Crimes Against Nature: How George W. Bush and His Corporate Pals Are Plundering the Country and Hijacking Our Democracy (Hardcover)

~ Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (Author) "As you fly over the Houston Ship Channel at twilight, thousands of flares seem to ignite in the approaching darkness..." (more)
Key Phrases: mountaintop mining, mountaintop removal, energy task force, White House, Wise Use, United States (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

"Of all the debates in the scientific arena… there is none in which the White House has cooked the books more than that of global warming," argues Kennedy in this harsh indictment of what he sees as the Bush administration’s assault on the environment and democracy in general. Kennedy’s investigation focuses on the undue influence of industry lobbyists (read Halliburton) on environmental standards and the government’s alleged suppression of nearly a dozen scientific reports on global warming. He maligns Bush appointees like Interior Secretary Gale Norton ("a champion of corporate welfare for three decades") and offers a cogent analysis of Christine Todd Whitman’s departure from the EPA in 2002. Although Kennedy accuses the Bush administration of using a campaign strategy that revolves around "fear-mongering," he uses fear to drive home his own points, noting things like the lethal mercury levels in tuna, pork industry pollution and insufficiently guarded chemical plants. Nevertheless, he competently ties the survival of democracy to sound environmental policy, contending that corporate power—particularly the power wielded by the oil, beef and lumber industries—must never supersede democratic institutions. Kennedy’s argument is strongest when he sticks to the facts and avoids making the kind of angry, sweeping statements that fill the concluding chapter ("Instead of can-do American ingenuity, this is the administration of "can’t do." It has constructed a philosophy of government based on self-interest run riot: It has borrowed $9 trillion from our children and looted our Treasury…"). Whether or not one agrees with these accusations, Kennedy makes a passionate case for more effective environmental controls and wraps it up with a practical vision of a free-market future "in which businesses pay all the costs of bringing their products to market," including the costs of environmental safeguards.
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Product Description

In this powerful and far-reaching indictment of George W. Bush's White House, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., the country's most prominent environmental attorney, charges that this administration has taken corporate cronyism to such unprecedented heights that it now threatens our health, our national security, and democracy as we know it. In a headlong pursuit of private profit and personal power, Kennedy writes, George Bush and his administration have eviscerated the laws that have protected our nation's air,water, public lands, and wildlife for the past thirty years, enriching the president's political contributors whilelowering the quality of life for the rest of us.

Kennedy lifts the veil on how the administration has orchestrated these rollbacks almost entirely outside of public scrutiny -- and in tandem with the very industries that our laws are meant to regulate, the country's most notorious polluters. He writes of how it has deceived the public by manipulating and suppressing scientific data, intimidated enforcement officials and other civil servants, and masked its agenda with Orwellian doublespeak. He reports on how the White House doles out lavish subsidies and tax breaks to the energy barons while excusing industry from providing adequate security at the more than 15,000 chemical and nuclear facilities that are prime targets for terrorist attacks. Kennedy reveals an administration whose policies have "squandered our Treasury, entangled us in foreign wars, diminished our international prestige, made us a target for terrorist attacks, and increased our reliance on petty Middle Eastern dictators who despise democracy and are hated by their own people."

Crimes Against Nature is ultimately about the corrosive effect of corporate corruption on our core American values -- free-market capitalism and democracy. It is about an administration, the author argues, that has sacrificed respect for the law, public health, scientific integrity, and long-term economic vitality on the altar of corporate greed. It is a book for both Democrats and Republicans, people like the traditionally conservative farmers and fishermen Kennedy represents in lawsuits against polluters. "Without exception," he writes, "these people see the current administration as the greatest threat not just to their livelihoods but to their values, their sense of community, and their idea of what it means to be American."

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: HarperCollins (August 3, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060746874
• ISBN-13: 978-0060746872
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.7 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (83 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #540,272 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

167 of 191 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Solidly researched and well argued, August 4, 2004

By	V. I. Scherb "VIScherb" (Tyler, TX USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. carries on the passionate yet caring politics of his father, who was a one time Attorney General. The son, an environmental lawyer, makes a compelling case for the ways in which corporate interests have sought to deconstruct environmental protections over the last twenty five years. James Watt, Christine Todd Whitman, and Gale Norton--among others--all recieve deservedly harsh criticism, as these supposed stewards of nature continue to manipulate laws, rhetoric, and the truth in order to enrich corporate interests at the expense of the U.S. environment, the health of the American people, and the future of all of us. Many things in Kennedy's book were news to me (who's really behind the deceptively named "wise use" movement, for example). Although Kennedy mostly eschews partisan rhetoric, he compellingly demonstrates what a disaster the Bush administration's policy of "self-policing" has been, and how it has withheld funding in order to strip regulatory agencies of any effective power. Even more frightening, although frighteningly consistent with its policies, is the manner in which the Bush administration has pressured empolyees and scientists, and promoted bogus science in order to distort public debate so that its destructive policies can continue. If you have any concern at all for the environment, for your children, or for truth, you ought to read this book.

137 of 159 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars RFK Jr's Articulate Attack On Bush's Environmental Policies, August 19, 2004

By	Barron Laycock "Labradorman" (Temple, New Hampshire United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

When friends and acquaintances ask me why I am so adamantly opposed to the current administration, I seldom mention either the flagrant harm or the danger The Bush White House has visited on both us and the general international scene, nor do I reference the horrifying effects of the ill-conceived and poorly executed "war on terror" so often cited as their worst policy blunder. Instead, I routinely cite the extreme anti-democratic moves that Bush and company have made domestically, most specifically against the environment and in squandering our national heritage by way of natural resources and wildlife in the national forests and heretofore carefully managed and protected wilderness areas. In this regard, this well-written and skillfully argued new book by Robert Kennedy carefully articulates the many ways in which the crony capitalism practiced by the current administration is endangering our environment by entrusting its precious resources and fragile ecosystems to the crony capitalists who support him.

Indeed, Mr. Bush appointed several lawyers representing prominent oil and timber lobbying firms as the top echelon at the Bureau of the Interior, which has the crucial responsibility of overseeing the well-being of our vast federal land holdings domestically. Thus we have wolves in the sheep-house, and they are being encouraged by their former employers to assist in a wholesale ravaging of the national park landscape in the pursuit of profit, so much so that even traditionally conservative groups have turned against this Republican administration in sheer disbelieving horror of what is being done to the nation's wilderness areas in the name of conservation.

In pursuing this course, the Bush administration uses Orwellian doublespeak, referring to clear-cutting of old forest as a necessary safety measure to prevent wild fires, or as if doing so will engender long-term gain by encouraging more healthy tree growth. Through his cynical actions he effectively stiff-arms the environmental groups, regularly characterizing them as being mere radical tree-huggers, even though a growing chorus within the scientific community warn of the potentially catastrophic consequences posed by such radical environmental gdegradations being allowed and even encouraged on federal land. Moreoever, by neutering the bulwark of the carefully constructed environmental protection laws through federal regulation, the Bush administration has stripped away the laws that bar such unbridled commercialism, and now acts as the de-facto house ally of big timber,oil, gas and coal firms in stripping the precious non-renewable resources in formerly prohibited areas without either meaningful restraints or any effective federal oversight being placed on their activities. Instead, crude crony capitalism seems to rule the roost.

Of course, this is part of the much wider course of deliberate crony capitalism the administration has systematically instituted since taking office nearly four years ago, and the author carefully maps out the many ways in which this myriad of craven commercial activities act against the interests of the many for the benefit of the few. The book centers on the negative impact that such special interest-oriented federal government means for us as a nation, both in terms of who benefits and who pays, as well as in terms of what our core national values as well as our way of life will come to be in the coming decades. This is an important book, and one I encourage anyone interested in current events to read. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. makes a powerful argument against the excesses of the current administration, and issues a clarion call to arms for all concerned citizens to help stop it. Enjoy!

53 of 60 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Very Important Book, August 15, 2004

By	M Anthony (GA) - See all my reviews

This is one of the most important books I have ever read. I believe this work has the potential to be the modern equivalent of Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle". It captivated, educated and alarmed me.

From beginning to end, the book meticulously documents the devastating U.S environmental policies proposed and executed between January 2001 and May 2004. Though the book focuses primarily on the current administration, its message absolutely transcends party politics. Most books criticizing the George W. Bush administration are long on conjecture and rhetoric, but short on solid facts. I found the opposite with "Crimes Against Nature". RFK Jr. does not resort to weak hyperbolic invectives, but substantiates each charge with specific compelling evidence. Mr. Kennedy documents [in detail] the Bush administration's history of staffing government agencies with lobbyists and shills from the nations most egregious industrial polluters. He chronicles how these polluters have subsequently become the authors of the Bush administration's environmental and energy policies; not only driving, but actually writing policy (verbatim in some cases) to protect themselves, rather than the health and safety of the public or environment. Tracing the extensive unprecedented power large corporations have gained through political cronyism, Kennedy asserts that our very constitutional democracy is perilously close to becoming [in effect] a facade for an oligarchy of self-serving multinational corporations.

Kennedy says the top environmental issue confronting America today is campaign finance reform. Political cronyism underpinned by corporate money is destroying our democratic process, and consequently our environment. Polluters currently avoid internalizing their true cost of doing business through government subsidies, and by shifting their environmental destruction costs onto the backs of tax payers. He proposes genuine "free trade" as the solution to our environmental issues, "Show me a polluter, and I'll show you a subsidy."

Kennedy has been criticized for quoting Hermann Goehring to describe the Bush administration's tactics. Do not be deterred by such criticism. This book consists of solid research. Whether one agrees or disagrees with Robert Kennedy's opinion of President Bush's motivations, he documents concisely his administration's public record of corruption, environmental destruction, and willful disregard for law.

"Crimes Against Nature" reads easily with a natural flow, despite approximately half or more of the text being comprised of quotes and references. The last 39 of the 244 total pages are dedicated to footnotes alone.