Posted on 10/03/2015 5:32:49 PM PDT by raccoonradio
Kennedy, in a book scheduled to be released Monday, provides an intimate picture of a dysfunctional family and some of its well-publicized struggles with alcoholism and mental health issues — and what he describes as a blanket of secrecy that papered over their problems...The book, which Kennedy will discuss on CBS’s “60 Minutes” Sunday night, is bound to rile other members of the famous family.
“I know how some of them are going to react,” Kennedy says in a brief excerpt from the show released by CBS. “They’re angry.”
He describes a drunken sailing trip in 2000 that turned out to be an embarrassment, and he says he threw up in an Air Force One bathroom on the way to Ireland after too many rum and cokes.
Two days before an infamous crash at the US Capitol in 2006, he writes, he drank eight straight miniature vodkas on the Acela from New York to Washington. No one was injured in the subsequent crash, which occurred in the middle of the night. Kennedy blamed it on taking a combination of Ambien and Phenergan.
In another telling anecdote, Kennedy writes about his father admonishing him at a family gathering after the funeral of Ted Kennedy’s sister, Patricia Kennedy Lawford, in 2006.
His father was upset that, after he had crashed into a barrier at the US Capitol, Kennedy had gone public with his issues of addiction, in a New York Times article that appeared just days before the funeral.
“He called the article a disaster — the word he always used to describe the most extreme situations,” Kennedy writes. “How dare I talk about the family this way? How dare I discuss ‘these things’ in public?..."
(Excerpt) Read more at bostonglobe.com ...
The whole damned Kennedy Klan was a bunch of drunks and nobody stopped them, with Sen. Ted Kennedy being the most drunk and most dangerous one of them all.
We are now reaping the decades of their decadence and in Ted’s case, treason, yet almost no one wants to talk about it, and Carolyn Kennedy gets appointed as Ambassador to Japan without any qualifications (like most of Obama’s other major appointees).
I predict, that if more damning documents on Ted Kennedy’s relationship with the Soviet KGB are discovered or released, the whole Kennedy mystique may come tumbling down into a big pile of historical crap.
Wishing and Hoping.
Michael Kennedy is the one that hit a tree beside Sonny Bono.
He's got a new book out? He hadn't even finished coloring the other one.
LOL
His dad might have been a worse POS - if that's possible. A philandering criminal and Chamberlain fan who had his daughter lobotomized for fear that she would embarrass the family politically.
With the patriarch dispensing that type of DNA and family values, it's no wonder the entire clan was straight from hell.
Have you ever looked up the meaning of "politically correct"? It doesn't mean "politically expedient" or "politically possible."
Michael Kennedy I think; affair w 14 yr old/
Perhaps it is not stretching the phrase too far to have it include the myth makers of the Kennedy legend when one remembers how television handled the assassination and funeral, the subsequently published slavish biographies, the similar reaction to Bobby's funeral, even the praise heaped on Ted Kennedy as lion of the Senate by Republican senators and, never to be forgiven, by a Republican president.
For years the Kennedy family was in effect a protected class and criticism was risky indeed.
“It is important that myths which create larger than life figures not be tolerated in a free society because that in part is what has given us Barack Obama. Add to these tendencies the “martyrdom” of John F. Kennedy and the myth was irresistible for decades.”
Since the beginning of human history the masses have been attracted to the concept of an all powerful ruler whose wisdom and complete control over the administration of the state allows him/her to quickly settle conflicts, dispense justice, and “fairly” distribute the bounty of the nation. One of the most poignant Biblical lessons is the story of the Hebrew people demanding God give them a king, resulting in the anointing of Saul by the prophet Samuel. Ultimately the wise, strong, and just King becomes corrupted. We’ve seen the same story play out throughout history - Caesar and the Roman emperors who followed, the European monarchs, Lenin, Stalin, and Hitler. In modern times Mugabe in Zimbabwe, Castro in Cuba, Khomeni in Iran, Chavez in Venezuela, Hussein in Iraq are a few of the notable examples. Our current President Obama often publicly voices frustration with the checks and balances of our system and reminds the people how much more effective he could be if he could ignore Congress and rule by decree.
The founders, wise men they were, understood the ability of tyrants to take advantage of the passion in the body politic for strong leadership as well as the willingness of the people to surrender liberty to a ruler during times when the political system seems to be unfair or ineffective. Hence the checks and balances in our system which fragment political power and prevent one man or woman from amassing enough power to become a dictator.
The system was brilliant and worked effectively in an agrarian society in which land was plentiful and the people, were fiercely independent, most government occurred locally with significant citizen involvement, and the upper crust of society lived among the masses.
Today the masses complain about the unresponsiveness, inefficiency, and ineffectiveness of government at all levels. Thanks to skillful manipulation of the media, they do not blame the failures of government on the oppressiveness of a large power state. Instead the masses are being conditioned to believe the failures of government are due to the conflict inherent in the checks and balances of the outdated Constitution. Hence the growing appeal of the celebrity figure who will rule with wisdom, impartiality and efficiency.
The founders did not anticipate a number of issues which have distorted their concept of central government and corrupted the system:
1) The elimination of the states as a check on the power of the central government. The Civil War and the constitutional amendments of the early 20th century shifted focus of the people, and the power of government, from localities and states to the federal government.
2) The aggregation of the media into large corporations allied with the state. No longer do we have a fiercely independent press, with many competing small purveyors of primarily print newspapers, exposing government corruption in extensive detail. We now have large media companies heavily regulated by the central government and serving as shills for the propaganda of the state in exchange for favorable regulatory treatment. The people are programmed through thousands of direct and subliminal soundbite messages daily by the compliant media. Plus the acquisition of entertainment vehicles (sports, movies, books, internet content) by the media companies allows the same messages to be woven into the pop culture.
3) The two party system and the high cost of elections in the modern era which make the parties, and the candidates, dependent on those individuals and institutions that fund the parties. We have reached the point were representatives of the people openly and deliberately defy the will of the people in order to serve the money lenders.
4) The cumulative effective of decades of adding entitlement programs which effectively redistribute wealth from one citizen to the the other.
5) The shift from an agrarian rural society where people knew, respected, and worked with their neighbors through volunteer organizations to an impersonal urban society.
6) The advancement of technology and its ability to deliver to the poorest citizens a lifestyle unattainable by the wealthiest people of the 18th century.
7) The rise of secularism and decline of the Christian religion and moral values associate with religion.
8) The elites of society adopting a philosophy of life and government opposed to the Christian religion, western culture, and individual liberty.
To build on #6 people today are dependent on technology to sustain what for the 18th century man would be a fabulous life of comfort and ease. Limited government is very appealing to the man or woman who provides for his or her own needs on their own land and 100% through the sweat of their own labors. In contrast a powerful government is perceived by the elites and many citizens to sustain the transportation systems and communication systems required for our technology dependent lifestyles not to mention provide security from the global threats to the safety and security of individuals. The city dweller living in an urban apartment will gladly give up freedom to a despot as long as she/he has a roof, food, transportation, a big screen television, a smart phone, access to the internet and the freedom to indulge in whatever sexual fantasies he/she wishes to experience and explore. In fact, the modern urban citizen more likely values the efficiency a supreme ruler can bring to the administration of government than the conflict and gridlock associated with the current system.
Certainly the urban dweller receives more conditioning through the constant use of technology than the rural citizen who still experiences the glory of nature and can feel the spirituality of God’s creation on a daily basis. There isn’t much spirituality in the cold metal and glass of a human created iPhone. The myths of larger than life human personalities are less compelling to the country dweller who lives in the midst of God’s creation than urban dwellers absorbed in a human created and manipulated virtual world.
The American people are being conditioned to demand a celebrity superstar supreme ruler who will dispense with our outdated system of government and bring true justice and prosperity to the nation. The Kennedy legacy was a beginning. The manipulation of the career of the unaccomplished Barack Obama from obscurity to the highest office of the land demonstrates the advancement of the media manipulated myth of the larger than life figure. Even the corrupt Clintons are celebrity products of the modern media culture. The surprise success of Donald Trump in the current campaign, based solely on his celebrity status and brash claims he can “fix” our problems, suggests even the “conservative” masses are ready to accept a ruler in exchange for administrative efficiency.
It remains to be seen when, like the Romans before us, we shed the rule of the republic for the dictatorship of the emperor. It also remains to be seen if our ruler comes from the left or the right or even if it really matters.
Right.
Too many people use the phrase, “politically correct,” in a way that makes it obvious they think it means, “expedient,” or “opportunistic,” or “putting your finger in the wind.” E.g., they will say a politician is doing what’s “politically correct” if all he’s doing is old-fashioned pandering.
What concerns me is that it is important for as many people as possible to know that “political correctness” is MARXISM.
Not many people see their romance with booze as a struggle. Most see it as a full-throated, happy valley dive into a pool of booze in a never ending party. Patrick’s dad, Ol’ Bloato Boozo, never struck me as someone struggling, except maybe with someone like his fellow perv Dodd, to get a tactical advantage in the waitress sandwich game.
LOL, indeed.
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