Ramsey Clark For President

Ramsey Clark Interview
an interview by DERRICK JENSEN

When I picture a high-ranking government official, I think of someone who is corrupt. I think of a corporate shill. I think of someone who is not a friend to the people of this country. I think of Lord Acton's famous line about power corrupting, and absolute power corrupting absolutely. I think of the disdain with which so many Americans have viewed so many of their leaders for so many years.

Former attorney general Ramsey Clark is different. Despite having once been the chief law-enforcement officer of this country, he consistently takes the side of the oppressed.

Born to power - Clark's father was attorney general in the 1940s and later a Supreme Court justice - the University of Chicago Law School graduate was appointed assistant attorney general by John F. Kennedy in 1961 and went on to head that department as attorney general under Lyndon Johnson from 1967 to 1969. During his years in the Justice Department, Clark was a staunch supporter of the civil-rights movement. While in charge of government efforts to protect the protesters in Alabama, he witnessed firsthand 'the enormous violence that was latent in our society toward unpopular people.' He had a similar experience when he was sent to Los Angeles after the rioting in Watts and discovered abuses by the police and the National Guard."
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