Open letter to Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Dear Robert,
I am moved write you this urgent note, as your candidacy creates both a sense of hope and foreboding!
I was a young student at Harvard in 1963 – 64, one of many inspired by the speeches of President John F. Kennedy. But then came his tragic death in Dallas, and the death of your father during his run for the presidency! Will we see history repeating itself? The danger exists, as I am sure you realize! You are in the prayers of millions!
Excuse my boldness in sharing some of my thoughts! I have read your major opus on dr. F (should that be Faustus?), and the Letter to Liberals. I agree, there is so much that needs to change in the US, if the country is to continue in its leadership of democracy! Clearly, leadership based on wars will not win in a world where two major countries, China, and Russia, are more powerful as a military block.
Surely, a new philosophical approach must be in order!
The goal should be to create the type of society such as, no doubt, your Founding Fathers envisaged. And the roots of American democracy bear recalling.
There was, first, a strong element of European tradition.
As much as many seem to vilify that tradition today, smearing all European history as racist, there were bloody battles domestically between different levels of society that eventually resulted in constitutional monarchies, and laws to protect ordinary citizens. There were not many countries world wide like that!
In early America there were also other roots, that are unknown to many of us. I had no idea, until I read Indian Roots of American Democracy that the Iroquois system of administering their affairs were as significant to the development of the wonderful US Constitution as they were!
Photo source: www.openlibrary.org
In fact, in some ways the Indigenous nations were ahead of Europe. That is particularly so in the position of women in their society. While European societies saw women as chattels of the males in the family, the Indian women were seen as equal, if not superior!
Since the original inhabitants of North America lived here for ten thousand years without destroying their habitat, we urgently need to learn from them! Where is the balance to true sustainability?
We hear much about a multipolar world today. The real path to American leadership is not in the military realm, but in a renewed liberty, where the dignity of humans, indeed respect for all life, is paramount!
You have spoken eloquently about what needs to happen to return to democracy from the current plutocracy which is increasingly choking not just the US but Canada and Europe as well!
Over the last few years, I have watched in horror a form of global Neo-communism rising here in Canada, with continued mandates of toxic injections, and the persecution of all truth sayers! This is not why my parents brought me to Canada, escaping the communist takeover of Czechoslovakia in 1948!
China is definitely not a free and democratic society, and we really know little factual about Russia, the democracy that America stood for in the past is where America’s future policies must go.
Unfortunately, China has the most brilliant expansionist policies that the world has seen. She is clearly following one of their many wise old sayings: “the best war is won without firing a single shot”! And she is winning country after country by means of economic ties that are beneficial not just to China but to the various countries on her long-term expansion plan!
Sadly, here in Canada the government is making the mistake of believing that China’s success is not due to intelligent planning, but to their undemocratic system. As a result we are seeing one democratic and constitutional right after another cut!
We must not give up on democracy, that many thousands fought and died for, over centuries! The US is facing a similar danger.
Constitutional freedoms are not just a piece paper (as President Bush so famously said!) Citizens must be able to truly practice them, for without genuinely free debates, examining all sides of issues, any talk of democracy is false and futile! All citizens must be truly heard by their government and their wishes must be reflected in policies!
For example: how can anyone not be aware of the shocking disparities of wealth in this richest of countries? How is it possible that there is homelessness, when some have incomes in the billions of dollars? Might income tax reform not be in order to fix this scandal?
I agree with many other issues you have raised, especially the destruction of our physical environment, and public health. Here again a great deal of broad and free debate is necessary! There are many qualified technical and scientific minds who have been tarred with spreading “disinformation”, when they were proposing real solutions!
In closing let me apologize for intruding on your campaign. When I met your father at Harvard’s Robinson Hall in 1964, while working on my MLA degree, I had no idea, as I shook his hand, that I would be writing you this letter nearly 60 years later!
“May the Divine Force be with you” and keep you safe!
EL
