THE KENNEDY LEGACY
The passing of Ted Kennedy will elicit commentary from all the media regardless of their political persuasion for he lived in the public eye in many ways and for a long time. I am offering here my views as well.
As a human being he is my brother and whatever shortcomings he may have had they represented the karma that he had to work out on his journey of spiritual unfoldment. All men and women have their imperfections yet receive God’s love. They are worthy of the love of their fellow man as well. No one wants to be remembered for his failings. I wish Ted Kennedy well wherever he is.
Having said that, I feel that a person of prominence in society needs to be held to a higher standard than the ordinary citizen. He is remembered not as a person but for the position of prominence he held. During World War II General Eisenhower had an affair with his secretary when he was stationed in England as the head of the European Theater of Operations. He decided he would divorce Mamie and marry his secretary. When he told General Marshal of his plans his response was, “You’re a general; generals don’t get divorced.” That was the end of the matter. Ike and Mamie stayed married until death did them part. Positions of prominence had standards of conduct and living that accompanied them.
Senator Kennedy had more than a position of prominence; he was an elected official. People who run for office ask to be judged; it’s the basis of their being elected. Some will say that elected officials should be judged on the issues and not on personal matters. Issues focus on material accomplishment in one way or another whereas personal matters reflect character and morals derived from ethics.
Material considerations have come to matter most in our country. Richard L. Block, the last Chairman of Inland Steel Corp stated in a magazine article that corporations over-emphasize the importance of personal integrity in the hiring of executives. He indicated that companies can be insured to cover embezzlement but they can’t get insurance on incompetence. I guess the boys at Enron took Block’s message to heart. Inland Steel isn’t around anymore either. Nevertheless, the post World War II thinking of focusing on material accomplishment in lieu of moral behavior took root and flourished. The Kennedys—and Ted Kennedy in particular—personified this thinking.
Harvard University expelled Ted Kennedy for cheating on an exam. He had a friend take a test in Spanish in his name. Harvard later reinstated Ted probably in part because of the power represented by the immense wealth of Joe Kennedy. When each of his children reached adulthood they were given an annual “allowance” of 10 million dollars; even for rich people that was a lot of money 50 years ago
Aside from the blemish on his record caused by being caught cheating, and the negative comparisons to his over-achieving brothers, Ted Kennedy was an active collegian participating in sports and in various extra curricular matters. He played a big part in the campaign to get his brother John elected president and was a worthy campaigner and won handily when he ran for the Senate. However, matters of morals and ethics would plague him all of his life.
The Mary Jo Kopechne tragedy resulted in a suspension of his driver’s license. If that incident had happened to the average person there would have been a jury trail. Again the Kennedy fortune came to the rescue and quashed any legal activity against him in addition to making a multi-million dollar settlement with Mary Jo’s parents.
Frequently such incidents can awaken in a man the realization of the error of his ways and cause him to start life anew. This did not happen to Ted Kennedy, whose womanizing continued unabated and whose drinking bordered on alcoholism.
His sexual conduct represented the norm of the Kennedys. President Jack had two women on the government payroll whose primary purpose was to satisfy his sexual desires. He shocked Prime Minister Macmillan of England at a meeting by saying “Unless I get it every day I get a headache.” It was no secret that President Jack and his brother Robert both had trysts with Marilyn Monroe.
Marital fidelity did not exist in the Kennedy compound. Nor did ethics. The Kennedys represented a new era in American thought; it focused on materiality and self-indulgence. It symbolized a disregard for convention, tradition, and the social mores necessary to maintain the moral standards of society.
The Kennedy power and influence set the stage for Great Society Legislation, which Ted Kennedy strongly supported. The sum total of the effects of the legislation of the past 50 years has been a worsening in the conditions that it was designed to improve.
I will briefly address two pieces of such legislation. The first, called Civil Rights Legislation was ostensibly designed to give African-Americans an equal playing field in the attainment of the rewards of the American way of life. By including women’s rights in this legislation it served as a means of emasculating the male and increasing government power.
After 400 years of slavery and segregation the unwed motherhood rate of African-Americans reached 25%, a remarkably low figure and a testament to the inherent extended family culture in their society. After only 40 years of Great Society legislation the rate of unwed motherhood reached 70% and in some pockets such as Harlem it reached 90%. Harlem serves as an example of the de facto matriarchy that results from the emasculation of the male. Nothing happens in Harlem without government intervention either overtly or covertly; a condition that cannot be considered progress for the African-American.
The second piece of legislation, known as Title IX calls for equal opportunity in education regardless of gender differences. The interpretation of this law considered males and females to be identical, a viewpoint contrary to even a rudimentary understanding of the purpose and function of gender. Boys and girls and men and women were put in the same classrooms and given the same instruction, which resulted in a drop in academic performance, unprecedented sexual activity, and an explosion in the rate of teenage pregnancies and unwed motherhood at all age levels.
Every societal problem that existed at the beginning of the Kennedy era has gotten worse. Every one! The absence of ethics causes degeneracy; it cannot be otherwise.
Ethics comes from men—those men who understand their purpose of propagating and preserving the species on its infinite spiritual journey. There is no other place for ethics to come from. The government, its money, power and laws cannot provide a viable substitute for ethics.
In the 50 years since the beginning of the Kennedy era the Kennedys and their contemporaries have not changed with the exception that they now own more of America. They still live the same materialistic immoral lifestyle. America has changed. Its moral fiber has been destroyed and it now lives the same debaucherous lifestyle popularized by the Kennedys.
This lifestyle has among other things created a national loneliness. Allowing that some men feel the inherent desire to make multiple matings with the herd, the overwhelming reason for womanizing stems from the loneliness caused by an inadequate home life during childhood. Whether in the compound at Hyannisport or in the inner city ghettos, money and power cannot provide the love that all humans require to function properly. Ted Kennedy was a lonely man. He did not know love, nor did his brothers.
The Kennedy era represented lonely men and confused women, which created a national angst that no amount of materialistic manipulation could remedy. The Kennedys did not create this era; they were symptoms of it. They represented the sum total of the collective consciousness of America. The passing of the Kennedy era is the passing of that consciousness.
A new consciousness is developing in America and in the Western world, which will become manifest in the next decade. It will understand that the natural patriarchal structure enables men to provide the environment and means for women to being forth life and nurture it.
E.G.
As a human being he is my brother and whatever shortcomings he may have had they represented the karma that he had to work out on his journey of spiritual unfoldment. All men and women have their imperfections yet receive God’s love. They are worthy of the love of their fellow man as well. No one wants to be remembered for his failings. I wish Ted Kennedy well wherever he is.
Having said that, I feel that a person of prominence in society needs to be held to a higher standard than the ordinary citizen. He is remembered not as a person but for the position of prominence he held. During World War II General Eisenhower had an affair with his secretary when he was stationed in England as the head of the European Theater of Operations. He decided he would divorce Mamie and marry his secretary. When he told General Marshal of his plans his response was, “You’re a general; generals don’t get divorced.” That was the end of the matter. Ike and Mamie stayed married until death did them part. Positions of prominence had standards of conduct and living that accompanied them.
Senator Kennedy had more than a position of prominence; he was an elected official. People who run for office ask to be judged; it’s the basis of their being elected. Some will say that elected officials should be judged on the issues and not on personal matters. Issues focus on material accomplishment in one way or another whereas personal matters reflect character and morals derived from ethics.
Material considerations have come to matter most in our country. Richard L. Block, the last Chairman of Inland Steel Corp stated in a magazine article that corporations over-emphasize the importance of personal integrity in the hiring of executives. He indicated that companies can be insured to cover embezzlement but they can’t get insurance on incompetence. I guess the boys at Enron took Block’s message to heart. Inland Steel isn’t around anymore either. Nevertheless, the post World War II thinking of focusing on material accomplishment in lieu of moral behavior took root and flourished. The Kennedys—and Ted Kennedy in particular—personified this thinking.
Harvard University expelled Ted Kennedy for cheating on an exam. He had a friend take a test in Spanish in his name. Harvard later reinstated Ted probably in part because of the power represented by the immense wealth of Joe Kennedy. When each of his children reached adulthood they were given an annual “allowance” of 10 million dollars; even for rich people that was a lot of money 50 years ago
Aside from the blemish on his record caused by being caught cheating, and the negative comparisons to his over-achieving brothers, Ted Kennedy was an active collegian participating in sports and in various extra curricular matters. He played a big part in the campaign to get his brother John elected president and was a worthy campaigner and won handily when he ran for the Senate. However, matters of morals and ethics would plague him all of his life.
The Mary Jo Kopechne tragedy resulted in a suspension of his driver’s license. If that incident had happened to the average person there would have been a jury trail. Again the Kennedy fortune came to the rescue and quashed any legal activity against him in addition to making a multi-million dollar settlement with Mary Jo’s parents.
Frequently such incidents can awaken in a man the realization of the error of his ways and cause him to start life anew. This did not happen to Ted Kennedy, whose womanizing continued unabated and whose drinking bordered on alcoholism.
His sexual conduct represented the norm of the Kennedys. President Jack had two women on the government payroll whose primary purpose was to satisfy his sexual desires. He shocked Prime Minister Macmillan of England at a meeting by saying “Unless I get it every day I get a headache.” It was no secret that President Jack and his brother Robert both had trysts with Marilyn Monroe.
Marital fidelity did not exist in the Kennedy compound. Nor did ethics. The Kennedys represented a new era in American thought; it focused on materiality and self-indulgence. It symbolized a disregard for convention, tradition, and the social mores necessary to maintain the moral standards of society.
The Kennedy power and influence set the stage for Great Society Legislation, which Ted Kennedy strongly supported. The sum total of the effects of the legislation of the past 50 years has been a worsening in the conditions that it was designed to improve.
I will briefly address two pieces of such legislation. The first, called Civil Rights Legislation was ostensibly designed to give African-Americans an equal playing field in the attainment of the rewards of the American way of life. By including women’s rights in this legislation it served as a means of emasculating the male and increasing government power.
After 400 years of slavery and segregation the unwed motherhood rate of African-Americans reached 25%, a remarkably low figure and a testament to the inherent extended family culture in their society. After only 40 years of Great Society legislation the rate of unwed motherhood reached 70% and in some pockets such as Harlem it reached 90%. Harlem serves as an example of the de facto matriarchy that results from the emasculation of the male. Nothing happens in Harlem without government intervention either overtly or covertly; a condition that cannot be considered progress for the African-American.
The second piece of legislation, known as Title IX calls for equal opportunity in education regardless of gender differences. The interpretation of this law considered males and females to be identical, a viewpoint contrary to even a rudimentary understanding of the purpose and function of gender. Boys and girls and men and women were put in the same classrooms and given the same instruction, which resulted in a drop in academic performance, unprecedented sexual activity, and an explosion in the rate of teenage pregnancies and unwed motherhood at all age levels.
Every societal problem that existed at the beginning of the Kennedy era has gotten worse. Every one! The absence of ethics causes degeneracy; it cannot be otherwise.
Ethics comes from men—those men who understand their purpose of propagating and preserving the species on its infinite spiritual journey. There is no other place for ethics to come from. The government, its money, power and laws cannot provide a viable substitute for ethics.
In the 50 years since the beginning of the Kennedy era the Kennedys and their contemporaries have not changed with the exception that they now own more of America. They still live the same materialistic immoral lifestyle. America has changed. Its moral fiber has been destroyed and it now lives the same debaucherous lifestyle popularized by the Kennedys.
This lifestyle has among other things created a national loneliness. Allowing that some men feel the inherent desire to make multiple matings with the herd, the overwhelming reason for womanizing stems from the loneliness caused by an inadequate home life during childhood. Whether in the compound at Hyannisport or in the inner city ghettos, money and power cannot provide the love that all humans require to function properly. Ted Kennedy was a lonely man. He did not know love, nor did his brothers.
The Kennedy era represented lonely men and confused women, which created a national angst that no amount of materialistic manipulation could remedy. The Kennedys did not create this era; they were symptoms of it. They represented the sum total of the collective consciousness of America. The passing of the Kennedy era is the passing of that consciousness.
A new consciousness is developing in America and in the Western world, which will become manifest in the next decade. It will understand that the natural patriarchal structure enables men to provide the environment and means for women to being forth life and nurture it.
E.G.
posted by Elder George at
4:25 PM
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