「勝手にRFK週間」の締めくくり

　※3月31日追記：という題名にしたのに、努力も空しく（？）、3月は完全にRFK月間と化しました。

「身長の2倍日記」（お、久し振り）

　RFKから離れられるとよかったのですが、読みきった本2冊（合わせて3、5センチ）はどっちもボビー関連本でした(^_^;)。
　再読本。
　

RFK: A Memoir (Nation Books)

作者: Jack Newfield
出版社/メーカー: Bold Type Books
発売日: 2003/08/26
メディア: ペーパーバック
クリック: 13回
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Robert F. Kennedy: A Spiritual Biography (Lives and Legacies)

作者: Konstantin Sidorenko
出版社/メーカー: Crossroad Pub Co
発売日: 2000/12
メディア: ハードカバー
クリック: 2回
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　えーと、一応合計18，5センチくらい、かな。あと3メートル分、英語の本を読む根性があるかしら？

　とりあえず、今読んでいるのが、前に触れた半分ジャケ買いのIn His Own Right。

　情け容赦のない政治的やり手に過ぎなかったボビーが、いかにして貧しい人の代表者のような政治家に変容したかを、政治的側面から分析・考察しているもの。主題は、彼の変容はどこから来たかですね。ニューフィールドは、それを彼の精神面に力点を置いて書いてましたが、この本はもっと外側からの政治的影響力（例えば公民権運動家との接触など）によって答えを出そうとしているものみたい。

　以前は読みにくいと思ってちゃんと読まなかったですが、今回はボビー熱にうかされているせいか、なんかぐいぐい読めるなあ。なんなんだ、一体(~_~;)。ただの、ミーハーかい。

　毎晩、RFK本を読んでいるおかげで、寝不足が続いています。もうそろそろ普通の生活（？）に戻らないと。とはいえ、だいぶお熱も冷めてきた、というかやっと落ち着いてきました、やれやれ。

　私のRFK観は2003年に放映されたテレビ番組によって方向性が決まってしまったので、偏っているかもなあと思うこの頃。
　ちなみに、今回気付きましたが、この番組のトーンは明らかにニューフィールドの本によっていますね。

　で、勝手にRFK週間（いつ、なったんじゃい！）の締めくくりに、私の見方を規定してしまった番組のトランスクリプトの一部を引用します。私が読みたいからというのが、最大の動機ですけどね。

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/kennedys/filmmore/pt.html
より一部引用

Kennedy had always been relentless in pursuit of his brother's policies and his brother's enemies. Now, he would be just as relentless in carving out a constituency of his own to the left of Lyndon Johnson, drawn from the dissatisfied, the poor, the young, blacks, Indians and the migrant workers of California.
CESAR CHAVEZ, National Farm Workers Association: We were like the forgotten. No one identified with us of any consequence. And then, of course, after he did that, a lot of people began to identify, which is what happens, you know.
DOLORES HUERTA, National Farm Workers Association: He was very sincere, very intense, you know, made everything seem very personal to him. He went right out into the fields, talked to the workers, you know, right out to where they were working, where they were picketing. The workers just really loved him.
CESAR CHAVEZ: And then, he went from our headquarters to the hearings, so he wasn't hiding the fact that he was pro-farm worker.
GEORGE REEDY: Bobby was intense. When he focused on something, it was almost like a laser beam. You could almost feel it cutting your skin.
（中略）
GEORGE REEDY: There was no real give to him. Bobby lived in a heaven-and-hell world. You were either on the side of God or you were on the side of Mephistopheles.
NARRATOR: More and more, Robert Kennedy found himself listening to advocates for the disadvantaged. Marian Wright was a lawyer for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
MARIAN WRIGHT EDELMAN, NAACP: I wanted him to see the suffering and I wanted him to see the hunger. I mean, it was very hard to get people to understand that people were literally starving in Mississippi at that time, that there were people with no income.
NARRATOR: Robert Kennedy went down to the Mississippi Delta with Marian Wright. As usual, the press followed, in force.
Sen. ROBERT F. KENNEDY (D-NY): What'd you have for lunch?
BOY: We ain't had lunch yet.
Sen. ROBERT F. KENNEDY (D-NY): You haven't had lunch yet?
BOY: No.
MARIAN WRIGHT EDELMAN: He walked in and saw, in a dark back room, a child that was obviously malnourished, with a bloated stomach, that was not very responsive, that was-- and he stooped down and began to try to get the child to respond-- touching and feeling and talking to the child. The child did not respond. He was obviously deeply moved and deeply outraged and conveyed that when he walked back out again into the light of the day and the light of the cameras.
REPORTER: Senator, what do you make of the problem of poverty in this, our poorest state?
Sen. ROBERT F. KENNEDY (D-NY): Well, I think it's obviously as great a poverty as we've had in our country. I think that, considering we have a Gross National Product of some $700 billion and that we spend $75 billion on armaments and weapons, that you would think that [since] we spend almost $3 billion each year on dogs in the United States, as American citizens, that we could be doing more for those who are poor and, particularly, for our children.
ROGER WILKINS: Robert Kennedy became a man who was connected to the world's pain after his brother's death and he could learn about the world's pain.
FRED DUTTON, RFK Adviser: He was a person who was moving, who was growing very much. When he went down in the Mississippi Delta and he saw what real poverty among the blacks was, it had a huge emotional impact on him.
Sen. ROBERT F. KENNEDY (D-NY): I don't think it's satisfactory that that child is nine years old and doesn't go to school.
FRED DUTTON: The man was a public person. He was not just struggling in the wilderness of good works.
NARRATOR: Robert Kennedy had already left behind his father's views. Now, he had moved beyond his dead brother, too, bringing all of his old zeal to a new, risky kind of politics, mounting a liberal challenge to the liberal president of his own party.