Robert F. Kennedy Jr. rips 'crony capitalism'
Thursday, September 29, 2005

By Steven Harmon
The Grand Rapids Press

GRAND RAPIDS -- Corporate polluters are phony capitalists, says Robert F. Kennedy Jr. And governments that enable them are undemocratic.

Before a packed downtown Fountain Street Church on Wednesday night, Kennedy ripped into the "crony capitalism" he said rules the Bush administration, which he said was intent on opening millions of acres of wilderness to industrial "profiteers."

"Corporations don't want democracy, they want profit," Kennedy said. "That's why our greatest political leaders and philosophers -- Republican and Democratic -- have been warning people about the corrosive power of corporations. Show me a polluter, and I'll show you a fat cat with political clout, getting away from the discipline of the market."

Kennedy wove a vision of clean water and air and a thriving free market as a goal that can be met, where intact environmental "infrastructure" can make up the "soul of communities."

But he also painted a bleak picture of deadly levels of mercury in fish, Appalachian mountain tops being chopped off, and rivers being killed by landfills.

He called the Bush administration's environmental record the worst in history. The administration, he said, has rolled back 400 major environmental laws, as part of a "deliberate effort to eviscerate environmental law. It's a stealth attack to conceal this radical shift from the public."

The Bush administration has a "short-term view that favors the few over the rest of us," he said. "Most insidiously, (the president) has put polluters in charge of the agencies in charge of controlling pollution."

The White House's efforts to conceal the "plundering" of the environment has been aided by a passive media, Kennedy said.

"Today, the American people are the best entertained and least informed people," he said. "That's why we're not making good choices."

One of the first actions by the Bush administration, Kennedy said, was to drop lawsuits started in the Clinton term against 75 of the worst coal-burning plants.

"As a result, 18,000 Americans are killed a year," he said. "This should be front page headlines of every newspaper every day. ... We're living a science-fiction nightmare, where asthmatic children are born into a world with poisons in the air because somebody paid money to a politician."

At the end of the night, he was asked if he would consider running for president, following in the footsteps of his father, who was assassinated in 1968 while making a presidential run.

"I've debated running for political office, but I've got a lot of small children right now, and I'm concentrating on that," Kennedy said.

"But at some point, I may run if I feel that is the only way I can be effective."