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Sunday Sep 25, 2005

Kennedy blasts Bush, news media

By Andy Kekacs

UNITY:

A shameless president and a lazy press are bringing America to the
brink of environmental and political disaster, according to Robert F.
Kennedy Jr.

The hijacking of the government, the environment and even the
Christian faith by corporate lackeys threatens everything that
Americans hold dear, Kennedy said, from the health of our children to
our rights as a free people.

"This is not just about protecting the environment, this is about
ensuring the survival of our democracy," said Kennedy, who spoke
Friday at Unity College.

Kennedy is an environmental attorney and author of the 2004 bestseller
"Crimes Against Nature: How George W. Bush and His Corporate Pals are
Plundering the Country and Hijacking Our Democracy."

"I don't believe there is any such thing as Republican children or
Democratic children," he said.

"But you can't talk about the environment on any level without
criticizing the president."

Kennedy pulled no punches in describing what he views as a government
takeover by multinational corporations he reviewed a long list of
corporate lobbyists who now hold key positions in the federal agencies
that regulate their former employers.

"The polluters -- are running the agencies that are supposed to
protect us from pollution," he said.

"Their goal is to subvert the laws they are supposed to be enforcing."

Kennedy said the strategy is succeeding.

He claimed the Bush administration had watered down or rolled back
more than 400 initiatives designed to ensure that Americans have clean
air and water, vibrant forests and healthy populations of fish and
wildlife.

For example, he said, the Bush administration dropped Clinton-era
federal lawsuits against the 75 worst polluters among coal-burning
power plants in the Midwest shortly after it took office in 2000.

The industry, he claimed, had donated $48 million to the Bush election
fund.

"(Large corporate donors) have a choke-hold on the White House," he
said.

They also have a choke-hold on the American people, according to
Kennedy, who said the EPA estimated that as many as 18,000 more people
would die of asthma and other pollution-related illnesses because of
changes to the "new source" rule that regulates air emissions.

"That's six times the number of people who were killed in the World
Trade Center attacks," said Kennedy.

Bush and his corporate backers are able to get away with it because a
lazy news media is not bothering to tell Americans what the president
is doing, according to Kennedy.

The lack of tough reporting is as much a threat as the actions of the
Bush White House, he said.

Paraphrasing Thomas Jefferson, Kennedy said, "If you do not have an
informed democracy -- democracy will not long survive."

"We have a negligent and indolent press that has let the American
people down," he said.

But that's not surprising, according to Kennedy, when only six men
decide what news will be broadcast on almost all of the more than
20,000 radio and television stations in the country.

With right-wing, pseudo-religious talk radio the major source of news
for many Americans, it's no surprise that Bush won re-election in
2004, according to Kennedy.

"There is no difference between the aspirations and values in the red
states (which went for Bush in 2004) and the blue states (which
favored John Kerry)," said Kennedy.

"There is no moral difference, but there is a huge information
difference -- The residents of the red states are just Democrats who
don't know what's going on."

But a short time later, Kennedy suggested there were some important
moral distinctions between the conservative, deeply religious red
states and the liberal, relative secular blue states.

"Massachusetts," said Kennedy, -- has the lowest divorce rate in the
nation -- In fact, the 10 lowest divorce rates are all blue states.

"I had my research assistant check, and a resident of a red state is
more likely to murder you, impregnate your teenage daughter, commit a
violent crime against you, commit a nonviolent crime against you, buy
pornography ..."

Kennedy suggested the conservative, religious "patriots" who are
running the country are neither conservative, religious nor patriotic.

"They have torn the conserve out of conservatism," he said.

"They have violated every one of the manifold mandates of the
Christian faith. And I look at the White House and say, 'How did they
get all of these draft dodgers in the same place?' -- All of these
guys loved the war in Vietnam, they just wanted someone else to fight
it."

Kennedy encouraged people to be skeptical of what the White House
said.

"Look at where their feet are going, rather than their rhetoric."

In the end, a healthy environment is the foundation of America's
economic success and its spiritual values, according to Kennedy.

"The economy is a wholly owned subsidiary of the environment," he
said.

"We're protecting nature because nature enriches us."

It not only enriches us economically, according to Kennedy, but it
also connects us to our faith.

The founders of all of the world's major religions had their central
moment of faith in the wilderness.

"There we read the messages written into creation by the Creator at
the very beginning of time," he said.

"Wilderness is the critical, defining element of the American
character. This is where our values come from, ultimately from
nature."

Added Kennedy:

"I don't want kids to grow up in a world where they don't know the
seasons, the tides -- the things that connect us to tens of thousands
of years of human history. Nature is where God talks to us."

________________________________________________________

Harry