Big Media Wish Kennedy Oblivion and Death

“I don't want the Democratic party to be the party of fear, pharma, war and censorship.”

Some Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. supporters were not fond of some crit I included in my piece earlier this week about him. I actually think that Kennedy supporters would do well to read that piece carefully because it might actually help them get what they want, far more than a fawning piece some might desire. I know a bit about how elections unfold and how campaigns fold.

But there’s nothing like Big Media hit jobs to make you want to push aside your nuanced crit of a politician.

I thought Kennedy’s speech was one of the best I’ve ever heard from a political figure, certainly one getting double digits in establishment polls.

FDR spoke of the Four Freedoms: Freedom Of Speech, Of Worship, From Want and From Fear.

Said Kennedy: “I don't want the Democratic party to be the party of fear, pharma, war and censorship.”

This is not at all to say I didn’t have serious problems — but judge for yourself:

This is the best feed I can find. It’s from Reuters. It doesn’t have the full speech. It doesn’t include the beginning of the speech, nor the intro to it. I didn’t know until well after the speech that Kennedy was introduced by Dennis Kucinich. I still haven’t seen or heard what Kucinich said, but here’s a recent article by him: “We Need Another President Kennedy: To Avert a Nuclear Catastrophe.” [Addendum: My friend Diane Perlman points me to the full video, including the Kucinich intro. The “Kennedy Democrat” motif stressed by Kucinich is double edged. It might be a good way of cutting into Biden supporters, but it brands the campaign as Democratic, making the likelihood of sheepdogging, which I get into in my previous piece, greater.]

I actually learned things listening to Kennedy talk. I’m not doing a full blown media crit here, I’m trying to put those days behind me, in part because mainstream media so obviously need to be displaced. But the media coverage I’ve seen has been horrid, either ignoring or framing in a way to attempt to ensure that you don’t actually listen to what the man has to say. And perhaps worst of all, ignoring the substance of what he is saying: against the collusion of state and business. That’s fascism and it’s becoming endemic. He raised serious issue of our place with Nature, of war and racism.

(Note: the tweets below are screen shots in part because Twitter links don’t work anymore in Substack. Twitter has basically been attacking Substack and Substack writers, apparently because of Substack’s launching of Notes, a knockoff of Twitter (which coincided with Twitter further asserting its roll out of Twitter Blue and saying it’s expanding funding of content creators). I had been gaining 50 subscribers a day or more on my Substack and it was accelerating — my growth basically looked like a world population graph — until this fighting broke out and my rate of growth has slowed considerably since the attack from Twitter. About five a day. I’m trying to find ways around this, but I’d take this as an opportunity to encourage my current subscribers to be sharing content so I can keep growing and doing this work. I have no idea if coughing up cash and signing up for Twitter Blue will address this. Thanks.)

Perhaps most nauseating hot take was from the Onion. (I get it, it’s satire. I thought the Onion was funny 20 years ago, but this makes Kathy Griffin holding Trump’s severed head look thoughtful):

Perhaps some would think it was funny if someone tweeted: “Would be a real shame if someone Charlie Hebdo-ed the offices of the Onion.”

I honestly think that “joke” is an outgrowth of how the “unvaccinated” have been treated the last several years, almost an outgrowth of how the Nazis viewed Untermenschen.

Kennedy can actually speak cogently on various issues at some length, which I find refreshing, so of course the New York Times called it “rambling” and focused on “vaccines”:

Even though Kennedy barely made any mention of them in the speech, something that was falsified:

Wade Frazier notes that the Boston Globe and numerous other outlets had a snarky tone and had similar focus: “Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s anti-vax 2024 presidential campaign”. Similarly for Newsweek, which also managed to connect RFK to QAnon in “Anti-Vaxxer RFK Jr. Takes Aim at Joe Biden in More Ways Than One”. AP ran in countless outlets: “Anti-vaccine activist RFK Jr. launches presidential campaign.”

So it might have actually been a mistake from Kennedy to not address the issue of vaccines.

I was actually shocked that Kennedy made no reference in his speech to biowarfare or “gain-of-function” — it would have fit in well after his speaking remarkably eloquently of the power of Nature.

But I really can’t say I that was surprised that “Democracy Now” didn’t even mention that Kennedy launched his run, though they did when Marianne Williamson did so last month.

Beside “anti-vaxxer” another term employed to dismiss Kennedy was “conspiracy theorist”, Frazier at his fascinating blog notes perhaps the supreme irony: The term “conspiracy theorist” was employed by the CIA to dismiss anyone questioning the Warren Commission report on the JFK assassination.

Josh Mitteldorf notes:

Compare the NYT treatment of Trump's announcement (June, 2015) with their treatment of RFK's announcement (April, 2023)

Compare the two speeches. Trump's is vacuous. RFK's is full of important goals, most of which are shared by NY Times readers.

Compare the two men's history. Trump has been making deals. RFK has been suing polluters and exposing drug companies.

Yet the Times is more open to Trump, both as to his qualifications and his chances of winning.

A rather good point I think. All the more pointed since the NYT piece on Trump included video of Trump speaking but the piece on RFK doesn’t. The piece on Trump rather gives the store away, he’s to be taken seriously "Thanks to his enormous media profile.” There you have it. Big Media acknowledges that Big Media effectively decides who does and does not have a chance at victory. If it’s up to them, there’s no place for the power of ideas or principles.

Re the “anti-vax” smear, this is an exceedingly good point:

Summary, quite similar to my attitude toward Sanders:

Me listening to Kennedy: Great point!….Oh, no, that’s not right…Absolutely!…Now you’re pandering….Wow, I didn’t know that….Funny!....Oh, no, really, you have a “former” CIA official on the campaign!?…Excellent insight….You’re off there…How eloquent….No, you’re quite off on foreign policy….well, fine speech.

Me seeing mainstream media slam Kennedy: RFK! RFK! RFK!