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Alexander Cockburn: Teddy Kennedy the Hollow Champion
Posted by: Union Man ()
Date: September 01, 2009 06:22PM

Teddy Kennedy the Hollow Champion
By ALEXANDER COCKBURN

Teddy Kennedy's disasters were vivid. His legislative triumphs, draped in this
week's obituaries with respectful homage, were far less colorful but they were
actually devastating for the very constituencies – working people, organized
labor – whose champion he claimed to be.

He had the most famous car accident in political history when he drove off a
wooden bridge on Chappaquiddick Island in July 1969, saying later that he had
failed in several attempts to dive down 10ft to rescue Mary Jo Kopechne, a former
aide of his dead brother Robert. She was in the back seat and drowned.

Ted quit the scene and called in standby Kennedy speechwriters instead of the
police, a misdemeanor which cost him a two-month suspended sentence and any
chance of ever following his brother Jack into the White House.

He made only one overt bid for the presidency and that was a colorful disaster
too. He challenged the Democratic incumbent, Jimmy Carter, then seeking re-
election in 1980. After three years, the left in the Democratic Party was
bitterly disappointed in Carter's cautious centrism and Kennedy placed himself in
the left's vanguard, declaring in a famous speech that "sometimes a party must
sail against the wind".

In those days I was reporting on national politics for the Village Voice and
Rolling Stone and covered Kennedy's bid. It got off to a shaky start when Roger
Mudd of NBC, a well-known political reporter and TV newscaster, asked Ted on
prime time why he wanted to be president. The thirty seconds of silence that
followed this easy lob didn't help Kennedy's chances.

The campaign plane shot backwards and forwards across America, seeking photo
opportunities. On one typical morning we left Washington DC at 6am and headed for
the rustbelt where Kennedy stood outside a shuttered Pittsburgh steel mill and
pledged to get the steel industry back on its feet. We shot west to Nebraska so
Kennedy could stand in front of a corn silo and swear allegiance to the cause –
utterly doomed - of the small family farmer. Then we doubled back to New York so
he could stand on a street corner in a slum neighborhood in the Bronx and promise
a better deal for urban blacks and Hispanics.

I asked one of Kennedy's campaign people why they didn't simply equip a studio in
Washington with the necessary backdrops – steel mill, silo, urban wasteland – but
he said it wouldn't be honest. As things were, the locations we flew to may have
been genuine, but the campaign pledges were as dishonest as a studio backdrop,
which is why Kennedy – bellowing out his speeches like a mammoth stuck in a
swamp - sounded utterly fake...

Though the obituarists have glowingly evoked Kennedy's 46-year stint in the US
Senate and, as 'the last liberal', his mastery of the legislative process, they
miss the all-important fact that it was out of Kennedy's Senate office that came
two momentous slabs of legislation that signalled the onset of the neo-liberal
era: deregulation of trucking and aviation. They were a disaster for organized
labor and the working conditions and pay of people in those industries.

The theorists of deregulation were Stephen Breyer who was Kennedy's chief counsel
on the Senate Judiciary Committee and Alfred Kahn, out of Cornell. Prominent on
Kennedy’s dereg team was David Boies. Breyer now sits on the US Supreme Court, an
unswerving shill for the corporate sector.

In the mid to late 1970s these Kennedy rent-a-thinkers began to tout deregulation
as the answer to low productivity and bureaucratic and corporate inertia. Famous
at that time was a screed by Breyer, then a Harvard Law School professor,
quantifying such things as environmental pollution in terms of assessable and
fungible “risks” which could be bought and sold in the market place. (The Natural
Resources Defense Council, adorned by Ted’s nephew, Robert Kennedy Jr., has long
espoused this disastrous approach.)

The two prongs of Kennedy’s deregulatory attack – later decorated with the
political label “neo-liberalism” – were aimed at airlines and trucking, and
Kennedy’s man, Alfred Kahn was duly installed by Jimmy Carter at the Civil
Aeronautics Board to introduce the cleansing winds of competition into the
industry. By and large, airline deregulation went down well with the press and,
for a time, with the public, who rejoiced in the bargains offered by the small
fry such as People’s Express, and by the big fry striking back. The few critics
who said that within a few years the nation would be left with five or six
airlines, oligopoly and higher fares, were mostly ignored.

No one ever really wrote about the terrible effects of trucking deregulation
outside the left press. It was certainly the most ferocious anti-labor move of
the 1970s, with Kennedy as the driving force.
Some of Kennedy’s aides promptly
reaped the fruits of their legislative labors, leaving the Hill to make money
hand over fist trying to break unions on behalf of Frank Lorenzo, the Texan
entrepreneur who ran the Texas Air Corporation and its properties, Continental
Airlines and its subsidiary, Eastern.

Did Kennedy fight, might and main, against NAFTA? No... he was for it and helped
Clinton ratify the job-losing Agreement. Then he put his shoulder behind GATT,
parent of the World Trade Agreement.

We also have Kennedy to thank for 'No Child Left Behind' – the nightmarish
education act pushed through in concert with Bush Jr's White House, that condemns
children to a treadmill of endless tests contrived as "national standards".

And it was Kennedy who was the prime force behind the Hate Crimes Bill, aka the
Matthew Shepard Act, by dint of which America is well on its way to making it
illegal to say anything nasty about gays, Jews, blacks and women. "Hate speech,"
far short of any direct incitement to violence, is on the edge of being
criminalized, with the First Amendment going the way of the dodo.


The deadly attacks on the working class and on organized labor are Ted Kennedy’s
true monument. But as much as his brothers Jack and Bobby he was adept at
persuading the underdogs that he was on their side.

If it hadn’t been for Kennedy, a lot more people would have health coverage. In
1971 Nixon, heading into his relection bid, put up the legislative ancestor of
all recent Democratic proposals, but Kennedy shot it down, preferring to have
this as his campaign plank sometime in the political future.


After reelection, Nixon did promote a health plan in his 1974 State of the Union
speech, with a call for universal access to health insurance. He followed up with
his Comprehensive Health Insurance Act on February 6, 1974. Nixon said his plan
would build on existing employer-sponsored insurance plans and would provide
government subsidies to the self-employed and small businesses to ensure
universal access to health insurance. Kennedy went through the motions of
cooperation, but in the end the AFL-CIO, with a covert nudge from Kennedy,
killed the bill because Nixon was vanishing under the Watergate scandal and the
Democrats did not want to hand the President and the Republicans one of their
signature issues. Now the Republicans scream “socialism” at exactly what Nixon
proposed and Kennedy killed off 38 years ago, in 1971.

To this day there are deluded souls who argue that Jack was going to pull US
troops out of Vietnam and that is why he was killed; that Bobby, who worked for
Roy Cohn and supervised a "Murder Inc" in the Caribbean, was really and truly on
the side of the angels; that Ted was the mighty champion of the working people,
even though he helped deliver them into the inferno of neoliberalism.

By his crucial endorsement last year he helped give them Obama too, now
holidaying six miles from Chappaquiddick, on Martha's Vineyard, another salesman
for the inferno. But because his mishaps were so dramatic, few remember quite how
toxic his political “triumphs” were for those who now foolishly mourn him as
their lost leader.

http://www.counterpunch.org/cockburn08282009.html

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Re: Alexander Cockburn: Teddy Kennedy the Hollow Champion
Posted by: soul crusher ()
Date: September 01, 2009 07:21PM

registered voter now has "anony-trollie" aliases. so, his total daily post average likely exceeds 100.

Options: ReplyQuote
Re: Alexander Cockburn: Teddy Kennedy the Hollow Champion
Posted by: Union Man ()
Date: September 01, 2009 07:28PM

Nope, not Registered Voter.

More importantly - can't deal with a critique of Kennedy from the left, douchebag?

Boo hoo.

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Re: Alexander Cockburn: Teddy Kennedy the Hollow Champion
Posted by: graymoose1 ()
Date: September 01, 2009 08:30PM

Too long to read. Can you put that in one paragraph?

---------------------------------------------------
W.W.S.D. what would Scooby Doo

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Re: Alexander Cockburn: Teddy Kennedy the Hollow Champion
Posted by: Union Man ()
Date: September 01, 2009 09:12PM

graymoose1 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Too long to read. Can you put that in one
> paragraph?

Not quite. But here's a five-point summary:

- Teddy Kennedy's so-called legislative "triumphs" were actually devastating for
the working people whose champion he claimed to be.

- Specifically, the trucking deregulation he championed caused a decline in truckers'
wages, and airline deregulation has inflated prices
.

- NAFTA, which Kennedy backed, lost jobs for American workers.

- The Kennedy-supported No Child Left Behind law is seen as a debacle on both the
left
and the right.

- And if Kennedy hadn't opposed Nixon's efforts to enact universal healthcare coverage,
a lot more people would have insurance coverage today. But Kennedy was more
interested in keeping that issue in play for future Democratic political advantage
than he was in providing affordable healthcare to the working class people who
would have benefited from Nixon's proposal.

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Re: Alexander Cockburn: Teddy Kennedy the Hollow Champion
Posted by: jettison ()
Date: September 01, 2009 09:23PM

Union Man Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Nope, not Registered Voter.
>
> More importantly - can't deal with a critique of
> Kennedy from the left, douchebag?
>
> Boo hoo.

Only fags cry. Clearly you just did, therefore you are a flaming homo.

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Re: Alexander Cockburn: Teddy Kennedy the Hollow Champion
Posted by: Union Man ()
Date: September 01, 2009 09:42PM

And you are a flaming moron who lacks the intelligence to add a substantive comment
to this thread.

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Re: Alexander Cockburn: Teddy Kennedy the Hollow Champion
Posted by: Registered Voter ()
Date: September 01, 2009 09:44PM

He can't help it, he is a mental midget. Having the mind of a 12yr old had to have held him back in life, so all he knows is to lash out at folks that are smarter then he is. Although it could be a she - I don't want to prejudice any perceptions.

If you can’t model the past, where you know the answer pretty well, how can you model the future? - William Happer Cyrus Fogg Brackett Professor of Physics Princeton University

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Re: Alexander Cockburn: Teddy Kennedy the Hollow Champion
Posted by: Registered Voter ()
Date: September 01, 2009 09:56PM

Union Man Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> graymoose1 Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Too long to read. Can you put that in one
> > paragraph?
>
> Not quite. But here's a five-point summary:
>
> - Teddy Kennedy's so-called legislative "triumphs"
> were actually devastating for
> the working people whose champion he claimed to
> be.
>
> - Specifically, the trucking deregulation he
> championed caused a decline in truckers'
> wages, and airline deregulation has inflated
> prices.
>
> - NAFTA, which Kennedy backed, lost jobs for
> American workers.
>
> - The Kennedy-supported No Child Left Behind law
> is seen as a debacle on both the
> left and the right.
>
> - And if Kennedy hadn't opposed Nixon's efforts to
> enact universal healthcare coverage,
> a lot more people would have insurance coverage
> today. But Kennedy was more
> interested in keeping that issue in play for
> future Democratic political advantage
> than he was in providing affordable healthcare to
> the working class people who
> would have benefited from Nixon's proposal.

+1

It reminds me of the fallacy that Democrats are looking out for blacks with the policies they promote. Multiculturalism, welfare, minority preferences - all these things that keep different races apart, and discourage working to make something of yourself. Even the media today seems to be geared toward acceptance of mediocrity and stupidity in the shows that we watch.

If you can’t model the past, where you know the answer pretty well, how can you model the future? - William Happer Cyrus Fogg Brackett Professor of Physics Princeton University

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Re: Alexander Cockburn: Teddy Kennedy the Hollow Champion
Posted by: Vince(1) ()
Date: September 01, 2009 10:10PM

Well..well..well...so Kennedy wasnt dogma driven..he was an independent thinker capable of pissing off both the left and the right wingers. Damn..from all the other articles posted on here..I wouldve thought he was strictly from the communist party. I guess not...I guess he was a complex man capable of working with his fellow senators of both parties.

In the recent flood of Kennedy tributes I did see a piece of tape where he did say that the one vote he wished he could take back was the vote against the Nixon Health Plan..so be it..no one said he was perfect.

Now regarding your Democrats are looking out for blacks statement...blacks vote overwhelmingly for the democratic party....I guess you know better then them which party is good for them..and which isnt. Your attitude of superiority is amazingly intact...I guess you know whats better for everyone. Maybe we should elect king for life! Your royal name could be King Piece of Shit..the first!

Registered Voter...a Big talking coward..big man on FFXU...little man in life.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/01/2009 10:10PM by Vince(1).

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Re: Alexander Cockburn: Teddy Kennedy the Hollow Champion
Posted by: Registered Voter ()
Date: September 01, 2009 10:13PM

I can't see why they wouldn't vote for the hand doling out all the money.

If you can’t model the past, where you know the answer pretty well, how can you model the future? - William Happer Cyrus Fogg Brackett Professor of Physics Princeton University

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