The American political process is threatened by corporate power on a scale we haven’t seen since the Gilded Age—when big money became so powerful that we nearly lost our democracy. Yet a century ago progressives fought back and passed laws that empowered the middle class and restricted the influence of money in government.

In this conversation with The Nation and On the Earth Productions recorded at Chicago’s Orrington Hotel, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. says that activists must renew the old  struggle against corporate tyranny—and fight to restore the democratic achievements of the Progressive Era and the New Deal. Kennedy has long been active in the environmental justice movement, and his latest efforts to stop mountaintop removal mining are featured in the new documentary, The Last Mountain.

This is the second video in a series of three. Parts I and III can be found here and here. 

—Kevin Donohoe