Sirhan singlehandedly murdered the United States, June 5th, 1968, by assassinating the presumptive Democratic Party Candidate for President, Robert F. Kennedy.

It didn't die right away with Kennedy. It was comatose, but hope still remained until the nomination of Hubert Humphrey as the replacement Candidate. National brain swelling set in, and with the election of Richard M. Nixon as President, it went into a vegetative state on life support.

Since then, there have been instances of "Teri Schiavo" type false hope for some recovery with a rally in the 90's, but all in all, these have been recoveries from seizure and infections: the Nation's basic "medical" condition has been unchanged for over three decades.

Anything that has happened in the nation since the halcyon days of the Robert Kennedy Campaign has largely been a "blip" on the EEG monitor. Sorry: lights on, nobody home.

*Since STONEWALL, hard-fought GLBT rights have been back-pedaled and back-burnered.
*The lessons of VIETNAM have not only been forgotten, the Body Politic has been taught to be ASHAMED of our LOSS there.
*Russia, the ancient "Bugbear" of the cold war, would have died on its own trying to out spend us: we can't take any credit for that.
*Corporations and the Military Industrial Complex (the power behind the throne) now don't even bother to HIDE as they influence policy.
*Oil crisis? WHAT Oil crisis?
*Welfare, the SALVATION of the poor, is slashed to starvation level, and the homeless are legion.

If this list is taken to the limit, nothing else will be written here.

Kennedy promised real change, and a new paradigm of the Republic, where we all had a real stake in making things work RIGHT. So many disasters would have been averted DECADES after he left office (almost a guaranteed two-termer). The Nation would have gone down a different road, not to Nationalist Glory, but to a new and better definition of the nation as the culmination of the people.

Instead, we are left with the "POTTERVILLE" of our current reality, and no angel can take us back and remove the bullet from Robert F. Kennedy. The tragedy of the stolen opportunity is almost paralyzing in its enormity.

A precocious young person at that time, I was just getting into party politics as a High School Freshman. My Democratic Party mother, and my "Rockefeller" Republican father both hated Nixon and were fine with Kennedy, and encouraged my fold the flyer, wet the stamp, walk the neighborhood participation in the local Kennedy Campaign.

What they did not know was that my study of politics was years old, encouraged by their frank and reasonable discussions. I had lost my faith in Religion and God as a grade school child, and I did not trust in some deity or faith in some deity to save the nation. I BELIEVED in Robert Kennedy. I knew his policies, and I understood his platform. I looked forward to living in a nation that now seemed to be smart enough to elect him as president.

The morning of the assassination, I heard the news at breakfast. My father's face was grim and my mother had been crying. I hid in the bathroom, shaking, and alternated between tears and vomiting. How could this have happened? AGAIN?? I almost felt religion again, thinking the nation damned. How little I suspected at the time how truly awful it could become.

The option of the great crossroads of 1968, with the new highway blocked off forever/Sirhan flagging us down the dusty road to decline, has not since been repeated, and is not now offered. We long now for someone to save us: Kennedy wasn't a savior; he was a guide on the new highway, driving the bus to the new definition of the republic. Presidents do not SAVE us; they guide the process. Their egos are not the motivator. Obama and Clinton are not, and should not be "leaders," but the Presidency is no longer an office of SERVICE: now the job isn't working for US, but US supporting the OFFICE. The Founders would spit on us.

One day in the fairly near future, if we are very, very lucky, the population of the Republic, revising the way the nation is run will breath a sigh of relief as THEY dodge Sirhan's bullet, and heal the country. Otherwise, history shall pull the plug, and all we will be left to do is grieve at our missed opportunities, both for the Republic and the world.

survival in the US. As you so clearly point out, the gains that were starting to bring real change have been slipping away ever since.

I can remember, as if it were yesterday, waiting and watching TV through the hours until he died. Unlike Jack, Bobby lingered. For that day, there was the hope that he would somehow pull through. When he did not, I knew that we would not be pulling ourselves out of the pit that America was becoming.

Little did we know how extreme and complete the fall would be.

Blood in the streets in the town of Chicago. Nixon. Ford. Iran. Reagan. Nicaragua. Cambodia. Oil boom and bust. Recession. Rust Belt. Savings and Loan. Grenada. Beirut. Boznia. Afghanistan (1 and 2). Iraq. Rwanda. South Africa. Uganda. Argentina. Chile.

So much TRAGEDY.

.38 bullets (the guard's gun) do not shatter inside the skull; they go THROUGH the skull at that range. .22 bullets do exactly what happened to Kennedy: that's why they are the covert assassin's weapon of choice.

While doubts can remain, and to give you the benefit of the doubt, does it really matter who pulled the trigger? The results are the same.

A solid slug will indeed go right through the head.. There are a great many options other than a solid slug though.

But it's all kind of moot, isn't it? Say RFK went to the convention and Humphrey still got the nod: Same results.

From my experiences at the time, I have to believe there was a better than good chance RFK would have been nominated.

Not so much. Who ordered the trigger pulled is what matters. Especially if they're still involved in running the Republic.

In some alternate Universe, he gently guided us in the direction of peace and brotherhood.

:kick:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=oMr97_M7okw

This is the single best case I've seen.

Without a single "primary" win, and with the delegates of McCarthy added to his (with "THE WHOLE WORLD IS WATCHING" on every TV Screen in the world) it would have been seen that to nominate Humphrey would have been suicide.

Even the Kennedy campaign was not optimistic about the chances of pulling that off. Also, McCarthy personally despised Bobby Kennedy as did many Democrats. I'm not at all convinced that RFK would have won against Nixon.

I, as a Kennedy worker, looking at the party aligned against RFK would still have to say we had our hope.

The 1968 election was when the beast bared it's teeth and declared that it would not share power under any circumstances and regardless of consequences.
:kick:

Works for me...

of the ruling class in general and this country specifically. 6% of humans are born genetic psychopaths, and they're numbers are disproportionately distributed to the extremes of the socio-economic spectrum. That means aproximately 18,000,000 Americans are psychopathic and many of them are part of the ruling class.

Suddenly, things begin to make more sense.

You have to think about it another way.

What was learned from 1968.

the powers that be, learned how to suppress our rights, how to make us feel hopeless, convince us that protesting does nothing, trust the tv machine for all your up to date propaganda, demonize unions, glorify the rich and kick the poor, understand that the road to happiness is not doing what makes you happy but going out and spending your whole paycheck on shit you don't need, fear is power and power is fear, safety is less freedom and the constitution is just a piece of paper.

See, lot's were learned, not by us of course but by the powers that be that don't want an intelligent well inform population, because the last time that happened, it "lost" us viet nam!

So as long as we are dumb, unquestioning prols, we will "win" all wars!! Rah Rah...

the prols are the life support system for the rich and powerful. We are just the room service for the wealthy.

That being so, there is no more Republic. Just a Potemkin Village.

I equate the assassination of Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1995 to RFK's in 1968.

This was tantamount to a coup d’état by the Military-Industrial Complex. Which of course was the case with John and Bobby.