On 1/16/06, Tom C <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Not taking anything away from what you said Frank. But I wonder... if they > hadn't been assasinated, would they be viewed as such stellar figures? We > shall never know as their works ended abrubtly. >
You're right. Here's my thoughts (not that you asked...): I think that RFK would have won the Democratic ticket in '68. Had he done so, I think he'd have beaten Nixon. He'd have gotten the US out of Vietnam much faster than Nixon was able to. He'd have also brought in comprehensive social programmes. He'd have increased US support for Israel. How all of those things would have played out is hard to say. I think the US (for better or worse?) would have been a far different place than it is today. As for MLK Jr., that's harder to say. By the time of his assassination, he was increasingly being seen as "old guard" in the Civil Rights Movement. More radical groups and individuals were pushing him out of the spotlight somewhat. The inner cities of the US were burning, and he and his fellow-advocates of non-violence didn't seem to have any answers to that. In any event, all I was thinking (even if I didn't quite say it <g>) is that the assassination of those two figures changed America in a way that we will never fully comprehend: for better or worse, who knows? What I do know is that Martin Luther King accomplished more in his 39 years than most of us could accomplish in 10 lifetimes. No matter how his legacy might have changed were he not assassinated, his life speaks for itself; in my eyes he was one of the towering figures in the 20th Century (or any other century, for that matter). cheers, frank -- "Sharpness is a bourgeois concept." -Henri Cartier-Bresson
