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After a airplane, a ferry, and a prepare had introduced me to Manhattan, NY, we discovered ourselves with thirty-something minutes to arrange for a sit-down interview with presidential hopeful Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., thirty-something flooring excessive in a Hudson Yards’ resort. Captured by filmmaker Jeremy Poley, RFK answered our questions for about forty minutes. His responses have been sharp and nicely articulated with an encyclopedic recall capability. He answered each single query I had ready. Maybe misplaced within the mainstream noise trying to decrease his inarguable counterculture resonance is his basic likability. However whereas People would possibly love their Kennedys, the DNC positive doesn’t. Not less than not whereas his marketing campaign is placing an outside-yet-still-partisan stress on the Democratic celebration, forcing the Biden reelection marketing campaign to no less than faux to get their act collectively.
His entrance was hurried. His respiratory managed, however heavy just like the fingers of a prizefighter, wrapped round his tea cup. After a heat however truncated introduction, Jeremy gave us the inexperienced mild and the interview began in earnest a couple of minutes after the center of the hour.
Goodwin: In case your father was round immediately, would he acknowledge the present state of the DNC? What’s a Kennedy Democrat to you?
RFK: I might say Kennedy Democrats are the standard Democratic Social gathering which was the celebration of the working class, the working poor. It was a celebration that was very robust historically on the atmosphere. Its custom has been anti-war and skeptical of the navy industrial advanced, and in addition skeptical of Wall Road. I might say taking the place of stopping Wall Road from dictating insurance policies that find yourself serving the American basic curiosity of the company aristocracy and the company kleptocracy and stripping of the center class, working folks, and union members of their wealth and their energy.
Goodwin: This does not sound just like the DNC immediately.
RFK: No.
Goodwin: How do you propose to tackle the tremendous monopolies that management our meals, media, forex, and well being?
RFK: For every sector you must do one thing totally different. It’s true that there’s been this extraordinary consolidation the place these three big finance homes — BlackRock, State Road, and Vanguard — management 88% of the S&P 500 and so they management nearly all the navy contractors. They management many of the U.S.-based agricultural sector, the large packing firms and seed firms, the pharmaceutical trade. For every sector, you must do various things. And in every sector, these industries even have 20 or 30 years of growing methodologies for capturing and controlling the regulatory businesses — which might be supposed to guard the general public from unhealthy habits by these firms. However as an alternative these regulators have develop into sock puppets for the industries they’re supposed to control. And in every case, you must unravel company seize. I believe that I’m in all probability the most effective individual at this level, on this nation, that’s suited to do this as a result of a lot of my profession has been litigating in opposition to these businesses and the industries which have corrupted them.
And while you deliver litigation, you actually nearly get a PhD in company seize. You actually perceive the dynamics of it and perceive, subsequently, the strategies for unraveling it. And I’ll provide you with an instance. Once we introduced the Monsanto case, we uncovered discovery paperwork that confirmed that the top of the pesticide division at EPA, a person named Jess Rowland, was secretly working for Monsanto and that his orders have been being given to him by Monsanto executives who have been instructing him to kill research that they thought would possibly hyperlink glyphosate — the lively ingredient of their flagship pesticide Roundup — from hyperlinks to non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and different cancers. And it was clear that though he was being paid by the American taxpayer, he was really working for Monsanto. And that is true sadly all through the businesses. That is extra the rule than the exception. As a result of I’ve been so deeply concerned in this type of litigation, I really know the names of those who I would like to maneuver as quickly as I get into workplace.
Most politicians are very intimidated by these businesses as a result of the businesses do have the capability at many ranges to commit civil disobediences to embarrass the president should you really feel that they’re coming beneath stress. And I perceive that dynamic and I perceive what must be carried out to unravel this corrupt merger of state and company energy.
Goodwin: A carousel of C-suite executives to regulatory positions. Once you do take workplace, what actions would you’re taking to make sure free speech, free press, and an open web appearing as a public sq. for discourse, particularly for dissident voices in opposition to these sorts of propaganda machines?
RFK: Primary, my first day in workplace, I’ll challenge an government order in opposition to any federal company or any federal regulator encouraging or selling censorship at any social media web site. Along with that, I’ll promote laws to alter the RICO Act, the Racketeering Act, which my father initially wrote, to incorporate as a predicate offense government-dictated censorship of free speech. I’ll additionally summon the heads of all the main social media websites, together with YouTube and Google, which proceed to censor political speech on this nation. And I’ll inform them that they should give you a plan about how they’re going to keep away from censoring political speech. The sanction, in the end, is to remodel them into public utilities and acknowledge that they now have develop into the general public sq.. After which I’ll put in laws to amend the Communications Act, which incorporates Part 230, and I’ll, in that act, make the censorship of political speech unlawful.
Goodwin: If democracy innately necessitates knowledgeable consent, can the U.S. authorities pretty name for the violent protection of democracy as a pillar of international coverage whereas working with Large Tech to censor tales inside its personal nation?
RFK: Can the federal government censor criticism of, for instance, the warfare in Ukraine? That needs to be unlawful. Particular person media websites, in fact, ought to have the ability to criticize the warfare, and so they can both criticize it or they’ll select to not enable criticism on their pages. That’s their choice. But when they’re doing it on the course of the federal government, then the First Modification is implicated and it turns into unlawful. And that’s the best way that I might deal with it.
The concept America promotes democracy worldwide is mostly thought to be canard all over the world. The CIA has participated, I believe, in 87 coups between 1947 and 1997 — a 3rd of the nations on Earth. And most of them are democracies. And the USAID, which is a CIA entrance, spends $10 billion a yr in efforts to overthrow democracies in varied international locations. They do a regime change operation. Once you do a regime change operation, you’re countervailing democracy in that nation, as a result of normally the regime has been put in place by some sort of consensus by the individuals who reside in that nation. Typically this consensus is manufactured by tasks like Operation Mockingbird. The CIA immediately is the largest funder of journalism on the planet. It’s not purported to fund journalism within the U.S., however it does. And should you look all over the world, it owns newspapers, it runs newspapers, it pays editors, and it pays main journalists in many of the growing world and in Europe.
Goodwin: Talking of journalists, do you propose to pardon Julian Assange while you take workplace?
RFK: I’ll pardon Julian Assange on day one and doubtless Edward Snowden as nicely. After which I’ll have a look at different circumstances for pardon. I’m going to take a look at Ross Ulbricht’s case to see if he was justly convicted and whether or not his conviction in his sentence displays the seriousness of his crime, or whether or not he was being made an instance of so as to discourage Bitcoin or the trade of cryptocurrencies. And if I discover out that’s the case, I’ll pardon him as nicely.
Goodwin: How is what Ross did any totally different than what AT&T executives did, permitting drug sellers and human traffickers to make use of their programs? Or JPMorgan Chase, permitting recognized human traffickers to make the most of their financial institution companies? How is what Ross did any totally different than that?
RFK: There are lots of ironies that accompany Ross’ convictions. I believe that’s a very good level — the issues that he was accused of are issues which might be simply a part of the enterprise construction and the marketing strategy of those main blue chip firms. However he didn’t have that energy of the lobbying clout. And if I discover that his sentence was unjust, I’ll reverse it.
Goodwin: Do you suppose if folks knew that they’d have their taxes raised and expertise excessive inflation so as to expense the trillions of {dollars} wanted for these wars, or for the COVID response, that there could be public help?
RFK: I don’t suppose any of the wars that we fought no less than because the Korean Conflict, and perhaps together with the Korean Conflict, would have been accredited by taxpayers upfront. Fiat forex was created so as to allow nations to go to warfare with out levying the taxes outright on populations. The inhabitants nonetheless pays by a self-tax referred to as inflation. However fiat forex was invented lengthy earlier than the Fed. And it was invented on the outset, from the start, so as to fund the reason for warfare.
Goodwin: Talking of fiat currencies, what initially sparked your curiosity in bitcoin and why are you interested by the Bitcoin voting bloc?
RFK: My curiosity in Bitcoin started after I noticed the truckers and what occurred in Ottawa. You had peaceable demonstrations for individuals who have been exercising their proper to protest, to petition public officers, for superb causes. And so they have been silenced and punished by the federal government in a rare approach. The federal government used surveillance strategies to find out their identities, to find out the license plates of their vehicles, after which closed their financial institution accounts, depriving them of their entry to their very own cash with none costs being filed, and definitely with none conviction. Merely to silence them. The federal government has the capability to close down your checking account to hunger. These are individuals who couldn’t pay their mortgages. I talked to 1 trucker who couldn’t pay his alimony and he was getting in prison hassle with the courts. Folks couldn’t pay for his or her youngsters’s clothes, medication, and meals. And naturally they couldn’t pay for gasoline to maneuver their autos — their bank cards not labored. And if the federal government has the capability to do this, the federal government has the capability to enslave us. If they’ll starve their critics, they’ll accomplish any atrocity. At that time, I started to know that freedom of transaction is as essential as freedom of speech. And that Bitcoin is that this. I may also see the trajectory towards central financial institution digital currencies, and that can give nations this final energy over whether or not we reside or die. And I understood that we want a forex that may be a freedom forex — a forex that’s unbiased and that may’t be managed by the federal government.
Goodwin: You latterly floated this very novel thought of, alongside different laborious belongings, backing the U.S. greenback with bitcoin. Are you involved in any respect about authorities affect or restrictions close to Bitcoin or bitcoin mining?
RFK: I’m very involved about all the federal government assaults on Bitcoin. However what I want to do is to no less than present some issuance of Treasury payments which might be backed by laborious forex. And that might be a bucket that features bitcoin, that features platinum, gold, silver, and different laborious belongings. And that might not be utterly lined, however perhaps starting with 1%. And the rationale for that — it’s actually a drop within the bucket — however we will see if there’s a market on the market and if it could impose a sort of self-discipline on this out-of-control printing of cash as a result of the shoppers would have entry to an asset that no less than had some foundation in laborious forex — no less than some immunity from runaway inflation. And if there’s a choice for that, then we may enhance the quantity yearly, 1% to 2%, 3%, and so forth. And get again to no less than some degree of choices for base currencies.
Goodwin: How do you see the way forward for the U.S. greenback growing as we’re seeing CBDCs, stablecoins, and different kinds of greenback derivatives popping out? We’re seeing a fast globalization of the greenback at a really excessive velocity. Clearly, I believe you’ll be able to see this potential Bitcoin future, however how do you see the greenback growing?
RFK: I believe the way forward for the greenback is unsure. One of many huge components is the exponential development of BRICs. BRICs, which, you already know, started with simply Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, are actually including one other six international locations. They’re providing a substitute for the greenback as a reserve forex and whereas they don’t challenge their very own forex, they permit transactions to be settled in native currencies. In the end it is a risk to the place of the greenback because the world’s reserve forex, and to American energy, to American wealth. It’s accelerating, and it’s our personal doing. It comes from the weaponization of forex, the usage of navy and even merely navy posture from the USA. The unilateral bellicosity of our nation, which has made many different international locations cautious of collaborating with us, or placing themselves inside our energy. Once we freeze belongings of people who find themselves Vladimir Putin’s buddies or Russian oligarchs, who might or might not have something to do with what’s taking place in Russia, folks say, “Why are we placing ourselves able the place we will do this? Why don’t we begin our personal markets?” and that’s a really harmful factor for the U.S. greenback.
Goodwin: Do you consider the U.S. authorities ought to immediately challenge a digital forex to residents?
RFK: No, I’m in opposition to central financial institution digital currencies. I believe they may develop into an instrument of energy and management. And in the end, they’ll be used as an excuse to abolish money currencies. And so they give the federal government full management over our lives. Even earlier than the Ottawa occasion, I gave a speech in Milan warning the folks of Italy as a result of they have been taking a look at vaccine passports and central financial institution digital currencies at the moment and I stated, “Right here’s what they’re doing in China”. For those who don’t meet a sure social credit score rating, should you present up on a masks day not carrying your masks correctly, otherwise you’re not boosted, no matter your offense is, the federal government can flip off your capability to spend cash. They will program it in order that your bank cards will solely work, for instance, at grocery shops inside a half a mile radius of your own home, however they gained’t purchase you gasoline. They gained’t let you get an airplane ticket. They don’t need to let you journey and purchase objects and meals in different components of the nation or overseas. And if the federal government has these sorts of powers over us, we’re all in a variety of deep hassle.
Goodwin: Do you’ve gotten any considerations with the replace of the legacy system with the formation of FedNow and this type of permissioned walled backyard that already exists within the Federal Reserve System?
RFK: I believe FedNow is step one. It’s not basically a digital forex, however it’s step one. We’re all on this slippery slope. It worries me.
Goodwin: Are you able to discuss a bit of bit concerning the authorities’s actions throughout COVID? Do you consider it was orchestrated much like the 2008 disaster to close down small companies and regional banks so as to consolidate monetary energy throughout the tremendous monopoly?
RFK: I don’t suppose it was orchestrated particularly for that function. I believe those self same entities, highly effective entities, will use any disaster as a pretext for eradicating public rights and for clamping down totalitarian controls.
Goodwin: Like 9/11 and the Patriot Act?
RFK: Each disaster all through historical past turns into a pretext for highly effective actors within the society to broaden their energy and to scale back public energy and to subvert democracy.
Goodwin: Would you take into account canceling debt or recovering ill-gotten good points from the tremendous monopolies that stole wealth from the working class?
RFK: I might have a look at litigation in opposition to any sort of fraud.
Goodwin: Why do you suppose Trump will get a free go from the media for the lockdowns and disastrous financial coverage selections made throughout his administration? Do you suppose he will get a free go?
RFK: Yeah, I believe the mainstream media have been dedicated to that agenda. And so it’s an space that they’re not going to criticize him on. In all probability due to a battle of curiosity of comparable investments in pharma. There’s big pharmaceutical advert revenues — one of many main promoting revenues going into the key media retailers. And people pharmaceutical firms additionally in the end dictate content material on the stations.
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Goodwin: How do you hope to guide a motion in opposition to such a strong, unified coalition? And what do you say to those who are demoralized and don’t consider that the political system can be utilized to assist residents anymore?
RFK: I might inform them to observe me and watch what I do. I nonetheless consider that there’s hope for democracy. And let’s give it an opportunity. And, if I get in there, I even have absolute confidence that I can repair it.
Goodwin: Do you suppose that Bitcoin will play a giant a part of that? Do you suppose forex addresses the tremendous monopoly head on?
RFK: I’m going to be sure that Bitcoin is protected and that folks can maintain their very own wallets, and that the present White Home’s warfare on Bitcoin can be over, that transactions can be protected and inspired. I’ll look in the end at treating it as a forex quite than a commodity. Notably for smaller Bitcoin house owners, for transactions made by house owners. I don’t need to present a windfall for the billionaires who amassed bitcoin, however I believe smaller actors and their transactions needs to be protected. They need to have the ability to change currencies the identical approach as while you go to Canada and also you’re utilizing the Canadian greenback. You shouldn’t must pay for it in taxes if there’s some appreciation within the Canadian greenback.
Goodwin: Do you see utilizing one thing akin to the Part 230 protections and even an modification that might shield such transactions?
RFK: I don’t know the way I might do it, however I can inform you the overall tenure of my strategy and my administration. I can’t inform you the small print about how I’m going to do it. I’m going to seek the advice of the neatest folks within the trade, folks like Stanley Druckenmiller and Paul Tudor Jones. After which Bitcoin specialists so as to work out one of the best ways to do it in methods that can shield our freedoms in methods that can encourage the re-industrialization of America and that advantages can accrue to working People.
Goodwin: Say proper now you’re sitting subsequent to the most effective good religion illustration of the Bitcoin group as doable, and I’m feeding you precisely what it’s that needs to be carried out. How do you propose to work with a compromised Congress to get a few of this regulation in place to guard Bitcoin?
RFK: I’m going to do the whole lot that I can with out having to go to Congress. I’m going to do it by my management over Treasury coverage, even when it means bringing within the banks. A number of the unhealthy insurance policies towards Bitcoin are usually not being pushed by laws. They’re being pushed by White Home insurance policies. I’m going to finish the warfare.
Goodwin: Talking of ending the warfare: The navy industrial advanced that Eisenhower warned about appears to be in full impact with the provocation of Russia by NATO rising its navy presence in Ukraine. And but there are some right here again house that might say that that is good for the U.S. financial system as a result of they’re shopping for U.S. arms. Would you say the warfare in Ukraine is definitely an financial victory for Biden?
RFK: No. The warfare is a disaster for everyone. We’ve killed 400,000 Ukrainian children and doubtless 70,000 to 100,000 Russians. I do know Mitch McConnell stated that we shouldn’t fear concerning the $140 billion that we’re paying over there as a result of it’s all going again to U.S. arms makers. Who owns all these arms makers? It’s BlackRock, State Road, and Vanguard, proper? It’s going to the richest folks in our nation. It’s not serving to the working poor. It’s really draining a variety of mental sources that might be used to re-industrialize our nation at house, to construct merchandise which might be really invaluable, that don’t kill folks, that make folks’s lives higher, to rebuild our training system. With the $8 trillion that we’ve spent on warfare, we may make Social Safety solvent for 30 years. We may pay for each American youngster’s training up by college, and provides them unbelievable training. We may pay for youngster care for each American. We may liquidate all of the bank card debt in our nation. So lots of the issues we face might be solved if we stored that cash at house. And that’s what I’m going to do as president.
Goodwin: Are you able to perhaps discuss concerning the Weimar Republic and its penalties as an analog or metaphor to what’s taking place within the U.S. now? May this inflation trigger a revolution of types? And is there an alternate for the decrease, center, and dealing class that isn’t a violent revolution?
RFK: I’m going to attempt to remedy the issues, starting with housing. Proper now, you’ve gotten these huge firms — once more, BlackRock, State Road, and Vanguard — that personal a lot of America already now attempting to purchase all of the single-family properties. By 2030, simply six and a half years from now, firms will personal 60% of the single-family properties. My children can’t purchase properties. So many individuals, children your age, my children age, are nonetheless dwelling in a house with their dad and mom or they’re dwelling in leases. There’s only a few of them which might be really buying properties. They exit to attempt to purchase a house and any person is available in on the final minute with a money provide or some amorphous LLC with an ambiguous identify you could hint again to BlackRock. And it’s not factor. Thomas Jefferson stated American democracy must be rooted in tens of 1000’s of unbiased freeholds owned by particular person People. It is a colonial mannequin; it’s an aristocracy; it’s a feudal aristocracy. If firms personal all of the land in our nation, People can’t personal a house. If they’ll’t personal it, they don’t have fairness. When you’ve got a house and also you need to begin a enterprise, you’ll be able to take a second mortgage and take that threat. However should you don’t personal fairness, you’ll be able to’t get entry to capital. And that’s the place the ability is — entry to capital. And people firms have entry to capital at less expensive charges due to their financial institution books — and so they’re competing in opposition to our youngsters to purchase properties. We constructed prosperity on this nation after World Conflict II ensuring People may get into properties. Now that promise throughout the American dream is being misplaced.
Goodwin: Do you suppose it’s a coincidence in any respect that simply moments after the Civil Rights Act handed that the Nixon shock occurred and we acquired taken off the gold commonplace?
RFK: In 1971, the tipping level of getting taken off the gold commonplace was the Vietnam Conflict, which was placing us in debt and so they wanted to print cash. And so they have been pissed off. Kissinger and Nixon have been pissed off that they might not have the ability to get help from the warfare, from People, and help for these appropriations from Congress. And they also modified the principles. They deserted Bretton Woods. They divorced America from the gold commonplace. And so they began this inflationary cycle that we’ve been coping with ever since. There’s positively a selection made between, for instance, the warfare on poverty and the Vietnam Conflict. Martin Luther King stated we will both go to warfare in opposition to poverty at house or we will go to warfare in opposition to yellow folks in Vietnam. And we will’t do each. We don’t have the cash. And I believe these are connections which might be clear.
Goodwin: I recognize your time and your considerate solutions to all these questions.
RFK: Thanks very a lot.
This text is featured in Bitcoin Journal’s “The Main Challenge”. Click on right here to get your Annual Bitcoin Journal Subscription.