Clean water… sounds like an excellent good idea. Not only does it make paddling Folbots more pleasurable, it pretty much makes everything better.

I had a chance to meet the Charleston Waterkeeper last week. It was pretty cool.

Cyrus Buffum is a passionate guy. He started the Charleston branch of the Waterkeeper Alliance about a year ago, becoming one of the close to 200 members around the world. Tasked with preserving and protecting the integrity of Charleston’s waterways against pollution and contamination, the Charleston Waterkeeper has a big vision and goal. Working to encourage citizens to “take pride, take responsibility and to take action,” Charleston Waterkeeper strives to empower the public while protecting its rights to clean water.

You can learn more about the Charleston Waterkeeper, the Waterkeeper Alliance and see Cyrus in action in this video:

Folbot is proud to support the Charleston Waterkeeper in its quest to protect our home waters.

David A.

Still keeping with the collaborations (but with focus back to Ocean Week), today I am featuring Kelly Slater’s Superbly Restorative Argan Body Lotion for Kiehls, $55. The limited edition label art series will donate 100% of net proceeds to the Waterkeeper Alliance.

Click here to purchase, and for more details

Glenn Close 'Damages'

Meet award-winning actress Glenn Close on the set of the television series Damages.

Glenn Close has generously donated an auction lot package to spend a day on the set in New York with the famed actress, to raise funds for Waterkeeper Alliance, preserving and protecting water from pollution.

The Glenn Close Damages auction will end 30 April.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the founder of Waterkeeper Alliance and the Chief Prosecuting Attorney for Riverkeeper, told a congressional subcommittee on February 4 that factory farms that “produce” hogs are a greater danger to the United States than Osama bin Laden. It should be noted that not only hog farms but ALL factory farms are destroying the environment faster than all the transportation in the world combined. It is now known that animal agriculture is the number one cause of global warming. And speaking of “Waterkeeping”, over 50% of the water used in the U.S. is used raising animals for food. It would take only a fraction of that to grow plant-based foods that are healthier and kinder. You can watch RFK Jr.’s full exchange with Congress below.

MR. KENNEDY’S CLASS IS NOW IN SESSION

My first article I would like to lead off with here is a re-post from RFK Jr. It is all about the EPA, exactly who’s “Driving that bus” and what were they smoking when “they” came up with this “leadership” roster?!

Since RFK. JR. won’t be stepping up to the plate to offer to head up the EPA or take a liking to the NY Senate seat (once occupied by his father) I think it is fair to assume that RFK, Jr. will be holding steady as a steward for our greater good and continue to do what is best and what has been working for him… which is to camp out on the doorsteps of the ones who are poisoning our children’s inheritance and/or to spoil what we have to appreciate now in our environment.

Thank you and I look forward to building something really meaningful with you all here…

– Jack Mosel

Today’s Lesson Is: 

Texas Chainsaw Management

Vanity Fair
May 2007

Spinning the revolving door between government and business as never before, the White House has handed more than 100 top environmental posts to representatives of polluting industries. The author provides a biographical sampler–and describes a devastating rollback of three decades of progress.

by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

The verdict of history sometimes takes centuries. The verdict on George W. Bush as the nation’s environmental steward has already been written in stone. No president has mounted a more sustained and deliberate assault on the nation’s environment. No president has acted with more solicitude toward polluting industries. Assaulting the environment across a broad front, the Bush administration has promoted and implemented more than 400 measures that eviscerate 30 years of environmental policy. After years of denial, the president recently acknowledged the potentially catastrophic threat of global warming, but the words have no more meaning than the promise to rebuild New Orleans “better than ever.”

Most insidiously, the president has put representatives of polluting industries or environmental skeptics in charge of virtually all the agencies responsible for protecting America from pollution. Some egregious officials are now gone, often returning to the private sector whose interests they served. But the administrators who remain in place continue to carry the torch—people such as Mark Rey, a timber-industry lobbyist appointed to oversee the U.S. Forest Service; Rejane “Johnnie” Burton, at Interior, a former oil-and-gas-company executive in Wyoming, who has failed to collect billions on leases from oil companies active in the Gulf of Mexico; and Elizabeth Stolpe, a former lobbyist for one of the nation’s worst polluters, Koch Industries, who is an associate director (for toxics and environmental protection) at the White House Council on Environmental Quality.

This trend is consistent across all of the departments of government that pertain to the environment: the Department of Commerce (which regulates fisheries); the Departments of Agriculture, Energy, and the Interior; the E.P.A.; and even the relevant divisions of the Justice Department. More than 100 representatives from polluting industries occupy key spots at the federal agencies that regulate environmental quality. The revolving door between business and government—turning the regulated into the regulators—has never before spun so fast. And as a consequence environmental protection has been advancing backward on a broad front.

Consider Jeffrey Holmstead, who for four years was a top official in the E.P.A.’s Office of Air and Radiation. Before going to the E.P.A., Holmstead had worked for the law firm Latham & Watkins and represented one of the nation’s largest plywood producers, seeking to diminish pollution controls. In 2004, Holmstead ushered through new regulations exempting wood-products manufacturers from air-pollution rules governing formaldehyde. According to the Los Angeles Times, Holmstead’s new rule “relied on a risk assessment generated by a chemical industry-funded think tank, and a novel legal approach recommended by a timber industry lawyer.”

Or consider the career of Camden Toohey, who in 2001 was appointed to be the special assistant for Alaska by Gale Norton, the secretary of the interior from 2001 to 2006. Toohey, who was previously the executive director of Arctic Power, the chief lobbying group in the campaign to drill for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, oversaw Interior’s Alaska operations until resigning, in January of 2006, to take a job at Shell, where Norton now serves as senior legal adviser.

And then there is Charles Lambert, a former lobbyist for the beef industry, now a deputy undersecretary at the Department of Agriculture responsible for marketing and regulatory programs. In June 2004, The Denver Post reported on an exchange between Lambert and Representative Joe Baca, a California Democrat, at a hearing on the issue of mad-cow disease:

“Is there a possibility that [the disease] could get through?” …
Lambert answered, “No, sir.”
“None at all?,” Baca asked.
“No,” Lambert replied.
“You would bet your life on it—your job on it, right?”
Lambert answered, “Yes, sir.”
The disease was discovered in the U.S. six months later.

Reports in The New York Times and on 60 Minutes have highlighted the case of Phillip Cooney, who was the chief of staff for the White House Council on Environmental Quality. His job was to advise the president on the environmental implications of decisions that he makes. Cooney’s previous job had been as the chief lobbyist for the American Petroleum Institute. His preoccupation during his four-year White House stint, according to news accounts, was combing scientific documents issued by the various federal agencies in order to remove damaging statements about the oil industry and the coal industry. He suppressed or altered several major studies on global warming in order to protect the interests of his former clients. After the Times revealed the alterations, in 2005, Cooney left his job and went to work for ExxonMobil.

It can be a fine thing to have businesspeople in government, when the objective is to recruit competence and expertise. But high-ranking officials such as the ones cited here, and scores of others, have entered government service not to serve the public interest but rather to subvert the very laws they are charged with enforcing.

Under the Bush administration, the big polluters, as the author and activist Jim Hightower has pointed out, have eliminated the middleman. “The corporations don’t have to lobby the government any more. They are the government.”

The Top 12:

Ann Klee (2001–6), general counsel, E.P.A.; counselor to Interior secretary Gale Norton
Prior to her government appointments, Klee was a partner at Preston Gates & Ellis, where she worked for clients from the transportation, mining, timber, and waste-management industries on cases involving the Endangered Species Act, the Clean Water Act, and Superfund.

J. Steven Griles (2001–4), deputy secretary, Department of the Interior
While employed at Interior, Griles, a former lobbyist for coal, oil, and gas interests, negotiated payments of over $1 million from National Environmental Strategies, a lobbying firm in which he had had a principal interest. Griles’s tenure was described by an inspector general as an “ethical quagmire.”

Lynn Scarlett (2001–present), assistant secretary, then deputy secretary, Department of the Interior
Scarlett was previously president of the Reason Foundation, a libertarian think tank. In a 1997 article she wrote, “Environmentalism is a coherent ideology that rivals Marxism in its challenge to the classical liberal view of government as protector of individual rights.”

Gale Norton (2001–6), secretary, Department of the Interior
Norton served two terms as Colorado attorney general before joining a Denver law firm, where she represented numerous developers and lobbied for NL Industries, a paint manufacturer which has been the target of a dozen lawsuits alleging lead poisoning and has been a defendant in lawsuits involving 75 toxic-waste sites.

Richard Stickler (2006–present), assistant secretary, Mine Safety and Health Administration
As reported by The Charleston Gazette, Stickler “worked for BethEnergy Mines of Pennsylvania for 30 years, worked briefly for Massey and then headed Pennsylvania’s Bureau of Deep Mine Safety from 1997 to 2003, when he retired. Stickler’s mines had accident rates twice the national average.”

William Wehrum (2005–present), acting assistant administrator, E.P.A.
Wehrum is a former Latham & Watkins lobbyist specializing in Clean Air Act issues. He was involved in crafting lenient rules for power-plant mercury pollution in which a dozen paragraphs were taken from a Latham & Watkins memo.

James Connaughton (2001–present), chairman, Council on Environmental Quality
Previously a partner at Sidley & Austin, Connaughton represented General Electric and arco in their Superfund toxic-waste fights with the E.P.A.

Jeffrey D. Jarrett (2006–7), assistant secretary, Department of Energy
Prior to his work in government, Jarrett spent 13 years in the coal-mining industry. In March, he returned to the private sector when the Coal Based Generation Stakeholders Group hired him as its executive director.

Francis S. Blake (2001–2), deputy secretary, Department of Energy
Blake played a key role in formulating Bush’s controversial Clear Skies legislation, meeting with dozens of energy-industry lobbyists in closed-door sessions. Blake has since been named chairman and C.E.O. of Home Depot.

William Gerry Myers III (2001–3), solicitor, Department of the Interior
Myers has compared federal land-use regulation to “the tyrannical actions of King George.” After leaving Interior, Myers rejoined Holland & Hart, where he represents several extractive-industries clients.

Rebecca W. Watson (2001–5), assistant secretary, Department of the Interior
Watson had a lengthy legal career helping mining- and timber-industry clients. She has ties to the anti-environmental groups Defenders of Property Rights and the Mountain States Legal Foundation.

Thomas Sansonetti (2001–5), assistant attorney general, Department of Justice
In previous stints at Interior, Sansonetti was involved in the Exxon Valdez settlement and the infamous spotted-owl litigation. He has worked as a lobbyist on behalf of mining and energy interests.

Additional reporting by Brendan DeMelle.

Environmentalist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is president of the Waterkeeper Alliance, a non-governmental organization that promotes clean water throughout the world.

EDITORIAL COMMENT:

Okay… There’s something screwy with this picture… We all know it.. We are all hoarse over screaming about the inequities from the past evisceration our country has gotten over the previous 8 years… What the HELL are we going to do about it?!

As Mr. Obama prepares his cabinet… Let’s see if we can help in a selection for this high post. Let’s hope to GOD that there is a real reckoning coming about in this office of environmental stewardship (Formerly known as the EPA).

Y’know “Made in U.S.A.” used to mean something at one time, not too long before our government fell under a FASCIST COUP!… If we were to manufacture a product or service that actually saved energy and possibly embraced a real alternative fuel (Sorry Mr. BUSH Switchgrass and Ethanol is another ENRON ENDRUN for you and your cronies)… If we could manufacture energy efficient alternatives and think way out of the box…. The trickling down from that kind of economics would bail us out of a real mess and would employ from within the U.S. and make Made in the U.S.A. mean something again… Sorry corporate raiders from the Reagan deregulation era… The jobs need to  stay here and the unions are gonna get back into the fold… Somebody’s gotta keep these out of control, overpaid CEO’s and Washington politician’s in check!!!

Last thing… Ross Perot mentioned something that bears repeating in an “I told you so” style… Remember we were warned about the “sucking sound”??? Hmmmm. Trickle Down Economics ran down my leg, “Trust but verify” is B.S.!!! and “The Decider” is code for DICTATOR!

The last 8 years started with the ENRON LOOPHOLE, (THANKS BUSH) Let’s end the ‘rein of terror’ we’ve endured by throwing criminals in a different ‘hole’, like the BRIGG!

We need serious vigilance now in this transition stage and we need to keep our eyes on BUSH, CHENEY and ROVE as they try to re-write the treachery they brought upon our country and do it NOW while they still wield the burning Constitution in thier hands! I heard today that Karl Rove is “coming out” in a new book which has names and situations to begin the pre-pardoning for themselves as early as possible…

Do these people really think that we are stupid… ? (Don’t answer that…) More realistically however, will our new administration hold these criminals to account for their high crimes? Part of why I said yes to contributing to this blog is because I’m so damn mad at the lies and the enemy combatants from within (Fugitive Rove), that I will do what ever I can to keep the home fires burning in the hopes that there are more real Americans out there just waiting for the Koolaid to wear off long enough to take back our country from this Fascist Coup!

1/20/09 = “Party like it’s 1999!”

Untreated effluent discharging from sugar cane factory into the Nile.

I’m on a tourist ship floating down the Nile from Luxor to Aswan, and I am not alone. There are dozens of other ships with 150 tourists each from all over the world sharing the same experience at the same time.

The juxtaposition of the modern and the ancient is like nothing I’ve ever seen before. The world’s longest river is lined with sugar cane farms, cattle and water buffalo grazing, fishermen in row boats with small nets, and towns with a skyline of mosque minarets. The Nile itself is visibly polluted with the plastic refuse from tourism, agricultural discharges, trash burning on the river banks, and the ever present cattle on the shore. No one swims in the Nile. Egypt’s population is nearing 100 million and nearly all of their water comes from the Nile — and all of their sewage goes right back in.

On the first couple of days of the trip, my wife Lisette and I stayed in Giza at a hotel a half mile from the pyramids. The spectacle of the 500-foot tall, 4500-year old tombs was beyond awe inspiring. However, we were shocked to see that development had come to the door of the pyramids and that the entire site was covered in trash and fecal waste from camels and ponies, which are there to give tourists a ride and a photo-op. So strange to see water and soda being sold without a trash can on site.

Perhaps the most shocking moment of the trip was the first morning we woke in Giza. Lisette and I eagerly went to the garden to see the pyramids from the hotel, only to find that we could barely see these epic monuments due to a night of rice and garbage burning. Shades of a day in Beijing.

The spectacle of the pyramids of Giza and Saqqara, the temples of Karnak and Luxor, and the tombs of the Valley of the Kings are incomparable. To think that Egyptian civilization could create such long-lasting beauty 2500 to 4500 years ago is beyond comprehension. Seeing ubiquitous trash dumps and trash and crop burning, and the abuse of one of the world’s great rivers (don’t get me started on the ecological impacts of the Aswan Dam) in the cradle of civilization makes me realize that strong and effective environmental advocacy is essential everywhere.

I hope Steve Fleischli, Bobby Kennedy and the rest of the Waterkeeper Alliance have plans for Keepers of the Nile. It is sorely needed. Knowing them, they are working on it.

P.S. — As soon as we talk to an Egyptian, regardless of whom it is, we are greeted with a smile and a salutary “Congratulations on President Obama’s victory.” What a difference a week makes!

Matthew Modine

Spend the weekend out in the fresh air and Bicycle for a Day with Weeds actor Matthew Modine.

Or for those a little more light-foot-likable, take the Two Wheels or Two Feet walking tour with track and field Olympian Sharon Seagrave.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will also be there to give a speech and Lukas Haas will entertain guests.

Heather Graham, John McEnroe, Lara Flynn Boyle, Liev Schreiber and Liam Neeson are just some of the other celebrity supporters.

Bicycle for a Day, with Matthew Modine on September 20, will raise funds for the  WaterKeeper Alliance.

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Waterkeeper Alliance Chairman

I spent last weekend with a few hundred of the hardest working, hardest-drinking environmental activists on Earth: the Waterkeeper Alliance.  Keepers from all over the planet descended upon Seattle to share war stories of environmental battles fought in the previous year.  I might question the scheduler that put the partying Keepers in the same UW dorm as a cheerleading camp, but I’ll never question the environmental passion of the Keepers.  These guys love their bays and watersheds and they’ll do anything to protect them.

Take the case of the Latin American Keepers who risk their lives in Colombia to stop polluters from destroying rivers. Or the scientist from India who displayed the horrors of dams on the Ganges and climate change impacts on Himalayan glaciers. Or the man from the middle Han River (a tributary of the Yangtze that is being devastated by massive water transfers to Beijing) who beamed with pride talking about the first environmental monitoring and education boat in China.  Perhaps the most dramatic story was that of the Russian Keeper who showed slides of radioactive rivers, the pain and suffering of those who live near those rivers, and wetlands and rivers devastated by Siberian oil refineries. All of these Keepers had different backgrounds, but all fought for the same cause: clean water.

The U.S. heroes were just as impressive. The Mobile Baykeeper has been fighting against multi-billion dollar corruption in efforts to get the local sewer system and treatment plants to meet Clean Water Act requirements. The hosts, the Keepers of Puget Sound, have become the stormwater enforcement arm of the Washington Department of Ecology.  A very impressive feat, even when compared to the extraordinary achievements  of one of the speakers —  Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels, who has helped make the Emerald City the greenest major city in the nation. One of the original Keepers, Terry Backer, the hulking Long Island Soundkeeper, is one pissed off commercial fisherman, sick of fishery collapses, and crazy enough to become the minority leader of the Connecticut legislature. The Carolina Keepers brought a vat of pig shit to the governor of the Tarheel  State to get his attention on the perils of hog farming. I think they succeeded.

The Waterkeeper movement is the fastest growing global environmental movement on the planet.  It is based on local activism, citizen enforcement, grassroots volunteerism, and an unlimited supply of passion.  There are now 178 Keepers from around the world and they are led by America’s foremost environmental voice, board chairman Robert Kennedy Jr. , and president Steve Fleischli, a charismatic Heal the Bay alum. Together, they have set insane goals for organizational growth based on a model of local independence led by staff and volunteers, and the urgency that surrounds our growing global water crises. With the growth model they have, the national difference in water quality is already impressive and the international achievements continue to accrue.  The franchise method works for business and the Keepers are showing what it can do to save the planet one water body at a time.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. at the OU Health Sciences Center, Oklahoma City, April 18, 2008.

RFK JR: CHRIST WAS AN ENVIRONMENTALIST

When Robert F. Kennedy Jr. came to Oklahoma (the buckle of the Bible Belt) recently to deliver a talk on “Our Environmental Destiny,” he reminded the standing room only audience that Christ was an environmentalist — and that if Jesus walked among us today, he too might be dismissed as a quack.

In his remarks delivered Friday, April 18th at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center in Oklahoma City, Kennedy used examples from all of the ancient religions to make his point:

“We know our Creator best by studying Creation, which all of the religious texts mandate us to do.” Kennedy said. “If you look at all of the great, central epiphany in every religious tradition in mankind’s history, the revelation always occurs in the wilderness.

“Buddha had to go into the wilderness to experience self-realization. Mohamed had to go to the wilderness of Mount Hira in 629 and wrestle an angel in the middle of the night to have the Koran squeezed out of him. Moses had to go onto the wilderness of Mount Sinai to get the Commandments. The Jews had to spend 40 years in the wilderness to purge themselves of the 400 years of slavery in Egypt.

“Christ had to spend 40 days in the wilderness to discover his divinity. His mentor was John the Baptist, a man of the wilderness who lived in a cave in the Jordan Valley and dressed in the skins of wild animals. All of Christ’s parables are taken from nature: I am the vine; you are the branch; The Mustard Seed; the little swallows the scattering, the seeds on fallow ground…

“He called himself a fisherman, a farmer, a vineyard keeper, a shepherd. That’s how he stayed in touch with the people. He was saying things to them that contradicted everything that they had heard from the literate, sophisticated people of their time. They would have dismissed him as a quack but they were able to confirm the wisdom of his parables about the fishes and the birds through their own observations of the natural world. They were able to say: He’s not telling us something new, he’s simply illuminating something that’s very, very old.”

INTO THE WILDERNESS

“The American conservationist John Muir said that the wilderness is God’s temple, that destroying its most beautiful places is tantamount to tearing pages from the Scriptures.”

– Robert F. Kennedy Jr. 1992

Kennedy drew a clear line of distinction between true environmentalism and paganism: “I don’t believe that nature is God or that we ought to be worshiping it as God,” he said, “but I do believe that it’s the way that God talks to us most clearly.

“God talks to human beings through many vectors: through each other, through organized religion, through the great books of those religions, through wise people, through art, literature, music and poetry – but nowhere with such clarity, texture, grace and joy as through Creation. We don’t know Michelangelo by looking at his biography, we know him by looking at the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.

“The reason that we protect nature is because it enriches us.” Kennedys explained. “It enriches us economically, yes, the base of our economy, and we ignore that at our peril. But it also enriches us aesthetically and recreationally, culturally and historically, and spiritually.

“Human beings have other appetites besides money, and if we don’t feed them we’re not going to become the kind of beings that our Creator intended. When we destroy nature we impoverish ourselves, we diminish ourselves and we impoverish our children.

“We’re not protecting those ancient forests in the Pacific Northwest, as Rush Limbaugh loves to say, for the sake of a spotted owl,” he argued. “We are protecting those forests because we believe that the trees have more value to humanity standing than they would have if we cut them down.”

“I’m not fighting for the Hudson for the sake of the shad or the sturgeon or the striped bass but because I believe my life will be richer; my children, my community will be richer if we live in a world where there are shad and sturgeon and striped bass in the Hudson. Commercial fishing on the Hudson is 350 years old. Many of these people come from Dutch families that learned the same fishing methods that they’re using today from the Algonquin Indians during the Dutch colonial period. I want my children to be able to touch them when they come to shore to repair their nets or wait out the tides, and in doing that, connect themselves to New York history and understand that they are part of something larger than themselves.

“I don’t want my children to grow up in a world where it’s all Unilever and 400-ton factory trolleys 100 miles offshore strip mining the ocean with no interface with humanity, and where we have no family farmers left in America; where we’ve driven the final nail into the coffin of Thomas Jefferson’s vision of an American democracy rooted in tens of thousands of freeholds owned by family farmers, each with a stake in our democracy.

“I don’t want a world where we’ve lost touch with the seasons and the tides and the things that connect us to the ten thousand generations of human beings that were here before there were laptops, and that connect us ultimately to God.”

“A MORAL AFFRONT TO THE NEXT GENERATION”

As Kennedy sees it, preserving our natural environment is every citizen’s moral obligation, because “when we destroy these things, we’re cutting ourselves off from the very things that make us human, that give us a spiritual life.

“And for these people on Capitol Hill to be saying that they are following the mandate of Christ by liquidating our public assets, what they are really doing is a moral affront to the next generation.

“That’s why we preserve nature.” Kennedy said. “Not for our sake, but for the sake of the future. That obligation is expressed by the term sustainability. All that word means is that God wants us to use the things we’ve been given, to enrich ourselves, to improve our quality of life, to serve others – but we can’t use them up. We can’t sell the farm piece by piece in order to pay for the groceries; we can’t drain the pond to catch the fish. We can’t cut down the mountain to get at the coal. We can live off the interest; we can’t go into the capital that belongs to our children.”

Kennedy launched into an attack on President George W. Bush (“the worst environmental president in history”) and his cronies who “claim to embrace Christianity while violating the manifold mandates of Christianity: that we are stewards of the land, and that we are meant to care for nature. They have embraced this Christian heresy of dominion theology.”

He explained how the Bush administration has worked hand-in-glove with multinational corporations to destroy the environment and thereby, the quality and length of our lives.

Kennedy focused on an example which has local impact on Oklahomans — large scale factory farming — saying that the poultry companies are “making themselves billionaires by poisoning the rest of us.”

He also praised the efforts of Oklahoma Attorney General Drew Edmondson for his lawsuits against Big Poultry. With Edmondson in attendance, Kennedy said factory farms use their lobbies to gain more than their fair share in influence in state capitols across the nation.

Edmondson, a Democrat, has said that pollution from poultry farms in an issue of national importance. In 2005, he filed a lawsuit in federal court against several poultry companies to stop the alleged pollution their operations have caused in the Illinois River watershed and Lake Tenkiller.

The lawsuit alleges the poultry companies are responsible for the runoff of polluted water from tons of poultry waste that has flowed into state waterways as the result of improper storage.

Kennedy said the large-scale farms injure Americans by “dumping their crap into the Illinois River and the other rivers of the state.”

Kennedy talks with Oklahoma Attorney General Drew Edmondson

“CORPORATE CRONY CAPITALISM IS ANTITHETICAL TO DEMOCRACY”

Another important distinction, according to Kennedy:

“Americans have to understand that there is a huge difference between free-market capitalism which democratizes our country, that brings us prosperity and efficiency, and the kind of corporate crony capitalism which is as antithetical to democracy in America as it is in Nigeria.

“I work a lot with farmers trying to fight industrial hog meat production,” he explained, “which is not only one of the primary threats to the American environment but also one of the primary threats to the American worker. It’s allowing a few monopolies to control our food supply and to put farmers out of business.

“Fifteen years ago there were 27,000 independent hog farmers in North Carolina, today there are none. They have been replaced completely by 2,200 hog factories, 1,600 owned or controlled by Smithfield Foods, one large corporation. They produce such huge amounts of waste they have to dispose of it illegally, and so they have to corrupt political officials in order to continue operating.

“A few years ago I gave a speech a group of 1,200 farmers in Clear Lake, Iowa, and I said that I am more frightened of these large multinationals than I am of Osama bin Laden. I got a standing ovation from all the farmers in the room, but I got six months of abuse from the farm bureau.” Kennedy recalled. “I stand by what I said. It’s the same thing that Teddy Roosevelt said, that our country was too strong and too committed to ever be destroyed by a foreign enemy, but our democratic institutions would be subverted by what he called “malefactors of great wealth,” who would destroy them from within.

“Another great Republican, Abraham Lincoln, during the heat of the Civil War in 1863, said, “I have the South in front of me, and the bankers behind me and for my country, I fear the bankers more”.

“From the beginning of American history our greatest political leaders – Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, John Adams and Andrew Jackson – have warned America against allowing large corporations to dominate our political systems and our lives.” Kennedy reminded the assembled crowd.

“Another Republican, Dwight Eisenhower, the most famous speech he made was warning America against the domination by the military-industrial complex.

“Franklin Roosevelt said that the domination of our nation by large corporations is the definition of fascism. I have an American Heritage Dictionary, and the definition, if you look up fascism, says, “the domination of government by large corporations driven by right-wing ideology and bellicose nationalism” – that’s getting to look pretty familiar, isn’t it?” he asked. 

TEARING THE “CONSERVE” OUT OF CONSERVATIVE

“The problem with letting large corporations dominate our government is that it erodes democracy.” Kennedy explained. “It erodes our capacity to participate in public life, our capacity for dignity, and it allows these entities to squander resources that belong to our children.

“But the thing that we’ve squandered worst of all is our natural heritage: the air that we breathe, the water that we drink, the wildlife, the lands – all these things that make us proud to be American.

“This administration has torn the conserve out of conservatism,” he said.

 ”They claim to like the free market, but what they are really embracing is corporate welfare capitalism, socialism for the rich.

“They claim to love property rights, but only when it’s the right of a polluter to use his property to destroy his neighbor’s property or to destroy the public property.

“They claim to like law and order, but they are the first ones to let the large corporations and their corporate contributors violate the law at public expense.

“They claim to love local control and states’ rights, but it’s only in those instances when they’re taking down the barriers to large corporations.

“This is the revolving door plunder you get,” Kennedy concluded, “when you let corporations run a democracy.

“We’re living today in a science fiction nightmare when my children and most of the children in Oklahoma can no longer safely engage in a seminal primal activity of American youth: which is go fishing their father at the local fishing hole then come and safely eat the fish. All because somebody gave money to a politician.”

Text and photos copyright RFKin2008.com.

RFK Jr. and daughter Kick. Her friend Zander sits between them.

NEW RFK JR. FILM, “GRAND CANYON ADVENTURE” OPENS AT AUSTIN’S SXSW FESTIVAL

Grand Canyon Adventure 3D: River at Risk

Opens March 14 at Austin’s only IMAX Theatre, located inside the Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum.

Call (512) 936-4649 to reserve your tickets.
Click HERE for IMAX Theatre showtimes.

There is no late seating in the IMAX® Theatre.  Please arrive at least 20 minutes before your scheduled show time.

Set against the immense backdrop of a natural treasure, Grand Canyon Adventure 3D: River at Risk will take audiences on an exhilarating adventure down the Colorado River in the company of a team of explorers who are committed to bringing awareness to global water issues.

One of the world’s mightiest rivers, the Colorado, no longer reaches the sea. Every drop of river water is allocated to agriculture and populations along the way, many of whom don’t even realize their connection to the river.

Join the free family-friendly opening celebration on Saturday, March 15 from 1-4 pm, sponsored by 3M. You can see a large scale “erosion station,” build your own water cycle generator, learn about water conservation from folks at the Texas Water Development Board, and even hop in a boat for a great photo op!

Narrated by Robert Redford, the river journey is a compelling and emotional personal story for the film’s main characters, two fathers and their 18-year old daughters who soon will be leaving home to make their own way.

The cinematic guides include the renowned Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a leading advocate for water conservation and river restoration, and his daughter Kick.

They are joined by Wade Davis, an ethno-botanist and author who has traveled the world studying other cultures, and his daughter Tara. Shana Watahomigie, who grew up at the Canyon’s edge with her Havasupai family, is their Grand Canyon guide.

As the expedition journeys down river, audiences will learn about the challenges and opportunities that exist for conserving and restoring watersheds. A MacGillivray Freeman Film that combines science and adventure with some of giant screen cinema’s most compelling imagery and locations, Grand Canyon Adventure 3D delivers a message of hope and inspiration.

This is MacGillivray Freeman’s first-ever 3D film for IMAX Theaters and will provide audiences with a unique experience. “A river trip is one of those amazing life events where you’re ripped out of your daily routine and inspired to see the world in new ways. With IMAX 3D images, we’re able to put the audience even more into the action and let them participate in every twist and turn,” says the film’s two-time Academy Award-nominated producer/director Greg MacGillivray.

A stirring score featuring songs and music from the Grammy Award-winning Dave Matthews Band sets the mood for this adventure that explores the spiritual, artistic and life-sustaining powers of water—and makes crystal clear that each of us must do our part to better manage this crucial resource for the future.

Grand Canyon Adventure 3D: River at Risk is produced by MacGillivray Freeman Films and MacGillivray Freeman Films Educational Foundation in association with Waterkeeper Alliance and Museum Film Network, presented by Teva and supported by Kohler Co. The film is directed by Greg MacGillivray, produced by Greg MacGillivray, Mark Krenzien, and Shaun MacGillivray, and written by Jack Stephens and Stephen Judson. The score is co-composed by Dave Matthews Band’s Stefan Lessard and Steve Wood.

Check out the official website at www.grandcanyonadventurefilm.com

Grand Canyon Adventure 3D opens at the IMAX Theatre of the Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum March 14, 2008. Ticket prices are $7 for adults, $6 for seniors/military/students (with college ID) and $5 for youths age 18 and under.

The IMAX Theatre is located in the Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum at 1800 N. Congress Avenue at the corner of Martin Luther King, Jr. Blvd.

Article and photos from TheStoryofTexas.com

CELEBRITIES HIT THE SLOPES TO RAISE MONEY FOR RFK JR.’S WATERKEEPER ALLIANCE

Hollywood stars are expected to be flocking to Banff for the annual Celebrity Sports Invitational at the Fairmont Banff Springs.

The event, staged from 17th – 20th January, is in support of Robert F. Kennedy Jr’s Waterkeeper Alliance and has raised millions of dollars for environmental protection.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr, Alec Baldwin, Christie Brinkley, and former 007 Pierce Brosnan are amongst the confirmed guests heading for Alberta’s Rocky Mountains. (With James Bond on the slopes this year, one wonders if we will be treated to a classic Bond ski chase worthy of George Lazenby in 1969’s On Her Majesty’s Secret Service?)

Nah, it’s Brosnan…expect something more like The World Is Not Enough.

CELEBRITY SKIFEST TO BENEFIT KENNEDY’S WATERKEEPER ALLIANCE

Several members of the Kennedy family will gather in Park City, Utah this weekend as Deer Valley Resort kicks off its winter ski season with a celebrity ski race to benefit Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Waterkeeper Alliance.

The Deer Valley Celebrity Skifest takes place place December 8 and 9, and will be filmed by CBS for rebroadcast next weekend. The invitational ski event pairs former Olympic ski legends with television and film celebrities for a weekend of skiing, live music and fundraising for the environmental group Waterkeeper Alliance. The Waterkeeper Alliance is an international coalition of citizen advocates who patrol and protect their local waterbodies, fighting for clean water and strong communities.

Some of the best-known legends of U.S. skiing will compete in the year’s event, including Steve Mahre, Tommy Moe and Deer Valley’s own Ambassador of Skiing Heidi Voelker.

Celebrities scheduled to attend at this time include: Buzz Aldrin, Kevin Costner, Tim Daly, Carlos Bernard, Larry David, Julia Louis- Dreyfus, Rob Morrow, Scott Wolf, Kelsey Grammar, Sam Waterston, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Chris Kennedy, Kerry Kennedy, Maxwell Kennedy, Rory Kennedy, Penelope Ann Miller, Matthew Modine, Mike Richter, Gloria Reuben and Patrick Warburton.

CBS Sports will once again broadcast a recap of the annual Deer Valley Celebrity Skifest, which is set to air Sunday, Dec. 16, at 5 p.m. EST.

According to Variety, the Celebrity Skifest was created by Bob Horowitz, who now runs Juma Entertainment (NBC’s “The Singing Bee”). Juma is on board to produce the CBS special, with Horowitz as exec producer.

“Waterkeeper Alliance is an outstanding cause, and we are thankful to all the participants who donate their efforts, time and money for their benefit,” Horowitz said. 

While in town for the event, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will also give a speech at the Eccles Center for the Performing Arts on the campus of Park City High School. He will speak at 5:30 p.m. on December 9th. (For more information, please see our “Upcoming Events” sidebar.)

RFK JR. ORGANIZES POULTRY SUMMIT

The Waterkeeper Alliance, an international environmental group co-founded by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., is organizing an “Eastern Shore Poultry Summit” Nov. 1 at the Wicomico Civic Center in Salisbury, MD, the Baltimore Sun reported today.

The point of the event is to raise awareness of water pollution that runs off large poultry farms, and try to find solutions, said William J. Gerlach, attorney for the eight-year-old advocacy organization.

Among the speakers at the day-long event will be Kennedy, a co-founder and chairman of the group; Maryland Attorney General Douglas Gansler; and Bill Satterfield, director of the Delmarva Poultry Institute, a farming trade organization.  “We’d like to start a dialogue among everybody – so we invited the Delmarva Poultry Institute, not just environmental activists,” said Gerlach.  ”Hopefully there will be good discusion and we will build from it.” 

Gerlach said he hopes to encourage Maryland  to issue factory-style water pollution control permits to large poultry farms, increase the enforcement of water pollution laws, and to allow public access to the nutrient management plans that farmers are supposed to follow.

The Sun reported on Oct. 14 that the poultry industry on Maryland’s Eastern Shore produces about a billion pounds of manure a year, and is a significant source of pollution in the Chesapeake Bay. But Maryland has been slower than other states, including neighboring Pennsylvania, in requiring factory-style pollution control permits for large poultry businesses. The state is now considering these permits, along with inspections by the state’s environmental enforcement agency and fines of up to $32,500 for allowing manure into streams. (Yes, you read that correctly) But farmers have complained that chicken houses don’t pollute like factories, and that family farms shouldn’t be burdened with excessive regulation.

The Poultry Summit is open to the public, and runs from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. at the Wicomico Civic Center. The cost is $25. The group held similar “Hog Summits” to address animal waste pollution in North Carolina, Iowa and Pennsylvania from 2002 to 2005.