Robert F. Kennedy- remarks on capitalism

REMARKS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS, MARCH 18, 1968

Robert F. Kennedy

University of Kansas

March 18, 1968

excerpt:

"Even if we act to erase material poverty, there is another greater task, it is to confront the poverty of satisfaction - purpose and dignity - that afflicts us all.  

Too much and for too long, we seemed to have surrendered personal excellence and community values in the mere accumulation of material things.  Our Gross National Product, now, is over $800 billion dollars a year, but that Gross National Product - if we judge the United States of America by that - that Gross National Product counts air pollution and cigarette advertising, and ambulances to clear our highways of carnage.  

It counts special locks for our doors and the jails for the people who break them.  It counts the destruction of the redwood and the loss of our natural wonder in chaotic sprawl.  It counts napalm and counts nuclear warheads and armored cars for the police to fight the riots in our cities.  It counts Whitman's rifle and Speck's knife, and the television programs which glorify violence in order to sell toys to our children.  

Yet the gross national product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education or the joy of their play.  It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages, the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials.  

It measures neither our wit nor our courage, neither our wisdom nor our learning, neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country, it measures everything in short, except that which makes life worthwhile.  And it can tell us everything about America except why we are proud that we are Americans".

On June 5, 1968, Robert F. Kennedy was shot by an assasin at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, California and pronounced dead the following day. 

Kennedy, a United States senator and a leading candidate in the1968 Democratic Party presidential primaries won the California and South Dakota primaries on June 4. 

He addressed his campaign supporters in the Ambassador Hotel's Embassy Ballroom. After leaving the podium, and exiting through a kitchen hallway, he was mortally wounded by multiple shots fired by Sirhan Sirhan. Kennedy died at Good Samaritan Hospital nearly 25 hours later. His body was buried Arlington National Cemetery.

Kennedy's body was transported via train from New York City to Washington, D.C.Thousands of mourners lined the route to pay their respects.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr was 14 years old when his father was murdered.

Our nation and the world would be better off by far if Bobby Kennedy had lived and become the next president of the United States instead of Richard Nixon.

They robbed us of these beautiful, brilliant minds/spirits/souls in 1968. People who would have changed the world we live in now. Reverend Martin Luther King Jr.