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In some ways, the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy was a greater blow to the fate of America than the murder of his brother JFK five years earlier. Two months previous Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was murdered, and RFK represented one of the last powerful voices of liberalism in the U.S. His death prompted a hard swing to the right and ensuing partisanship from which America has never recovered.
--On This Day in History, Shit Went Down: June 5, 1968--
In telling the story of RFK, what-ifs run rampant. What we know is he had broad support that reached across both racial and class lines. President Johnson was mired in the Vietnam War and rapidly losing support. Kennedy spoke out against the war and stood a fair chance of not just stealing the Democrat leadership from Johnson, but winning the presidency, preventing all that Nixon bullshit. In fact, he was shot just after winning the South Dakota and California primaries in the Democrat leadership race. But who shot him, and why?
Just after midnight on June 5, 1968, Kennedy addressed his campaign supporters in the ballroom of the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. He had light security. They left the ballroom and walked through the kitchen amid a crowd of people to meet with press when Sirhan Sirhan leapt forward and began firing an 8-shot .22 caliber revolver. He hit Kennedy once in the head and twice in the back. Five others were wounded. Sirhan was tackled, arrested, and put on trial.
So who was this asshole? Is. Who is this asshole. Because the fucker is still alive and in prison. He’s a Palestinian Christian born in Jerusalem. He hated Israel and he hated Kennedy’s military support of the nation. He planned the assassination for the one-year anniversary of the start of the Six-Day War, which was a surprise attack by Israel into Egypt, the Gaza Strip, and the Sinai. It was a massive military success for Israel, crippling the Egyptian, Syrian, and Jordanian armed forces.
At the time of RFK’s assassination, Sirhan was only 24 years old. During his trial he said, “When you move a whole country, a whole people, bodily from their homes, from their land . . . that is completely wrong.” He said it “burned the hell out of me.” So he shot Robert Kennedy, who died 26 hours later, and we got fucking Nixon. Thanks, dick.
At the time of the assassination, RFK’s son, Robert F. Kennedy Jr, was 12-years old. In 2018 RFK Jr. met with Sirhan Sirhan in prison and had a lengthy conversation with him. Afterward, Jr. told the Washington Post he believed there was a second shooter involved in his father’s assassination. However, it is important to note that Jr. is an anti-vaccine conspiracy-spewing cockwipe who needs to fuck off, shut up, then fuck off some more.
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Thank you for making the note about Junior. Ughhh, he’s one of the top forces for anti-vax evil in America.
RFK Jr. fancies himself a scientist. He's not. He just needs money, so he grifts like so many do.