Comments on: From Kennedy to Obama – what might have been

By: Andy

Andy — Wed, 27 Nov 2013 17:17:00 +0000

Thanks Arthur. A well-written piece, putting the book-end presidents and the past 50 years in an interesting perspective.

By: Abby Mitchell

Abby Mitchell — Mon, 25 Nov 2013 00:43:00 +0000

This issue really hits the nail on the head, so to speak. It raises the question: What does it say about our society that we cannot accept the second coming (in a sense) of John F. Kennedy? When did being part of the movement become an unrealistic commitment and the spirit protesters from the 60s era become unheard of? When did being a progressive become taboo? People say the fundamental difference between the 60s and now is the draft, but does it really take our people being killed in foreign lands to make us stand up against injustice? Or can we fight for a better society because of the suffering of not just “American citizens”, or brave young men but ‘people.’

By: ladyofspain

ladyofspain — Sat, 23 Nov 2013 02:58:00 +0000

I watched part of the television coverage tonight – especially Chris Matthews’ documentary about the Kennedy brothers. Imagine how things were back then and how they are now. JFK had to be cautious about pushing civil rights for blacks too far. Martin Luther King Jr. and other civil rights leaders kept encouraging him to go further, but Kennedy was concerned about the next election. He needed southern whites to support him. Although racism is still alive and disturbing, think about the fact that 50 years after the first bold moves toward desegregation, we have an mixed race president. And part of the mix is African.
That is really something. We’ve gone from segregated everything to electing black men and women to high office. Judges, cabinet officers, mayors and governors of all colors now. We’ve stopped labeling them as the “first” this and the “first” that.
True, women still don’t have the earning power that men have. True that there should be 50% women in Congress.
But think about what we all took for granted as “the way things are” in the 1950’s. When I looked for a summer job during college, I looked in the “Help Wanted – Female” column in the paper. It didn’t even occur to me that jobs shouldn’t be separated for men and women. The few women in medical school and internships were called “hen medics.” And men who wanted to be nurses were suspected of being gay. The only blacks I saw were the migrant workers who came to town to buy supplies on Saturday. That’s just the way it was and no one I knew thought it should be otherwise.
We really have come a long way. I know it’s hard to believe when we look at the disgusting injustices in our society today. Racism and sexism are still present, that’s for sure. But those prejudices are demonstrated much more subtly. (Well, except for the stupid KKK signs in Warrenton.)
President Obama has accomplished a great deal and will be recognized by historians as one who persevered despite unprecedented obstructionism. Health care reform will catch on. It’s already been pushed to the back pages by more recent controversies. A year from now the furor over Obamacare will be ancient history. The Repugs don’t have anything else to run on. Economic populism is in the ascendancy around the country. The Obamas will appear to generations hence as charming, generous and wonderful as the Kennedys appear to us now. We CAN keep hope alive.
Susan Cunningham

By: brolarryx

brolarryx — Fri, 22 Nov 2013 15:07:00 +0000

Obama originally campaigned on the theory of “change”. As part of his agenda, he strongly urged the people to organize themselves around this theory and begin working with him but in their own communities as agents of this change. However, the people failed to do so. Obama, I believe, was wise enough to recognize the seemingly inherent opposition to a type of change that would “really” benefit the people—-politicians and rich people seem to prefer the status-quo. Eventhough Obama has lost and is losing support from those in the big arena, it is we (the people) who have been lacking in our efforts to show support for the man we have elected. It is we who haven’t done what was asked of us by the man whose vision we said we believed in. Without the people being organized around the agenda of change that “our” president embodies, he is bound to fail because the “machine” is powerfully organized to prevent the fruition of the vision. The “shadow government” is real—people we often do not know and can’t see, who sit in “high places”, dictate agenda through the use of the money, power and connections they possess. Without effective grassroots organizing, the status-quo will always be safely intact.