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An Enemy of the People

Ibsen RFK forewordNote: If the headline looks familiar, it's the title of a famous play by Henrik Ibsen. There are many versions of the book on Amazon, including one with a foreword by Robert Kennedy, Jr. Of course, in this presidential election year in the USA, the title could pertain to each of the three candidates. There is so much anger and disrespect poisoning the airwaves, online, even among neighbors. Such is 2024. Robert Kennedy, Jr. and former President Donald Trump have both actively engaged the autism community during their campaigns. Kennedy, for the past dozen or so years. Trump in 2016. But the proof was not in his Presidential pudding. President Biden has ignored us altogether, probably a blessing. Anyway, that's a long intro to an article by a college student named Elsa Hjalmarsson Lyons, daughter of Skyhorse Publishing publisher Tony Lyons, and herself, an autism sibling. Her correlation of the play and our political stage today is well worth a read. I reiterate - we will not endorse a candidate. Our readers are red, white, blue and purple. We are Swiss, per Dan Olmsted's earliest edict. Thank you.

Published from The Kennedy Beacon Substack. Visit and subscribe here.

By Elsa Hjalmarsson Lyons, Special to The Kennedy Beacon

Kennedy is a Friend of the People, Whatever the Media Says

Inching through midtown Manhattan in a taxicab last week, I noticed a poster for the new Broadway revival of Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen’s An Enemy of the People. Its four-month run, directed and adapted by Amy Herzog, closes on June 16, just a little over a week before the first 2024 presidential debate on CNN – which currently excludes Robert F. Kennedy Jr. from the stage.

When I saw the poster, I had just finished reading the 2021 Skyhorse Publishing edition of the play, which features an incisive introduction written by Kennedy. I can’t vouch for the adaptation, but anyone who wants to understand how the media, Big Tech, and the political establishment have been trying to discredit Kennedy should read the play with his foreword. 

In An Enemy of the People, Ibsen exposes an early version of the playbook from which recent multi-pronged attacks on Kennedy have borrowed. If we can recognize that playbook, maybe we can tune out the mob of naysayers and listen to Kennedy with real curiosity. And these days, curiosity is a form of dissent. These days, curiosity requires courage.

An Enemy of the People tells the story of Thomas Stockmann, a vigorously earnest doctor who discovers a grave threat to public health in his Norwegian village. Stockmann finds that the town’s beloved and lucrative public baths are contaminated with runoff from a local tannery and are making people sick. It’s an inconvenient truth, and the town’s political leadership conspires with what Stockmann previously saw as the “liberal-minded” media to silence the concerned doctor. When he refuses to be silenced, they resort to character assassination, questioning his mental health and branding him an “enemy of the people.” Stockmann slowly realizes that the baths are not the only problem – the political consciousness of the whole town is also polluted. Does any of that sound familiar?

Surely today’s “liberal-minded” media doesn’t see itself as treating dissent like blasphemy or crucifying whistleblowers. But that’s exactly what it has been doing to Bobby Kennedy since 2005, when he first became involved in the vaccine safety movement. 

At that time, Kennedy was primarily an environmental lawyer working with the Riverkeeper Alliance to hold big corporations accountable for ravaging the environment in the name of expediency. As highlighted in the recently released (and heavily censored) short film, “Who is Bobby Kennedy?” the media celebrated Kennedy’s work fighting mercury pollution in the Hudson River. He was a hero of the planet. But when he began paying attention to mercury pollution in children’s bodies, he became a villain. This time, the polluters were big pharmaceutical companies – and apparently, those polluters were untouchable. 

Kennedy is our Thomas Stockmann, demonized for speaking a truth that threatens a sacrosanct industry. The baths are the vaccines; the vaccines are the baths.

Kennedy has been subjected to all the same silencing techniques that are used against Stockmann in An Enemy of the People. The first step is censorship. In the play, Stockmann’s brother – who also happens to be the mayor – advocates against allowing “the Medical Officer [Thomas Stockmann] either to read or to comment on his proposed lecture.” Nearly everyone in the room supports this motion, including the two hypocritical editors of the town’s liberal newspaper, “The People’s Messenger.” The man who agreed to host the meeting in the first place, Horster, is lambasted for “[lending his] house to enemies of the people.” Like Stockmann, he is harshly deplatformed, kicked off the ship he was previously slated to captain.

This part of the play reminds me of a conversation I had recently with a radio show host who aims to empower new voices across the political spectrum, and who eagerly accepted an opportunity to interview Kennedy. He told me that he was perplexed when Kennedy praised him for his “courage” in going through with the interview. Why would it take courage to conduct a fair interview with a presidential candidate in a democracy? The host said he figured that one out pretty quickly.

But the symmetry between Stockmann and Kennedy doesn’t end there. 

Hovstad, the editor of “The People’s Messenger,” refers to Stockmann’s conclusion that the town’s bathwater is polluted as a “misrepresentation of the state of affairs” (italics mine). Ibsen didn’t yet have the buzzword “misinformation,” but I’m sure he would have used it if he’d seen the way the media routinely flings it at Kennedy. “Conspiracy theorist” wasn’t yet a popular slur during Ibsen’s time, but it too belongs in any tuned-in modern version of An Enemy of the People. Headlines like “5 Noteworthy Falsehoods Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Has Promoted” and “How Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Sells Misleading Ideas” – both published by The New York Times shortly after Kennedy announced his presidential run – bear a striking resemblance to Hovstad’s derisive comments about Stockmann. 

In the play, Billing, Hovstad’s second-in-command at the newspaper, not-so-subtly insinuates that Stockmann might be driven by money rather than principles, noting that “certainly he suggested a rise in his salary on one occasion lately, and did not get it.” The Times used the same smear tactic on Kennedy this past fall, when it published a scathing article titled “How R.F.K. Jr.’s Causes Made Him Millions of Dollars.” Stockmann is finally dismissed as a lunatic; when an unnamed townsperson suggests that “he goes quite off his head sometimes,” another wonders, “if there is any madness in his family.” Billing responds, “I shouldn’t wonder if there were.” 

The media has been even more explicit when it comes to Kennedy. Vanity Fair, one of the papers that once celebrated Kennedy’s environmental work, published an article last year called “Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.” A 2023 Times opinion piece entitled “Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Is Where Paranoia Meets Legacy Admissions,” calls Kennedy “a crank who cranks out whoppers the way Taylor Swift disgorges perfect pop songs.” As the “Who is Bobby Kennedy?” short film emphasizes, similar headlines have appeared in The Standard, the New York Post, and The Guardian, just to name a few.

The Times published a gushing review of Herzog’s adaptation of An Enemy of the People in March, calling it “crackling and persuasive.” But it’s hard to know exactly what we’re supposed to be persuaded of. Times theater critic Jesse Green writes that “[Jeremy] Strong must have modeled his [...] performance on Dr. Anthony Fauci, the embattled former infectious disease expert,” emulating not only his “barely mastered disdain, social weirdness and haircut,” but also his “messianic faith in science.” 

I haven’t seen the revival, but I know that Fauci bears little resemblance to the textual Stockmann – and not just because the fictional doctor loses his job, his reputation, and nearly all of his friendships, whereas Fauci was recently awarded his 58th honorary doctoral degree. In fact, it is precisely Fauci’s “messianic faith in science” that most powerfully differentiates him from Ibsen’s hero. Stockmann doesn’t treat science like a religion, an enduring set of precepts that we are expected to accept entirely or reject entirely. For Stockmann, scientific and other forms of truth are dynamic in nature – he insists that “truths are by no means as long-lived [...] as some folk imagine” and encourages his fellow villagers to nourish themselves with “new and vigorous truths” as opposed to “old marrowless truths” with “no great nutritive value.”

Meanwhile, as “America’s Doctor” during the COVID lockdowns, Fauci declared himself to be the single valid source of scientific truth, the messiah of public health. “Attacks on me, quite frankly, are attacks on science,” he declared on national television in 2021. Since when does criticizing a public official in America make you anti-science? Maybe since it was decided that calling out Big Pharma corruption makes you anti-vaccine. I’ve heard Fauci’s statement compared to Louis XIV’s famous proclamation: “l’etat, c’est moi” (“I am the state”). Louis claimed to embody the state; Fauci claims to embody science. But Ibsen knew that as soon as science becomes authoritative rather than inquisitive, it ceases to be science. The moment that truth presumes to be absolute and indisputable, it is no longer truth.

I believe Bobby Kennedy knows this too – and not just when it comes to public health. An Enemy of the People is about more than a contaminated water source. It’s also about how political parties claiming to have a monopoly on truth and morality are actually doomed to succumb to (real, governmental) disinformation and corruption. 

Stockmann’s thesis is “that party programmes strangle every young and vigorous truth – that considerations of expediency turn morality and justice upside down.” The problem with polarization isn’t that people passionately disagree; when Kennedy pledges to “Heal the Divide,” he isn’t saying that his views are timid, tepid, or non-disruptive. He’s saying when we hate each other too much to listen to each other, we let the real culprits slip by. 

Who are the real culprits? They aren’t people; they are corporations and industries. These entities care about expediency and profitability much more than they care about human life. They are the defense industry, which profits from the endless wars that drain our economy to make the world less safe for Americans and everybody else; the pharmaceutical companies that gobble up unholy amounts of money only to make us more and more sick; the big polluters who, as Kennedy once put it, “diminish our capacity to sense the divine” in nature. And on and on and on.

When Kennedy refuses to take sides on certain hot-button topics, he isn’t just trying to connect with voters across the political spectrum – he’s creating and nurturing coalitions that prefigure the ones he would build while in office. Coalitions like the ones mobilized in the 1960s by his father, his uncle, Martin Luther King Jr., Fred Hampton, and towards the end of his life, Malcolm X (all assassinated with suspected CIA involvement, except for Hampton, who is broadly known to have been murdered by the FBI). It is these coalitions that will take on the real enemies of the people, and find innovative solutions to the problems that truly matter to Americans.

In his introduction to An Enemy of the People, Kennedy writes that his father “believed moral courage to be the rarest species of bravery.” He concludes that “[i]f we are to continue to enjoy democracy and protect our children from the forces that seek to commoditize humanity, then we need courageous scientists, public officials, and ordinary citizens who are willing to speak truth to power, even at terrible personal cost.”

The media seems to think that Kennedy’s commitment to freedom and the right to dissent makes him less committed to public health and truth. But Kennedy understands something they don’t – that fledgling truths cannot flourish when they are not expressed in a free and vibrant marketplace of ideas. 

Ibsen and Kennedy voice in harmony what is all at once a literary, political, and even a spiritual law: that in multiplicity, there is unity; in the particular, the universal; in free disagreement, understanding; in individual freedom, communal symbiosis; in shapeshifting ideas, truth; and in curiosity, courage.

Elsa Hjalmarsson Lyons is a student at Amherst College.

Comments

Benedetta

Like Fauci, Janet Woodcock has been in her powerful position for the past 40 years.

Like Fauci and Collins she decided to retire at this time. She could not make it another year.

Hilary D. Marston took the place of Janet Woodcock, at this time because the Amercian people are getting to know who Janet Woodcock is and what she has done.

Janet; was part of the opioid scandal. She did not step down after that mess now did she?
This is what happens if you punish people, and hold the accountable

It seems like what ever comes along, my family is caught up in it. Well if you are heading up medical care in the country and have tons of vaccine injured, that are now in pain; that is what happens, I suppose.

My husband was/is going to a pain clinic. He had been taking for years a mild pain reliever, and that pain reliever prescription was denied him, but he could have all the morphine he wanted.

They way over dosed him for a good long time. Years in fact. All he did was sleep until he got pneumonia for not breathing deep. Also what they don't tell you is bizarre attitudes, behaviors, depression happens when too much opioids are given. Do I get mad at the doctors at the pain clinic? Well two of them overdosed and died as well. I sure had to threaten the pain clinic to reduce the morphine, my daughter had to threaten them too, and we sure could not let him know we were. Between us it was greatly reduced. I have always told God that is one experience in my life time that I did not, should not have had to go through.

I am telling you all this, so you know something of what Woodcock did to this country.

Janet Woodcock held the reins of, if hydrocholoroquine or ivermectin should be made available to the American people. Her and Rick Bright.

So, yes I used horse paste on my 92 year old mother, just recently widowed when we all came down with covid. She made it through, I don't know how since I was having to guess at the dosage. So there is that over anxiety to this day over that.

All these hardships because of Janet Woodcock.
She got into trouble, but not to worry the systems and the evil guys within and without in the pharma found a replacement.

Emmaphiladelphia

The Real Anthony Fauci:

'Ideological Bulls--t': Rich McCormick Grills Fauci On Audio Of Him Discussing Vaccine Requirements
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2GgpKRoRYGE

My family is alive and well today because we didn't buy Fauci's BS.

Emmaphiladelphia

Who is Hilary D. Marston, MD, co-author of the paper with Fauci?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hilary_D._Marston

Benedetta

Wow, Emma; he did.
They have been denying it is from a lab leak.
Too bad they were not put in the hot seat to defend not that it came from nature, but if it was released or escaped.
I started to watch it yesterday. I recorded it. I found it got on my last nerve.
Did anyone notice if they mentioned that known drugs, and treatments were denied the populations? Did they get around to that?

We got plenty of senators sitting in those seats that I know are not stupid, but evil.


Senators which you knew which ones were on his side, that he apparently has been talking to: CAUSE he would smile and nod at them before the their questions like: Oh, thank you Dr. Fauci for all that you have done for us in the last 40 years of your most wonderful career of bringing us, monoclonic antibodies from unicorn farts and fairy dust.

Emmaphiladelphia

Fauci: The Enemy of the People....

WOW! He had it all laid out by January 23, 2020
Coronavirus Infections—More Than Just the Common Cold
Catharine I. Paules, MD1; Hilary D. Marston, MD, MPH2; Anthony S. Fauci, MD2
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/article-abstract/2759815
It was obviously not an accident.

Benedetta

Elsa Hjalmarsson Lyons is so young, she is even still in college, and yet so very aware of such crushing knowledge of corruption and evil.

Kathy Sincere

Laura,
Kennedy writes that his father “believed moral courage to be the rarest species of bravery.” He concludes that “[i]f we are to continue to enjoy democracy and protect our children from the forces that seek to commoditize humanity, then we need courageous scientists, public officials, and ordinary citizens who are willing to speak truth to power, even at terrible personal cost.”

You are certainly a most courageous ordinary citizen willing to speak truth to power, always.

Thank you for continuing to write and speak.

Emmaphiladelphia

Is this the article she referred to?
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/16/us/rfk-jr-finances.html

I found it to be far more fair than anything they throw at Trump.
Anyone running for President should expect articles like this. It's called transparency.
Always follow the money.

“For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.”
Matthew 6:21

Laura Hayes

What a true pleasure to read excellent writing, a rarity in today’s world. Reading the story of character Thomas Stockman reminded me of the story of real-life doctor, Ignaz Semmelweis. It is a tragic irony that questioning and challenging dogma, exposing propaganda, and speaking truth have become more and more of an offense, to the point where many in positions of power now want it criminalized, under the charge of “spreading misinformation/disinformation”. The further irony is that the very ones who want it criminalized are the ones actually guilty of spreading misinformation/disinformation (in the form of profit and power producing propaganda) and of censoring truth and truth speakers.

Recently, AoA’s media editor, Anne Dachel, wrote a 2-part article regarding Kennedy on her substack, link for part 1 is below. I posted a comment, which I will reprint here, in hopes that it will be of interest and add to the conversation.

https://annedachel.substack.com/p/cnns-hit-job-on-robert-kennedy-jr-dc1/comments

My comment:

“Kennedy: Here’s what I would say. First of all, I’m not anti-vaccine.”

Therein lies the problem. I gave an 80-minute presentation asking the question “Vaccines: What Is There to Be ‘Pro’ About?” (link below). The title was in response to those who were well versed on the myriad dangers of vaccines, including permanent, catastrophic disability, lifelong chronic illness, infertility, SADS, rampant learning and behavior issues, GI issues galore, and reduced longevity, the regular and widespread failure of vaccines to do what they claimed to do, and the vast corruption underlying them from manufacture to mandate and beyond…yet, they could not stop publicly stating that they were not anti-vaccine. That defies comprehension or explanation.

I then went on to give a second 80-minute presentation titled “Why Is This Legal?” (link below), to expose why there is not one vaccine currently in use that should be on the market, as not one vaccine has ever been tested or approved properly or ethically, either individually, or in the myriad, haphazard combinations in which they are routinely administered. People argue for choice, and we should always have the right to decline or refuse any medical treatment or procedure for ourselves and our children, with nothing other than a simple “no thank you”, minus any government interference, coercion, cost, or penalty…yet, in reality, vaccines should not even be on the menu of choices.

Humans don’t need scores of vials filled with toxins, poisons, and heinous ingredients injected into them from gestation until death. What utter nonsense. And those of us in the know need to boldly state that fact at every opportunity, without reservation or hesitation.

Imagine if Kennedy embraced being anti-vaccine, instead of denying it, as he spouts fact after fact regarding the horrors of vaccines and the corruption and propaganda that prop them up at every turn? Ask yourself why he doesn’t take that position, given what he knows and states? Let’s take him at his word, that he is not anti-vaccine, that he just wants “safer vaccines” and “more research”. Is that what you want? Is that what is needed? Or do we want and need a new paradigm, one that doesn’t destroy our children and grandchildren, one that results in robust health, proper development, unimpaired fertility, and long lives devoid of chronic illnesses, and one that does not include syringe after syringe filled with witches’ brews of ingredients that derail and destroy our God-given immune, nervous, cognitive, and reproductive systems? The Weston A. Price Foundation offers a wealth of information on age-old, time-proven, common sense means of achieving, restoring, maintaining, and enjoying vibrant health, development, fertility, and longevity, and can be found here:

https://www.westonaprice.org

Here are the links to my two presentations:

https://www.ageofautism.com/2016/12/vaccines-what-is-there-to-be-pro-about-laura-hayes-to-weston-a-price-foundation-conference.html

https://www.ageofautism.com/2018/11/why-is-this-legal-presentation-on-vaccines-by-laura-hayes.html

Laura Hayes
https://www.ageofautism.com/exclusives.html

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