As a journalist who covers international politics and the United Nations I am, in this moment, especially reminded of that famous anti-war activist chant of the 1960’s, “The whole world is watching.” This is certainly true in the wake of an attempted assassination on a member of the United States Congress. The world is waiting and watching how we respond. At this very moment there are historic elections taking place in Sudan where millions have been sacrificed to violence to bring political freedom. They are watching. We have joined the international chorus of voices in urging a peaceful transition of power in The Ivory Coast. They are watching. All across the globe there are places where we hope to be the example of how elections and democracy is supposed to work. Those around the world who hope with us—are watching. When I first heard the news about the assassination attempt on Congresswoman Giffords, I immediately flashed to the moment over forty years ago when I heard the shocking announcement of Robert Kennedy’s assassination. There was the same mix of anger and sadness. There was the same simmering of civil unrest, fear, and virulent rhetoric. There was sadness over the utter destruction and grief that one person had visited on the lives of so many. There was anger that it seemed so tragically predictable. In 1968 I was a campaign worker in the Kennedy campaign in South Dakota and the five state area. Traveling from one campaign venue to another I was struck by the urgency of his message, and even in the Republican strongholds of that region, the heartfelt response of the crowds by the thousands who gathered to hear him. At each stop, with the well-known Kennedy wit, he would banter with the audience for a few moments and then after the laughter and the applause faded, his demeanor seemed to change as he turned to the message and one of the main themes of his campaign for the presidency, in his words, “this mindless menace of violence in America which again stains our land and every one of our lives.” So, after I heard the news of the tragic shooting in Tucson I went back to read some of those speeches that Senator Kennedy gave, where he warned against the “honor” we give to “bluster and the wielders of force;” those “we excuse who are willing to build their own lives from the shattered dreams of other human beings.” As we pause, as we contemplate the violence and the violent rhetoric that “again stains our land,” we should consider these words of Senator Kennedy, spoken in Cleveland following the assassination of Martin Luther King. “When you teach a man to hate and to fear his brother, when you teach that he is a lesser man because of his color, or his beliefs or the policies that he pursues, when you teach that those who differ from you, threaten your freedom or your job or your home or your family, then you also learn to confront others not as fellow citizens, but as enemies. To be met not with co operation but with conquest, to be subjugated, and to be mastered.” Forty years later, it is painful and not a little disheartening to hear and watch what today many pass off as politics as usual: framing our campaign goals with Cross-hairs over the districts of our political opponents; the bluster, now mainstream, of fanatical commentators exhorting, “the wielders of force” over the airwaves. In the meantime, there have been over a million killed by guns in the United States since 1968. As Senator Kennedy’s campaign in South Dakota was wrapping up and as he was heading to Los Angeles where one week later he would give his last speech, I was included in as a thank you in a small group of campaign workers who were invited to the Senator’s hotel room in Sioux Falls. As he made his way to each of us to thank us for our work, I thought about how many times in his stump speeches he had said that one person could make a difference, but always with the caveat –that we must act before it is too late. So when he came to me I asked him if it really was that serious. He looked at me steadily for a moment and gave me an answer that gave me pause, very gravely he answered simply, “yes.” by Tom Osborne See more of Tom Osborne's film reports at www.diplomaticallyincorrect.org