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<\/p>\nFor decades, as a scion of the Kennedy family and environmental litigator, Robert F. Kennedy Junior was considered an establishment hero. In recent years, however, his rhetoric against covid lockdowns and vaccines \u2014 culminating in him making a comparison with Anne Frank and the Holocaust at a vaccine mandate rally \u2014 sealed his reputation among most commentators as irresponsible and potentially dangerous. So, since he announced that he was running for president, challenging Joe Biden for the Democratic nomination, he has presented the establishment media with something of a conundrum. He is already polling at 20% \u2014 should he be ignored or interrogated?<\/p>\n
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When Mr. Kennedy agreed to speak to UnHerd<\/em>, instead of re-rehearsing familiar arguments over vaccines, the reporter thought he\u2019d actually pursue to understand the way Kennedy thinks, and why he appeals to so many people. Does his curious basket of views \u2014 on the environment, Ukraine, corporate power, cultural issues \u2014 hang together? Below is an edited transcript.<\/p>\n Freddie Sayers<\/strong>: The issue of vaccines was notably absent from your campaign launch speech. Was this a deliberate effort to set the issue aside and appeal to mainstream Democrats?<\/em><\/p>\n Robert F. Kennedy Jr<\/strong>: My approach is that, unless I\u2019m talking to a group that specifically wants to talk about that issue, I would not lead with it. The issues that I want to lead with are those I talked about in my speech. If somebody asks me about vaccines, I\u2019m going to tell them the truth. But I think for most Americans, it\u2019s not on their top list of issues.<\/p>\n Freddie Sayers<\/strong>: It\u2019s not going to be easy to set aside, as every interview will mention it. What would be your message to mainstream Democrats who might be interested in some of the aspects you\u2019re saying, but have made a decision about you based on the vaccines issue?<\/em><\/p>\n RFK Jr<\/strong>: I\u2019m talking about issues that I think most Americans and probably most Democrats are concerned about: the systematic gutting of the middle class; the elevation of corporations \u2014 particularly polluting corporations; and, from the financial industry to the military-industrial complex, the corrupt merger of state and corporate power. Through wars, bank bailouts and lockdowns, we\u2019ve been systematically hollowing out the American middle class, and printing money to make billionaires richer. During the covid lockdown, there was a $4.4 trillion shift in wealth from the American middle class to this new oligarchy that we created \u2014 500 new billionaires with the lockdowns, and the billionaires that we already had increased their wealth by 30%.<\/p>\n That\u2019s just one of the assaults, and then you go to the bailout of the Silicon Valley Bank, and the war in Ukraine, which is costing us $113 billion; the war in Iraq and the wars that followed that have cost us $8 trillion. The total cost of the lockdowns was $16 trillion, and we got nothing for any of it. Is it any wonder that we don\u2019t have a middle class left in the United States of America? Unless we rebuild the middle class, and rebuild our economy, our national security is going to fail, and our democracy is going to fail.<\/p>\n FS<\/strong>: You\u2019ve been using the word \u201ccorporatism\u201d a lot in interviews \u2014 what do you mean by it?<\/em><\/p>\n RFK Jr<\/strong>: It\u2019s the domination of government, and particularly democratic governments, by corporate power. I\u2019ve spent 40 years litigating against the agencies, the regulatory agencies in the United States, so I can tell you that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is effectively run by the oil industry, the coal industry and the pesticide industry. When I was on the trial team that brought the Monsanto cases, and we ended up with a $13 billion settlement after winning three trials, we uncovered that the head of the pesticide division at the EPA was secretly working for Monsanto, and was running that agency to promote the mercantile ambitions of that business rather than the public interest. He was killing studies, he was fixing studies, he was ghost-writing studies. And that\u2019s true throughout the agencies.<\/p>\n If you look at the pharmaceutical industry in our country, it runs the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The FDA gets 50% of its budget from Big Pharma. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) spends half of its budget purchasing vaccines from Big Pharma, and then distributing it. And the National Institutes of Health (NIH) is just an incubator for new pharmaceutical products. It doesn\u2019t do the basic research that we want them to be doing \u2014 about where all these diseases come from. The studies that do get done are studies that develop pharmaceutical products. And then the NIH collects royalties when the pharma company sells those products. The regulator is essentially a partner with the regulated industry. The Department of Transportation (DOT) is run by the railroads in our country and by the airlines; the banks have utterly corrupted the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC); and the media has corrupted the Federal Election Commission (FEC).<\/p>\n FS<\/strong>: Are you alleging actual corruption within all these government agencies, or is it more of a general sense that there\u2019s a revolving door between them and industry?<\/em><\/p>\n RFK Jr<\/strong>: It\u2019s both. There\u2019s legalised bribery and illegal bribery. The rules governing conflicts of interest aren\u2019t just ignored \u2014 they\u2019re systematically ignored. And the rules started out not strong enough to really protect the public interest. You have both going on \u2014 honest graft and dishonest graft.<\/p>\n FS<\/strong>: This sounds like a traditional Left-of-centre critique, but you\u2019re now being described as Right-wing. Do you think the old distinctions between Left and Right are breaking down?<\/em><\/p>\n RFK Jr<\/strong>: I consider myself a traditional Kennedy liberal. I don\u2019t know of any values that my uncle John Kennedy harboured, or my father shared, that I don\u2019t share. They had antipathy and suspicion towards war and the military-industrial complex; they did not want corporations running the American government; they were completely against censorship. They were against the use of fear as a governing tool, and they spoke out about it often. If you go down the list of aspects that they believed in, I don\u2019t think there\u2019s really any daylight between me and what they believed.<\/p>\n But I do think that there is a growing coalition in this country of populist forces, on the Left and Right, that are convening now and finding common ground. And I think that really is probably the only thing that is going to rescue American democracy.<\/p>\n FS<\/strong>: So you\u2019re overtly trying to get support from conservative voters?<\/em><\/p>\n RFK Jr<\/strong>: I always have been. I spent 35 years as \u2014 I don\u2019t want to toot my own horn, but \u2014 arguably the leading environmentalist in the country. I was the only environmentalist who was going on Fox News<\/em> constantly, on Sean Hannity, on Neil Cavuto, on Bill O\u2019Reilly, on Tucker Carlson. People would say to me: \u201cYou\u2019re legitimising those platforms by going on there<\/em>.\u201d And I said: \u201cI\u2019m not compromising my values<\/em>.\u201d When I go on there, I\u2019m talking to their audiences. I want to speak to their audiences. How are we going to persuade people, how are we going to end polarisation, if we\u2019re not talking to each other? I\u2019ll go on any platform, and the only platforms I won\u2019t go on are ones that my wife just can\u2019t live with. If it was up to me, I would go on Steve Bannon and I would even go on Alex Jones, because I want to talk to those audiences.<\/p>\n I think there\u2019s a rebellion going on in our country now \u2014 there\u2019s a populist rebellion \u2014 and if we don\u2019t capture that rebellion, for the forces of idealism and the forces of generosity and kindness, somebody else is going to hijack that rebellion for much darker purposes. I don\u2019t think it\u2019s a good idea to say we\u2019re not going to talk to American populists because they\u2019re deplorable. Americans are our brothers and sisters, and we need to listen to them. And their backs are against the wall because of policies that have come from both Republican and Democratic parties.<\/p>\n FS<\/strong>: One name you mentioned there is Tucker Carlson, who obviously lost his job. He is thought of as a Right-wing conservative, but seems to agree with you on a lot of things. What is your view of Tucker Carlson?<\/em><\/p>\n RFK Jr<\/strong>: There was nobody, during most of his career, who was more critical of Tucker Carlson than I was. But I think Tucker has evolved over the past three years into probably one of the leading populist voices in our country. He\u2019s one of the only people on American television that\u2019s talking about free speech. It\u2019s extraordinary \u2014 when I was growing up, the people who were most militant, who were the First Amendment absolutists, were journalists. The average American journalist seems not the least bit concerned by government-orchestrated censorship. It\u2019s very, very strange.<\/p>\n FS<\/strong>: It\u2019s been speculated that you could run on a joint ticket with Tucker Carlson. Is there any scenario in which you would work together?<\/em><\/p>\n RFK Jr<\/strong>: I wouldn\u2019t speculate about that. I can\u2019t see Tucker Carlson running as a Democrat and I\u2019m running as a Democrat.<\/p>\n FS<\/strong>: And if you don\u2019t win the Democratic nomination, will you consider running as an independent?<\/em><\/p>\n RFK Jr<\/strong>: I intend to be successful. I don\u2019t have a plan B.<\/p>\n FS<\/strong>: There are some areas where you seem to have a very different view to people like Tucker Carlson. On culture-war issues such as gender, do you think that the Democratic Party has become too \u201cwoke\u201d?<\/em><\/p>\n RFK Jr<\/strong>: I\u2019m not going to cast judgement on a generalised description of the Democratic Party. I feel like we should take a common-sense approach to these issues. I\u2019m trying to figure out ways to emphasise the values that we have in common, rather than the issues that are tearing our country apart. So I don\u2019t feel the need to take a position on every issue. If it\u2019s an issue that I will have nothing to do with as president, then I\u2019m very unlikely to take a position on it.<\/p>\n FS<\/strong>: Let me be specific then. The concept of \u201cequity\u201d is central to President Biden\u2019s ideas about governance \u2014 the idea that minority groups, such as racial minorities, should be retrofitted into positions via quota rather than just through a normal meritocratic process. Do you agree with the principle of equity?<\/em><\/p>\n RFK Jr<\/strong>: I wouldn\u2019t agree with the policy that you just described. My family has been deeply involved in the Civil Rights Movement, and I\u2019ve been involved with environmental justice issues. My first case was representing the NAACP [The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People]. In 2001, I spent the entire summer in a maximum security prison in Puerto Rico for civil disobedience that I did in conjunction with a case that I brought, defending the poorest black and Hispanic populations in America, arguably \u2014 the population of Vieques. I brought probably as many environmental justice cases during my career as anybody else, and I understand that there is institutional racism in our country. You see it in many police departments, although not all of them. Certainly not all police are racist, but it is a huge problem. Blacks in our country are living not only with the legacy of slavery, but the legacy of 100 years of Jim Crow, having their leaders systematically murdered \u2014 and then being redlined! In the 2008 collapse, it was black homeowners who were targeted first. We need to figure out ways to make sure that those communities are participating in the American experiment.<\/p>\n FS<\/strong>: The question is whether, as a \u201cKennedy liberal\u201d, you believe the best way to address those inequalities is to try to improve equality of opportunity rather than selecting candidates by identity criteria. When, for example, the President announced that he was going to find an African-American female to fill the latest Supreme Court vacancy before having started the selection process, did that make you uncomfortable in that it wasn\u2019t an open, meritocratic choice? Or did you feel that it is right?<\/em><\/p>\n RFK Jr<\/strong>: I\u2019m not going to second guess President Biden on that choice. I\u2019ve sat for 20 years on the board of Bedford-Stuyvesant restoration, which was the first community development corporation in our country. I watched that bring capital and mentorship into one of the poorest black communities in this country. We saw a renaissance in Bedford-Stuyvesant because of that. Black Americans want to feel represented, and I think a black child ought to be able to look at our Cabinet and our courts and be able to see a possibility of positions that they can aspire to. But I also think that our real target needs to be getting capital into those communities, making homeownership more widespread in those communities, reducing crime, making healthcare available, and all of those things that will invite black Americans into the American experience.<\/p>\n FS<\/strong>: Let me ask you about climate and the environment, which is a lifelong issue for you. In the last few years, environmentalism seems to have shifted from being an anti-establishment position to an establishment, corporate-endorsed position. Do you think there is a good version of the green movement, and a corporate, Davos-style version of the movement? And how would you distinguish between them?<\/em><\/p>\n RFK<\/strong> Jr<\/strong>: Yes, definitely that has occured. Climate has become more polarised than ever, and with good reason. The crisis has been, to some extent, co-opted \u2014 by Bill Gates and the World Economic Forum and the billionaire boys\u2019 club in Davos \u2014 the same way that the covid crisis was appropriated by them to make themselves richer, to impose totalitarian controls and to stratify our society, with very powerful and wealthy people at the top, and the vast majority of human beings with very little power and very little sovereignty over their own lives. Every crisis is an opportunity for those forces to clamp down controls.<\/p>\n And then you also see, with climate, there\u2019s been a shift \u2014 from habitat preservation and regenerative farming to trying to reduce the power of the carbon industry \u2014 towards corporate carbon capture, which can be monetised by the corporations and exploited without seeing any real benefit on the ground. And also with geoengineering solutions, which I oppose. It tends to be that the people who are pushing them also have IP rights \u2014 in other words, patent rights in a lot of those technologies. There is definitely an optic of self-interest.<\/p>\n FS<\/strong>: We had an example here in Europe, with the farmers\u2019 protests in the Netherlands. New environmental rules on use of nitrate fertilisers and other elements came in and populist voters \u2014 frankly, the kind of voters who might be interested in you \u2014 were very angry about it, as it seemed to ignore ordinary people\u2019s economic reality? Did you observe that?<\/em><\/p>\n RFK Jr<\/strong>: I fell on the side of the farmers in that debate because I saw what occurred over the years, which is the increase in the power of this combination of corporate and government power, which colluded to get those farmers to switch over to heavily nitrate fertiliser-dependent and GMO farming. It was purposeful and systematic. Once you get all of those farmers to switch to hydrocarbon-based fertilisers and to monocultures, then you say: \u201cThose are bad and now we\u2019re going to shut you all down<\/em>.\u201d It\u2019s a bait and switch, a way of destroying small farmers.<\/p>\n If we want to have democracy, we need a broad ownership of our land by a wide variety of yeoman farmers, each with a stake in our system. That\u2019s what Thomas Jefferson said. Wiping out the small farmers and giving control of food production to corporations is not in the interests of humanity. We need to help those farmers transition off the addiction that we imposed upon them in the first place.<\/p>\n FS<\/strong>: Similarly, to be anti-nuclear, as you\u2019ve been for decades, has historically been an anti-establishment position. But now the situation has changed, as countries such as Germany have shut down their nuclear power and now find themselves vulnerable and dependent on Russian gas. Have your views evolved on nuclear?<\/em><\/p>\n RFK Jr<\/strong> : No. I\u2019ve always said I\u2019m all for nuclear if they can make it safe and if they can make it economic. Right now, it is literally the most expensive way to boil a pot of water that has ever been devised. We were told that nuke energy would be too cheap to metre, and actually it\u2019s so expensive that no utility in the world will build a nuclear power plant without vast public subsidies from the taxpayer. In our country, we had to pass the Price-Anderson Act<\/em> because nuclear is dangerous. It\u2019s too dangerous for humanity \u2014 look at Fukushima. There is so much contaminated water that is pouring out and contaminating the entire Pacific Ocean; they\u2019re finding radiation in fishes all over the ocean. And the only solution is for them to pump the water into these huge tanks, and then store it forever. If you look at the pictures of Fukushima now, there are these giant tanks that just go on as far as the eye can see. Look at Chernobyl.<\/p>\n You may say there\u2019s new forms of nuke power that are safer, which I would say is not true. But don\u2019t listen to me \u2014 listen to the insurance industry; ask them: \u201cWould you ever insure one of these plants?\u201d and they won\u2019t. Until they can buy an insurance policy, they shouldn\u2019t be saying it\u2019s safe. In our country, they had to make a sleazy legislative manoeuvre in the middle of the night and pass the Price-Anderson Act<\/em> which shifts the burden of their accidents onto the public. So it\u2019s not hippies in tie-dyed T-shirts who are saying it\u2019s dangerous; it\u2019s guys on Wall Street with suits and ties. This is so dangerous that they can\u2019t get an insurance policy and then they have to store the stuff at taxpayer expense for the next 30,000 years, which is five times the length of recorded human history. How can that ever be economic? If they had to internalise the cost, nobody would ever build one of these plants. To build a solar plant, a gigawatt of solar now costs about a billion dollars. To build a nuke plant, it\u2019s between 9 and 16 billion for one gigawatt of the same element.<\/p>\n FS<\/strong>: In the European context, though, France has a lot of nuclear power and seems to be sitting quite pretty now, while Germany has had to restart its coal-fired plants.<\/em><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/yogaesoteric.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/k2.jpg\")
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