Robert F. Kennedy, Jr’s recent foreign policy speech sounded very hopeful, in the old-time peacenik vein.  He frequently invokes his President uncle, which is both useful and perhaps overdone.  As a candidate, he ought to incorporate ideas into his own policy recommendations.  But I’m not here to give him political advice.  Apparently, he wants to bring back the 1960s Democrat coalition. 

Starting with an anecdote about the Kennedy White House, and JFK’s recognition of the dangers of nuclear fallout and what JFK did to try to minimize global damage (make a treaty before he told the State Department), he transitions to a plea to understand the context of Russia’s current concerns regarding the West’s promise not to push NATO east.  Fair enough, but he neglects to say that the war Russia started was done only after America’s leadership went completely insane.  

Nevertheless, he says that "...we would never tolerate..." Russia surrounding us as NATO has surrounded Russia.  That's probably true, but why are we tolerating China surrounding us by moving into Cuba and Central and South America, not to mention Canada, even setting up police stations in American cities and indoctrinational “institutes" in our universities?  He doesn’t mention this either. 

Unfortunately, the second part of his speech is a variation on “Kumbaya,” just-give­­-peace-a-chance, neglecting to acknowledge that the leaders of other powers may not be as gently introspective as he secretly thinks they may be.  Now see if you can shoehorn the Ayatollah, or the Taliban, or the slaveholder Xi, or any number of others into that peaceful description.  As he rightly notes, however, we should certainly maintain a dialog, but America won't be taken seriously if we grovel and destroy the military in favor of an illusory "peace dividend" (aka, defund the military), as Democrats always do. 

The answer is back to Teddy Roosevelt's “speak softly but carry a big stick.”  This does not mean that we should be an international bully.  But, then that's a Democrat penchant, too, as their cancel culture proves. 

Then he goes into some "despairing people" stuff, reminiscent of Carter’s ‘malaise,’ decrying the fact that America is so divided, which he neglects to say was caused by Marxist-inspired wokeism, that is to say, Democrat-inspired wokeism, as taught in our schools for generations through "special" (subversive, psychobabble pushing, hate-America-first) education. 

He says that the 'forces' that currently control us are man-made, and he's right.  They are made by lies told to generations of susceptible children which are learned as 'fact' and which then, and often taken into adulthood, populates their version of common sense, and has by now been degrading all American traditions and mores for a long time. 

So, he's right about the rot growing from within, which rot has grown as America's history of progressive assimilation and inclusion has been slimed in 'history' and sociology and 'language arts' and sex-education classes into the Progressive narrative, which redefines ‘inclusion’ as something exclusionary.  Like I said, psychobabble.  But, note the differences in capitalization of ‘progressive.’  Coopting the proper definition of ‘progress’ to mean only movement to the Left, also qualifies as psychobabble.  This perverse ideology is promoted by Democrats who want to destroy America as part of the Marxist long march to global communism.  Don’t take my word for this. -- just listen to Democrats.  The evidence is everywhere.  “Our democracy” means censorship, mostly-peaceful looting, and never-ending corruption. 

He is right about the pernicious influence of military industrialism, though, through which donors get rich while others die.  He even implicitly suggests that his uncle was killed by the military-industrial complex.

No wonder Democrats hate him.  The rest of us may benefit by listening to him, after weeding out the naïve assumptions about the motivations of tyrants everywhere.  But in the end, the old advice about keeping your friends close and your enemies closer, is probably right.  Peace can be maintained only if the other guy, no matter his strength, knows that he risks having his own nose bloodied by going too far. 

Image: John S. Quarterman