Most Americans know the truth, but they are not particularly eager to reflect upon it. There are far too many Americans living in poverty. Far too many Americans are without hope, healthcare, or a home they can call their own. Most Americans living in poverty are children, and for those children, the odds are not good.
Today, John Edwards begins a national effort, a national effort asking America to turn its attention away from business as usual for a week and focus, instead, upon ending the destitution and poverty that imprisons millions of Americans.
As part of the national effort, John Edwards will retrace, in part, the historic "poverty tour" that Robert Kennedy made through eastern Kentucky in February of 1968 when he was running for President. That tour, begun as a modest idea to focus attention on poverty in America, became an historic, national media event that echoes to this very day in our national politics.
Considering the echoes of Robert Kennedy that are in the air today, it seems an appropriate time to briefly ponder Robert Kennedy. What are your thoughts on Robert Kennedy? His evolution as a leader?
It is well to recall that Robert Kennedy was not a natural leader at first, or for that matter, a naturally gifted politician. Gradually, over the course of many years, Robert Kennedy grew into something quite special. By the time he ran for president in 1968, Robert Kennedy had evolved into a leader who felt free to speak his mind, free to speak from the heart, and free to lead for change, big change.
His speech in Indianapolis, Indiana on April 4, 1968, following the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., is often cited as one of the greatest extemporaneous political speeches in American history. In this speech, in a somewhat unexpected moment, Robert Kennedy offered us insight into how he perceived his own individual evolution as a leader.
My favorite poet was Aeschylus. He once wrote: "Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God.
Pain and suffering had educated Robert Kennedy. He had evolved. He had become wiser. In my first comment, I will provide greater details about Robert Kennedy that may surprise some who do not know his story.
Here, I want to call attention to some salient points regarding Robert Kennedy that are of some relevance when considering John Edwards 2008.
Robert Kennedy was a genuine, sincere advocate for the poor and the disadvantaged, one of the strongest we have ever seen. Yet, he was quite wealthy. In fact, Robert Kennedy was born into vast wealth. (Interestingly, so too was FDR.)
By contrast, Edwards was born into poverty, the son of a millworker. He was the first in his family to go to college. And through hard work, over the course of decades, he made good money to support his wife and family. Significantly, John Edwards owes virtually his entire livelihood, his present wealth, to standing up to corporations. To many, this aspect of John Edwards is actually heroic.
As is well known, Robert Kennedy was very supportive of the Vietnam war when it began. (For what it is worth, so too were a majority of Americans.) But Robert Kennedy eventually came to realize just how wrong that war was. And he rightfully, logically, and legitimately, like John Edwards today, became a passionate opponent of a senseless, endless stupid war.
One of the quixotic parallels between Robert Kennedy and John Edwards is how the media of their respective times fixated upon their hair. Here is how Kennedy supporter Rosa María Pegueros recalled the media's fixation with Robert Kennedy's hair in 1968:
The media were obsessed with Senator Kennedy's hair; he had a lot of it and it was always tousled and needed to be cut. I remember one night when he came to a local TV station in San Francisco. He came in exhausted, pale and particularly hirsute but he was very intense; charisma emanated from him.
In June of 1968, Time magazine put a painting of Robert Kennedy on its cover, with hair neatly groomed. In the subsequent issue, Time published a letter scathing in its derision of his hairsytle:
Sir: The cover cartoon shows the Senator's hair parted on the left, as Ted wears it (and as John did), whereas in fact Robert parts his hair on the right. Like Alice, Robert Kennedy has gone through the looking glass, where inversion and distortion, of him as well as by him, are the only possibilities. Mr. Lichtenstein is less artist than oracle.
MICHAEL G. DULICK St. Louis
With a destructive, senseless war going on in the background, a major Presidential candidate calls for bold progressive change, for bold action to lift millions out of poverty and despair.
And the response from the media...and his detractors is...how about his hair?
Clearly, history is beginning to repeat itself...1968 meet 2008.
|
|
|
Permalink :: 63 Comments :: Post a Comment
|
In order to post a comment, you must be logged in. If you have a member account, please log in to comment.
If not, you can make an account right here. It's quick and free.
