The Ultimate Argument for Conservation

The Smirking Chimp has a transcript of Robert F Kennedy Jr's speech delivered at the Sierra Summit 2005, San Francisco, California, September 10, 2005

Here are a few excerpts:

...This is the worst environmental president we've had in American history.

If you look at NRDC's website you'll see over 400 major environmental roll backs that are listed there that have been implemented or proposed by this administration over the past four years as part of a deliberate concerted effort to eviscerate 30 years of environmental law.
~snip~
All this right wing propaganda which is planned and organized and dominated this country, the political debate for so many years talking about a liberal media. Well, you know and I know there is no such thing as a liberal media in the United States of America.

There is a right wing media, and if you look where most Americans are now getting their news, that's where they're getting it. According to Pew 30 percent of Americans now say that their primary news source is talk radio which is 90 percent dominated by the right.
~snip~
When people hear this message and what this White House is doing and the Gingrich Congress, there is no difference between the way Republicans react and the democrats react except the republicans come up afterwards and say, "Why haven't we ever heard of this before?" I say to them, "It's because you're watching Fox News and listening to Rush."

And 80 percent of Republicans are just Democrats who don't know what's going on [applause].

... they found that ... the people that voted for Bush had the same ideology, the same basic values, they were just misinformed. 70 percent said that they believed that Saddam Hussein bombed the World Trade Center, 70 percent believed that weapons of mass destruction had been found in Iraq, 64 percent believed that President Bush strongly supported the Kyoto Protocol and strong labor and environmental standards in our foreign treaties and on and on.

When Pippa went back and asked them what they believed, there was almost no difference between what the Republicans and Democrats believed where America should be headed. The problem was a huge information deficit because the news media in this country is letting down American democracy and democracy cannot survive long without a vigorous news media.
~snip~
...this president has put the brakes on the statutory requirements that those companies, those coal burning power plants clean up the acid rain. As a direct result of that decision, this year for the first time since the passage of the Clean Air Act sulfur dioxide levels went up in our country an astronomical four percent in a single year.

When those coal burning power plants put mercury into the atmosphere that comes down from the Ohio Valley and it comes down on my state New York, I buy a fishing license for $30 every year but I can't go fishing and eat the fish anymore because they stole the fish from me.

They liquidated a pubic asset, my asset. The rule is the commons are owned by all of us. They're not owned by the governor or the legislator or the coal companies and the utility. Everybody has a right to use them.

Nobody has a right to use them. Nobody has a right to use them in a way that will diminish or injure their use and enjoyment by others. But they've stolen that entire resource from the people of New York State.
(emphasis mine)

This is only a small part of it, and it makes me so mad that George Bush is pimping our environment, pimping our health, and selling off our assets cheap, for short term gain. Go read it, it's so good to hear someone talk about what's happening in the country that you and I live in, not the fairy tale place that Bushco and his ilk think they will be able to retire to.

The great irony is that when they're done, there will be no pristine places left for anyone, and Bushco and all his money will not be able to escape the terrible cost and terrible result of what they're doing now.