50 Years Ago Today

50 years ago today, June 5, 1968, Robert Francis Kennedy, RFK, Bobby Kennedy was shot and ultimately, killed, in the kitchen of the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, California, after addressing a campaign rally after his win there, that day, in the California primary.

Herewith, a few of his quotes, a few of his most memorable quotes. Back from a time when those with more tried to help those with less.

Few will have the greatness to bend history itself; but each of us can work to change a small portion of events, and in the total; of all those acts will be written the history of this generation.

There are people in every time and every land who want to stop history in its tracks. They fear the future, mistrust the present, and invoke the security of a comfortable past which, in fact, never existed.

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 that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.

Some men see things as they are, and ask "Why?". I dream of things that never were, and ask "Why not?".

I miss having more intelligent, altruistic, well-educated, well-spoken, thoughtful, introspective people in and leading our government, don't you? I miss having more people who realize that helping the middle- and lower- and working-classes strengthens not just them but the wealthy, as well. It strengthens the entire nation.

Frankly, I miss the entire concept of "noblesse oblige."

The failing American experiment (guest post)

"The narrative of openness and talent obscures the bitter truth of the American experience. Talents are costly to develop, and we refuse to socialize these costs. To be an outstanding student requires not just smarts and dedication but a well-supported school, a safe, comfortable home and leisure time to cultivate the self. These are not widely available. When some students struggle, they can later tell the story of their triumph over adversity, often without mentioning the helping hand of a tutor. Other students simply fail without such expensive aids.

These are more than liberal platitudes. Look at who makes up the most “talented” members of society: the children of the already advantaged. Today America has less intergenerational economic mobility than almost any country in the industrialized world; one of the best predictors of being a member of the elite today is whether your parents were in the elite. The elite story about the triumph of the omnivorous individual with diverse talents is a myth. In suggesting that it is their work and not their wealth, that it is their talents and not their lineage, elites effectively blame inequality on those whom our democratic promise has failed."

"Elites today must recognize that they are very much like the Gilded Age elites of old. Paradoxically the very openness and capaciousness that they so warmly embrace — their omnivorousness — helps define them as culturally different from the rest. And they deploy that cultural difference to suggest that the inequality and immobility in our society is deserved rather than inherited. But if they can recognize the class basis of their success, then perhaps they will also recognize their class responsibility. They owe a debt to others for their fortunes, and seeing this may also help elites realize that the poor are ruled by a similar dynamic: their present position is most often bound to a history not of their own choosing or responsibility.

It is past time for elites to give up the cultural project of showing how different they are from others. They should commit themselves instead to recognizing that there is a commonweal that we all have a responsibility to improve."

Link to original article: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/08/opinion/sunday/the-new-elitists.html?pagewanted=all

On taxes and fairness

"'Do you think the millionaire ought to pay more in taxes than the bus driver,' he demands, 'or less?' The year was 1985. The president was Ronald Wilson Reagan." --Tim Dickinson writing in Rolling Stone Magazine Link: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/how-the-gop-became-the-party-of-the-rich-20111109#ixzz1dudveKcZ

Quote of the day

‎"It is not very unreasonable that the rich should contribute to the public expense, not only in proportion to their revenue, but something more than in that proportion." --Adam Smith, Scottish economist, moral philosopher and considered the "Father of Capitalism", rather ironically, now. That he is considered the "Father of Capitalism" and yet wrote this in his very famous and highly-regarded, quoted and referred to "Wealth of Nations" is more than a bit ironic now, I think we'd all agree, given what Capitalism has become in America. Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wealth_of_Nations

Cheers

Today, as you've likely heard, is the day of the final burial and memorial service for Senator Ted Kennedy, along with the 4th annual anniversary of Hurricane Katrina coming onshore in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast.

Raise a glass, sometime today, to the working class, the little men and women of our society--and the people who work for them, however few there are.




Have a great weekend, y'all.