AJ Smuskiewicz on “Why I’m Still for Kennedy”

Chicago-based journalist AJ Smuskiewicz recently doubled down on his May 2023 article “Why I’m for Kennedy” with the new “Why I’m Still for Kennedy.” While admitting Kennedy is “wrong on Gaza” (understatement of the century) AJ says RFK Jr. is articulate and intelligent, right about a lot of things, and not as long of a long shot as the media would like you to believe.

I see AJ’s point. Compared to the likes of Biden and Trump, RFK Jr. looks pretty good. AJ says “I’m not going to reject a candidate because I disagree—even strongly disagree—with him on one issue (Gaza).” But is Gaza just “one issue” among many? Or is the most transparent genocide in history a whole lot more than that? Isn’t the real issue, for Americans, America’s complicity in that genocide? And isn’t that complicity the outcome of neocon (Jewish-Zionist) occupation of the USA? And isn’t that occupation, which began with Israel’s murder of JFK and RFK and reached fruition with the Jewish State’s demolition of the World Trade Center on 9/11, by far the most important issue of our time?

Extract from the interview:

AJ Smuskiewicz: I probably would not disagree too much with your previous guest (Alan Sabrosky) in the sense that I am quite a pessimist regarding America's future, especially all the nonsense that we've experienced with the past few years with the COVID lockdowns and the censorship and the rigging of the election. I am quite a pessimist actually.

I was a big supporter of Trump and I still like Trump in a lot of ways, but I was disappointed in him in many other ways, mainly because of the idiots that he surrounds himself with, like his son-in-law and Bolton and Pompeo.

And the Democrats are just become totally hopeless. They used to be the party of the working class and the party of peace back in the seventies. And I was a kid and now they've become just as big war mongers, if not worse than the Republicans. And they're the party of the Hollywood and Wall Street elites.

So when I, when I saw Kennedy come around last year, he initially said a lot of things that I found very refreshing. I never heard anyone articulate so clearly and intelligently what I consider the core problem of this country right now: This corrupt merger of state and corporate power, which Mussolini defined as fascism.

And the other thing that he articulated very clearly and intelligently was the problem of the military industrial complex and the war machine, which is causing all of these endless wars all over the world. It’s the last gasp of the dying empire is how I look at it.

I consider those key issues, as well as many other things he's talked about that I guess we could get into. I know he probably most likely has no chance of winning. But the most useful purpose of a third party or an independent run for any offices to raise awareness of issues even if he does not win. Just like Cornell West, he is raising important issues.

And I support, really, any third party or independent candidate for any office. I don't think people should ever vote for Republicans or Democrats. Again, they're the same thing. At least if you show support for an independent candidate, whether it's a West or Kennedy or Jill Stein or whoever else might be running, you're rejecting the system and you're trying to draw public attention to these issues. And that in itself, I think is a useful endeavor.

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This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit kevinbarrett.substack.com