Just Saw "Bobby"...

[DemocratSinceBirth]

I was reluctant to see it because I knew how it ended and didn't like the ending the first time I saw it ... I remember watching it on tv as a nine year old boy and walking around the next day with a transistor radio "glued" to my ear listening to the updates on his condition.

I was privileged to have shaken RFK's hand when I was six years old. My mom took me to the front of a rope line when he was running for senator of New York...


The movie reminded me of how our current leaders seems small in comparison to him and I have to say I include leaders from our own party. He had magic...


The movie was great...What a cast... Anthony Hopkins, Harry Belafonte, Laurence Fishburne, Sharon Stone, William Macy, Ashton Kutcher, Demi Moore, Lindsey Lohan,etcetera, Actors and actresses from three generations....

[Taverner]

1. I used to like RFK until I studied how conservative he was

Bill O'Leilly calls him a role model.

That doesn't surprise me.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

2. How Was He Conservative?

And we need to judge him by the standards of his time, not contemporary standards...

[Taverner]

3. As AG he was very anti-union

Busted up a lot of unions, and there's a reason Hoffa hated him.

He was also a big time cold warrior...that was until he reinvented himself for '72...

I don't really like any of the Kennedy's save Ted, and even then he bows to his constituents (which is OK because I happen to agree with most of his constituents)

[DemocratSinceBirth]

5. Hoffa Was Corrupt...

And who commuted Hoffa's sentence?

[Taverner]

6. Hoffa was corrupt, but the Teamsters were forced into corruption

And Union Corruption is a little different than MIC-Corporate Corruption.

Brother-In-Law's get sweet jobs in Union Corruption, People die in Corporate Corruption.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

7. The other way around....

Hoffa's death is a perfect example of how tough they played...

[Taverner]

8. How do you know it was the Teamsters who offed him? n/t

[DemocratSinceBirth]

10. Don't Know

Organized crime's influence
Organized crime had been active in some Teamster locals, particularly in the garment industry in New York City, as early as the 1920s. Labor racketeers made inroads in other cities, such as Chicago, Cleveland, Kansas City and Detroit, in the 1930s. Hoffa and other Teamster leaders made strategic alliances with organized crime, in deals that benefited both the Mafia and its associates, who obtained sweetheart deals, and the union leaders, who received kickbacks and other forms of assistance.

In many cases organized crime played an even more direct role. Hoffa depended on the support of a number of "paper locals" from New York established by Johnny Dioguardi, an associate of the Lucchese crime family, in running for the presidency of the Teamsters in 1957. Other locals were likewise controlled by racketeers, which exploited them by skimming dues, creating "no-show jobs" for associates, and extorting employers and selling sweetheart contracts. In some industries, such as garbage hauling in New York, the line between union and employer became blurred, as both sides might be controlled by the same crime family.

The reports of corruption, given nationwide publicity by the McClellan Committee, led the AFL-CIO to expel the Teamsters in 1957. Ironically, the McClellan Committee only served to strengthen the role of organized crime in the IBT by bringing about the conviction of Dave Beck, Tobin's successor as General President, for tax evasion and misuse of union funds. At the 1957 IBT convention held in Miami Beach, Florida, Jimmy Hoffa was elected president of the union, which then had 1.5 million members. Another response by the union to its expulsion from the AFL-CIO was to raid other unions' jurisdictions, and expand by organizing manufacturing, service and public sector workers. At the same time, the AFL-CIO fought back by organizing some of its own unions as alternatives to the teamsters' unions, e.g., the Laundry and Dry Cleaning International Union.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teamsters_Union

Don't know... Just know they played rough...

I'd rather have a beef with Bernie Ebbers than Jimmy Hoffa...

[Taverner]

13. Ken Lay ended up dead. Cliff Baxter ended up dead. n/t

[DemocratSinceBirth]

15. Of A Heart Attack

We don't even have a corpus delicti with Jimmy Hoffa...

[Taverner]

28. Yeah... and Sirhan Sirhan really killed RFK....

Which I don't beleive either...

[DemocratSinceBirth]

29. I Don't See The Nexus

I don't see the nexus between Ken Lay's heart attack and Sirhan Sirhan putting a cap behind RFK's ear...

And unlike the King or JFK assassination you literally had witnesses within inches of the shooter...

[Taverner]

30. Actually with SS it's the why that troubles me

I don't think he acted alone.

But I'm pretty sure KL's heart attack was not natural. The timing is too coincidental.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

31. If Sirhan Had Accomplices

He's had forty years to spill the beans...

There's nothing in the press even the alternative press to suggest Kenny Boy's death wasn't what it appeared to be...

[stansnark]

34. sirhan doesn't remember anything

[H2O Man]

11. Oh, please.

He was not anti-union. That is silly.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

14. Affirmed

On 19th February, 1968, Cesar Chavez, the trade union leader, began a hunger strike in protest against the violence being used against his members in California. Robert F. Kennedy went to the San Joaquin Valley to give Chavez his support and told waiting reporters: “I am here out of respect for one of the heroic figures of our time – Cesar Chavez. I congratulate all of you who are locked with Cesar in the struggle for justice for the farm worker and in the struggle for justice for Spanish-speaking Americans.”

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAkennedyR.htm

[DemocratSinceBirth]

16. Hoffa Was Wittingly Or Unwittingly Assisting Anti-Union Forces By Associating Them With Corruption

Hoffa was eventually charged with corruption. Kennedy claimed that Hoffa had misappropriated $9.5 million in union funds and had corruptly done deals with employers. However, the jury found Hoffa not guilty. George Meany, president of the AFL-CIO, did not agree with the verdict and Hoffa and the Teamsters Union were expelled from the association.

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAkennedyR.htm

[DemocratSinceBirth]

19. Too Bad He Didn't Live To Reinvent Himself For 72

"He was also a big time cold warrior...that was until he reinvented himself for '72..."

[TomClash]

21. Bobby as AG was very different from the Bobby who ran for President in '68

Many unions in 1968 were not progressive and kept people of color out of the union - an exception was the UAW which supported Bobby Kennedy.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

24. Plus It Was Unions And Joe Kennedy's Money That Turned The Pivotal

West Virginia Primary In 1960 For JFK...

That showed a Catholic could win in a predominately Protestant state..

[hedgehog]

25. Busted up a lot of unions?

My parents tell me stories of steel workers getting shot In Youngstown and have showed me the place. Believe me, if Bobby had been anti-union I would have heard about it.

As for being a Cold Warrior, I believe he was instrumental in helping the US back down from the confrontation with Russia during the Cuban Missile Crisis. If anyone understood the need to end the Cold War, it was Bobby.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

4. Of Course The Right Wants To Appropriate The "Martyred Kennedys"

eom

[tblue]

9. I think Bobby grew into greatness. He answered a call, and that's why he's remembered

with so much undying admiration. Was he pure and perfect? No. Will we ever know if he would have lived up to our ideals? No. Can we still love what we imagined him to be? Hell, yeah, and many of us always will.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

12. He Wasn't A Cardboard Saint.

but the empathy he displayed for the underdog was real...

Despite his wealth and the protection it gives most of those who have it he was intimately acquainted with loss unimiaginable...

[tblue]

17. Amen. 1000x Amen. His recorded speeches are timeless and truly penetrating.

[hedgehog]

26. Not only that, but they meant something.

Rhetoric in this country al too often sounds pretty but ultimately means nothing. Reagan was a champ at this and I think Clinton is a runner-up. Contrast their carefully crafted feel good speeches to Bobby's off-the-cuff remarks the night Dr. King was murdered.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

27. Listen

http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/rfkonmlkdeath.html

[tblue]

35. Or one I have on tape somewhere where Bobby said we should oppose apartheid because it's the right

thing to do. No more justification necessary. When was the last time you heard a pol say that?

[TomClash]

22. Like FDR

You hit it exactly.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

23. Interesting

FDR's empathy grew from being physically challenged and RFK's empathy grew from witnessing his brother's violent death...

RFK was a very different man before and after JFK's death...

[EVDebs]

18. "Our current leaders..." are shills for corporate interests and oil nt

[Crap_in_a_Hat]

20. As a film geek,

the cast has me psyched. Not a big fan of Estevez's acting, but some of the best actors out there (or up there, i.e. Orson Welles)dabble in directing, or vice-versa.

[Orangepeel]

32. I really like it, despite the horrible reviews

After reading some reviews, I went in to the theater thinking that it would suck, but that I'd like seeing the footage. Turns out, I thought it was really good.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

33. I Liked Laurence Fishburne And Freddy Rodriguez

And they were he was woven into the film.

I once read what happened to that busboy but I forgot