“For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die.”
— Edward M. Kennedy
Four brothers died serving our country.
Ted Kennedy, like his three brothers before him, took public service to mean just that: serving his country.
Ted Kennedy, like his three brothers before him, took public service to mean just that: serving his country.
It hurts to say anything negative when posting a tribute (and I’ll probably delete this after the emotions ease), but the contrast with Ted Kennedy and his family’s public service and too many in public office today is startling. The health care debate, as just one example, is a Freak-Show. It is a sickening Freak-Show of elected officials using the opportunity of public service to enrich insurance companies, escalate the violence of class warfare and take health care even further out of reach of the average American.
I know the TV and radio will be filled with members of the Republican Caucus of the U.S. Senate paying tribute to their “dear” colleague. The pain of it will be unbearable. Each and every one — literally – each and everyone one of them has spent the entire session of congress committing class warfare. Each and every one of them has spent the entire session of congress – many of them their careers – committing class warfare against the people they represent while enriching fraudulent insurance companies and criminal banking enterprises and sending their sons and daughters to fight in wars of oil opportunity.
What kind of country have we become? Today, as we pay tribute, how can we look ourselves in the mirror and bear to acknowledge the contrast between what Ted Kennedy stood for and what the Republicans and corporatist Democrats in the U.S. Senate are standing against?
Like I said, it hurts too much to even talk about this in a tribute but to me, it sums up so much of what this man’s life has meant. It sums up so much of what he and his family sacrificed and why they did and why we need so many more like them.
Thank you Ted Kennedy.
Thank you brothers Joe, John and Bobby. Thank you sister Eunice.
Slán agus beannacht leat
I think of the title of a book
We were soldiers once…..and young
Its a very moving VietNam book.
They weren’t soldiers but somehow the title fits the image of those three young men taken so long ago.
I hope to avoid the hypocrites who will stand up and bloviate about Ted Kennedy.
He was an amazing Senator. He was always in the fight and the fight was always in him.
The sole survivor of that Kennedy gen is now Jean Kennedy Smith. I can’t imagine her pain.
Neither can I imagine the Senate without Ted. It all seems unreal.
You hit it right on the head, Ted was the last of a dying breed of people who served this country in government, and treated it as a patriotic duty and honor to help those less fortunate, and to actually do a good job at the work of creating effective legislation and building consensus.
There are not many like that these days, most are hamming for the cameras, playing to the lowest common denominator or thinking about their next fundraiser.
Who among even the Dems has the vision and passion that Kennedy displayed for 40 years?
Thanks for that picture. It is heartwrenching to look at it. Young teddy is the only one of the Kennedy brothers to pass on from natural causes and not a bullet or an explosion. All three of them in that picture tried to help the helpless in America, the victims of capitalism, our our social and political culture, that is now showing through again in the health care mess to spite a black president, the first one, and spite us. We will surely miss Kennedy for all that he has done on our behalf.
“What kind of country have we become? Today, as we pay tribute, how can we look ourselves in the mirror and bear to acknowledge the contrast between what Ted Kennedy stood for and what the Republicans and corporatist Democrats in the U.S. Senate are standing against?”
That is a good question. this nation has given itself over to our darker side, our grim vestige of all the demons that have haunted us in the past — slavery, the horrid industrial revolution here, the robber baron era — and what this nation has supposedly stood for, has been sold out to the highest bidders. Who will this nation turn to now to save us from ourselves if that is possible? Obama is trying.