Bobby Would Say Something

As some of you know, we do a radio show on the Internet (http://www.GoingBeyondRadio.com) on Wednesday evenings. A couple of weeks ago, a news story came out that talked about an upcoming documentary that ridiculously suggests a Secret Service agent may have fired the second shot at President Kennedy.

That caused us to re-interview Sherry Fiester, a forensics expert who's studied the JFK killing in great depth. That, of course, made me think of the Kennedys and the so-called Camelot period in U.S. history.

A few years after the president's assassination, Robert Kennedy ran for the presidency, from his position in the U.S. Senate. Bobby Kennedy toured the country and went to some of the poorest areas of the nation (including Appalachia) to bring attention to how the country was neglecting the poor, whether they were poor Whites, Blacks, Browns, etc.

The problem of homelessness wasn't very common in the 1960s, but it became very noticeable in the 1980s and many people talked about the people who lived on the streets for the next 10-15 years. There were news stories, magazine pieces and documentaries.

But no one's talking about this problem anymore.

So we obviously solved this problem, or people would still be concerned, right?

Apparently not. If you go into any reasonably-sized community, especially those in the sunbelt during the winter, you'll see them. The folks who live on the streets and are or aren't on drugs, who are or aren't mentally disabled are around us. The nicer people among us may give them a quarter or a buck from time-to-time, while the rest of us tell them to get a job or claim we lack sufficient resources to give them anything.

Many of us just ignore them.

But more shocking, in at least the last two election cycles, no one's mentioned the homeless. No one, whether liberal or conservative seems to give a damn about either these people or the social problems their existence represents.

If this were 1968, surely someone would say something. If no one else, it would've been Bobby. For those who think assassinations don't have much effect on history, let them look at homelessness. Let them look at Bobby. Let them see Appalachia.