Robert F. Kennedy: Still Here

Robert F. Kennedy

Born Nov. 20, 1925 Assassinated June 5, 1968 Died June 6, 1968

Ann: Bobby, would you be kind enough to talk to me about what you see going on now. Not asking about your son as that was asked and answered in a previous post,* just your thoughts on the present situation after the sacrifices that you, your family, and your generation made.

Robert F. Kennedy: Yes, Ann, I appreciate the question and also your respect for the feelings of a father towards a son, about which I have said all I need to say previously. There are other concerns I want to address here.

It is not easy to stand up against the far-right machine. Its tentacles are long, historically deep, and quite without conscience in its methods.  I have to give Lyndon credit for seizing the moment** - and the power -that went along with it, but that goes without saying given that Lyndon was Lyndon.

          It had to happen, this red tide building up against every barrier intended to contain it. There were too many bodies buried under its roiling currents, many unnamed, unshriven, and disposed of as so much flotsam and jetsam that had the bad fortune to get in the way of the power elite. 

          The siren song of power was not confined to one party or one philosophical persuasion.  I and my family were certainly not immune, but we thought we could make a difference – and rack up some chips along the way – the old “doing well by doing good,”  But we were ignorant and vastly underestimated the undercurrent of fear, greed, and lust for power.  In the end it took deaths of myself and others to move the ball even a little way down the field, but that only pushed underground those forces scrambling for dominance, and now they are back again with a vengeance.

          The planet has been through many iterations of this, the wax and wane, trial and error, the swing between power and purse versus grace and humanity in the hopes of expanding the latter.  For that reason, we must take long view, the distant perspective as we endure the heartbreak and suffering imposed by would-be dictators and tyrants, always remembering that, however traumatic the experiment in absolute human power, it has always and continues to be doomed to failure.

          The greater question is whether a more permanent blueprint of a more just, equitable, and spiritually awakened society can arise from the ruins of the current attempt at domination by those who claim that might makes right.

          Have you noticed that destruction is often the forerunner to justice?  You will see us, you may know us, as we stand and speak truth to power. Even we arise from the belly of the beast, those long ago truths will once again be self-evident,*** and what has been imposed upon the populist cannot stand, and the power grabbing of the few  will lose Its attraction for those it would enslave.

In the meantime, it is the universe within each individual heart that salvation can be realized now.  Yes, I weep for my son, his capitulation to the forces of darkness and the lure of madness. But so it is in every generation, there are those who see themselves as greater than the norm, more important than those they originally thought to serve, and at such moment, the downturn begins, destructive forces are revealed, and a new way becomes visible on the horizon.

April 10, 2025

*Robert Kennedy Wants A Word, Feb. 18, 2024

**Following the assassination of President Kennedy, President Lyndon B. Johnson championed and secured the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, a landmark piece of legislation that outlawed discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin, and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which banned discriminatory voting practices. 

***"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776