Ted Kennedy RIP

[strocube]

You know, if you wanna talk about terrorist organizations, lets start with the U.S. government. They are the largest supplier of arms in the world, and they've been involved in some of the most violent and brutal crimes against humanity this planet has ever seen.
The brits aren't much better, they've just been a bit quieter since the sun set on their empire. They had their run of perpetrating global ass-rape during the 18th and into the early 20th century, now it's the Americans.
Of course, Ted is being canonized, that's what happens when a famous politician dies. Whether or not you find this revolting or not depends to a large extent through which side of the political spectrum you happen to be viewing it form.
I was utterly angered and by the way old Ronnie Raygun's death and funeral were handled. I hated that son of a bitch, fascist prick, and wished I could've taken huge dump on his grave. I'm a socialist, so you know . . .
Same thing right now with Ted, the people on the more liberal end of the spectrum are sad to see him go and are mostly okay with whatever nice things people wanna say about him.
What do think is gonna happen when the shrub croaks? That's right, same fucking thing. The people on the left will be outraged and disgusted at all the hype and nonsense, and all people on the right( ) will be saying what a great president, and all around nice guy he was.

[Lefty]

(TTChang @ Aug. 28 2009,10:46) ....  More abusive shouting from LEFTY, coming soon  

Golly gee whiz, I am so terribly sorry to disappoint you TT, but I do not shout anything abusive or derogatory at Ramboz, no matter how we may disagree on any given subject. Because I respect the man as one of the kindest, most reliable and honest straight shooters you could ever meet. When Danno looks me in the eye and tells me he will do something, I know I can count on him following through if he possibly can. Can't say that for everyone I've gotten to know through my trips to Thailand.

I love Ramboz unconditionally. Whether we agree or not on all subjects.

[Lefty]

(strocube @ Aug. 28 2009,12:05) You know, if you wanna talk about terrorist organizations, lets start with the U.S. government. They are the largest supplier of arms in the world, and they've been involved in some of the most violent and brutal crimes against humanity this planet has ever seen.
The brits aren't much better, they've just been a bit quieter since the sun set on their empire. They had their run of perpetrating global ass-rape during the 18th and into the early 20th century, now it's the Americans.
Of course, Ted is being canonized, that's what happens when a famous politician dies. Whether or not you find this revolting or not depends to a large extent through which side of the political spectrum you happen to be viewing it form.
I was utterly angered and       by the way old Ronnie Raygun's  death and funeral were handled. I hated that son of a bitch, fascist prick, and wished I could've taken huge dump on his grave. I'm a socialist, so you know . . .
Same thing right now with Ted, the people on the more liberal end of the spectrum are sad to see him go and are mostly okay with whatever nice things people wanna say about him.
What do think is gonna happen when the shrub croaks?  That's right, same fucking thing. The people on the left will be outraged and disgusted at all the hype and nonsense, and all people on the right( ) will be saying what a great president, and all around nice guy he was.

Strocube, you are da man!! You continually impress me with your posts on subjects to do with world affairs, politics and history.

[bigmick22]

Unfortunately, everyone tends to look at something like this through the veil of their own prejudices

Little englanders will always refer to his republican sympathies

American Republicans will have a go at him because he's a kennedy

I see very little reference to his legislative record in the "debate"

Irish people will instinctively revere him because he's a Kennedy - same as american democrats

people clearly find it hard to be subjective

oh well

[PigDogg]

People are hardly ever objective but rather look for ways to advance their own agenda.

Case in point is the Supreme Court 2000 election decision.
5 votes agreeeing with the Bush position by right leaning justices and 4 votes agreeing with the Gore position by left leaning judges. Coincidence not.

[ladyboyluva]

Fawning over the power elite is just pathetic. It's like slaves pining for their master.

He made a career out of finding ways to steal money off productive people and shuffle it around spread the wealth with his politically connected buddies, all in the name of that disease known as socialism. That's what the goverment progaganda centers (child prisons and mainstream media) call progressivism.

It's just a shame most the other senators and congresscritters won't be jumping in the same hole with him.

[manarak]

and I'm sure he also participated in the HIV conspiracy!

[ladyboyluva]

(manarak @ Aug. 28 2009,17:37) and I'm sure he also participated in the HIV conspiracy!

Only idiots refer to a range of sceptical interpretations of causal factors as conspiracies.

Ted K was a big pusher for fed funded AIDS research and just about any other cause he could squeeze a few votes out of by stealing people's hard earned money.

I wouldn't be at all surprised if you're a big fan of the senator. You probably think totally socialized medicine is a good idea too eh?

[rxpharm]

strange comments from someone who doesn't live in the USA! Totally private medicine has not proven to be effective either - or do you forget the over 30 million in USA who cannot afford private insurance but don't qualify for medicare?

The more you post about your views on medicine, the more you reveal yourself to be a cherry picker of information that supports your view that anything to do with big organizations is corrupt. Of course there are corrupt companies and organizations around, but not all of them are.

With regard to Senator Kennedy - he's done some good things in life and some bad things, the same as anyone else on this planet. To focus only on the negatives reveals more about the person who is making the comments.

[ladyboyluva]

(rxpharm @ Aug. 28 2009,18:14) strange comments from someone who doesn't live in the USA! Totally private medicine has not proven to be effective either - or do you forget the over 30 million in USA who cannot afford private insurance but don't qualify for medicare?

The more you post about your views on medicine, the more you reveal yourself to be a cherry picker of information that supports your view that anything to do with big organizations is corrupt. Of course there are corrupt companies and organizations around, but not all of them are.

With regard to Senator Kennedy - he's done some good things in life and some bad things, the same as anyone else on this planet. To focus only on the negatives reveals more about the person who is making the comments.

Well, I follow US politics very closely and believe what happens there matters much more than what happens in my own country. We just play follow the leader.

FWIW, I agree 100% with strocube's post that lefty quoted above.

You can probably tell by my post that I think most politicians are criminals, albeit, sometimes with their hearts in the right place and their heads up their a$$es.

Serial killers also probably did a lot of nice things during their lives, but we don't talk about that at their funerals.

People who work everyday to kill the constitution ought to be shamed imho. The constitution was intended to restrain the powers of the federal government, Ted K worked his whole life to increase the power of the federal government. Hence, he was an ememy of the constitution and the intent of the founding fathers.

Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what's for lunch. Teddy K was a guy who spent his life organizing luncheons. That's when he wasn't leaving women to die. A class act? Not in my book.

Re- Organizations: I don't have a problem with organizations, I have a problem with government and fascism, that is, the aligning of big business with the state.

Regarding the economics of medicine, being a doctor alone doesn't give one the tools required to make have an informed opinion on the pros and cons of socialization of medicine. I'll take the opinion of the fine economist and doctor Ron Paul as a guide.

Granted it's not necessarily tasteful to malign the dead, but at a time when the media fawns so sickeningly over the emperors with no clothes, contrasting opinions need to get through so that the sheeples aren't hypnotised into permanent serfdom.

Regarding private insurance being so hard for many to afford, an effective solution requires economic analysis. Any economist with half a brain knows that the more government gets involved, the higher will be the costs and the lower will be the average quality of service. A totally free market in medicine is the best solution by far. The situation is not good today, because medicine is so highly regulated and licensed. The AMA is an absolute disgrace. The concept of government protected guilds is immoral and guarantees a lower standard of care and increased costs.

I could go on an on but I'm sure I've caused enough nausea already.

[smuttleydfs]

Straight from Wikipedia is what Ramboz is refering too:

Kennedy was born at St. Margaret's Hospital in the Dorchester section of Boston, Massachusetts, the youngest of nine children of Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr. and Rose Fitzgerald, who were both members of prominent Irish-American families in Boston.[5] His elder siblings include John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy, and Eunice Kennedy Shriver. John asked to be the newborn's godfather, a request his parents honored, though they did not agree to his request to name the baby George Washington Kennedy.[6]

Frequently uprooted as a child as his family moved among Bronxville, New York, Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, Palm Beach, Florida, and the Court of St. James's in London,[7] Kennedy attended ten different schools by the age of eleven.[5] At age seven, he received his First Communion from Pope Pius XII in the Vatican.[8] He spent sixth and seventh grades in the Fessenden School, where he was a mediocre student,[5] and eighth grade at Cranwell Preparatory School, both in Massachusetts.[7] His parents were affectionate toward him as the youngest child but also compared him unfavorably with his older brothers.[5] Between the ages of eight and sixteen he suffered the trauma of his sister Rosemary Kennedy's failed lobotomy and the deaths of his brother Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr. in World War II and sister Kathleen Agnes Kennedy in an airplane crash.[5] An early political and personal influence was his affable maternal grandfather, John "Honey Fitz" Fitzgerald, a former mayor of Boston and U.S. Representative.[5] Kennedy spent his four high school years at Milton Academy prep school, where his grades were ordinary and he did well at football.[7] He also played on the tennis and hockey teams and was in the drama, debate, and glee clubs.[5] He graduated from there in 1950.[9]

Kennedy entered Harvard College, and in his spring semester was assigned to the athlete-oriented Winthrop House, where his brothers had also lived.[10] He played as a large, fearless offensive and defensive end on the freshman football team.[5] In May 1951, anxious about maintaining his eligibility for athletics for the next year,[5] he had a friend who was knowledgeable on the subject take his Spanish language examination for him.[11] The two were quickly caught and expelled, but in a standard Harvard treatment for cases of this kind, they were told they could apply for readmission in a year or two after demonstrating good behavior.[11]

Kennedy enlisted in the United States Army in June 1951.[11] Following basic training at Fort Dix, he requested assignment to Fort Holabird for Army Intelligence training, but was dropped after a few weeks without explanation.[11] He went to Camp Gordon for training in the Military Police Corps.[11] In June 1952, he was assigned to the honor guard at SHAPE headquarters in Paris.[5][11] His father's political connections ensured he was not deployed to the ongoing Korean War.[5][12] While stationed in Europe he travelled extensively on weekends and climbed the Matterhorn.[13] He was discharged in March 1953 as a private first class.[11][13]

He re-entered Harvard in summer 1953 and improved his study habits.[5] He joined the Owl Club in 1954;[14] he was also chosen for the Hasty Pudding Club and the Pi Eta fraternity.[15] On athletic probation during his sophomore year, he returned as a second-string end for Harvard Crimson football during his junior year and barely missed earning his varsity letter.[16] Nevertheless, he received a recruiting feeler from Green Bay Packers head coach Lisle Blackbourn, asking about his interest in playing professionally.[17] Kennedy demurred, saying he had plans to attend law school and to "go into another contact sport, politics."[18] Kennedy became a starting end on the Harvard Crimson football team in his senior year, working hard to improve his blocking and tackling to complement his 6-foot 2-inch, 200-pound size.[13] In the 1955 Harvard-Yale game, which Yale won 21€“7, Kennedy caught Harvard's only touchdown pass.[13] He graduated from Harvard in 1956[9] with a B.A. in history and government.[19]

Kennedy enrolled in the University of Virginia School of Law in 1956,[5] and also attended the Hague Academy of International Law during 1958.[9] At Virginia he was in the middle of the class ranking but was the winner of the prestigious William Minor Lile Moot Court Competition.[5][20] While there, his fast automotive habits were curtailed when he was charged with reckless driving and driving without a license.[5] He was officially manager of his brother John's 1958 Senate re-election campaign, and Ted's ability to connect to ordinary voters on the street helped bring a record-setting victory margin that gave credibility to John's presidential aspirations.[21] Kennedy graduated from law school in 1959.[9]


Now if that hasn't put you to sleep a quick quiz.....

What recent presidential candidate rode Admiral Daddy and Admiral Granddaddy's coattails into the Navy, graduated second to last in his class, caused shipmates to die due to his pisspoor flying skills, and signed war crime confessions to the N Vietnamese?

Next question ......what recent president was put in pilot school of the air national guard because his WWII war hero daddy pulled strings to get him in despite pisspoor scores and poor attendance because he was drug abuser and a drunk?

Point is every politico has skeletons and dirt and most have used family influence to get where they are.............It's what they have done beyond that matters

[ramboz]

You tellem' Smuttley !!!

Danno

[kathylc]

Bush elected to join the ANG on his own..why not, thousands of others did it and he rose above the rank of Private unlike Teddy Fat man Kennedy. All the Kennedys think they are above reproach and uses their influence and political power and money to get they what they want or need. Its no wonder it only took a short period of time to get fat Ted ready for his funeral, as he was 9/10's of the way embalmed with booze since he was weaned off his mother.......He has got to be one of the worlds biggest drunks and hipocrites. He only did what benefited him in some shape form or fashion, and to gain one more vote for the next go around.

[smuttleydfs]

Your posts have become too pathetic to even respond to kathy graduated to "no class"

[Torurot]

Teddy Kennedy the Hollow Champion
http://counterpunch.org/cockburn08282009.html
By ALEXANDER COCKBURN Weekend Edition August 28-30, 2009 CounterPunch Diary

Teddy Kennedy's disasters were vivid. His legislative triumphs, draped in this week's obituaries with respectful homage, were far less colorful but they were actually devastating for the very constituencies €“ working people, organized labor €“ whose champion he claimed to be.

He had the most famous car accident in political history when he drove off a wooden bridge on Chappaquiddick Island in July 1969, saying later that he had failed in several attempts to dive down 10ft to rescue Mary Jo Kopechne, a former aide of his dead brother Robert. She was in the back seat and drowned.

Ted quit the scene and called in standby Kennedy speechwriters instead of the police, a misdemeanor which cost him a two-month suspended sentence and any chance of ever following his brother Jack into the White House.
He made only one overt bid for the presidency and that was a colorful disaster too. He challenged the Democratic incumbent, Jimmy Carter, then seeking re-election in 1980. After three years, the left in the Democratic Party was bitterly disappointed in Carter's cautious centrism and Kennedy placed himself in the left's vanguard, declaring in a famous speech that "sometimes a party must sail against the wind".

In those days I was reporting on national politics for the /Village Voice/ and /Rolling Stone/ and covered Kennedy's bid. It got off to a shaky start when Roger Mudd of NBC, a well-known political reporter and TV newscaster, asked Ted on prime time why he wanted to be president. The thirty seconds of silence that followed this easy lob didn't help Kennedy's chances.
The campaign plane shot backwards and forwards across America, seeking photo opportunities. On one typical morning we left Washington DC at 6am and headed for the rustbelt where Kennedy stood outside a shuttered Pittsburgh steel mill and pledged to get the steel industry back on its feet. We shot west to Nebraska so Kennedy could stand in front of a corn silo and swear allegiance to the cause €“ utterly doomed - of the small family farmer. Then we doubled back to New York so he could stand on a street corner in a slum neighborhood in the Bronx and promise a better deal for urban blacks and Hispanics.

I asked one of Kennedy's campaign people why they didn't simply equip a studio in Washington with the necessary backdrops €“ steel mill, silo, urban wasteland €“ but he said it wouldn't be honest. As things were, the locations we flew to may have been genuine, but the campaign pledges were as dishonest as a studio backdrop, which is why Kennedy €“ bellowing out his speeches like a mammoth stuck in a swamp - sounded utterly fake.

By 1980 the die was cast. Disdaining the leftward option offered by George McGovern in 1972, the Democratic Party had thrown in its lot decisively with Wall Street, and the big players across the American corporate landscape. The labor unions and the other foot-soldier constituencies of the Party, would be flung rhetorical bouquets with decreasing fervor every four years.

Though the obituarists have glowingly evoked Kennedy's 46-year stint in the US Senate and, as 'the last liberal', his mastery of the legislative process, they miss the all-important fact that it was out of Kennedy's Senate office that came two momentous slabs of legislation that signalled the onset of the neo-liberal era: deregulation of trucking and aviation. They were a disaster for organized labor and the working conditions and pay of people in those industries.

The theorists of deregulation were Stephen Breyer who was Kennedy's chief counsel on the Senate Judiciary Committee and Alfred Kahn, out of Cornell. Prominent on Kennedy€™s dereg team was David Boies. Breyer now sits on the US Supreme Court, an unswerving shill for the corporate sector.

In the mid to late 1970s these Kennedy rent-a-thinkers began to tout deregulation as the answer to low productivity and bureaucratic and corporate inertia. Famous at that time was a screed by Breyer, then a Harvard Law School professor, quantifying such things as environmental pollution in terms of assessable and fungible €œrisks€ which could be bought and sold in the market place. (The Natural Resources Defense Council, adorned by Ted€™s nephew, Robert Kennedy Jr., has long espoused this disastrous approach.)

The two prongs of Kennedy€™s deregulatory attack €“ later decorated with the political label €œneo-liberalism€ €“ were aimed at airlines and trucking, and Kennedy€™s man, Alfred Kahn was duly installed by Jimmy Carter at the Civil Aeronautics Board to introduce the cleansing winds of competition into the industry. By and large, airline deregulation went down well with the press and, for a time, with the public, who rejoiced in the bargains offered by the small fry such as People€™s Express, and by the big fry striking back. The few critics who said that within a few years the nation would be left with five or six airlines, oligopoly and higher fares, were mostly ignored.

No one ever really wrote about the terrible effects of trucking deregulation outside the left press. It was certainly the most ferocious anti-labor move of the 1970s, with Kennedy as the driving force. Some of Kennedy€™s aides promptly reaped the fruits of their legislative labors, leaving the Hill to make money hand over fist trying to break unions on behalf of Frank Lorenzo, the Texan entrepreneur who ran the Texas Air Corporation and its properties, Continental Airlines and its subsidiary, Eastern.

Did Kennedy fight, might and main, against NAFTA? No. As Steve Early relates in his piece http://counterpunch.org/early08282009.html on this site today, he was for it and helped Clinton ratify the job-losing Agreement. Then he put his shoulder behind GATT, parent of the World Trade Agreement.

We also have Kennedy to thank for 'No Child Left Behind' €“ the nightmarish education act pushed through in concert with Bush Jr's White House, that condemns children to a treadmill of endless tests contrived as "national standards".

And it was Kennedy who was the prime force behind the Hate Crimes Bill, aka the Matthew Shepard Act, by dint of which America is well on its way to making it illegal to say anything nasty about gays, Jews, blacks and women. "Hate speech," far short of any direct incitement to violence, is on the edge of being criminalized, with the First Amendment going the way of the dodo.

The deadly attacks on the working class and on organized labor are Ted Kennedy€™s true monument. But as much as his brothers Jack and Bobby he was adept at persuading the underdogs that he was on their side. If it hadn€™t been for Kennedy, a lot more people would have health coverage . In 1971 Nixon, heading into his relection bid, put up the legislative ancestor of all recent Democratic proposals, but Kennedy shot it down, preferring to have this as his campaign plank sometime in the political future.

After reelection, Nixon did promote a health plan in his 1974 State of the Union speech, with a call for universal access to health insurance. He followed up with his Comprehensive Health Insurance Act on February 6, 1974. Nixon said his plan would build on existing employer-sponsored insurance plans and would provide government subsidies to the self-employed and small businesses to ensure universal access to health insurance. Kennedy went through the motions of cooperation, but in the end the AFL-CIO, with a covert nudge from Kennedy, killed the bill because Nixon was vanishing under the Watergate scandal and the Democrats did not want to hand the President and the Republicans one of their signature issues. Now the Republicans scream €œsocialism€ at exactly what Nixon proposed and Kennedy killed off 38 years ago, in 1971.

To this day there are deluded souls who argue that Jack was going to pull US troops out of Vietnam and that is why he was killed; that Bobby, who worked for Roy Cohn and supervised a "Murder Inc" in the Caribbean, was really and truly on the side of the angels; that Ted was the mighty champion of the working people, even though he helped deliver them into the inferno of neoliberalism.

By his crucial endorsement last year he helped give them Obama too, now holidaying six miles from Chappaquiddick, on Martha's Vineyard, another salesman for the inferno. But because his mishaps were so dramatic, few remember quite how toxic his political €œtriumphs€ were for those who now foolishly mourn him as their lost leader.