I thought I saw him walkin' up over the hill, With Abraham, Martin and John

My good friend Hollywood liberal actor David Macklin was in Ambassador celebrating at the time of the assassination.


Robert F. Kennedy sitting next to Cesar Chavez (looking very weak after prolonged hunger strike) during a rally in support of the United Farm Workers union. Photo by Michael Rougier//Time Life Pictures/Getty Images.

The 1968 fast marked the beginning of Chavez’ emergence on the national political scene. Presidential candidate Robert Kennedy came to Delano to break bread with Cesar at the end of his fast. Chavez responded by committing UFWOC to campaign for Kennedy in the California primary. Their voter registration and get out the vote efforts provided Kennedy’s margin of victory in California.

Some precincts went 100% RFK!

There are those who look at things the way they are, and ask why... I dream of things that never were, and ask why not?
Robert Kennedy

Thanks for this reminder.

What losses we have suffered. Our nation is truly the worse for those losses.

The things that could have been, that should have been.

http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/ekennedytributetorfk.html

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.

Video: http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=5268061n&tag=api

Audio: http://www.americanrhetoric.com/mp3clips/speeches/tedkennedyonrfk45565656564.mp3

Your Eminences, Your Excellencies, Mr. President:

On behalf of Mrs. Kennedy, her children, the parents and sisters of Robert Kennedy, I want to express what we feel to those who mourn with us today in this Cathedral and around the world.

We loved him as a brother, and as a father, and as a son. From his parents, and from his older brothers and sisters -- Joe and Kathleen and Jack -- he received an inspiration which he passed on to all of us. He gave us strength in time of trouble, wisdom in time of uncertainty, and sharing in time of happiness. He will always be by our side.

Love is not an easy feeling to put into words. Nor is loyalty, or trust, or joy. But he was all of these. He loved life completely and he lived it intensely.

A few years back, Robert Kennedy wrote some words about his own father which expresses the way we in his family felt about him. He said of what his father meant to him, and I quote:

"What it really all adds up to is love -- not love as it is described with such facility in popular magazines, but the kind of love that is affection and respect, order and encouragement, and support. Our awareness of this was an incalculable source of strength, and because real love is something unselfish and involves sacrifice and giving, we could not help but profit from it."

And he continued,

"Beneath it all, he has tried to engender a social conscience. There were wrongs which needed attention. There were people who were poor and needed help. And we have a responsibility to them and to this country. Through no virtues and accomplishments of our own, we have been fortunate enough to be born in the United States under the most comfortable conditions. We, therefore, have a responsibility to others who are less well off."

FULL text at link.

Can you imagine what our country, our WORLD would be like today if they hadn't killed them? I mourn for it.
All these men and women who died for our country, the ideal of our forefathers...what did they die for? So some rich asshole can bitch and moan because the poor think they deserve AC and refrigerators? Fuck them. That was never what this country was ever supposed to be. Sure, they were from a rich family, but look at all the good their parents taught them to do with what they were privileged to be born with!
Duckie

and makes me cry, 43 years later. RFK was our last, best hope. :cry:

Somehow, I just can't, even though I want to.

Sorry....it's a nice thread. But, Obama has been a disaster for organized labor.

people really know. Plus, it's not important to the MsM.

The #2 in OSHA Jordan Barab is the former safety director of my union (AFSCME) and ran the worker safety web site "Confined Space".

Solis.

He let the sit in strike at the window company take it natural course.

NLRB proposed rules for organizing.

Get my drift?

A truly courageous pro-labor president would do as RFK, as a candidate, did with Chavez. Do you see Obama on any picket lines telling the truth about union busting?

A pro-labor president would be active with the workers and standing with them - in person. But Obama finds that much too uncomfortable as he's surrounded by the Wall Street types like Larry Summers, etc. Why couldn't he spend five minutes on a picket line against Verizon while on his way to Martha's Vineyard?

Card check? A "priority." He made a pledge. Remember?

Continues free trade policies that sends our jobs overseas - that's about as anti-labor as you can get (by definition).

We see nothing but Wall St and corporate chieftains in high positions of economic leadership. That says everything.

The 'drift' is that this president talks a good game and - yes - is better than Bush on labor. But "things could have been worse," does not an effective pro-labor president make.

Comparing his rhetoric of the '08 campaign and his accomplishments on labor related issues, I stand by my statement that this president has been a disaster for organized labor. Not many at the top of organized labor will say as much, but those who truly care about labor and not "labor leadership from my suite as a job" know that Obama is a corporate lackey at best - just a weak and ineffective president at worst.

I don't see a viable D or I making a serious run. Do you?

Point taken and noted.

I was a Gene McCarthy fan that year, but I was hit hard when RFK was assassinated. It was just much too much in too short a time. All three of those moments are etched in my brain, where I was, who I was with. I still wonder if there wasn't some sort of right-wing collusion behind the murders of so many progressive voices of the '60s. If they wanted to control future liberals, they chose a pretty effective means of getting their point across. Just sayin'...

That's how those looney republicans would like people to see it.

Most of my family at the time, were Eisenhower Republicans. They hated the war. They would have voted for Bobby.

overwhelmingly. To this day not a week goes by that I do not mourn Robert Kennedy. What might have been. . .

bobbie always had an easier way with television than even jack and nixon was god awful under lights
from the first debate bobbie would have had a cakewalk
kind of like with jack in 59 when nixon sweated his way out of the white house


and as a side note
they were giants all in those days the makeup and actions of our party,comparing it to the party then,is saddening