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Banned
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Sixty effing years, living under the oppression of two right wing political parties... Abe Ribicoff was first the governor of my state, and then it's junior senator. I saw him, in person as governor in an appearance at my grade school. In his memory:
(and...I'm sorry...but Barak is just another "winger", yet another "corporatist"....if he elected, he would "increase the size of our military....blah, blah, fucking blah....!" As if he really believes in the lyrics of this song: )
Quote:
http://my.barackobama.com/page/commu...epeters/gGgVS4
Chicago
Graham Nash
...Won't you please come to Chicago
For the help that we can bring.
We can change the World.
Rearrange the World.
It's dying
to get better.
Politicians sit yourselves down,
There's nothing for you here.
Won't you please come to Chicago
For a ride....
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Quote:
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpag...gewanted=print
<a href="http://video.aol.com/video-detail/abraham-ribicoff-denounces-chicago-mayor-daley-at-68-convention/4267918090">Listen</a>
August 25, 1996
Ribicoff And Daley Head To Head
By PEGGY MCCARTHY
THE Senator from Connecticut was angry. The Chicago police were attempting to quell Vietnam War protests by beating participants with billy clubs and spraying them with tear gas. It was Aug. 28, 1968, and the national Democratic Party was conducting its convention in Chicago.
Abraham A. Ribicoff took the podium to make a nominating speech, but unexpectedly changed the subject. Under the glare of television cameras, he blasted the Chicago police for using what he called ''Gestapo'' tactics.
The host Illinois delegation was seated directly in front of Senator Ribicoff's face. Mayor Richard J. Daley responded to the Connecticut Senator's broadside by shouting epithets at him that weren't picked up by the television microphones, but that viewers could easily discern by reading the Mayor's expressive lips. Illinois delegates yelled at Mr. Ribicoff to ''Get down! Get down!''
The Senator responded, ''How hard it is to accept the truth.''
Now, 28 years later, the Democratic party is preparing to return to Chicago for the first time since that tumultous convention. And Mr. Ribicoff has been receiving any number of calls asking about the 1968 incident. ''Look, it is something that has gone down in history,'' he said in a telephone interview. ''It is something that has never happened before and I don't think it will happen again.''
''It was something that had to be said, and it was something that was important to be said. And, I would do it all over again because I thought that what was going on was absolutely the wrong thing to happen,'' Mr. Ribicoff said.
The exchange between the Senator and the Mayor reflected the high emotions and deep divisions of the Democratic party and the country at the time, centered on the Vietnam War. It was no concidence that protestors descended upon Chicago to let the politicians know their feelings.
Mr. Ribicoff had declined the chance to be a delegate to the 1968 convention. The Connecticut delegation was split on which Presidential candidate to back: Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey or Senator Eugene J. McCarthy of Minnesota. Mr. Ribicoff had not endorsed either. At the convention, he nominated Senator George McGovern of South Dakota.
According to news reports, when he said, ''If we had Mr. McGovern, we wouldn't have the Gestapo in the streets of Chicago,'' Mr. Daley jumped to his feet, waving a finger, to give the message that Mr. Ribicoff should leave the podium. Mayor Daley was certainly not the Senator's only critic. Even though he was a Senator, Mr. Ribicoff, as a non-delegate, had to borrow a badge to get onto the stage.
Then-Congressman Donald J. Irwin of Norwalk, a delegate, lent him his badge.
Mr. Irwin said he thought that the Senator was just going to make a nominating speech, and he didn't like what he heard either. The next morning, he angrily confronted the Senator at a reception, called him a ''creep'' and said his remarks at the convention were ''contemptible.'' His parting shot was ''I hope they Mace you.''
''Even to this day, I really can't believe he used that kind of language,'' Mr. Irwin said of the Gestapo reference. ''It was a time of very deep passions, yet people could have used some restraint.''
Mr. Ribicoff said Mr. Irwin's criticism ''went in one ear and out the other.'' He added, ''what I said was the truth and that was it.''
The Senator's speech drew both boos and cheers at the convention and afterward. He said soon after that he had received 4,000 letters, all but 100 in support of his remarks.
Robert N. Giaimo, who was then a Representative from North Haven, was quoted at the time as saying that he was shocked by Mr. Ribicoff's comments, adding ''I think he's losing his cool.''
On the other hand, the Rev. Joseph D. Duffey, the leader of the Eugene McCarthy delegation at the convention was quoted as praising the senator for being ''a great hero.'' He said Mr. Ribicoff did ''a courageous thing. He told the truth.''
Representative Barbara B. Kennelly, of Hartford, was there and remembers Mr. Ribicoff's speech ''as if it were yesterday.'' She called it ''his finest hour,'' saying ''it was a courageous thing for Abe to do, and it had to be done.''
Her father, John M. Bailey, was then the state and national Democratic Party chairman. She said that she believes her father knew that the Senator was ''right,'' but she said, ''I suppose, being the national chairman, he might have wished he was a Senator from another state.''
Mr. Daley died in 1976 and it is his son, Richard J. Daley Jr., who is now the Mayor of Chicago. But the mood in the country and the Democratic Party is quite different. There won't be a fight for the Democratic presidential nomination. President Clinton is to be nominated for a second term. Mrs. Kennelly said she was in Chicago recently and ''the city is in great shape.'' She noted, ''The only thing the same about 1968 and 1996 is the Mayor's name.''
Mr. Ribicoff, at the age of 86, practices law in New York City, and has homes in Cornwall in northwestern Connecticut and in Manhattan. This year, he plans to watch the Chicago convention on television.
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