Salon Interview (Bobby Kennedy Jr.): Save the Earth – Dump Bush

[kskiska]

In a slashing interview, environmental leader Bobby Kennedy Jr. denounces the administration's "crimes against nature" and discusses the Democratic presidential pack, the dawn of Arnold's California reign -- and his own political future.

When Bobby Kennedy Jr. talks about the corporate polluters he has been fighting for nearly 20 years as an environmental lawyer -- and their accomplices in the Bush administration -- he gets the same steely look in his blue eyes that his father did when he was confronting the moguls of organized crime. "I am angry," he says, with a Kennedyesque hand chop of the air. "Three of my sons have asthma and I watch them struggle to breathe on bad air days. And it's just scandalous to me that these polluters can give millions to Bush and suddenly all these environmental regulations are thrown out the window. These guys in Washington are selling huge chunks of America's natural resources, they have our government up for sale to the highest bidder, and they're getting away with it scot-free."

(snip)

So why didn't Al Gore go near this issue in the 2000 race?
That was a great disappointment to me. I urged him to do it. And I believe he would be president if he had.

Have you talked with him about it since the race?

No, not since the race. But I talked to him and to Bob Shrum during the race.

And what was their explanation at the time -- that it wouldn't get him swing votes?

Their rationale was, No. 1, that they were talking about the environment, but that it wasn't getting traction with the press, and No. 2, that everyone knew that Gore was an environmentalist and he needed to establish his credentials in other areas.

But it was my feeling that Americans don't vote for a politician because he's mastered the issues -- they vote for a politician who they believe shares values with them. And is passionate about those values, and will fight for those values. And I think Gore's challenge was to explain the environment in ways that made Americans understand it was intertwined with all the other issues they cared about, and all their basic values.

Gore's failure was he didn't embrace the thing he genuinely cared about -- he didn't have the confidence to do that. Instead, he felt he had to prove his competence in all these other areas, to master the minutiae of every other issue. And Americans don't care about that.

I mean, look at George W. Bush -- he knows nothing about any issue. He doesn't seem to have a single complex thought in his head or shred of curiosity. I mean, he claims he doesn't even watch the news or read newspapers. But people find something kind of charming and trustworthy about his manner -- and that's all they need.

(snip)

I believe that George W. Bush is stealing my country, that he is absolutely stealing the environment from our children, stealing the breath from my children's lungs and stealing the Bill of Rights, selling off the sacred places, and trashing all the things I value about America. Our reputation across the globe, the love and admiration that other peoples and nations once had for America, the safety of our nation, the security of our children, the economy, the ability of our children to educate themselves for the future -- it's all being liquidated by this president for his wealthy friends and contributors. And I am so furious at this man for stealing the thing I love most, which is America, my country.

more…
http://salon.com/opinion/feature/2003/11/19/bobbykennedyjr/index.html

[glitch]

1. "I believe that George W. Bush is stealing my country"

so do I. Thanks for the link. http://www.commonwealthclub.org/archive/02/02-02kennedy-intro.html has one of his speeches to them online. They also have one of his father's speeches available too.

[mrsteve]

2. I had to email that last quote to my friends - it's the best of many

Great profile of Bobby Jr. - well worth the read.

Here's more -

"The Kennedy family and the Bush family are the two modern American political dynasties. How would you characterize the differences between the two families and what they stand for?

What I see is this. I think there's always been a tension in American history between two separate philosophies. One is the philosophy that was first articulated by Jonathan Winthrop when he made the most important speech in American history, in 1630, as he approached the New World with a convoy of Puritans.

<snip>

And he said this land is being given to us by God so that we can create cities on a hill, not so that we can increase our carnal opportunities or expand our self-interest or disappear into the lure of real estate, but so that we can build cities on a hill -- models to all the rest of the nations of what human beings can accomplish if they work together and maintain their focus on a spiritual mission. And even though he was a Puritan and an Englishman, what he said that day was integrated into the fabric of what became America.

Now that philosophy distinguished the European settlement of North America from the European conquest of Asia, Africa and Latin America -- where the Europeans came as conquistadors to subjugate the peoples, extract the metals, and enrich themselves and then keep moving. Here, in America, they came to build communities that were models to the rest of the world.

<snip>

So you think those clashing philosophies are what define the Kennedy family vs. the Bush family?

Well, I don't want to make generalizations about the whole Bush family, but I think it definitely defines the current president. He's got the conquistador mentality, that you take care of your friends, you enrich yourself, and that's the point of government."

[Deaner1971]

3. We have to reject Bush's energy plan and his roll back of regs

I my lifetime, I cannot recall any President with less regard for our environment.

Bush's energy plan will allow oil and gas companies to ignore Clean Water requirements on lands used for construction and pipelines.

It gives dam operators greater rights that those of other property owners.

And it allows manufacturers of gas additives to ignore the Clean Water Act and ignores the poluting that they have already done.

If we hope to enjoy our Federal lands or have any hope of future geberations getting this birthright, he has to go. And with him the Repub majority.

[ramapo]

4. So angry I could cry

Just read the entire article. I just get sick thinking what Bush has done. It is so unbelievable what they've gotten away with and with hardly an ounce of protest. Kennedy is on the mark about Gore. Such a disappointment.

It is all so disheartening...

Thirty years ago I felt such hope that our environmental problems were going to be addressed. Today I feel a sense of loss and waste as so much has been thrown away.

Kennedy has done some great work. I recommend the book he co-wrote, "The Riverkeepers".

[Nancy Waterman]

5. This is one fantastic summary of the Bushcapades!

Here is another quote:

In Rolling Stone, you use the term "corporate fascism" to describe what's happening under Bush. Do you think that's excessive rhetoric?

No, I don't. When I was growing up, I was taught that communism leads to dictatorship and capitalism leads inevitably to democracy. And I think that's the assumption of most Americans. Certainly if you listen to people like Sean Hannity or any other voices of the right, there's an assumption that capitalism in any form is beneficial for democracy. But that's not always true. Free market capitalism certainly democratizes a nation and a people. But corporate capitalism has the opposite effect. The control of the capitalist system by large corporations leads to the elimination of markets and ultimately to the elimination of democracy. And we desperately need to understand that point in our country -- that the domination of our country by large corporations is absolutely catastrophic for our democratic process.

Corporations don't want free markets, they want profits. And the best way to guarantee profits is to eliminate the competition; in other words, eliminate the marketplace, through the control of government. And that's what we're seeing today in our country. There is no free market left in agriculture. The free market has almost been eliminated in the energy sector. These are two of our most critical sectors, and the marketplace has disappeared. We're seeing the same process underway in the media industry now. So there's very little consumer choice and Americans aren't getting the benefits and efficiencies that the free market promises us.

<snip>

There is no stronger advocate of free-market capitalism than myself. As a small businessman who is founder and operator of a bottled water company, I believe in and understand the free market a lot better than Sean Hannity ever will. But in a true free-market economy, you can't make yourself rich without making your neighbors rich and without enriching your community. What polluters do is make themselves rich by making everyone else poor. They raise standards of living for themselves by lowering quality of life for everyone else. And they do that by escaping the discipline of the free market. Show me a polluter and I'll show you a subsidy, I'll show you a fat cat who's using political clout to escape the discipline of the free market and forcing the public to pay his costs of production.

You look at all the Western resource issues, like grazing and lumber and mining and agriculture, and it's all about subsidies -- for some of the richest people in America, these welfare cowboys in the Western states who are getting $35 billion a year in federal subsidies that are destroying our ecosystems out there. And these are the same people who financed this right-wing revolution on Capitol Hill and helped put Bush in the White House, and now they have their indentured servants in Washington all demanding that we have capitalism for the poor and socialism for the rich.