Bobby

Facsinated by Robert Kennedy for the last week or so.
What a great president he would have made.

The footage of him meeting people, and the looks on their faces...
I've never seen anything like it.
Especially black people, and Mexicans.


from wikipedia:

"Kennedy's policy objectives did not sit well with the business world,
in which he was viewed as something of a fiscal liability,
opposed to the tax increases necessary to fund such programs of social improvement.
When verbally attacked at a speech he gave during his tour
of the universities he was asked,
'And who's going to pay for all this, senator?',
to which Kennedy replied with typical candor, ;You are.'"


Here he is with Jack;

Bobby, Jack, and Ted:




RFK quotes:


"All of us might wish at times that we lived in a more tranquil world,
but we don't.
And if our times are difficult and perplexing,
so are they challenging and filled with opportunity."


"If any man claims the Negro should be content...
let him say he would willingly change the color of his skin
and go to live in the Negro section of a large city.
Then and only then has he a right to such a claim."


"Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly."


"Tragedy is a tool for the living to gain wisdom."


“The greatest truth must be recognition that in every man,
in every child,
is the potential for greatness.”


"If we believe that we, as Americans,
are bound together by a common concern for each other,
then an urgent national priority is upon us.
We must begin to end the disgrace of this other America.
And this is one of the great tasks of leadership for us,
as individuals and citizens this year.

But even if we act to erase material poverty,
there is another greater task,
it is to confront the poverty of satisfaction
- purpose and dignity - that afflicts us all.
Too much and for too long,
we seemed to have surrendered personal excellence and community values
in the mere accumulation of material things.

Our Gross National Product, now, is over $800 billion dollars a year,
but that Gross National Product
- if we judge the United States of America by that -
that Gross National Product counts air pollution and cigarette advertising,
and ambulances to clear our highways of carnage.
It counts special locks for our doors and the jails
for the people who break them.
It counts the destruction of the redwood
and the loss of our natural wonder in chaotic sprawl.
It counts napalm and counts nuclear warheads
and armored cars for the police to fight the riots in our cities.
It counts Whitman's rifle and Speck's knife,
and the television programs which glorify violence
in order to sell toys to our children.

Yet the gross national product does not allow for the health of our children,
the quality of their education or the joy of their play.
It does not include the beauty of our poetry
or the strength of our marriages,
the intelligence of our public debate
or the integrity of our public officials.
It measures neither our wit nor our courage,
neither our wisdom nor our learning,
neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country,
it measures everything in short,
except that which makes life worthwhile.
And it can tell us everything about America
except why we are proud that we are Americans."


"Fear not the path of truth for the lack of people walking on it."
(From his last speech, June 5, 1968)




Hs assassination is so awful.
(I'm glad I wasn't alive yet.)

My mom says that Bobby's murder was worse than Jack's.
She said, Jack's death was a shock,
but when Bobby died, it seemed like the end of the world.
How terrible.

Apparently, the first thing he said after he was shot was;
"Is everybody ok?"
So heartbreaking.

Emotionally difficult to look at.
So dark and moving.
But, what an incredible photo.


Ted Kennedy, eulogized him with the words:

"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.'"