To get his views on issues either go to his website, https://www.kennedy24.com or read the book recently published by Dick Russell, The Real RFK JR, which also delves into the trials and tribulations throughout his childhood and adult years.
The Real RFK Jr. is an intimate biographical portrait examining the controversial activist’s journey from anguish and addiction to becoming the country’s leading environmental champion by fighting government corruption, corporate greed, and a biased media. Written by his longtime colleague and friend, Dick Russell, the biography also exposes the misconceptions and explains the rationale behind Kennedy’s campaign to protect public health as well as his views on several issues. Below is an interview with the author.
Since RFK Jr. announced his Presidential bid in April of this year, he has climbed in the polls. A poll this week shows Mr. Kennedy has the highest favorability in the 2024 race for the White house. Despite the relentless attacks that call him a “fringe figure and a crack pot, that no one should take seriously” his favorability is 49% compared to President Biden at 45% and former President Trump at 43%.
Why? Perhaps because he appears to be the commonsense candidate that crosses the aisle regarding a multitude of issues. Russell stated, “He appeals to salt to the earth people including commercial fishermen, farmers, Native Americans, African Americans, and the Middle Class. Russell noted, “He is somebody with broad appeal, and is very sincere about fighting for the Middle Class along with the disenfranchised, who have no voice in this country. There is such a crazy divide between Right and Left, woke, and not woke. He is someone who transcends all of that.”
In the book there is a quote from his father, RFK, when he ran for President in 1968, “What we need in the United States is not division. What we need in the Unites States is not hatred. What we need in the United States is not violence and lawlessness but love and wisdom and compassion toward one another.” Russell feels there is “no one out there that can do that the way RFK Jr can. In his own way Bobby embodies these qualities and moral courage of his father.”
Russell went on to say he thinks the Democrats are afraid of RFK Jr., because he talks about the truth, “how agencies in the Federal Government have been captured by polluting interests and Big Pharma. He is for safe vaccines. He has studied the science on this. He makes a lot of sense and is raising issues that need to be talked about.”
The author noted, growing up with certain values, RFK Jr. “is calling for what he grew up with, the debate around the dinner table where his father would engage all the children in discussing issues. They would argue verbally to develop critical thinking. RFK Jr. is calling for open debate, yet no one will debate him. It is ridiculous and unfortunate. This is mirrored between the Right and the Left where no one can have a conversation anymore because they think the other side is the devil, which is certainly not true. This is not the way his family educated him and is not the way he is with his own children. A lot of people who support Bobby are on the so called right.”
The book also explains his long period of anguish and addiction after his father and uncle were assassinated. He had gone through a real epiphany, getting into AA (Alcoholics Anonymous) which he is still part of today.
Many family members are not supporting his run for President because of his stance on public health. “This is difficult for him. I write about all this in the book because it has forged his character in both a practical and spiritual way. He feels he is responding to a higher purpose.”
Nikki Haley who is running for President on the Republican side has said, Americans should focus on what we can agree on, not disagree. In the book Russell points out that RFK Jr has also said this, especially trying to get a compromise with the oil company in Ecuador, to find a middle ground between the indigenous people’s rights, environmental consensus, and corporate profits. He is “an idealist without illusions. He was up against a lot of the environmental groups because they did not want to give the oil company, ConocoPhillips, any leeway. They did not want the Native people involved, thinking they (the environmentalists) were the only ones who could do it. I think it was a lesson for RFK Jr. in the politics. Otherwise, well-meaning environmental groups pretty much had their own ideological agenda that they were not willing to let go of. He wanted to work with both sides and was stifled by people with an agenda. He has bucked the tide.”
Let’s talk about his stand on certain issues:
After personally going down to the border, he called it a “dystopian nightmare.” Russell explained, “He saw on the border how the drug cartels are really running a lot of the show. They bring Fentanyl across and play a role in sex trafficking, which is terrible. It is not that he is opposed to people coming into our country but wants it to be legal. This is a gutsy stand.”
Transgenders in women sports; just because they change their gender does not mean their bone structure is changed. “I agree and so does Bobby.” RFK Jr. stated, “I am against people participating in women’s sports who are biologically male. I think women have worked too hard to develop … women’s sports over the past 30 years. I watched it happen. And I don’t think that’s fair.”
RFK Jr. calls for a peace agreement in the Ukraine and to stop escalating this war by pouring in billions of dollars. “He talks about the Neocons in control of the Biden Administration. Just as they did with the Iraq War, making up the fact that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, which he never had, they want the war in the Ukraine. RFK Jr. considers “Ukraine a pawn in a proxy war between the United States and Russia.” His older son Conor went off to join the Ukrainian Army. He did it because he believed in it. After coming back Bobby told him thank God you came back, and I respect your decision, even though he disagreed.”
Russell touched in his book how RFK Jr. believes foreign policy should strive for peace and not war. He encourages people to listen to the speech RFK Jr. gave on June 21st. RFK Jr. spoke about not having America get tangled up in what he called “forever wars,” which he said the Founding Fathers warned about. He went on to center this policy speech around what his uncle, President John F. Kennedy, had said at American University in 1963. “Let’s take up that call from sixty years ago and re-examine our attitude. We have been immersed in a foreign policy discord that has been all about adversaries, threats, allies, and domination. We have become addicted to comic book good versus evil narratives that erase complexities and blind us to the legitimate motives and legitimate economic concerns and the legitimate security concerns of other nations…Everything has become a war: War on drugs, war on terror, war on cancer, war on climate change.”
RFK Jr. went on to warn what Eisenhower said about the threat to democracy by the military industrial complex. He wants to change Americans’ attitudes and have them open their eyes. He ended by once again quoting his uncle, “America’s weapons are non-provocative, carefully controlled, designed to deter, and capable of selective use. Our military forces are committed to peace and disciplined in self-restraint. Our diplomats are instructed to avoid unnecessary irritants and purely rhetorical hostility.” RFK Jr. called on the American government to “adopt President Kennedy’s maxims and to start de-escalating right now…and to celebrate a President who keeps the peace.”
Regarding vaccines he has called for research involving protocols and placebo groups. He is not anti-vaccine; a misconception mainstream media keeps pushing. “In the book I have this quote where he says, “I’ve spent thirty-seven years trying to get mercury out of fish. Nobody calls me anti-fish. I’ve spent thirty-seven years trying to get pesticides out of food. Nobody calls me anti-food. I’ve spent thirty-seven years trying to improve fuel efficiency ang get carbon fuel out of automobiles. Nobody calls me anti-energy…I’m against bad science, and for good robust science and for honest regulators. And we don’t have any of those things. People call me anti-vaccine because it’s a way of marginalizing me, making people think I’m a crackpot and keeping me silent.” Russell also said how “Bobby feels that Bill Gates has been buying media outlets for years and for that reason he will not be criticized when he forges an alliance with Anthony Fauci who has been funded by the bio-defense industry for a long time.”
Regarding the Constitution, RFK Jr. is for individual rights and the First Amendment. “He feels a violation of our civil rights is preventing people from going to school if not vaccinated.” He also “supports the Second Amendment and feels the solution is not to take away people’s guns. He also knows there is a problem with the surveillance capability that exists and how AI is coming more and more into prevalence with a need for regulations.”
For him, “climate change is real, and something should be done about it. But also talks about the need to have an infrastructure. He is opposed to technocratic solutions.”
What Russell wants readers to get out of the book is to understand, “What Bobby has achieved and who he is as a human being who has been through a lot of trials and tribulations in his life. He has come out stronger with a real ability to help people who do not have a voice. He wants to change the Federal Agencies, so they are not captured by these corporations. He has been talking about the media’s complicity in this for more than twenty years, which I write about in the book also. He is willing to take risks and cares about this country, believing he can help. He never makes a blanket statement about things.”THANK YOU!!
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