RFK Jr. at Live Earth: See You On The Barricades

Audio (with photo) of RFK Jr. at Live Earth, Giants Stadium

The full text of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s kickass speech at this past weekend's Live Earth can be found at BradBlog, along with non-MSN video to accompany the sound. If you can only find the time to pay attention to one aspect of Live Earth, RFK Jr.'s no holds barred rant is the one to check out. Talk about speaking truth to power. Changing light bulbs is good. Changing the very power structure that controls how policy is made is paramount -- in other words, a paradigm change. Please read or see or listen to the whole thing, but here are a few excerpts:

The most important thing you can do is to get involved in the political process and get rid of all of these rotten politicians that we have in Washington D.C. -- Who are nothing more than corporate toadies for companies like Exxon and Southern Company, these villainous companies that consistently put their private financial interest ahead of American interest and ahead of the interest of all of humanity. This is treason and we need to start treating them now as traitors.

... And I want you to remember this, that we are not protecting the environment for the sake of the fishes and the birds, we are protecting it because nature is the infrastructure of our communities. And if we want to meet our obligation as a generation, as a civilization, as a nation, which is to create communities for our children that provide them with the same opportunities for dignity, and enrichment, and good health, and prosperity, and stability as the communities that our parents gave us, we've got to start by protecting our environmental infrastructure.

The air we breathe, the water we drink, the wildlife, the public lands, the things that connect us to our past to our history that provide context to our communities and that are the source, ultimately, of our values and our virtues and our character as a people and the future of our children.

And I will see all of you on the barricades.

There's been a lot of negative punditry about Live Earth in the mainstream media and on the web. Yeah, I know, the concerts used significant amounts of energy, much of the music wasn't someone's cup of tea, nothing will come of it, there's nothing we can do. In my opinion there's way too much of that  "I'm too cool to watch something like this and I'm gonna prove it by mocking it in print" attitude, even from certain segments of the progressive community.

I beg to differ. It was what it was, but I think it had incredibly strong elements of activism and leadership and inspired musicianship behind it and within it and reaching outside it. Remember, as Al Gore said many times, this was the KICKOFF to a 3-year MOVEMENT, not just a single event. Thousands of people worked hard all over the globe to make it happen, to try and incite ordinary people to action. There were many musical and rhetorical gems, some of which I'll be posting later. And make no mistake about it -- the messages about the seriousness of our environmental emergency penetrated everyone who tuned in via TV, webstream or radio at some level. It's a start. We have to start somewhere. There is no time to waste.

As the Pranksters used to ask, "Are you on the bus (powered by biofueld) or off the bus? Sign the pledge now. Stop being cynical. It's no a longer a luxury we can afford.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. website

Global Warming: A Real Solution, an incredibly hopeful must-read article by RFK Jr. that originally appeared in the 06.18.07 edition of Rolling Stone.

AlGore.com

P.S. You can now watch video segments of all the performances and speeches on demand at the Live Earth website.