Note: RFK Sr special on tonight:

[H2O Man]

Tonight at 11pm est, Court TV is running a special on Robert Kennedy, Sr. I believe that the program focuses on the Attorney General/ NY Senator's ideas on Social Justice. It is supposed to address his concerns that America be a compassionate -- not vindictive -- society.

For anyone on here who is not old enough to remember RFK, this is an important program to watch. There was a time when politicians like Kennedy cared more about people than they do today. Kennedy was not a sympathetic figure in his early adulthood. After his brother's death, he went through a transformation. You will be amazed at the powerful message he delivered.

And for all of us old & moldy DUers, it will be moving to see this "Strange Man" of American politics. "Strange Man" is a description that later generations of Sioux called Crazy Horse. And as Vine Deloria Jr wrote, "Indians saw him as a warrior, the white Crazy Horse. .... {RFK} somehow validated obscure undefined feelings of Indian people which they had been unwilling to admit to themselves. Spiritual, he was an Indian." Like Crazy Horse, RFK lived for the good of his people.

I think that we need symbols in our effort to transform our society. I do not mean heroes, nor do I intend that we should de-humanize RFK. But this show has a message, one that just might validate some obscure undefined feelings that the corporate media generally refuses to address, but which lie like a seed in the composted cultural that we find ourselves in.

[WI_DEM]

1. true he had a transformation after his brother's death

and seemed to be a much more humane man in his last 4 1/2 years.

[H2O Man]

2. I think that those

later years are the ones that are most meaningful. It isn't so much where a person starts from, as where they are now/end up that matters.

[quiet.american]

3. Thanks for the heads up -- RFK Sr. is my favorite Kennedy. n/t

[Octafish]

4. Ripples

Address of Senator Robert F. Kennedy: Day of Affirmation
University of Capetown, South Africa

June 6, 1966

Mr. Chancellor, Mr. Vice Chancellor, Professor Robertson, Mr. Diamond, Mr. Daniel, Ladies and Gentlemen:

I come here this evening because of my deep interest and affection for a land settled by the Dutch in the mid-seventeenth century, then taken over by the British, and at last independent; a land in which the native inhabitants were at first subdued, but relations with whom remain a problem to this day; a land which defined itself on a hostile frontier; a land which has tamed rich natural resources through the energetic application of modern technology; a land which was once the importer of slaves, and now must struggle to wipe out the last traces of that former bondage. I refer, of course, to the United States of America.

SNIP...

In the world we would like to build, South Africa could play an outstanding role, and a role of leadership in that effort. This country is without question a preeminent repository of the wealth and the knowledge and the skill of the continent. Here are the greater part of Africa's research scientists and steel production, most of it reservoirs of coal and of electric power. Many South Africans have made major contributions to African technical development and world science; the names of some are known wherever men seek to eliminate the ravages of tropical disease and of pestilence. In your faculties and councils, here in this very audience, are hundreds and thousands of men and women who could transform the lives of millions for all time to come.

But the help and leadership of South Africa or of the United States cannot be accepted if we -- within our own countries or in our relationships with others -- deny individual integrity, human dignity, and the common humanity of man. If we would lead outside our own borders; if we would help those who need our assistance; if we would meet our responsibilities to mankind; we must first, all of us, demolish the borders which history has erected between men within our own nations -- barriers of race and religion, social class and ignorance.

Our answer is the world's hope; it is to rely on youth. The cruelties and the obstacles of this swiftly changing planet will not yield to obsolete dogmas and outworn slogans. It cannot be moved by those who cling to a present which is already dying, who prefer the illusion of security to the excitement and danger which comes with even the most peaceful progress. This world demands the qualities of youth: not a time of life but a state of mind, a temper of the will, a quality of imagination, a predominance of courage over timidity, of the appetite for adventure over the life of ease -- a man like the Chancellor of this University. It is a revolutionary world that we all live in; and thus, as I have said in Latin America and Asia and in Europe and in my own country, the United States, it is the young people who must take the lead. Thus you, and your young compatriots everywhere have had thrust upon you a greater burden of responsibility than any generation that has ever lived.

"There is," said an Italian philosopher, "nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things." Yet this is the measure of the task of your generation and the road is strewn with many dangers.

First is the danger of futility; the belief there is nothing one man or one woman can do against the enormous array of the world's ills -- against misery, against ignorance, or injustice and violence. Yet many of the world's great movements, of thought and action, have flowed from the work of a single man. A young monk began the Protestant reformation, a young general extended an empire from Macedonia to the borders of the earth, and a young woman reclaimed the territory of France. It was a young Italian explorer who discovered the New /world, and 32 year old Thomas Jefferson who proclaimed that all men are created equal. "Give me a place to stand," said Archimedes, "and I will move the world." These men moved the world, and so can we all. Few will have the greatness to bend history; but each of us can work to change a small portion of the events, and in the total of all these acts will be written the history of this generation. Thousands of Peace Corps volunteers are making a difference in the isolated villages and the city slums of dozens of countries. Thousands of unknown men and women in Europe resisted the occupation of the Nazis and many died, but all added to the ultimate strength and freedom of their countries. It is from numberless diverse acts of courage such as these that the belief that human history is thus shaped. Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.

"If Athens shall appear great to you," said Pericles, "consider then that her glories were purchased by valiant men, and by men who learned their duty." That is the source of all greatness in all societies, and it is the key to progress in our own time.

CONTINUED...

http://www.rfkmemorial.org/RFK/affirmation2.htm

[H2O Man]

5. A great speech.

I put it up there with King's "A Time To Break Silence" (aka Beyond Vietnam).

[FreedomAngel82]

6. Thanks

I'll have to tape this for sure. I love the Kennedy brothers (John and Robert)!!

[H2O Man]

7. I'm taping it, too. n/t

[Octafish]

10. Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr. was a great man, too.

Ensign Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. with his Navy flight trainer.



Joe Kennedy, Jr. was the one being groomed for a life in politics by their father, Ambassador Joseph P. Kennedy Sr. The family's big brother was preparing for just such a career, serving as a delegate from Massachusetts voting for FDR at the 1940 Democratic convention.

A brave, athletic and conscientious man, he volunteered for service in the US Navy before World War II. After completing his training in multi-engine aircraft, JPK was assigned command of a US Navy B-24 Liberator on anti-submarine warfare duty, flying missions out of a US airbase in UK, out and over the North Atlantic from 1943-44.

On one mission, Kennedy’s four-engine aircraft was attacked by a Focke-Wulf 190, the German’s best single-prop fighter. Instead of hightailing it for a cloudbank, Kennedy turned his ship toward the fighter and ordered his crew to open up. (Sounds a lot like a certain Lt. John Kerry 25 years later in Vietnam). The surprised FW tore off, like a neocon at a draft lottery.

Anyway, after completing his tour of 35 missions, IIRC, Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. was ready to be rotated stateside. Instead of heading home all in one piece, he volunteered for a top-secret mission in which he would pilot an experimental version of the B-24 bomber.

The target was the V-2 launch sites along the coast of France. The V-2 was developed by German (and NAZI) scientist Werner von Braun and his team at Peenemünde. One of Hitler's super-weapons, the world's first ballistic missiles were used to rain death, destruction and terror upon London. The allies were worried that if the Nazis continued developing their super-weapons, the V-2’s descendants would be delivering bombs — possibly atomic — to New York City.

So the US Navy and Army Air Corps developed a plan to take out these missile bases, a secret weapon of their own to use against the German V-2 sites. The plan was called: Operation Aphrodite and its objective was to knock out the V-2 launching facilities along the coast of France.

The plan called for developing, basically, history’s first guided cruise missiles (Hey, Condi! You reading this "unconceivable" idea?). The giant plane had been converted from being a bomber capable of carrying sixteen 500 pound bombs and requiring a 10-man crew into one giant flying bomb.

The entire fuselage was filled with Torpex and gelignite and was to be armed by a rather elaborate, and untested, electronic arming panel. That would be armed by the Navy engineer who designed it. The Army planes involved in Aphrodite used a combat-tested arming system.

Kennedy’s job was to get the robot-controlled ship airborne from its airfield in Great Britain, point it toward Europe, and bail out over the countryside. Sounds simple, but it was anything but. It was state-of-the-art science, engineering, and warfare. Joe Kennedy’s plane was among a few Liberators and Flying Fortresses modified for a very early version of remote control.

Like something out of Buck Rogers, the Navy equipped the airplane with a primitive 2-channel remote-control pilot. One radio signal could make the plane dive and climb and another signal could make it turn left and right. A prototype video camera would also send information to the Mother Ship, where the remote pilot sat before a tiny TV monitor.

Joe Kennedy and his fellow volunteer pilots were needed to get the flying bombs airborne. One aloft, they were to turn on the radio-guidance controls and arm the flying bomb. Then, somewhere over the English countryside, the pilot and bombardier were to bail out at an altitude of about ONE THOUSAND FEET.

The scientists and engineers in the Mother Ship would take over and signal on two radio frequencies: One to turn the stick RIGHT or LEFT; or push the stick FORWARD or pull the stick BACK. Primitive today, they were the first remote-controlled weapon of mass destruction. The Mother Ship would follow two miles or so back and then fly it over the English Channel and guide it down into the rocket launch sites.

It was dangerous work. Because of the modifications to the B-17s, one pilot was killed and another lost an arm in the process. By the time it was Joe’s turn in the B-24 there was reason for concern about a plan that was seeming to look like a suicide mission.

For the Kennedys and the future of American politics, the tragedy was that the Navy ship used a rather primitive arming panel. The regular engineer/co-pilot refused to fly and instead the Navy sent aloft the engineer who designed and installed the system.

Over the English countryside, the ship exploded, killing the two flyers and changing American political history. Joe's younger brother John Fitzgerald Kennedy then became the heir to the family's political ambitions.

John F. Kennedy made an outstanding President, living up to his brother’s promise of greatness. JFK, it should be remembered, saved the world from nuclear annihilation during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

While he never lived to see the dream realized, JFK also stretched mankind’s imagination and reach to the moon. Ironically, he even used the NAZI rocket scientist who developed the V-2 to do so. The same von Braun who the allied air command sent his lost brother, Joseph, to destroy.

— Octafish

# # #

Two outstanding books on the subject of Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. and his service in World War II:

“Aphrodite: Desperate Mission” by Jack Olsen

and

“The Lost Prince: Young Joe, the Forgotten Kennedy” by Hank Searls.

[H2O Man]

11. "...the Forgotten Kennedy..."

A book by Thomas Maier, which came out in 2003 (The Kennedys: America's Emerald Kings) goes into five generations of America's "ultimate Irish-Catholic family." The story of Joseph Jr. is that of a young hero, of unfulfilled potential. Thank you for reminding us.

[AP]

13. The report on JFK's PT109 actions makes for good reading too.

I think it's in the archives at The Smoking Gun.

It's remarkable.

JFK swam off into the horizon trying to find an island he remembered from charts. I think he did that two days in a row without finding anything. One night he got caught in the tide and had to spend the night on a tiny sand bar. I think the third day he was too sick to do it again. I think he went again on the fourth day and found an inhabitted island.

What he did truly was courageous. It's interesting that, in war, JFK's courage didn't have to do with shooting the enemy. He put his life on the line to save his crew by swimming and swimming off into nothing until he found someone with a boat.

[leftchick]

8. thank you!

I will be watching. :)

[H2O Man]

9. Good!!!

I think it is going to be interesting.

[H2O Man]

12. When I watched the program

last night, and then again this morning, it reminded me of the good work that Merh does. I understand that people have a wide range of opinions on capital punishment. It is an emotional issue. But as Onondaga Chief Oren Lyons reminds us, justice is based upon principles, and principles are how you exist above and beyond the emotions that you feel.

I thought the program was powerful. It took RFK out of a history book and placed him smack-dab into the effort that many good people are doing to establish a system of justice based upon principles.

I'm curious what other people thought of it?