Sunday, January 20, 2008

40 years of shame

On April 5th, 1968 Robert F. Kennedy's delivered a speech called " the mindless menace of violence in America"
The following is in my opinion the most powerful part of an overall great speech:

"When you teach a man to hate and fear his brother, when you teach that he is a
lesser man because of his color or his beliefs or the policies he pursues, when
you teach that those who differ from you threaten your freedom or your job or
your family, then you also learn to confront others not as fellow citizens but
as enemies – to be met not with cooperation but with conquest, to be subjugated
and mastered.
We learn, at the last, to look at our bothers as aliens, men
with whom we share a city, but not a community, men bound to us in common
dwelling, but not in common effort. We learn to share only a common fear – only
a common desire to retreat from each other – only a common impulse to meet
disagreement with force. For all this there are no final answers."


RFK started his speech saying "This is a time of shame and sorrow"
He could have delivered this speech this morning and it would still hold the same validity; the same truth as is did 40 years ago.
He could have delivered this speech to every nation in the world today and it would still hold the same validity; the same truth as it did for the US.

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