How to choose a POTUS

Listening, off and on, to the Congressional hearings today, it's obvious to me just how far wrong we've gone in our choice for president. One of my favorite politicians, from a short list, to be sure, was and remains Robert F. Kennedy. I mention this because, come November 3, 2020, we have the opportunity and responsibility to again vote for a President of the United States. As all too often occurs, the Democrats, with an abundance of announced candidates, seem more committed to destroying each other than defeating the Republicans. Several of the Democratic presidential candidates, in my opinion, would better serve our country by running for the Senate and helping to flip that from Red to Blue. The idea of an unemployed Mitch McConnell leaves me giddy. For reasons beyond my comprehension, his campaign was foolish enough to ask me for a donation. When Hell freezes over with me in it! Where were we? Oh, yeah, thinking about RFK and voting for a president.

two eagles: should we choose one on appearance alone?

Photo by J. Harrington

I believe, but will never know nor can prove, RFK would have made a fantastic president. He ran in a time before we were embroiled in Russian interference, collusion, climate breakdown, the sixth extinction and a variety of similar issues. He never lived to finish his campaign, but demonstrated a compassion and farsightedness that would have served us well, then or now. This morning I once again skimmed through a speech he gave, one with some of the best articulations I've ever read about what we need to address the issues we faced then, and must confront now. Here's one of my favorite excerpts:

For we as a people, we as a people, are strong enough, we are brave enough to be told the truth of where we stand.  This country needs honesty and candor in its political life and from the President of the United States.  But I don't want to run for the presidency - I don't want America to make the critical choice of direction and leadership this year without confronting that truth.  I don't want to win support of votes by hiding the American condition in false hopes or illusions.  I want us to find out the promise of the future, what we can accomplish here in the United States, what this country does stand for and what is expected of us in the years ahead.  And I also want us to know and examine where we've gone wrong.  And I want all of us, young and old, to have a chance to build a better country and change the direction of the United States of America.

Clearly that is almost the antithesis of today's politics and has monumental relevance for next year's choices, but it's not the part of that speech that most resonates with me. That part is the following:

If we believe that we, as Americans, are bound together by a common concern for each other, then an urgent national priority is upon us.  We must begin to end the disgrace of this other America.
   
And this is one of the great tasks of leadership for us, as individuals and citizens this year.  But even if we act to erase material poverty, there is another greater task, it is to confront the poverty of satisfaction - purpose and dignity - that afflicts us all.  Too much and for too long, we seemed to have surrendered personal excellence and community values in the mere accumulation of material things.  Our Gross National Product, now, is over $800 billion dollars a year, but that Gross National Product - if we judge the United States of America by that - that Gross National Product counts air pollution and cigarette advertising, and ambulances to clear our highways of carnage.  It counts special locks for our doors and the jails for the people who break them.  It counts the destruction of the redwood and the loss of our natural wonder in chaotic sprawl.  It counts napalm and counts nuclear warheads and armored cars for the police to fight the riots in our cities.  It counts Whitman's rifle and Speck's knife, and the television programs which glorify violence in order to sell toys to our children.  Yet the gross national product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education or the joy of their play.  It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages, the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials.  It measures neither our wit nor our courage, neither our wisdom nor our learning, neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country, it measures everything in short, except that which makes life worthwhile.  And it can tell us everything about America except why we are proud that we are Americans.

Henceforward, I will use these values, and those contained in the rest of the speech, as the basis on which I will judge each and every politician, and political cause, that seeks my vote or support. The excerpts are taken from Remarks at the University of Kansas, March 18, 1968. They don't make it immediately obvious which candidate warrants my support, but they do make it absolutely clear how I can go about deciding. That's more than I had this time yesterday. I'm grateful for that progress and suggest you wouldn't go too far wrong following the same course of action. Support those, and only those, who demonstrate the honesty and integrity and wisdom that Robert Kennedy displayed.

Once the World Was Perfect

By Joy Harjo

Once the world was perfect, and we were happy in that world.

Then we took it for granted.

Discontent began a small rumble in the earthly mind.

Then Doubt pushed through with its spiked head.

And once Doubt ruptured the web,

All manner of demon thoughts

Jumped through—

We destroyed the world we had been given

For inspiration, for life—

Each stone of jealousy, each stone

Of fear, greed, envy, and hatred, put out the light.

No one was without a stone in his or her hand.

There we were,

Right back where we had started.

We were bumping into each other

In the dark.

And now we had no place to live, since we didn't know

How to live with each other.

Then one of the stumbling ones took pity on another

And shared a blanket.

A spark of kindness made a light.

The light made an opening in the darkness.

Everyone worked together to make a ladder.

A Wind Clan person climbed out first into the next world,

And then the other clans, the children of those clans, their children,

And their children, all the way through time—

To now, into this morning light to you.

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