Thoughts on the passing of the last Kennedy boy

I wrote this originally as a comment on a post on another blog, but felt I wanted to share it with those of you who read my thoughts. The first italicized words are a quote from the original blog post, and the second from a comment to that post made by a younger reader.

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I hope the young folks will forgive us geezers for thinking of all the Kennedy boys today. They were a huge part of our lives.

They were more than a huge part of our lives – they were a symbol, and in reality more symbolic than actual, of a time when optimism and idealism were alive and strong, an era that is long over. This country has spent forty years trying to rewrite history, that the actual nature of the Kennedy’s, and the sixties – never existed.

Imagine! “Public servants” going into office to…. Serve the Public. To paraphrase a recent Attorney General, the idea today “renders quaint”.

I was too young to live through the lens of you older folks or my parents and see the Kennedy’s for all their youthful vigor, but I’ve always felt envious of having politicians you could be proud of.

The true shame is the possibility of having that experience has been taken away from all the generations that followed. The real tragedy is that a generation that had so much potential to transform the nature of life on the planet in ways that would have benefited all instead succeeded in pretty much trashing it, having finally decided, rather than “Make Love, not War”, to “Make Money, THROUGH War”.

Perhaps in a different time and under different circumstances Obama would be effective. I don’t see it happening now. The main thing he is showing me is our system is so far gone it is beyond the possibility of reform. Its a near miracle we got an Obama in the first place, and he is unable or unwilling to advocate for the necessary reforms. History teaches us what inevitably comes next, after a while, and it is not pretty.

Its also important to remember that the Kennedys were very much hated by segments of the public in the sixties – the same segments that have evolved into the modern GOP. After all, two of them were assassinated. These are the segments that have been attempting to rewrite the history (and legacy) of the 60’s ever since.