RFK Jr --becoming an important voice
Sat Sep 17, 2005 at 04:48:36 PM PDT
He's the most cogent voice in the country on environmentalism, its nexis with the Bush "kill-government" agenda, and the massive, practical harm the administration has done in a short time by abrogating environmental regulations.
In speech today before the Sierra Club, he added some non-environment-related themes: centralized corporate control of the media, and the character of Donald Rumsfeld, among others.
I think we need to add him to the list of people who are the face of the national Democratic Party -- somewhere, somehow -- and soon.
Consider these comments, apparently somewhat extemporized (or recorded and transcribed):
RE Donald Rumsfeld:
"I saw a couple of days ago Donald Rumsfeld on TV and I saw him and I saw how articulate and eloquent he was. I know Donald Rumsfeld, he lives next to my house in Washington.
"When I got out of prison in Puerto Rico a couple of years ago [where he had gone to protest the U.S. naval bombing exercises that took place in Viques for many years], he actually was very kind to me. I met him at lunch and dinner a couple of times at my mom's house. He's a very charming guy, affable. If you're not in Abu Ghraib... but I saw him on TV in his suit and he looked so good and he's so eloquent and charming and stuff and I say, here's a man who's had the best of our country. He's gone to our churches, had the best schools, the education, the contacts, the money, everything. And then I see these letters that he wrote back and forth with Alberto Gonzales, [that] he's emailed, debating how much it was permissible for Americans to torture people. And I say to myself how did these people miss the whole point of America? How do they not know that torture is not an American family value?
"And I say that this is an administration that represents itself as the 'White House of values' but every value that they claim to represent is just a hollow façade, [that masks] the one value that they really consider worth fighting for which is corporate profit taking.
"They say that they like free markets but they despise free market capitalism. What they like -- if you look at their feet rather than their clever, clever mouths -- what they really like is corporate welfare and capitalism for the poor but socialism for the rich.
"They say that they like private property but they don't like private property except when it's the right of a polluter to use his private property to destroy his neighbors property and to destroy the public property.
"And they say that they like law and order but they are the first ones to let the corporate law breakers off the hook. And they say that they like local control and states rights but they only like those things when it means sweeping away the barriers to corporate profit taking at the local level. And you and the Sierra Club know and I can give you hundreds of examples. They're suing my cousin Arnold Schwarzenegger. Detroit is suing him for this - I know that's not going to get a lot for applause in this room.
"But, you know, what do you sign into law? The best automobile emissions bill [cutting greenhouse gases] that was passed by the Democratic legislature [in California] and now Detroit [car manufacturers] is saying they're going to sue [the state] just because they recognize that the emissions here [in California] were not protecting the health of the people of their state. So [legislators] want ones that will. Now Detroit is saying it's going to sue [the state] and the Federal government is now making noises that it's going to come into that suit on the side of Detroit. That's not local control..."
It was a wide-ranging speech, touching on many structural defects of our current politics besides environmental-related issues.
One more:
"... we have a negligent and indolent media and press in this country which has absolutely let down American democracy [applause]. All this right wing propaganda which is planned and organized and [has] dominated this country [and] the political debate for so many years, talking about a liberal media. Well, you know and I know there is no such thing as a liberal media in the United States of America.
"There is a right wing media and if you look where most Americans are now getting their news, that's where they're getting it. According to Pew, 30 percent of Americans now say that their primary news source is talk radio which is 90 percent dominated by the right.
"Twenty-two percent said their primary news source is Fox News, MSNBC or CNBC, all dominated by the right and another 10 percent, Sinclair Network, which is the most right wing of all.
"[Sinclair]is the largest television network in our country. It's run by a former pornographer who requires all 75 of his affiliate television stations -- and this is where Mid-Westerners get their news, red state people get their news -- all of them have to take a pledge to not report critically about this president or about the war in Iraq...
Keep it up, Bobby. We need you, and we still miss your father.
RFK Jr. is chief prosecuting attorney for the Hudson Riverkeeper, senior attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council and president of the Waterkeeper Alliance. He is also a clinical professor and supervising attorney at the Environmental Litigation Clinic at Pace University School of Law in New York
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