TALK TO THE DADDY

Hello. Come on in. The daddy writes about current events, literature, music and, once in a while, drops something on you from back in the day to make you pause and ponder, stop and stare, and begin to wonder. Who knows? You may start to pace the floor, shake your head from side to side, then fall down on bended knees in a praying position and cry, "Lawd, have mercy! What is this world coming to?" Check yourself! But this blog is NOT about the daddy. It's about you: your boos, your fam, your hood, your country...our hopes and dreams of a better tomorrow. So let's make a pact: the daddy will put it on the track if you'll chase it down and hit him back. Together, we can definitely take it to another level. Shall we?"

Thursday, June 5, 2008

To Finish a Dream

At Real History blog, Lisa speaks of Sen. Barack Obama's campaign as a kind of quest to finish the dream that the late Sen. Bobby Kennedy started. Like Barack, Bobby, too, wanted to end a war (the Vietnam war in his time), end the mindset of continual war and only go to war as a last resort. Like Barack, Bobby wanted to take funding being used to purchase planes and ships and tanks, to bomb homes and village and redirect those sources to much-needed projects at homes: providing health care for more, improving education, reducing homelessness, ending poverty, and healing racial wounds.

Neither the death of brother, John Kennedy, or his friend, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., destroyed his basic belief in Americans or his optimism about life. When Dr. King was assassinated, Bobby was speaking to a predominantly black audience in Indianapolis, Indiana. Police advised that he not go there. They thought it was too dangerous, that it was crime-ridden ghetto area. Bobby insisted. When he heard the news on the radio, he felt compelled to tell the audience and this is what he said:

"My favorite poet was Aeschylus. He wrote: "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." What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence or lawlessness; but love and wisdom, and compassion toward one another, and a feeling of justice toward those who still suffer within our country, whether they be white or they be black."

Bobby's quest to achieve these goals was stopped when he was felled by an assassin's bullet in the kitchen of a California hotel and Republican Richard Nixon became president in 1968. But Barack's quest continues. On Tuesday, he received the number of delegates to make him the democratic nominee for president of the United States, the first African American to do so in U.S. history.

Can Barack help this nation to gain the compassion and wisdom to transcend racism, sexism, and homophobia and move this country to end a mistaken war and transfer monies used for that war to improve the lives of Americans here at home? Obama says he can. He's an optimist. Here's what he said to that crowd of 17,000 in St. Paul on Tuesday night:

"
I face this challenge with profound humility, and knowledge of my own limitations. But I also face it with limitless faith in the capacity of the American people. Because if we are willing to work for it, and fight for it, and believe in it, then I am absolutely certain that generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless; this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal; this was the moment when we ended a war and secured our nation and restored our image as the last, best hope on Earth. This was the moment – this was the time – when we came together to remake this great nation so that it may always reflect our very best selves, and our highest ideals."

Can Barack Obama finish the dream that Bobby started?

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

I am impressed with the relective, thoughtful, respectful way Senator Obama is going about the decisions he has to make in the near future. I believe that he will keep the DREAM kindled and that it will unfold. I see this time for him as a time to keep the FOCUS with which he began.....We all need to be parient as he and his advisors think things through..As he said today, the decisions he makes today and tomorrow are important to the unfolding of the dream of the American people. MAY BOBBY INTERCEDE FOR HIM!

Mac Daddy Tribute Blog said...

nun: May Bobby's spirit be with him as he makes decisions in the next few weeks that will affect his ability to run this country in the coming years.
Blessings.

Anonymous said...

Yes he will!

SagaciousHillbilly said...

Mac, It's interesting that in reading your post a certain clearer definition of what happened to "the 60s" emerges. '68 was a defining year. Did we lose hope when RFK and MLK were eliminated before our eyes?
I dunno, but the idea certainly makes sense to me.
I always thought that many of us just got absorbed into the fabric of life and lost our radical way as that evolution occured.
Maybe it was some of both.
Maybe it'll take someone 100 yrs from now to really figure it all out.
Maybe it's time to go mow the fields and jam out to some Muddy and George T'good on this gloriously beautiful hot day.

SagaciousHillbilly said...

Nun, I agree with you. Mr. Obama's manner(s) can be an example for the nation as a whole. . . be calm, think about what you're doing in a dignified intellectual way. Could a population such as our so motivated by self interest possibly learn from that?

Anonymous said...

Barack Obama is the dems last chance.

LISA VAZQUEZ said...

Hey MacDaddy!

I really DO believe that Obama is going to wind up in the White House but he needs to have a very, very polished path...no more slip ups and fumbles that the media can exploit....

He can beat McCain...I am sure of it!

Peace, blessings and DUNAMIS!
Lisa

Anonymous said...

I believe WE can finish the job RFK started. I do not look to Sen. Obama to do the work that the American public needs to do.

I see Sen. Obama as a catalyst for activism and participation on the part of an American public that has been asleep at the wheel for the past decade or so.

Sen. Oabama strikes me as a thoughtful, bright and well balanced individual, but he is not my guide, nor do I want him to be an incarnation of anyone else.

He is one man and we have to be very careful about projecting onto him that which he is not or may never be. It is dangerous. I hope that he becomes POTUS because of his ability to galvanize and motivate.

He provides the vision, but the hard work will be up to us. It will involve us paying very close attn. to policy and decsions being made for us. It will involve a level of hard work we haven't engaged in for quite some time.

I look forward to the GE and what it will bring.

Mac Daddy Tribute Blog said...

"He is one man and we have to be very careful about projecting onto him that which he is not or may never be. It is dangerous."
Danielle: You're on the mark. And it is a dangerous thing: people thinking that Obama is the answer when, really, WE are the answer. But some of us want to cede our responsibility to politicians. We have to push these politicians to give us what WE want, and not allow them to compromise our wants and desires to the point that the bills they pass are meaningless. Blessings.