Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.: Why Is Tim DeChristopher Going to Jail While Massey Energy's CEO Walks Free?

Environmental activist Tim DeChristopher is going to jail, but Don Blankenship isn't—despite the fact that he illegally destroyed an entire mountain range. Why? Because he's the CEO of Massey Energy Company—and has completely bought off the judicial system in West Virginia and eastern Kentucky.

In this conversation with The Nation and On the Earth Productions recorded at Chicago's Orrington Hotel, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. says that we are once again on the verge of losing our democracy to corporate power. Yet instead of surrendering the achievements of the New Deal and Progressive Era, activists need to fight for the middle class and prepare the way for social change.

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• Mountaintop
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• mining
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[skatesurfsmoke]

@sidrahsiddiqui understood very clearly, that a fucktard with a paper on the wall just like mine thinks intellectuals should not be held accountable. Further if you pulled your head out your ass and paid attention to the scope of near all my post. I was anti-libya invasion from a month before it happen. Suggestion, go enlist in the military do 3 combat campaigns and then go to law school, and never lose a case and set the precedence and case law that protects an entire industry.then your me

[sidrahsiddiqui]

@skatesurfsmoke Do u think that whatever bombs that the US continue to drop is becoz it has "democratic license" to do? That it did this because it is a democracy? Where are you getting this idea from? The US violated the international law and UN's Security Council's decision when it went on with the wars. The people, the democracy, is not with what the American military-industrial complex does. Mr. RFK Jr. is very right in every point that he has made. You did not even understand what he said.

[cheekieweekie]

We come from a generation where America was a good empire, but not it is an evil empire, and empire collapse has righteously taken hold. The civic discussion is so broken that relevant issues cannot be discussed, and as such, whom the gods destroy, they first make mad. My children are the world's children, and not a one of them is worth supporting an empire that destroys all the others. RIP USA.

[neilemac]

America is sick!

[robtsee]

Your a little hard on ol' Robert, Smoke. Living in the middle of one giant strip mine, well yea, it is more than small to me. Out of curiosity, what knowledge do you have of Mountaintop removal? Or do you not like Mr Kennedy in general?

[elainephares]

@skatesurfsmoke How is the destruction of a mountain "small harm"? Democracy is great but the corporatization of it is not.

[skatesurfsmoke]

another idiot trying to rationalize a point by making a point that one person destroyed one mountain and made 190 million. hello mcfly there are war planes that cost 1 billion each and guess you forgot that democracy you were talking about used agent orange to deforest southeast asia. Libya..i guess those bombs are environmental. stop trying to blame corporations for small harm when the diplomatic and environmental harm on a massive scale is from that democracy he mentions