During an appearance on Joe Rogan's podcast, 2024 Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. says he takes "precautions" to avoid being assassinated like his uncle, former President John F. Kennedy.
RFK Jr. told Rogan that he suspects the CIA was involved in his uncle's death.
“He realized very early on that the purpose of the CIA and the intelligence apparatus was to create a constant pipeline of new wars for the military industrial complex,” he said.
He went on to say that his uncle was “at war” with the intelligence community in regards to foreign policy.
Here is a transcript of this segment of the show:
RFK Jr.: My uncle John Kennedy, you know, did that he, he refused to go to war. So, he was surrounded by the military industrial complex and he learned very early that an intelligence apparatus, that he realised early on that the purpose of the CIA and the intelligence apparatus was to create a constant pipeline of new wars for the military industrial complex. The day, three days before he took the oath of office, Eisenhower, who was the outgoing president, gave what is probably the most important speech in American history, which was, you know, where he warned against the military industrial complex. I was at my uncle's inauguration, I was in Washington that day, you know, a six year old boy, I was sitting on the stands behind, in front of him, during his inauguration. And he understood that. And two months later, the military and intelligence came to him and said, we got it, we got it, invade Cuba. And he was like, I'm not going to into Cuba, and I'm not gonna let the military and they said, Well, we got all these Cubans trained, and they're gonna go attack Castro. And he said, well, we can't, the US government can't be doing that, we can't be attacking. I don't like what Castro was doing down there. But it's not the United States' job to dictate what kind of governments other countries have. And they said, well, as soon as they land, there's gonna be a big revolution, everybody's gonna rise up, and they're gonna overthrow Castro. And he said, well, you can't use the US military. And they ended up bringing those guys over with United Fruit boats. And in the middle of the night, they came to him and said, they're getting wiped out on the beach, and you need to send in the military in a day. And he said, we're not going to do it. And he stomped out of that meeting. And he realized they had been lying to him, and trying to trick him. And he said, I want to take the CIA and shatter it into a thousand pieces and scatter it to the winds. And, and then, you know, for the next thousand days of his presidency, he was at war. With his military, and intelligence apparatus. They tried to get him to go into Laos, he said no. They tried to get him to go into Vietnam with the combat troops. They said, we need 250,000 combat troops. He refused. Everybody around him wanted him to go into Vietnam. He sent 16,000 military advisors, that's fewer people than he sent to get James Meredith into Ole Miss in Jackson, Mississippi, to get one black man into school. He sent fewer into Vietnam. They weren't allowed to fight, many of them did, they violated the rules of engagement. In October of 1963, he heard that some of his Green Berets had been killed over there. And he said, I want a total casualty list from Vietnam. And his aid came to him and said, 75 Americans have died. He said, that's too many. And he signed that day, a national security order ordering all troops out of Vietnam, US troops. The first thousand over the next month, and then the rest by the beginning of 1965. And, and then, a month later, he was killed. So, but what his view was, is that he believed that the view of Americans should, abroad should not be, you know, a soldier with a gun. It should be a Peace Corps volunteer building, you know, wells, and it should be USAID helping poor people, and it should be Alliance for Progress building middle class. And that's what he did. And he just started the Kennedy milk program to give nutrition to poor kids all over the world. As a result of that, in Africa today, they're more statues to John Kennedy, more boulevards named after him, more hospitals, schools, universities, avenues, in all the major cities named after him than any other president. And that is that, the Chinese have taken that template and done the same thing now. And they are, you know, all these countries that were supposedly allied with us, are now realigned with the Chinese and they're switching to their currency because the Chinese are not there to kill people. They're there to build roads, to build universities, to build colleges. And it turns out, that people like that a lot more. And you know, we should be projecting economic power around the globe and not military power, it will make us much stronger.
Joe Rogan: But what do you think happens when you get into office? Like if you're talking about your uncle who was assassinated and you believe the intelligence agencies were part of that. What happens to you?
RFK Jr.: Well, I gotta be careful. You know, I'm aware of that and I, you know, I, I'm aware of the, of that danger. And, you know, I don't live in fear of it, you know at all, but I'm not stupid about it, and I take precautions.
So, who is protecting RFK Jr.? Perhaps the Nation of Islam?
RFK Jr. is a revisionist politician. Like Oliver Stone and James DiEugenio, he has an idealized view of JFK as a president who was going to bring world peace, establish detente with the Soviet Union and Cuba, and usher in a new era of harmony and joy. It's a nice fantasy, but that's exactly what it is.
The truth is that we don't know what JFK would have done if he hadn't been assassinated.
His record until that day in November was one of a cold warrior who was obsessed with Cuba and Fidel Castro. No matter how you spin it, JFK approved the Bay of Pigs operation, and much of the blame for the debacle can be laid at his feet. The quotation about scattering the CIA to the winds is ahistorical -- he might have said it, but we only have the word of an unnamed source, a few years after his assassination.
I am sure that there are a lot of public facilities named after JFK. But guess which American president is really loved in Africa? George W. Bush.
PEPFAR, his health initiative to combat HIV and AIDS, saved millions of lives.
What galls me the most about RFK Jr. is his naivete about China. China isn't just building roads and universities. The Belt and Road program has led to many problems for countries around the world.
Western critics blame Chinese abuse of their power for Zambia’s economic woes. Indeed, Chinese labor standards have come under fire for creating poor conditions for African workers. As of 2010, Zambian wages cost China just “0.093 percent of gross income” and health regulations have been criticized for threatening workers with longer hours and greater exposure to “acid … noxious fumes and dust” than what is allowed by Zambian law. The root of these problems appears to be China’s ignorance of international standards of practice, but China’s unchallenged power clearly underlies the neglect of labor rights. A concerning corollary of this control appeared in the 2006 Chambishi riots, where Zambian workers protested a 2005 mining explosion that killed 46 workers in a CNMC mine. Instead of recognizing Zambian demands for improved safety measures and healthcare, Chinese managers shot six protestors. The failure to provide potable water, higher wages, and protective equipment against silicosis stings particularly strongly considering China’s willingness to spend US$350 million on the new Chambishi Copper Smelter with computerized technology (HRW). China’s unjust treatment of local workers reveals how China profits off of Zambian suffering.
The major problem is that China practices a perverse form of capitalism. There are no labor laws, no environmental laws, and of course, no rule of law. Most of its large businesses are state-owned enterprises. Their goal is not profit, but to serve the state. And all of them have significant Communist Party of China members on their management and boards - to ensure the interests of the party is front and center.
What is also disturbing is that RFK Jr. doesn't seem to be aware of what the Chinese government has done to the Uighurs in East Turkestan; what the Chinese government has done to Hong Kong; what the Chinese government has done to Tibet; and the fact that the Chinese government is sponsoring Vladimir Putin's obscene war in Ukraine. Just where does he think Russia is selling its oil and other commodities?
It's bad enough to have a conspiracy theorist running for President.
The United States doesn't need a conspiratorial naïf running for office. But if he's looking for a running mate, well, I can't think of one better suited for him than Oliver Stone.
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