Robert F Kennedy Jr Breaks It Down At NeoCon

Did I not mention this yesterday?  Well - I happened to be reading through the NeoCon magazine and never thought about how I had access to all of the speakers, etc.  This one totally slipped past me.  Robert F Kennedy Jr, the son of Bobby Kennedy and the well-known environmentalist was speaking at NeoCon.  I looked through the book and initially thought I missed it - nope - 8am, Tuesday June 10th.  I’m in. 

I got up early to catch the 6:34am train into the office - which happens to be directly across the Chicago river from the Merchandise Mart, home of NeoCon.  I got to work in time to pickup my credentials and drop off my laptop.  I ran over to the Mart and waited for an elevator.  I got in and took the elevator up - the operator informs me that it only went to the 11th floor - I had to get to 14.  I exited at 11 and found my way to the 14th floor.  I got out and looked around and said “WTF?”  The hallway was empty - devoid of life - just shops with Christmas items - weird.  It’s now 8am and I look in the program again.  Oh shit! It’s at the Holiday Inn Merchandise Mart - connected, but in a different building.  I’m not waiting 10min for an elevator again, so I ran down 14 floors of stairs, across the street and made it to the correct venue.  Phew - I made it.  Guess what - the 8am program didn’t start until 8:25am.  A lot of running around for nothing.

If you’ve never heard Robert F Kennedy Jr speak, he has what I can only describe as a type of speech imediment - like he’s gasping for air.  He started out a little groggy, but once his words are rolling, he’s fine. I only bring this up because I was a little worried that the speech would lack something.  In retrospect, he could have been speaking German and I’d have been fine tuned to every last umlaut.  I guess in my case, he was speaking to the choir. 

I’m not a big fan of politics - never have been - but it is important to stay in touch with the world.  With the latest administration, it’s impossible not to speak about or speak up about, rather, the political landscape.  Kennedy made the point that Americans can tell you what color underwear that Lindsey Lohan is wearing, but can’t tell you much, if anything, about what is happening in the world (if you’re keeping score at home, the correct answer is, Lindsey doesn’t wear underwear).  I think his quote was, “we’re the most entertained and least informed society anywhere.”  People need to get out from under their rock which is general American media which is controlled by about 5 different companies. 

Kennedy went over so many facts about the current administration that I had no idea about.  He calls out all of these folks who are supporting environmental endeavors in the Bush administration as “former” lobbyists for bad people.  I put “former” in quotes because many of these people - when they leave their posts, they go back to where they came from.  They go back to the coal and oil companies. 

I can’t do any of his speech justice, so I’d suggest taking some time and watching it for yourself.   Some of these video clips are pretty much exactly the same speech I heard.

How the media fails us:

Here is a speech that is very similar to the speech he gave today: