What We Lost on June 6

[anatta]

June 6 is always one of the more fraught days on the calendar. The annual anniversary of the D-Day landings in France would be more than enough for one day to carry through history, but June 6 also happens to be the day on which, after lingering for several hours, Robert F. Kennedy died in Los Angeles at the age of, god help us all, 42.

There are few things more striking at Arlington National Cemetery in Washington than the simple white wooden cross that marks his grave on the small slope next to the larger gravesite of his brother, John. They built a memorial to RFK nearby in 1971, which always struck me as something of a shame. That cross seemed most in keeping with the presidential campaign he ran, and with the man he'd become in the years since his brother's murder.


Heroism is a strange thing in this country. We have to try to honor it, as any people would, while at the same time, not let it become a kind of royalist cult that subsumes our more democratic impulses.
But, on this death-draped page of the calendar, when almost 2500 Americans died 72 years ago in Normandy, and when one American died 48 years ago in a hospital in California, the words spoken by Edward Kennedy at his brother's funeral mass seem most appropriate to memorialize all of the dead on this most fraught of anniversaries.


"My brother need not be idealized, or enlarged in death beyond what he was in life; to be remembered simply as a good and decent man, who saw wrong and tried to right it, saw suffering and tried to heal it, saw war and tried to stop it. Those of us who loved him and who take him to his rest today, pray that what he was to us and what he wished for others will some day come to pass for all the world. As he said many times, in many parts of this nation, to those he touched and who sought to touch him: 'Some men see things as they are and say why. I dream things that never were and say why not."

And all say amen to that.
http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/news/a45564/bobby-kennedy-d-day-anniversary/

 

[mogur]

Damn you, anatta, you made an old man cry.

 

[anatta]

He had just won the California primary, after losing Oregon, and was on his way..
I was a kid for JFK's assassiantion, and it hurt like a child losing a wonderful parent. grieving hurtful loss.

But when we lost Bobby we lost all hope for an end to war and injustice, and we lost hope for our country.

 

[Legion Troll]

What we lost on July 18:

Spoiler

 

[mogur]

I think you are the only reason I come back to this forum, with all the crazy, politically charged bullshit, here. There are heroes of the right, the left, and the middle. But there are a few politicians who transcend their categorization. There are icons that when we lose them, we know that the loss is beyond politics. That when we lose these giants, the country suffers. And they have been from every slice of the political spectrum. And they all have had personal flaws. And those flaws are what made them human. And real. And important.

 

[anatta]

I think you are the only reason I come back to this forum, with all the crazy, politically charged bullshit, here. There are heroes of the right, the left, and the middle. But there are a few politicians who transcend their categorization. There are icons that when we lose them, we know that the loss is beyond politics. That when we lose these giants, the country suffers. And they have been from every slice of the political spectrum. And they all have had personal flaws. And those flaws are what made them human. And real. And important.

I think you are correct. Great Americans rise above petty partisanship.
It's why I hate identity politics, regional politics -anything that divides us from E pluribus Unum.

Politics should be a contest of ideas -what do we the people want in our leadership.
And leaders should be able to offer more then simply winning an election

In the modern cycle I look for a POTUS that brings out the best of Americans -Congress can't do this. So when I hear "they do it too",
I think it's a false comparison. Only a POTUS can set a national tone. Only a POTUS can urge us all to work towards a common goal.

The word you used..to "transcend" is to rise above the plebian concerns of politics.. It takes great patriots to transcend above the ordianry

 

[mogur]

Goodnight Mrs. Calabash, wherever you are.

http://www.findadeath.com/Deceased/d/Durante/jimmy.htm

"Durante was also one of the many celebs who attended RFK's funeral in 1968."

 

[Airstrip One]

I wish JFK could have lived out his presidential years so that the public could have seen him fall on his face and embarrass himself.

 

[anatta]

JFK called us to greatness in a time when we could be called together as a nation to do great things.
That and his urbane wit at press conferences, and his good looks was just about the end of "can do" America.

Behind that was his failings on integration...his crippled body.
But he was also a war hero and a determined spirit to save his crew of thePT-109 and to climb all the tenement steps
of Boston and surroundings to win the Senate..

You have to rise high to fall far.

 

[Airstrip One]

JFK called us to greatness in a time when we could be called together as a nation to do great things.
That and his urbane wit at press conferences, and his good looks was just about the end of "can do" America.

Behind that was his failings on integration...his crippled body.
But he was also a war hero and a determined spirit to save his crew of thePT-109 and to climb all the tenement steps
of Boston and surroundings to win the Senate..

You have to rise high to fall far.

We have the Bay of Pigs failure, which led to us nearly getting nuked with the Cuban Missile Crisis (where the mastermind of the Missile Gap reduced our stockpile of missiles in Europe).

But we could have witnessed such great failure in Vietnam. Then, we could have watched the affairs parade across the media, possibly followed by some related illnesses. Then the slow death by Addisons after his presidency. Who knows what else he could have effed-up. His declining popularity might have even delayed the Moon Landing.

 

[anatta]

We have the Bay of Pigs failure, which led to us nearly getting nuked with the Cuban Missile Crisis (where the mastermind of the Missile Gap reduced our stockpile of missiles in Europe).

But we could have witnessed such great failure in Vietnam. Then, we could have watched the affairs parade across the media, possibly followed by some related illnesses. Then the slow death by Addisons after his presidency. Who knows what else he could have effed-up. His declining popularity might have even delayed the Moon Landing.

We don't know for sure about Vietnam. I don't think he would have been suckered into
Vietnam as the war it was.. He was fiercely anti-communist, but understood the S. Vietnamese had to fight the war, not the US for them.

No question the Bay of Pigs was a failure of leadership , but he learned from that like he learned from early negotiation with Kruschchev.
The Cuban missile crisis was handled in an outstanding manner, and got the missiles out of Cuba.

He didn't have the war like Lincoln where he was loved for his deeds, words, and rising above petty calls for punitive Reconstruction.
He was really only on the nation scene for 3 years. His was a promise more then a completion

 

[anatta]

But Bobby..there was a profile in courage. http://www.historyplace.com/speeches/rfk-mlk.htm *see link for speech*

The gathering was actually a planned campaign rally for Robert Kennedy in his bid to get the 1968 Democratic nomination for president. Just after he arrived by plane at Indianapolis, Kennedy was told of King's death. He was advised by local police against making the campaign stop which was in a part of the city considered to be a dangerous ghetto. But Kennedy insisted on going.

Cincinnati unlike many northern cities did not burn that night

 

[Airstrip One]

We don't know for sure about Vietnam. I don't think he would have been suckered into
Vietnam as the war it was.. He was fiercely anti-communist, but understood the S. Vietnamese had to fight the war, not the US for them.

No question the Bay of Pigs was a failure of leadership , but he learned from that like he learned from early negotiation with Kruschchev.
The Cuban missile crisis was handled in an outstanding manner, and got the missiles out of Cuba.

He didn't have the war like Lincoln where he was loved for his deeds, words, and rising above petty calls for punitive Reconstruction.
He was really only on the nation scene for 3 years. His was a promise more then a completion

There were Soviet subs lurking nearby. He got lucky that the only thing that happened was a setback in defensive posture for Greece and Turkey. The way he handled Vietnam with regard to Diem, is a pretty good eye into how he would have incompetently handled the situation after 1963. There was really nothing inspiring about a guy who cheated his way into Congress and lied his way into the presidency (like Douchebag Donald is trying to do).

 

[anatta]

There were Soviet subs lurking nearby. He got lucky that the only thing that happened was a setback in defensive posture for Greece and Turkey. The way he handled Vietnam with regard to Diem, is a pretty good eye into how he would have incompetently handled the situation after 1963. There was really nothing inspiring about a guy who cheated his way into Congress and lied his way into the presidency (like Douchebag Donald is trying to do).

well you know...nothing is without it's ying/yang. Great men have great failures too..

I find it difficult to believe that he would have gotten us entangled to the extent Johnson's political fear of "1st president to lose a War" did.
But it's all speculation. JFK never had the chance.
Yu can look at his failures, or look at his optimism and promise, and what he did do as a man..i remember him as the optimistic promise

 

[Airstrip One]

well you know...nothing is without it's ying/yang. Great men have great failures too..

I find it difficult to believe that he would have gotten us entangled to the extent Johnson's political fear of "1st president to lose a War" did.
But it's all speculation. JFK never had the chance.
Yu can look at his failures, or look at his optimism and promise, and what he did do as a man..i remember him as the optimistic promise

To me, optimistic promise equals empty rhetoric. Then again, I'm a guy who finds John Adams and William H. Taft inspiring, so, I'm rather bland. I still will never see the big deal with pretty-boy Kennedy. Hopefully, my generation, who wasn't around to gawk at him, will share my standards for judging him, and not embrace the lack-thereof, of past generations.

 

[anatta]

To me, optimistic promise equals empty rhetoric. Then again, I'm a guy who finds John Adams and William H. Taft inspiring, so, I'm rather bland. I still will never see the big deal with pretty-boy Kennedy. Hopefully, my generation, who wasn't around to gawk at him, will share my standards for judging him, and not embrace the lack-thereof, of past generations.

it was generational . we had the old FDR and his top hat, and Truman from WWII. Then Ike -another old guy presiding over the post war peace.

Kennedy was the next generation -even though he fought in the war he looked/spoke to the future.
The US was leaving the drab conformist 1950's and feeling it's own as the leading world power.
No question his boyish good looks played the part we wanted to see in our leadership then - a vibrant New Frontier.
And then he was slain, and we felt we lost that "can do"

 

[Legion Troll]

The Kennedys were scum. The Clintons are scum. The Bushes are scum.

 

[tsuke]

June 6 is always one of the more fraught days on the calendar. The annual anniversary of the D-Day landings in France would be more than enough for one day to carry through history, but June 6 also happens to be the day on which, after lingering for several hours, Robert F. Kennedy died in Los Angeles at the age of, god help us all, 42.

There are few things more striking at Arlington National Cemetery in Washington than the simple white wooden cross that marks his grave on the small slope next to the larger gravesite of his brother, John. They built a memorial to RFK nearby in 1971, which always struck me as something of a shame. That cross seemed most in keeping with the presidential campaign he ran, and with the man he'd become in the years since his brother's murder.


Heroism is a strange thing in this country. We have to try to honor it, as any people would, while at the same time, not let it become a kind of royalist cult that subsumes our more democratic impulses.
But, on this death-draped page of the calendar, when almost 2500 Americans died 72 years ago in Normandy, and when one American died 48 years ago in a hospital in California, the words spoken by Edward Kennedy at his brother's funeral mass seem most appropriate to memorialize all of the dead on this most fraught of anniversaries.


"My brother need not be idealized, or enlarged in death beyond what he was in life; to be remembered simply as a good and decent man, who saw wrong and tried to right it, saw suffering and tried to heal it, saw war and tried to stop it. Those of us who loved him and who take him to his rest today, pray that what he was to us and what he wished for others will some day come to pass for all the world. As he said many times, in many parts of this nation, to those he touched and who sought to touch him: 'Some men see things as they are and say why. I dream things that never were and say why not."

And all say amen to that.
http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/news/a45564/bobby-kennedy-d-day-anniversary/

i always love the sensitivity of the US to any lives it loses. 2500 americans died in one day and we have a holiday and everything about it. Russia loses hundreds of thousands defending stalingrad and the chinese about as much in nanking and other places and they dont really care.

Incidentally if we actually did an invasion of apan 2500 casualties would be on the extreme low end for all the libs here advocating that we actually should have done one.

 

[Leonthecat]

The death of the Kennedys gave us six years of Nixon and the Vietnam war.
That alone is tragedy enough for anyone to grieve.

 

[Airstrip One]

The death of the Kennedys gave us six years of Nixon and the Vietnam war.
That alone is tragedy enough for anyone to grieve.

Nixon > Kennedys

And, no, the death of the Kennedy's did not give us the Vietnam War. The pre-death of the Kennedys gave us Vietnam, with the escalation occurring under LBJ.