Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. will discuss our environmental destiny at the Conference on Social Change hosted by Walden University on Thursday, July 19.
RFK Jr. will give the keynote address and head the list of prominent speakers at this year’s conference, “Sustainability and Social Change: Uncommon Vision for the Common Good.”
Nearly 40 workshops and presentations, hosted by Walden University faculty and national and community leaders, will address a variety of sustainability issues such as new technologies for sustainability, sustainable globalization, population growth’s effect on the environment, sustainable development and the climate change’s impact on war and peace. The conference will also feature a documentary film series, performing artists expressing social change issues and tours of sustainability activities in the Twin Cities.
Kennedy will talk about how regulatory rollbacks have threatened our health, our national security, and democracy as we know it. He will examine how the administration has orchestrated these rollbacks almost entirely outside of public scrutiny and in tandem with the same industries that these laws are meant to regulate. He will be signing copies of his book, Crimes Against Nature, following the discussion.
WHEN/WHERE: 8:30 a.m. at Northrop Auditorium, 84 Church St. S.E., Minneapolis; 612-625-6000; FREE tickets available at the U of M Bookstore at Coffman Memorial Union, 300 Washington Ave. S.E., Minneapolis.
For more information, please visit Walden University’s website.
Read the MySpace blog of one of the conference attendees who was moved to tears by Kennedy’s speech!
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for President 
This is the entirely rude, ignorant, and abrasive correspondence I received from the RFK Jr. 2008 MySpace profile. Hence the reason I would not support him for President.
—————– Original Message —————–
From: RFK Jr. 2008
Here’s the difference between….
the person typing this to you,
and YOU.
The person typing this to you has ALWAYS BEEN INTERESTED IN POLITICS.
According to your bio, you have not been.
You are a novice and a doofus.
I am not.
You would not recognize political strategy if it fell out of the sky and hit you like an anvil in a Road Runner cartoon. Please don’t run for any offices higher than school board please. Thanks. You think The Kennedys are a political dynasty because you are a dope. Dynasties stay in power and are not the victims of coups you idiot. Entrenched ? That would be Nader and his status with morons like you.
We have decided to delete you for being obtuse, oblivious, and just generally uninformed.
Just read the blog you fucking idiot.
By the way, you are a politician.
RFK Jr. is NOT.
You are an elected official.
RFK Jr. is not.
You are not the most well informed Greenie I have ever encountered.
—————– Original Message —————–
From: Zen Ben
Date: Aug 5, 2007 7:32 PM
You’re the politician. I’m the voter. You ought to be selling yourself to me, not giving up because I haven’t been “paying attention” to your specifications. If you have good reasons based on sound positions and issues, as to why I should vote RFK, JR. for the GREEN nomination, than spit it out. I don’t have the time or interest to research it all myself.
—————– Original Message —————–
From: RFK Jr. 2008
Date: Aug 5, 2007 8:26 PM
Skip it.
You haven’t been paying attention
to what’s going on. Seriously.
Have fun voting for Nader and/or McKinney.
Redeem yourself by checking out our blog.
—————– Original Message —————–
From: Zen Ben
Date: Aug 5, 2007 7:21 PM
I don’t support Nader. I don’t know why I would support a Kennedy. How would Robert be any different than any other Democratic-entrenched family such as Clinton? What makes him worthy of the Green label?
—————– Original Message —————–
From: RFK Jr. 2008
Date: Aug 5, 2007 8:06 PM
Well Nader and McKinney don’t cut it.
Nader as Perennial Candidate is an exercise in vanity and ego at this point and McKinney is unelectable. RFK Jr. on the other hand… WELL JUST LOOK AT THE POLLING ON OUR PAGE FOR CRYING OUT LOUD. If RFK Jr. enters the Democratic Race, Hillary Clinton becomes an instant “also-ran”.
—————– Original Message —————–
From: Zen Ben
Date: Aug 5, 2007 7:04 PM
I’m currently undecided who I want to support for the Green Party presidential nomination.
—————– Original Message —————–
From: RFK Jr. 2008
Date: Aug 5, 2007 7:48 PM
The Green Party should select RFK Jr., with or without his permission, as the nominee of their party for 2008. They should do so within the next 100 days or so. This would FORCE RFK Jr. to enter the 2008 race as a Democratic candidate. What else would it accomplish ?
It would broaden the base of The Green Party.
Nominating Nader and/or McKinney brings NOTHING NEW to your party. As for the “with or without his permission” part, there is precedent. See General MacArthur in 1952 when he was named by several minor parties as their nominee WITHOUT his permission.
Make the 2008 race GREENER than GREEN by submitting RFK Jr.’s name for consideration NOW to your party leaders. That is our advice to you and it is SOUND REALPOLITIK to be sure. Again, NADER AND McKINNEY BRING NOTHING to the 2008 race. NOTHING.
RFK Jr. on the other hand, ESPECIALLY if your party hierarchy names him BY ACCLAMATION as their nominee within the next 100 days or so, bring unprecedented POLITICAL CLOUT to The Green Party.
THINK ABOUT IT and get back to us !!!
Wow, after what I just saw above, only one word leaps to mind — YIKES!
I was shocked to read the emails you rec’d from the people who run the MySpace page about RFK Jr., and very sad indeed that because of this, you will apparently not vote for RFK Jr. if he runs for President.
Please reconsider giving RFK your full support anyway, bearing in mind that the person who runs the MySpace page does not speak for Mr. Kennedy. I think that if RFK Jr. knew that someone was out there saying things like this to potential voters (calling someone a “fucking idiot” is not the way to win friends and influence people), he would never allow himself to be aligned with such negativity.
Our website is not affiliated in any way with the MySpace page, or with any other individual or group trying to Draft RFK Jr. We are not in the employ of Mr. Kennedy, we do not speak for him. Our job, as we see it, is to provide news and information about RFK Jr. to interested voters and hopefully convince them to support RFK Jr. by signing the draft petition.
I’ve only corresponded by email a couple of times with the fellow who runs the MySpace page about RFK Jr., and in what little contact we’ve had, he was not rude but did not exactly strike me as a positive force in the movement overall. He certainly gets the credit for building a page that has been successful, but I hate to see comments like this costing RFK Jr. votes.
The idea here is to WIN over supporters, not drive them away!
It has also recently come to my attention that the admin of the MySpace page to Draft RFK Jr. has taken original content from our website and posted into his blog without attribution or a link back to the source. We would like to give the benefit of the doubt and say that it was not his intent to “borrow” another author’s words and present them as his own. I wrote him today asking him to correct the omission and give source credit where credit is due.
So this situation is a great disappointment to me. It casts a dark cloud over the entire grassroots movement to draft RFK Jr., which I have always envisioned as a strictly positive force. At this website, we do not bash or attack other candidates. We’re not anti-Hillary, anti-Obama, or anti-anybody. We’re pro-RFK Jr. That is the message, pure and simple.
It is our sincere hope that others who support RFK will remain focused on the task at hand: to *respectfully ask* him to accept the people’s nomination to run as a candidate for any political party HE chooses. I do not feel that we have the right to force him to accept the nomination of any party which he does not choose.
If Bobby chooses to run with the Greens, we will support him. If he chooses to run as a Democrat, we’re with him. If he chooses to declare no party affiliation at all and run as an Independent, we will be behind him all the way. When it comes to RFK Jr., we support him because of who he is and where he stands on issues. His party affiliation, while important, is likely not going to be our primary concern in the election of 2008. We just hope he will run.
He needs our support. He needs your support. I do hope you will reconsider and not let the bad experience you had with the owner of an unaffiliated Draft RFK Jr. web site change your mind about Mr. Kennedy himself. I hope you will rather allow your decision to be influenced by Bobby’s own words (in his books, articles, speeches, interviews) and established stance on the issues of greatest importance to you.
United We Stand!
UPDATE: Aug. 7, 2007
I followed up on the evidence Ben brought forward and contacted the admin of the MySpace page to Draft RFK Jr. — This was his stunningly bizarre response:
Subj: Re: RFK Jr.
Date: 8/6/07 6:02:19 PM Central Daylight Time
From: (RFKJr. ForPresident2008)
To: RFKin2008@cs.com (RFKin2008@cs.com)
It doesn’t matter if they (the Green party) would accept his nomination.
That’s not the process.
The process would be for somebody to nominate him
within the next 100 days or so which would force him
to run as a Dem. Get it ?
By the way, he can be named as their nominee with or without his permission.
Screw the Green Party. They are full of lame purists.
That having been said, if they would put him on their ballot,
LIKE I said, it would force RFK Jr. to run as a Dem.
I would say that their are only 98 days left to convince RFK Jr. to run.
11-22-07 is when he should announce.
Whoah. That comes across as pretty far out to me, and it would be easy enough to dismiss this individual as just another weirdo who started up a MySpace page, but then an important legal issue arises: the stealing of copyrighted material.
When it came to our attention that the admin of the MySpace Draft RFK Jr. page was posting our original copyrighted content on their blog without attribution, I wrote to the Admin asking that either the proper credit be posted on the article or that it be removed.
Here is a copy of my email:
Subj: Re: RFK Jr.
Date: 8/6/07 12:41:08 AM Central Daylight Time
From: RFKin2008
To: rfkjr.forpresident2008
Thanks for adding our story to your blog: (Headline)
RFK Jr: If the Press Reported What’s Really Going On, “There Would Be a Revolution in This Country.”
However, I noticed that you did not give proper attribution as to where you got the text and images. It is customary to include the source of information in your blog and a reciprocal link back to http://RFKin2008.com
Mistakes happen, and I’m sure you just overlooked including the source information in your post.
So please correct the error/omission on your blog and include the source link back to our site. Thanks!
To this request, I rec’d another stunningly bizarre and rude reply from him;
As for giving you credit, are you fucking kidding me?
Don’t like my attitude ?
Don’t write back then.
The fact that you misunderstood the whole Green Party
hijacking tactic speaks volumes about your naivete.
Don’t like that observation ?
Don’t write back then.
I could REALLY care less.
Get the message ?
And no, I won’t be correcting that blog.
Sorry. Get over it.
I’m not sure what this person’s problem is, but once informed that he was in violation of copyright law, he apparently thought better of it and removed the content from his MySpace blog.
While there is not much one can do about an individual expressing his first amendment right to start up a MySpace site for RFK Jr. and be rude to anybody he wants to, copyright infringement is another matter entirely.
We always encourage other web sites and bloggers to repost our original stories elsewhere on the net, but source credit and a link to http://RFKin2008.com should be provided.
Copyright issues aside, it does seem that this individual who runs the MySpace page is doing RFK Jr. and the movement to draft him a great disservice by acting irresponsibly and even illegally. If this guy were a paid campaign worker, he’d be fired in a heartbeat.
Bobby,
The offensive comments below were posted by a supporter of yours on myspace (http://myspace.com/rfk_jr_for_the_usa)
I am an adult adoptee in reunion with my b-family. Fellow adoptees would like to know if this is really where RFK Jr. stands……
1. Your email went unread Yankee Fan…
Body: Any friend of Zen Ben is just another idiot Green Party wuss in our estimation.
2.If the late Richard Brautigan
has a retarded bastard son,
you’re him.
Posted by RFK Jr. 2008 on Monday, August 06, 2007 at 9:12 AM
The use of the word bastard in such a hurtful and vitriolic way, at a time when adoptees are finally obtaining their rights and a political voice, is it appropriate to claim as one RFK support blog states (http://draftrfkjr.blogspot.com):
“Over the past week a number of Blogs and MySpaces have been created in support of our efforts. Rather than being frustrated by sometimes not knowing where a comment has landed, let’s look at it as a positive development. The passion to see RFK elected has moved many people to jump in head first.”
THIS…is passion? Not get frustrated? This is a view that is politically important to many of us. And this is by no means presidential!!
Daniel Stromgren
Thank you for your kind words and for reaching out to me in a sincere manner. You clearly understand the importance of reaching out to voters and meeting them where they are at.
I will reconsider my support for RFK Jr., should the opportunity present itself for me to support him for my party’s nomination at our caucuses next year, because of your efforts.
I appreciate knowing that the MySpace page is of no official affiliation with the Draft RFK, Jr. campaign.
Thanks again.