Written in 1999, end of the millennium looming. I was 46, with teenage children and an unhappy marriage and miserable, feeling trapped in the state of Maine, and I hadn’t written much in a long time. At some point, on February 15th, I decided I needed to start a writing project, a collection of writings, to see what would come out.
And come out it did. This is the first of the works, which went on for the better part of two years and was still being added to as late as 2005. Work that saw me through major life changes that altered my life in almost inconceivable ways: divorce, remarriage, separation and estrangement from my children, cross-country relocation; a total uprooting. And behind it all the writing went on.
And this the first. The sense of depression is apparent, but the ennui of Feb 15, 1999 seems to shoehorn onto the current situation in our country to a T.
Feb 15, 1999
My, aren't these times of avarice and larceny, lies so sweet in the telling. Crawling to the end of the twentieth century, Weary, corrupt, abysmally vain.
Aren't these times of millennial stupor. America, you're the last superpower and you're Unwilling to feed your children or cure your sick, Unwilling to house your homeless, And unwilling, still, to put down your arms.
I am taking my grimy shoulder from the wheel. The haves have it all now (and the have-nots have nothing, Not even a voice).
No one asked me my millennial plans, But just to let you know, I’m going to climb behind the wheel Of my '62 Thunderbird and drive all night, Dodging gangsters and comets, And set the A.M. dial To WABC out of NYC, and dream of BB King and Pink Floyd, Psychedelic Blues scrambling down black night Millennial streets, Hoping for the rise of some new dawn.
The punks were right with their spike pink hair And vivid tattoos. America you wouldn't listen to reason and now here we are, Our heroes Are gone mad or died. We're left with jaded dreams and we're refugees from the war. The only winners were Madison Ave, And the few haves.
My spirit of cooperation died with my illusions. Now I live in the America of my imagination, by choice. America everywhere I turn Your face so ugly, derelict and unkempt, The arrogance revealed, your mean and callous disregard Spilled from every pore, Bleeding from screaming repulsive headlines of a butcher's wetdream newspaper.
Aren't these days of avarice. The wheel has turned. I've dreamt it wasn't always this way, I've dreamt of tolerance, civility, And I even dreamt once of compassion, but it was Long ago.
Aren't these days of malicious intent. The smell rises up unmistakable, the wafting scent Of sheep led to slaughter, That earthy stench of blood and sheepshit. As the bile rises The bleating deafens, air pierced with the shrill panicky cry Stumbling and reeling from the scene of the crime, And the rest of the wretched weak are buried In shallow graves.
There has been no more consequential presidential election than 1968. That American election was not decided at the polls. The election of 1968 was decided on June 5th, by the gun that was fired at point-blank range into Robert Francis Kennedy skull, just behind his right ear, killing him.
Robert Kennedy’s death enabled Richard Nixon’s presidency.
If the popular Kennedy had not been murdered, he would have handily beaten Nixon.
What is happening in our country right now, the destruction of our fragile democracy by an ultra-right wing and racist republican party intent on removing our constitutional rights freedoms. our access to health care, restricting free speech, punishing the poor and enriching the rich, building concentration camps in foreign countries and in Florida to imprison citizens and immigrants kidnapped off the streets without due process, breaking the rule of law, ignoring the constitution, rewriting and whitewashing our own history with lies; all directly tied to the election of 1968.
We would not be here had Bobby Kennedy lived.
Bobby Kennedy was murdered on the day he won the California Presidential primary. The very day it was determined, by electoral representation, that he would be the next Democratic candidate for the presidency. He had given his victory speech to a exultant crowd of supporters at the Ambassador hotel in Los Angeles, and was being escorted through a back pantry by a part-time security guard, a recent hire named Thane Eugene Cesar. Witnesses told police that they had seen the security guard holding his gun. Cesar admitted to police he’d pulled his weapon. Thane Eugene Cesar was never treated as a suspect by the LAPD. He was never detained. He was never investigated.
The murder of Bobby Kennedy was, shockingly, left largely to the Los Angeles Police Department. There was an assist by the FBI.
The Los Angeles Police Department rushed to judgment, berating witnesses offering statements which differed from the narrative they determined the story to be. They destroyed evidence. The forensics did not match the narrative.
The murder of Robert Kennedy should be reopened as a cold case. It has not been solved. Indeed, everything I thought I knew about the case has been proved wrong.
Bobby Kennedy was a sure bet to beat the perennially unpopular candidacy of Richard Nixon. JFK beat Nixon handily in 1960. Bobby Kennedy would have demolished Nixon in ’68. Kennedy was adamant about stopping the war in Vietnam. Kennedy was a unifying figure, speaking passionately to curb rioting in Washington on the evening of the murder of Martin Luther King. Bobby also had a strong connection with the Hispanic community through his support of Cesar Chavez and creating a medical plan for members of the farm worker’s union. He also carried the aura of the Camelot years, the hope and progress of JFK’s dynamic presidency. Bobby Kennedy, though always controversial, was a hugely popular and progressive candidate.
He would have demolished Nixon.
He was murdered the day he won the democratic candidacy.
We are living now in the repercussions of that wrenching of power by forces working in the far-right wing of the republican party for decades. It was a wing of the party which, bolstered by the brutal racism and antisemitism of the German Hitler cult in the thirties, opposed America’s entry into World War Two. The America First Committee was formed at Yale Law School to encourage and lobby to keep the U.S. out of the war in Europe. The German-American Bund held a pro-nazi rally at the Madison Square Garden in 1940 which attracted thousands. The opposition was enough to delay U.S. involvement in the war until the Japanese bombed Pear Harbor.
And after the war the far-right brought their agenda back to Washington. Senator Joseph McCarthy repeatedly referred to his own copy of Mein Kampf.
McCarthy created a seat for Richard Nixon on the House Un-American Activities Committee.
President Gerald Ford was a member of the America First Committee while at Yale. Ford pardoned Nixon.
It’s been going on a long time. The murder of RFK must be reopened. There was no more consequential murder in the history of the republic than the Killing of Senator Robert Kennedy. His assassination, and the ascendancy of Richard Nixon fundamentally changed the direction, and nature, of our country. Mean-spirited conservatism and division replaced compassion and optimism. “Nattering Nabobs of Negativity” and “The Silent Majority” replaced trying to stop the war and bolster civil rights. The very nature of the country was altered.
So, who are the republicans, really? This party marching in lockstep behind a lazy, felonious, lying, destructive president (and an unelected megalomaniac), dismantling the republic, defying the constitution, and reversing decades of social, environmental, and economic progress, they weaken the country and spread global chaos and fear? Why are they refuting our allies and allying with our sworn enemies? Why are they kidnapping citizens off the streets, out of homes, workplaces, schools, and churches? Why are they deporting people to be imprisoned in foreign countries without due process?
Why has 47 surrounded himself with a cabinet that cannot conceivably offer guidance because they know nothing about, or are actively trying to destroy, the government departments they are charged to lead?
Why? Why are they in power?
This is not oligarchy. And it’s not chaos. It’s the plan.
The republican party has been gaming the system for decades to get where they are right now. Republicans control all branches of government. Gerrymandering, denying voters rights (usually directed at blacks, women, and minorities), and relentless propaganda through conservative mouthpieces. It didn’t start with Rogan. It didn’t start with Rush. It didn’t start with Fox. Though they have done their best to spread, propagandize, and normalize hate, lies, and intolerance, the history of republican politic clearly goes much further back, steeped in Klan lore, white supremacy, antisemitism and violence wrapped in Christian dogma and a twisted sense that patriotism is a white, male domain.
Looking through the history of republican politics, I look back first to the Robert F. Kennedy assassination.
The investigation into the murder of Robert Kennedy must be reopened.
I was a fourteen-year-old freshman at Ipswich High, waiting for summer release, on June 5th, 1968. In the course of the year the school had run a mock democratic convention, with the student body aligning and campaigning for their chosen candidate. I’d chosen McCarthy. In the school-wide “convention” in the gymnasium, Robert F. Kennedy won the overall endorsement of Ipswich High students. And then, just like that, he was dead.
I was devastated. We were all devastated. I remember a sketch in a notebook I made, a clenched power fist raised in front of a tombstone reading “The United States of America- July 4, 1776 – June 5, 1968”. Bit of a cringe, but I was 14, and for me the murder was personal. What little hope I had for the political future of the country died on the pantry floor of the Ambassador Hotel.
I was 10 when they killed JFK. It was like being there again with Cronkite, my mother crying, watching the funeral cortege, horse-drawn, flag-draped November march down Pennsylvania Avenue in 1963, and the firestorm of conspiracy surrounding the murder of the fallen president. Then, shockingly, JFK’s murderer, Lee Harvey Oswald, gunned down by Jack Ruby while in custody.
Even as I considered it a watershed moment in American history, and took the tragedy as an existential blow, I, like most Americans, took for granted that the very public murder of Robert Kennedy was solved, without controversy or mystery. The image lived in my mind: the massively talented footballers Rosey Greer and Rafer Johnson wrestling the gun from the hands of assassin Sirhan Bishara Sirhan. The heartbreaking image of the dying Kennedy laying on the floor of the kitchen pantry at the Ambassador Hotel. Case solved, right?
The very day, the very hour, that Robert Francis Kennedy declared his victory in the California primary, making him the next Democratic candidate for the presidency, he was killed.
But we all know how that election turned out: the dems proffered Hubert Horatio Humphrey, the incredibly unpopular LBJ’s unremarkable vice-president, a native Minnesotan and party hack. To a fourteen-year-old, the choice reflected a bitter and cynical disregard for the anti-war movement, which, through years of activism had convinced LBJ not to run for re-election. Of course, Richard Nixon prevailed in that 68 election.
Remarkable, though, how.
It has come to light in the decades since that Nixon interfered with the peace talks in Paris to end the war in Viet Nam. Seeing a surge of support for Humphrey in the latter stages of the campaign, he went behind the back of a sitting President of the United States to offer the Vietnamese assurances that if they stalled the peace talks until after the election, he would offer them a better deal. The Vietnamese agreed, and the talks halted. With no progress toward peace, any nascent enthusiasm for Humphrey faded and the fate of the race was sealed. Treasonous.
The certainty that Richard Milhous Nixon would be unable to stomach another loss to another Kennedy. And the certainty that Nixon would lose going head to head with another Kennedy.
An old man with a long memory. I was of the elementary school generation who routinely endured nuclear bomb drills, squatting down under our wood-and-metal desks as if we would be anything other than cinders when the big one fell. I was the kid with Kennedy bumper stickers on his fat-tire red Schwinn. Nikita Khrushchev banging his shoe on the dais at the United Nations, vowing to bury us, on Walter Cronkite. The tension of the cold war, Cuban missile crisis, the Bay of Pigs, Gary Powers, Captain Lloyd Bucher; the long arc of history. I was just a kid, but I was paying attention. I still am. I am not a historian, or a lawyer, or a specialist in government function. Just an old guy who’s read the papers. And watched. And voted.
Maybe you shouldn’t pay any attention to an old fool like myself- it’s not like I’ve had a wildly successful run in the lucrative field of poetry, but I’ve splayed out my history in piles of unread notebooks, most not worth a damn. Here we are, a nation on the brink of ruin, and I’m left wondering why.
The investigation into the murder of Robert F. Kennedy must be reopened. The clues to where we are, I think, are in the past. This didn’t just happen, in the same way that 47 is not capable of directing the current administration’s actions. 47 does not have the vision, ambition, the work ethic, or the capability of directing the destruction of the United States. His interest is, and always has been, accumulating as much wealth as he can get without working for it, having his ego stroked, and golfing. He is someone’s tool. Or fool. You choose. He’s the beard, the clown face put on to appease the “base”. Who, exactly, is calling the shots?
Look, even a cursory glimpse into the trove of information regarding the murder of RFK already extant left me absolutely shocked. Take a dive into the information assembled by the Mary Ferrell Foundation, an invaluable resource of assembled transcripts, microfilm files of LAPD and FBI interviews and documents, and an archive of material of record. And the archives of the LAPD, the LA County DA’s Files, and Wikipedia, and on and on. The information is out there.
I come away convinced that Sirhan was not the assassin of Robert F. Kennedy. And asking who, and why.
The basic investigation was so flawed, either through gross incompetence or by design, that it quickly becomes apparent that the Los Angeles Police Department, the investigating force behind the murder, utterly and completely botched the job. Perhaps by design.
Shocking that the investigation into the killing of someone as famous as Kennedy, and a prominent national figure and probable next president, was left to the local police. There was an assist by the F.B.I., but the investigation, incredibly, was left to an LAPD special investigative team called “Special Unit Senator”. And it’s amazing what they missed, and what, and who, they didn’t look at. The botched forensics. The badgering of witnesses until their stories were recanted. The security guard whom witnesses said pulled a gun, was interviewed but never as a suspect- his gun was never checked in spite of reports that there was gunpowder residue on his face. Destroyed, falsified, evidence. The bullets. The photographer. The case desperately needs to be looked at again from the dispassionate point of view of fifty-seven years passed. The murder needs to be re-investigated using modern techniques, and an investigation free from divisive partisanship. The murder, and the investigation performed in 1968 , rife with irregularities, obfuscations, and its rush to judgment, demands to be reopened.
So many tendrils of falsity. When it came to the assassination of RFK, I spent a lifetime bemoaning the desperate capriciousness of fate. Come to find out, it was a setup. A lot of information is out there.
The investigation into the murder of Robert Francis Kennedy MUST BE REOPENED. Treat it like a cold-case file. And in the course of re-investigating any case, who is the first prime suspect? The answer is: who had the most to gain by the victim’s death? RMN?
Here are just a few of the most outrageous facts screaming out out that there should be more than enough fodder to reopen the killing, and the investigation, from 1968:
The gun: RFK was shot with a .22 caliber pistol. Sirhan shot at Kennedy with a .22 caliber pistol which held a clip of 8 bullets. Five bystanders were wounded in the attack. Three bullets struck Kennedy; two were removed from his body and bullet one grazed his jacket and went into the ceiling. There were two bullet holes in the ceiling; police surmised that the bullet had ricocheted and created the second hole. Magic bullet? Eight bullets. But two additional bullets were removed from the wooden door jamb Kennedy had passed through to enter the kitchen. 10 bullets. Maybe 11. The door jamb was removed and the evidence was destroyed by the LAPD. It was never entered into Sirhan’s trial. A tape recording of the gunfire in the pantry was analyzed by a team in 2004, led by Phillip van Praag, who determined that thirteen shots were fired in five seconds. Sirhan’s gun held eight bullets.
There were two guns. And two gunmen.
The autopsy: The coroner, Thomas Naguchi, found that RFK had been shot three times, from the rear and at a sharp upward angle, and from powder burns determined that the shots had been fired at point-blank range, or from a distance of 1-3″, with the fatal shot entering the skull just below his right ear. No witnesses put Sirhan that close to Kennedy, and all witnesses put Sirhan approaching the front of Kennedy and to his left.
The Security Guard: Thane Eugene Cesar, had been hired by Ace Security one week before the murder. Escorting RFK through the pantry, taking his elbow to guide the Senator through the pantry, was his second gig for Ace. Cesar was an employee of Hughes (Howard) Aircraft. Witnessed told police that they’d seen him drawing his gun in the pantry, though he denied firing it. He said he was carrying a .38, though admitted owning a .22. He said he’d sold the .22 prior to the murder. He lied- the buyer of the gun told investigators that he’d purchased the gun a couple of months after the murder and produced a bill of sale. Thane Eugene Cesar had far-right political leanings and was vocal about hating Kennedy. He was seen running form the pantry after the shooting, but then returned (to ditch the .22?). He was questioned by police and released, never detained, never looked at as a suspect in spite of reports of gunpowder residue on his face. His gun was never tested. It was his second assignment, a part-time security guard, unvetted, charged with protecting the candidate who would in all probability be the next president of the United States of America. Thane Cesar was to escort Robert Kennedy, holding his elbow, through the pantry of the Ambassador Hotel, to a waiting press conference. Thane Cesar led RFK to his death.
The girl in the polka-dot dress: Multiple witnesses saw Sirhan with two people in the pantry prior to the murder, a man and a woman in a polka-dot dress. Multiple witnesses saw a man and a woman in a polka-dot dress run from the entrance of the Ambassador Hotel. One, Sandra Serrano, stated to police that she saw the woman inn the polka-dot dress and an unidentified man running from the Ambassador Hotel laughing, yelling “We did it.”
After repeated interviews with LAPD, during which she repeated her statement, she was browbeaten into recanting her witness statement with interrogative techniques like this questioning by Enrique Hernandez, polygraph examiner for the Special Unit Senator;
Hernandez: “I think you owe it to Senator Kennedy, the late Senator Kennedy, to come forth, to be a woman about this. If he, and you don’t know and I don’t know whether he’s a witness right now in this room watching what we’re doing in here. Don’t shame his death by keeping this thing up. I have compassion for you. I want to know why. I want to know why you did what you did. This is a very serious thing.”
Serrano: “I seen those people!”
Hernandez: “No, no, no, no, Sandy. Remember what I told you about that: you can’t say you saw something when you didn’t see it…” (From the archives of the Mary Ferrell Foundation).
“Be a woman about this.” Sandy Serrano recanted her statement. Police used her denial to convince other witnesses, also claiming to have seen the pair, to drop their stories. The woman and the man seen with Sirhan were never identified. Never interviewed.
The Photographer: There was one photographer in the pantry of the Ambassador at the time of the killing. Scott Enyart was a 15 year old student with a camera, standing on a steam table behind the senator when the gunfire started. He was tackled by police and detained. His camera and film were confiscated and destroyed by the LAPD, and never saw the light of day. Enyart successfully sued the city of Los Angeles in 1997 for his missing property, and was awarded almost a half-million dollars. He said he’d shot three rolls of film. None of the pictures that were taken have ever been publicly seen.
So many tendrils of deception, of suspicion, that surround this nearly 57 year old event, a profound tragedy for the Kennedys, and for the nation.
Sometimes it is helpful, even necessary, to plumb history for an explanation of current events, and I know that this is one of those times.
I suspect that if an investigation were to uncover who was behind the plot to murder the Democratic presidential candidate in 1968, Robert Francis Kennedy, it might very well explain who is behind the ascension of Donald Trump and the rise of the cult of extreme conservatism creating chaos in this country, and across the globe. I contend that the forces that propelled Richard Nixon to the White House in 1968, forever changing the face of our nation, are the same forces supporting the destruction of the republic. I contend that these forces are seeking to re-align world order around tyrannical despots, installing Donald Trump as the figurehead for a totalitarian America.
I don’t think for a minute that 47 is anything but a mouthpiece, a tool for a larger organization, working on an agenda that is yet to come to light.
As I’ve said. I’m not a legal mind, or a historian. Just a citizen who would like to know what is happening to our once-great country. I see Democrats wringing their hands, some even still trying to “work across the aisle”. I hope it works, but don’t carry a lot of optimism for it.
But reopen the investigation into the murder if RFK? Might just find something to work with.
I’ve spread my own investigation farther back than the assassination, and future articles will be coming. Next, will be another look back at McCarthyism. Senator Joe McCarthy chaired the House on Unamerican Activities Commission in the late forties and early fifties. “Tail Gunner Joe” boasted about his copy of “Mein Kampf”.
Senator Joe McCarthy made room for Richard Nixon on the HUAC. They became friends, drinking buddies. Nixon continued to defend McCarthyism even after Joe McCarthy was disgraced after the McCarthy-Army hearing.
Another avenue of investigation: the Tulsa Race Riot, or more properly Massacre, of 1921. What happened to the white citizens of Tulsa who burned Black homes and businesses and murdered Blacks? Elected officials, National Guard, local law enforcement; no one went to trial, no one faced charges. Many victims stories are told from that day. Hardly any stories are told of the perpetrators. Who were they?
No Kings Day protests from coast to coast on Saturday, June 14, 2025.
(C) A. Frichtl 2025
We spent the morning with the grandchildren. They hung around, drawing in the studio for awhile, then stayed to eat. While we ate take-out Thai, my 12-year-old granddaughter Ember asked her father why I was going to the protest at the capital. Max told her to ask me instead.
I explained that I, and a lot of other people, do not agree that President Trump is the right man for his job. I told her that many people disagree with his policies, and that we believe it’s important to gather and voice our opinion.
She took that in but it didn’t lead to an extended conversation. We ate lunch together (shout out to Thai Cuisine of Salem, best in the valley), then Max and the kids left, headed for a park, and I went to the No Kings rally at the Oregon State Capitol building.
I was moved by the crowd, the passionate chanting of resistance, the signs, the constant blaring of passing supporters teeming down Center Street leaning on their horns. Exuberance. After a few moments, I texted Max. Told him there was no danger. That morning brought the report of the killing of Melissa Hortman and her husband, and the shooting and attempted murder of John Hoffman and his wife in Minnesota. I sent Max a picture of the peaceful demonstration. Told him it would be safe, if he wanted to show the kids, to take a ride up Center Street.
For a long while there was no response. I texted again, a short message. “You should!”
About an hour later I got a response. Max sounded a little reluctant in his text.
“We just got home.” Home is a town over, about a twenty minute ride.
“Well, it’s starting to wind down anyway.” I sent back, with an accompanying picture of a pick-up filled with skeletons and flags.
Then, a few minutes later, came the message, “We’re just heading over there now.”
And they did. Max brought the grandchildren to see, hear, experience this most necessary civil disobedience.
And it means so much to me that they’re aware. They are smart, creative, and talented children. Well, not children at this point; with the world they are about to inherit, they are young people, whom I love and respect.
And they are the big reason I am fighting this fight.
I cannot believe, and will not accept, that a majority of American citizens are ready to reshape the future of this county into some hellish terrorist autocracy destroying the planet for the sake of profit. They are why I am fighting.
We have to do better than this. We have to be more responsible than this. We have to leave a better world for our children, and grandchildren, and their grandchildren.
Clouds run down the sky to the western horizon, Solid ceiling across the valley to the coast, Mountains obscured in mist, Fronds of chestnut and big-leaf maple unmoved, No whisper of breeze, it’s not quite warm,
The whine of distant mowers drift From houses down below, and traffic noise From River Road but muted, insular, The big Doug Fir across the street is writhing With a litter of young squirrels at play, a crow Lands on the topmost branch of a towering cedar, Watching over her realm,
It’s Memorial Day, but I am not remembering the dead, But their living, breathing selves are with me here; Never my mother’s protracted, agonized departure, But I hear her singing Ella’s scat in the kitchen, The smell of bacon frying and the dark warm waft Of coffee percolating, as sun beams through the window And jazz echoes in the stairwell, “Sam, breakfast!” And never my father’s mysterious disappearance and Death unattended in the desolate Keys, But sitting in his chair by the stereo hi-fi, Camel in One hand, trying to convince his recalcitrant teen That Errol Garner was a genius. It took years for me to hear it, But he was right, and I listen now. Now I know.
And Gramp Howard lining up The croquet ball and wicket, not Straddling the ball as we all did, but Addressing it like a golf putt, Left hand on his knee to support an arthritic back, With his right he draws the mallet back, And how he teases, “Hey Jimmy, how’s Barbie Booth?” he’ll ask, Having married me off early, While Nana Theresa chatters on in her living room filled with tchotchkes And incessant non-stop tales of family and Ireland, And Uncle Martin with a ready smile and a can of Schlitz, Aunt Marnie with lipstick-stained Viceroy filter and pointy rhinestone glasses, Uncle Ed, Big Ed the sheriff, stogies smelled like dog turds In the back seat of his Country Squire, windows closed, Connie in the front seat trying to keep a lid on The cousins fighting in the back.
And Ann in her scattershot life, rambling Around Europe, or North Africa, or the islands, Awash with a strong mix Of hope and cynicism, Wisdom and sarcasm, racing through town In a battered red Karman Ghia,
And Susan, so quietly delinquent, her talent And her understated passions- She picked up the guitar Shortly after I, a Yamaha Classical with nylon strings, and Within a short time she played So much better.
And Paige and Fredora and Bob Drinking mid-afternoon Budweiser in the kitchen At Gramp Garland’s farm, cigarette smoke Clouding under a nicotine-stained ceiling, Listening to Patty Page on a brown plastic Zenith tabletop radio, Gramp in the parlor, taciturn, ancient, With his corn-cob pipe and wire-rimmed glasses, And his General MacArthur looks,
And all the rest, all the rest.
And I think of all the living, all those With me now, How we courageously face an uncertain future together, I feel so fortunate to have been Given the grace and opportunity to have Lived in the world as it has been, and the Miracle of having had a chance to love; And having love returned,
And imagine, too, having had the chance Of taking existence, and freedom, for granted, For such a long time, What privilege, what riches.
Sitting at a table on the sidewalk outside a coffeehouse downtown. Dylan. “How does it feel to be on your own, like a complete unknown, like a rolling stone?” Feels like this:
Greenland is melting, the ocean’s a’risin’, And it’s all happening faster’n anyone knew, California’s burning ‘tween mudslides and earthquakes, Burning summer down with the end of the country blues.
We bow down to China, kiss the ring of Putin, Bribes from foreign enemies can’t be refused, That the president’s a traitor there ain’t no disputin’, And congress sings the chorus to the end of the country blues.
They’ll take whatever they can steal, come hell or high water, They’ll ruin everything they touch till there’s nothing left to lose, They’re gonna leave the planet ruined, our disregarded mother, They’re drivin’ the train to end of the line, to the end of the country blues.
Got a Hummer in the driveway, gets twelve miles to a gallon, Got a Caddy we tool around in so you know we paid some dues, If it gets above a hundred, our air is well conditioned, And with five-thousand tv stations we’ll ignore the end of the country blues.
The world order’s a’changin’, America fading backward, But oligarchs get that we’re fighting as they turn the screws, And I’ll stand out on the corner with a raised fist and a placard, Fighting for democracy, battling the end of the country blues.
So fuck you Mr. President, fuck you and all the rest, Surrounded yourself with imbeciles like there was no one else to choose, Nothing like the brightest, nothing like the best, Shepherding us to Armageddon and the end of the country blues.
They’ll take whatever they can steal, come hell or high water, They’ll ruin everything they touch till there’s nothing left to lose, They’re gonna leave the planet ruined, our disregarded mother, They’re drivin’ the train to end of the line, to the end of the country blues.
There has been no more consequential presidential election than 1968. That American election was not decided at the polls. The election of 1968 was decided on June 5th, by the gun that was fired at point-blank range into Robert Francis Kennedy skull, just behind his right ear, killing him.
Robert Kennedy’s death enabled Richard Nixon’s presidency.
If the popular Kennedy had not been murdered, he would have handily beaten Nixon.
What is happening in our country right now, the destruction of our fragile democracy by an ultra-right wing and racist republican party intent on removing our constitutional rights freedoms. our access to health care, restricting free speech, punishing the poor and enriching the rich, building concentration camps in foreign countries and in Florida to imprison citizens and immigrants kidnapped off the streets without due process, breaking the rule of law, ignoring the constitution, rewriting and whitewashing our own history with lies; all directly tied to the election of 1968.
We would not be here had Bobby Kennedy lived.
Bobby Kennedy was murdered on the day he won the California Presidential primary. The very day it was determined, by electoral representation, that he would be the next Democratic candidate for the presidency. He had given his victory speech to a exultant crowd of supporters at the Ambassador hotel in Los Angeles, and was being escorted through a back pantry by a part-time security guard, a recent hire named Thane Eugene Cesar. Witnesses told police that they had seen the security guard holding his gun. Cesar admitted to police he’d pulled his weapon. Thane Eugene Cesar was never treated as a suspect by the LAPD. He was never detained. He was never investigated.
The murder of Bobby Kennedy was, shockingly, left largely to the Los Angeles Police Department. There was an assist by the FBI.
The Los Angeles Police Department rushed to judgment, berating witnesses offering statements which differed from the narrative they determined the story to be. They destroyed evidence. The forensics did not match the narrative.
The murder of Robert Kennedy should be reopened as a cold case. It has not been solved. Indeed, everything I thought I knew about the case has been proved wrong.
Bobby Kennedy was a sure bet to beat the perennially unpopular candidacy of Richard Nixon. JFK beat Nixon handily in 1960. Bobby Kennedy would have demolished Nixon in ’68. Kennedy was adamant about stopping the war in Vietnam. Kennedy was a unifying figure, speaking passionately to curb rioting in Washington on the evening of the murder of Martin Luther King. Bobby also had a strong connection with the Hispanic community through his support of Cesar Chavez and creating a medical plan for members of the farm worker’s union. He also carried the aura of the Camelot years, the hope and progress of JFK’s dynamic presidency. Bobby Kennedy, though always controversial, was a hugely popular and progressive candidate.
He would have demolished Nixon.
He was murdered the day he won the democratic candidacy.
We are living now in the repercussions of that wrenching of power by forces working in the far-right wing of the republican party for decades. It was a wing of the party which, bolstered by the brutal racism and antisemitism of the German Hitler cult in the thirties, opposed America’s entry into World War Two. The America First Committee was formed at Yale Law School to encourage and lobby to keep the U.S. out of the war in Europe. The German-American Bund held a pro-nazi rally at the Madison Square Garden in 1940 which attracted thousands. The opposition was enough to delay U.S. involvement in the war until the Japanese bombed Pear Harbor.
And after the war the far-right brought their agenda back to Washington. Senator Joseph McCarthy repeatedly referred to his own copy of Mein Kampf.
McCarthy created a seat for Richard Nixon on the House Un-American Activities Committee.
President Gerald Ford was a member of the America First Committee while at Yale. Ford pardoned Nixon.
It’s been going on a long time. The murder of RFK must be reopened. There was no more consequential murder in the history of the republic than the Killing of Senator Robert Kennedy. His assassination, and the ascendancy of Richard Nixon fundamentally changed the direction, and nature, of our country. Mean-spirited conservatism and division replaced compassion and optimism. “Nattering Nabobs of Negativity” and “The Silent Majority” replaced trying to stop the war and bolster civil rights. The very nature of the country was altered.
So, who are the republicans, really? This party marching in lockstep behind a lazy, felonious, lying, destructive president (and an unelected megalomaniac), dismantling the republic, defying the constitution, and reversing decades of social, environmental, and economic progress, they weaken the country and spread global chaos and fear? Why are they refuting our allies and allying with our sworn enemies? Why are they kidnapping citizens off the streets, out of homes, workplaces, schools, and churches? Why are they deporting people to be imprisoned in foreign countries without due process?
Why has 47 surrounded himself with a cabinet that cannot conceivably offer guidance because they know nothing about, or are actively trying to destroy, the government departments they are charged to lead?
Why? Why are they in power?
This is not oligarchy. And it’s not chaos. It’s the plan.
The republican party has been gaming the system for decades to get where they are right now. Republicans control all branches of government. Gerrymandering, denying voters rights (usually directed at blacks, women, and minorities), and relentless propaganda through conservative mouthpieces. It didn’t start with Rogan. It didn’t start with Rush. It didn’t start with Fox. Though they have done their best to spread, propagandize, and normalize hate, lies, and intolerance, the history of republican politic clearly goes much further back, steeped in Klan lore, white supremacy, antisemitism and violence wrapped in Christian dogma and a twisted sense that patriotism is a white, male domain.
Looking through the history of republican politics, I look back first to the Robert F. Kennedy assassination.
The investigation into the murder of Robert Kennedy must be reopened.
I was a fourteen-year-old freshman at Ipswich High, waiting for summer release, on June 5th, 1968. In the course of the year the school had run a mock democratic convention, with the student body aligning and campaigning for their chosen candidate. I’d chosen McCarthy. In the school-wide “convention” in the gymnasium, Robert F. Kennedy won the overall endorsement of Ipswich High students. And then, just like that, he was dead.
I was devastated. We were all devastated. I remember a sketch in a notebook I made, a clenched power fist raised in front of a tombstone reading “The United States of America- July 4, 1776 – June 5, 1968”. Bit of a cringe, but I was 14, and for me the murder was personal. What little hope I had for the political future of the country died on the pantry floor of the Ambassador Hotel.
I was 10 when they killed JFK. It was like being there again with Cronkite, my mother crying, watching the funeral cortege, horse-drawn, flag-draped November march down Pennsylvania Avenue in 1963, and the firestorm of conspiracy surrounding the murder of the fallen president. Then, shockingly, JFK’s murderer, Lee Harvey Oswald, gunned down by Jack Ruby while in custody.
Even as I considered it a watershed moment in American history, and took the tragedy as an existential blow, I, like most Americans, took for granted that the very public murder of Robert Kennedy was solved, without controversy or mystery. The image lived in my mind: the massively talented footballers Rosey Greer and Rafer Johnson wrestling the gun from the hands of assassin Sirhan Bishara Sirhan. The heartbreaking image of the dying Kennedy laying on the floor of the kitchen pantry at the Ambassador Hotel. Case solved, right?
The very day, the very hour, that Robert Francis Kennedy declared his victory in the California primary, making him the next Democratic candidate for the presidency, he was killed.
But we all know how that election turned out: the dems proffered Hubert Horatio Humphrey, the incredibly unpopular LBJ’s unremarkable vice-president, a native Minnesotan and party hack. To a fourteen-year-old, the choice reflected a bitter and cynical disregard for the anti-war movement, which, through years of activism had convinced LBJ not to run for re-election. Of course, Richard Nixon prevailed in that 68 election.
Remarkable, though, how.
It has come to light in the decades since that Nixon interfered with the peace talks in Paris to end the war in Viet Nam. Seeing a surge of support for Humphrey in the latter stages of the campaign, he went behind the back of a sitting President of the United States to offer the Vietnamese assurances that if they stalled the peace talks until after the election, he would offer them a better deal. The Vietnamese agreed, and the talks halted. With no progress toward peace, any nascent enthusiasm for Humphrey faded and the fate of the race was sealed. Treasonous.
The certainty that Richard Milhous Nixon would be unable to stomach another loss to another Kennedy. And the certainty that Nixon would lose going head to head with another Kennedy.
An old man with a long memory. I was of the elementary school generation who routinely endured nuclear bomb drills, squatting down under our wood-and-metal desks as if we would be anything other than cinders when the big one fell. I was the kid with Kennedy bumper stickers on his fat-tire red Schwinn. Nikita Khrushchev banging his shoe on the dais at the United Nations, vowing to bury us, on Walter Cronkite. The tension of the cold war, Cuban missile crisis, the Bay of Pigs, Gary Powers, Captain Lloyd Bucher; the long arc of history. I was just a kid, but I was paying attention. I still am. I am not a historian, or a lawyer, or a specialist in government function. Just an old guy who’s read the papers. And watched. And voted.
Maybe you shouldn’t pay any attention to an old fool like myself- it’s not like I’ve had a wildly successful run in the lucrative field of poetry, but I’ve splayed out my history in piles of unread notebooks, most not worth a damn. Here we are, a nation on the brink of ruin, and I’m left wondering why.
The investigation into the murder of Robert F. Kennedy must be reopened. The clues to where we are, I think, are in the past. This didn’t just happen, in the same way that 47 is not capable of directing the current administration’s actions. 47 does not have the vision, ambition, the work ethic, or the capability of directing the destruction of the United States. His interest is, and always has been, accumulating as much wealth as he can get without working for it, having his ego stroked, and golfing. He is someone’s tool. Or fool. You choose. He’s the beard, the clown face put on to appease the “base”. Who, exactly, is calling the shots?
Look, even a cursory glimpse into the trove of information regarding the murder of RFK already extant left me absolutely shocked. Take a dive into the information assembled by the Mary Ferrell Foundation, an invaluable resource of assembled transcripts, microfilm files of LAPD and FBI interviews and documents, and an archive of material of record. And the archives of the LAPD, the LA County DA’s Files, and Wikipedia, and on and on. The information is out there.
I come away convinced that Sirhan was not the assassin of Robert F. Kennedy. And asking who, and why.
The basic investigation was so flawed, either through gross incompetence or by design, that it quickly becomes apparent that the Los Angeles Police Department, the investigating force behind the murder, utterly and completely botched the job. Perhaps by design.
Shocking that the investigation into the killing of someone as famous as Kennedy, and a prominent national figure and probable next president, was left to the local police. There was an assist by the F.B.I., but the investigation, incredibly, was left to an LAPD special investigative team called “Special Unit Senator”. And it’s amazing what they missed, and what, and who, they didn’t look at. The botched forensics. The badgering of witnesses until their stories were recanted. The security guard whom witnesses said pulled a gun, was interviewed but never as a suspect- his gun was never checked in spite of reports that there was gunpowder residue on his face. Destroyed, falsified, evidence. The bullets. The photographer. The case desperately needs to be looked at again from the dispassionate point of view of fifty-seven years passed. The murder needs to be re-investigated using modern techniques, and an investigation free from divisive partisanship. The murder, and the investigation performed in 1968 , rife with irregularities, obfuscations, and its rush to judgment, demands to be reopened.
So many tendrils of falsity. When it came to the assassination of RFK, I spent a lifetime bemoaning the desperate capriciousness of fate. Come to find out, it was a setup. A lot of information is out there.
The investigation into the murder of Robert Francis Kennedy MUST BE REOPENED. Treat it like a cold-case file. And in the course of re-investigating any case, who is the first prime suspect? The answer is: who had the most to gain by the victim’s death? RMN?
Here are just a few of the most outrageous facts screaming out out that there should be more than enough fodder to reopen the killing, and the investigation, from 1968:
The gun: RFK was shot with a .22 caliber pistol. Sirhan shot at Kennedy with a .22 caliber pistol which held a clip of 8 bullets. Five bystanders were wounded in the attack. Three bullets struck Kennedy; two were removed from his body and bullet one grazed his jacket and went into the ceiling. There were two bullet holes in the ceiling; police surmised that the bullet had ricocheted and created the second hole. Magic bullet? Eight bullets. But two additional bullets were removed from the wooden door jamb Kennedy had passed through to enter the kitchen. 10 bullets. Maybe 11. The door jamb was removed and the evidence was destroyed by the LAPD. It was never entered into Sirhan’s trial. A tape recording of the gunfire in the pantry was analyzed by a team in 2004, led by Phillip van Praag, who determined that thirteen shots were fired in five seconds. Sirhan’s gun held eight bullets.
There were two guns. And two gunmen.
The autopsy: The coroner, Thomas Naguchi, found that RFK had been shot three times, from the rear and at a sharp upward angle, and from powder burns determined that the shots had been fired at point-blank range, or from a distance of 1-3″, with the fatal shot entering the skull just below his right ear. No witnesses put Sirhan that close to Kennedy, and all witnesses put Sirhan approaching the front of Kennedy and to his left.
The Security Guard: Thane Eugene Cesar, had been hired by Ace Security one week before the murder. Escorting RFK through the pantry, taking his elbow to guide the Senator through the pantry, was his second gig for Ace. Cesar was an employee of Hughes (Howard) Aircraft. Witnessed told police that they’d seen him drawing his gun in the pantry, though he denied firing it. He said he was carrying a .38, though admitted owning a .22. He said he’d sold the .22 prior to the murder. He lied- the buyer of the gun told investigators that he’d purchased the gun a couple of months after the murder and produced a bill of sale. Thane Eugene Cesar had far-right political leanings and was vocal about hating Kennedy. He was seen running form the pantry after the shooting, but then returned (to ditch the .22?). He was questioned by police and released, never detained, never looked at as a suspect in spite of reports of gunpowder residue on his face. His gun was never tested. It was his second assignment, a part-time security guard, unvetted, charged with protecting the candidate who would in all probability be the next president of the United States of America. Thane Cesar was to escort Robert Kennedy, holding his elbow, through the pantry of the Ambassador Hotel, to a waiting press conference. Thane Cesar led RFK to his death.
The girl in the polka-dot dress: Multiple witnesses saw Sirhan with two people in the pantry prior to the murder, a man and a woman in a polka-dot dress. Multiple witnesses saw a man and a woman in a polka-dot dress run from the entrance of the Ambassador Hotel. One, Sandra Serrano, stated to police that she saw the woman inn the polka-dot dress and an unidentified man running from the Ambassador Hotel laughing, yelling “We did it.”
After repeated interviews with LAPD, during which she repeated her statement, she was browbeaten into recanting her witness statement with interrogative techniques like this questioning by Enrique Hernandez, polygraph examiner for the Special Unit Senator;
Hernandez: “I think you owe it to Senator Kennedy, the late Senator Kennedy, to come forth, to be a woman about this. If he, and you don’t know and I don’t know whether he’s a witness right now in this room watching what we’re doing in here. Don’t shame his death by keeping this thing up. I have compassion for you. I want to know why. I want to know why you did what you did. This is a very serious thing.”
Serrano: “I seen those people!”
Hernandez: “No, no, no, no, Sandy. Remember what I told you about that: you can’t say you saw something when you didn’t see it…” (From the archives of the Mary Ferrell Foundation).
“Be a woman about this.” Sandy Serrano recanted her statement. Police used her denial to convince other witnesses, also claiming to have seen the pair, to drop their stories. The woman and the man seen with Sirhan were never identified. Never interviewed.
The Photographer: There was one photographer in the pantry of the Ambassador at the time of the killing. Scott Enyart was a 15 year old student with a camera, standing on a steam table behind the senator when the gunfire started. He was tackled by police and detained. His camera and film were confiscated and destroyed by the LAPD, and never saw the light of day. Enyart successfully sued the city of Los Angeles in 1997 for his missing property, and was awarded almost a half-million dollars. He said he’d shot three rolls of film. None of the pictures that were taken have ever been publicly seen.
So many tendrils of deception, of suspicion, that surround this nearly 57 year old event, a profound tragedy for the Kennedys, and for the nation.
Sometimes it is helpful, even necessary, to plumb history for an explanation of current events, and I know that this is one of those times.
I suspect that if an investigation were to uncover who was behind the plot to murder the Democratic presidential candidate in 1968, Robert Francis Kennedy, it might very well explain who is behind the ascension of Donald Trump and the rise of the cult of extreme conservatism creating chaos in this country, and across the globe. I contend that the forces that propelled Richard Nixon to the White House in 1968, forever changing the face of our nation, are the same forces supporting the destruction of the republic. I contend that these forces are seeking to re-align world order around tyrannical despots, installing Donald Trump as the figurehead for a totalitarian America.
I don’t think for a minute that 47 is anything but a mouthpiece, a tool for a larger organization, working on an agenda that is yet to come to light.
As I’ve said. I’m not a legal mind, or a historian. Just a citizen who would like to know what is happening to our once-great country. I see Democrats wringing their hands, some even still trying to “work across the aisle”. I hope it works, but don’t carry a lot of optimism for it.
But reopen the investigation into the murder if RFK? Might just find something to work with.
I’ve spread my own investigation farther back than the assassination, and future articles will be coming. Next, will be another look back at McCarthyism. Senator Joe McCarthy chaired the House on Unamerican Activities Commission in the late forties and early fifties. “Tail Gunner Joe” boasted about his copy of “Mein Kampf”.
Senator Joe McCarthy made room for Richard Nixon on the HUAC. They became friends, drinking buddies. Nixon continued to defend McCarthyism even after Joe McCarthy was disgraced after the McCarthy-Army hearing.
Another avenue of investigation: the Tulsa Race Riot, or more properly Massacre, of 1921. What happened to the white citizens of Tulsa who burned Black homes and businesses and murdered Blacks? Elected officials, National Guard, local law enforcement; no one went to trial, no one faced charges. Many victims stories are told from that day. Hardly any stories are told of the perpetrators. Who were they?
On the eve of a clash of historic importance, a rupture of world order, and a push ever closer to a precipice, over which promises strife, and war, and plunder, and an overwhelming sense of finality. The end of the Democracy
The last day of February dawns unnaturally Warm, radiant skies; we took the bug convertible Up through the hills, past spring fields, forests of fir And barren, mossy oak, glimpses of Cascades, towering Hood and Jefferson luminous white, majestic, Past overlooks of verdant farmland stretching miles Across the valley to the shadowy Coastal Range,
The last day of February the President of the United States and his vice disgracefully assaulted The integrity of an ally, double-crossed the leader Of a country at war with Russia, historically our enemy In the battle of Democracy against Tyranny For the hearts and minds of the rest of the world, And the potus and his vice broke our alliances, Threatened world war, sided with tyranny, and Dishonored the values of freedom, and history, and peace, Pushing, pushing ever closer to war. We become the enemy.
Tonight, a glass of red on the balcony looking west, Still mild, quiet almost, except roaring hotrodders racing Down River Road, have been since Covid, nobody stops it. But I have the stars, Cassiopeia, Pleiades, Venus, stars Innumerable in western darkness, dimmed only by The lights along the highway leading to the coast, Distant traffic passing billboards and businesses Before becoming rural, farms and wetlands running Out to the foothills, and I, surrounded in my fortress Of fir and cedar, watch from my ruins in the darkness As we move into a grim, uncertain future, Awaiting spring. Polaris stares down from the north, unblinking, But I am without direction, at sea, In a declining world. Alas.
Winding down the hill to the lowlands Of Ankeny, flanks of the coast range Whitened, a sky of broken clouds filled With portent, but rain intermittent.
There were a thousand geese at the back Of Pintail Marsh, supple shadows in dim Afternoon light. Ducks lined the shore and Traced trails across the pond, startled By eagles. In the rushes by the entrance To the channel lay one dead swan, A Tundra Swan, and in the shallows By the tracks, two more.
Out with the dog tonight, surprised To see a first-quarter moon overhead, Facing Jupiter, both dodging overcast through Barren branches of big-leaf maple And sodden fir,
Dripping with winter rain streaming From the coast across the valley, blustery, Traces of snow, the dog does his business, Gives no care for the haloed moon through Gauzy skies.
They can’t take that away, barbarous robber barons Blindly, greedily orchestrating the demise Of the Republic, dismantling the Democracy, Forging a new oligarchy, of the rich, by the rich, For the rich.
Today was a protest in Salem, true Patriots By thousands, raising their voices in support Of our country, virulently opposing the shredding of Our Constitution, our Heritage, our dignity, At the sunset of Democracy.
Tonight, the moon disappears, rain begins Spattering onto the deck. The dog waits At the door.
James Garland Poetry 