CORPORATE CRIME REPORTER

 

Robert Kennedy Jr.: Democrats Are 75 Percent Corrupt,

Republicans Are 95 Percent Corrupt

19 Corporate Crime Reporter 1(5), January 3, 2005


Robert Kennedy Jr. last week accused President George Bush of being “the most corrupt and immoral President that we have had in American history.”


Early in the campaign, Kennedy endorsed Senator John Kerry for President, but last week Kennedy expressed disappointment in Kerry’s campaign and in the Democratic Party.


“The Republicans are 95 percent corrupt and the Democrats are 75 percent corrupt,” Kennedy said in an interview with Corporate Crime Reporter. “They are accepting money from the same corporations. And of course, that is going to corrupt you.”


Kennedy is touring the country promoting his new book, Crimes Against Nature: How George W. Bush and his Corporate Pals Are Plundering the Country and Hijacking Our Democracy (HarperCollins, 2004).


In the book, Kennedy implies that we live in a fascist country and that the Bush White House has learned key lessons from the Nazis.


“While communism is the control of business by government, fascism is the control of government by business,” he writes. “My American Heritage Dictionary defines fascism as ‘a system of government that exercises a dictatorship of the extreme right, typically through the merging of state and business leadership together with belligerent nationalism.’ Sound familiar?”


He quotes Hitler’s propaganda chief Herman Goerring: “It is always a simply a matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.”

Kennedy then adds: “The White House has clearly grasped the lesson.”


Kennedy also quotes Benito Mussolini’s insight that “fascism should more appropriately be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power.”


“The biggest threat to American democracy is corporate power,” Kennedy said in the interview. “There is vogue in the White House to talk about the threat of big government. But since the beginning of our national history, our most visionary political leaders have warned the American public against the domination of government by corporate power. That warning is missing in the national debate right now. Because so much corporate money is going into politics, the Democratic Party itself has dropped the ball. They just quash discussion about the corrosive impact of excessive corporate power on American democracy.”


Kennedy said that he asked Senator Kerry to focus on the environment during the campaign – advice that was rejected. (See Interview, page 11)


In the book, Kennedy charges that his appearance on MSNBC’s Charles Grodin show in November 1996 got Grodin fired.


Kennedy was invited on the show to talk about his book, Riverkeepers.


On the show, Kennedy ripped into GE, an owner of the network, for polluting the Hudson with PCBs.


On the show, Kennedy claimed that “every woman between Oswego and Albany has elevated levels of PCBs in her milk because of GE."


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