I'll blog more about his talk on Tuesday; for now here's a sample of an interview he did with SierraSummit2005:
Planet (editor Tom Valtin): What is the biggest environmental problem we face in this country today?
Kennedy: George W. Bush, without any rival.
Planet: The Sierra Club obviously feels much the same way. But we found during last year’s elections that when we criticized Bush the person, many people—including Sierra Club members—were angered, and consequently less open to our message. How do we oppose the policies without criticizing the person?
Kennedy: I think you have to do both. Winston Churchill said that you have to just keep telling the truth, and telling it, and telling it. And ultimately, people are going to believe it. It can be frustrating, and of course industry and its indentured servants use every method to discredit you, including saying that you’re tree-huggers, or radicals, or against the president. But you have to persevere. There’s a huge systemic problem in our democracy now, which is the endless negligence of the American press and the huge corporate consolidation of the media. That’s the principal threat to American democracy, and it’s an issue that environmentalists have to take an interest in curing. We have to develop outlets and methods of getting our message across to the American public that don’t rely on the mainstream press, which is now controlled by the right wing and giant corporations who are interested not in informing the public but in entertaining us in order to increase their own revenues.
Rest at the link above.
