My Afternoon with Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. (A Photo Essay)

A fundamentally decent man ahead of his time

I was both inspired by Bobby Kennedy, Jr.’s recent visit to my home town of Columbus, OH and resigned to his fate. He was giving a speech, taking questions, and, surprisingly setting aside time to take selfies with anyone in the audience who wanted one. When I shook his hand, looked him in the eyes, and took my own selfie with him, I got the deep impression of a fundamentally decent man, who is energetic, kind, intelligent and caring, and, yet, just one man deluged by influences of others and by the spirit of his own mission. I had a deep pang of sympathy for the courage and limitations of this one person trying to take on the world because his heart calls him to respond.

I also got the impression that it is unlikely that Kennedy will be a major factor in the upcoming presidential race. The world is not yet ready for the change and heart he represents. Even if he polls at 15-20%, I am certain he will be barred from any presidential debate, and his switch of campaign managers from Dennis Kucinich to his former CIA daughter-in-law Amaryllis Fox (great name, by the way), as well as his switch from a rigged Democratic primary to an Independent run, signals, much as with Cornel West, the gravity of the orchestration against him, and the not-quite-yet timing of his integrity-driven campaign.

There was scant mention of the event in media. In fact there was a total blackout. If you type in search words like RFK Jr, Columbus, OH, Fawcett Center, speech, event, etc. even into Google, you get basically one page of results, only two of which even mentioned the upcoming event, none of which actually REPORTED ON the event.

One of these sources, the Columbus, OH paper of record, The Columbus Dispatch, only mentions THAT RFK, Jr. is coming to Columbus, and does not even provide the date or time (much less a link) to the event! The other was a reprint of the Columbus Dispatch article. But this single source does take the time to put up an mini-op-ed describing Kennedy as a conspiracy theorist in league with far right:

A descendant of a prominent Democratic family, Kennedy has garnered support among far-right wing figures for his skepticism of the COVID vaccine, specifically around the debunked conspiracy theory that vaccines are linked to autism. Members of his family denounced his candidacy in a post on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.

RFK Jr. doesn’t have a chance with a blackout of his goodness and propaganda about his supposed badness. If they can simply erase him, how can he reach people? “If a tree falls in the forest, does anyone hear the forest fall?,” as singer Bruce Cockburn remarks. We are not quite there yet as a society, and it showed in the crowd. The people that were there were there because they were on Kennedy’s email list, which DID incidentally provide the date, time, and place of the event, 3:30-5:30 pm, Tuesday August 17, 2023 at the ironically named Fawcett Center for Tomorrow on The Ohio State University campus. Attendance was good. About 400-500 people showed up, but they were almost entirely white Baby Boomers, a decent show of Gen-Xers and a mere sprinkling of younger people.

No one had political buttons, or shirts. (I was the only one I could see that showed any outward support for his candidacy.) Even the people announcing Kennedy as the “next United States President” did so in a matter-of-fact unexcited way.

I’ve gone door to door for Bernie Sanders in California, during the last election, and I know the energy of a movement (even one that got successfully sabotaged). There is nostalgia here, a need to be in the presence of integrity, intellectualism, concern, interest, but almost zero revolutionary spirit.

Bobby gave a helluva speech. Calmly, passionately, piercingly he dismantled the BlackRock industrial complex, and showed indeed how these mega-asset managers (along with Vanguard and State Street and few others) with their mega-TRILLION dollar portfolios were literally buying up America— farmland, single-family homes, and driving inflation and inaccessibility for actual American citizens. What were once considered rites of passage if not outright rights on one salary— to own a home, have a decent job, and raise a family— are no longer accessible even when two parents work. He mentioned a particularly poignant statistic: In order to own an average home now, a couple must make 112,000 dollars in income. Not long ago used to be nearly a third of that— 38,000 dollars

What is to become of the American Dream, when the dreamers are looking to their BlackRock managed retirement portfolios to bankroll their retirements on the backs of Millennials and Zoomers? This is the real message and the irony I gained: We have to sacrifice our goodies to get to the GOOD. The Baby Boomers there are likely benefiting directly from the monopolization of resources and asset management instigated by BlackRock. There is a disconnect between ideal and real, and there is no will or knowledge to bridge that gap right now. RFK Jr. is trying, and that is why I am supporting him, but, as I said, he is ahead of his time. I encourage everyone to vote for him, but I also know that this battle between a self-interested technocratic upper-middle class ridin’-Biden tribe, and a zealous “Take our country back” tribe of MAGA-ites, will fall back on their instincts and fears, and passions will yet play out.

Our country seems to almost want the face-off, and require it, before it is willing to accept integrity, IF our country has not been bought up by transnational corporations by then. I for one, am going to “rage against the dying of the light” of democracy, and I do believe we will win, if in more regionalized and localized form, as I predicted in my book, Transforming Economy. We don’t have to go down this road, to selling our sovereignty, as Judas did, for a few pieces of silver. But it does look like we need our country to feel the pain and consequence of its moral lethargy, materialism, and vacuous life choices before we elect someone who has the interests of people at heart, and not his or her own power, self-interest, wealth, or party interest.

I never got the chance to ask RFK my question: “How are you fighting the perception that you are one-sidedly pro-Israel on the Middle East conflict question?” and the suggestion that he follow through with his promise to meet with Max Blumenthal from the Grey Zone and meet with former-Zionist-with-a-change-of-heart Miko Peled on the Israeli-Palestine issue, if meeting openly with Palestinians was too contentious. There is a way of integrity here with other people of conscience if we keep working, fighting, resting, and enduring.

The excellent and prescient speech by RFK Jr. was over, and I filed in line with others to take a selfie with RFK.

It took me only about five to ten minutes to reach him, shake his hand, and ask him if he had spoken to Miko Peled. He hadn’t, and I let him know he should, spelling out Peled’s last name… I got the sense that his circle has not had the space or bandwidth for a serious consideration of the issue, and I felt a touch of mercy, as I had stopped my contributions or even desire to wear my pro-Kennedy shirt over this issue.

And that was pretty much it.

I grabbed a yard sign on the way out, and biked the two miles home and posted it in my yard. It stands as a monument of integrity yet-to-come. And it is one sign I can feel good about. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. is a good man in a world still toying with the devils of false goods. I am proud to support him and his example, even if the world is not ready for him.