Robert Kennedy

Its rare these days that I actually get to sit down and watch TV, most of the programmes I watch happen by chance. Such an occurance happened tonight when I was randomly flipping between channels and came across a documentary on BBC 4.

My past knowledge of the life and untimely demise of Robert Kennedy was severely limited to comments made about his brothers assination, and as I've just discovered almost completely false.

I find his legacy to be quite poinent at the moment given the conclusions draw of President Bush's second term inauguration speech. In the modern day the U.S. and us sadly tagging along seem to be obsessed with promoting "liberty" to the rest of the world. Indeed the new Secretary of State Condelezza Rice has listed five countries, or as some commetators have described as "targets" who are "anti-liberty" North Korea, China and Iran being amongst them. The situation now is in a limited way comparable to the late 1960s when RFK made his belated bid on the presidency. The President at the time Lydon Johnson had spent the past three years esclating the war in Vietnam also in the name of freedom and liberty (then disgusing the fear of Communist Russia), whilst Kennedy had found his place in the political world in helping newly founded civil rights, race relations and the prospect of peace in Vietnam.

Sadly at this moment there are no charismatic figures like RFK, whom had be lived may have made an even larger impact than his brother. We had a relative unknown in John Kerry who just did not have the appeal to pull support away from the gun totin' George "Dubwya" Bush during a time of "war". I know I am banging on about the state of American politics after their general election and shortly before ours, but quite frankly if Bush decides to invade Iran and Blair remains PM I guarentee our troops will be amongst the first in. What the Americans needed most was a time of peace and a chance to rebuild their domestic lives. We also need the same, yet again in Britain we don't have any such contender to the leadership of the nation, and quite frankly unlike America with the Kennedy's we ever had. The most revered British Prime Minister of the past century was Churchill and by many contemporay accounts he was a harsh man. A quick history lesson for those who want it, when Britain had the General Strike in 1926 it was the then Chancellor Churchill who had pushed for extreme measures against the workers. Not exactly a social reformer.

The conclusion of this ill concieved ramble is really my frustration with the state of politics at the moment. The American's have elected Bush again. With his second and final term he has nothing to loose. As we saw with Clinton it is almost impossible to remove a President. We are most likely on the verge of electing Blair for a third term, as I do not belive Michael Howard has the public support to do so, nor would I even want him too.

What the world needs is another Robert Kennedy, driven into grief by the death of his brother, and using that to give his support to race equality and peace. Remeber of course during the mid 1960s no other US Senator had even dared come close to this.

"Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God."