There is nothing granite-like in Dennis but I can tell you now from having spent a few days with him that there is something very different about him. No, he is not an alien and would not be confused with one. His though is a towering intellect that will not stop. Determination pours from him as if he were a battery driven speaker that has an endless supply of ideas, words to express them and an unapologetic way of talking.
I have never seen a campaign in my life. I never was interested enough to find one of interest to watch close up. It seemed like it would just be the most tedious way to spend one's time. You would be chasing from place to place in order to meet people and talk to them and listen to them and find out what their concerns were and then you would be exhausted and wonder just why you were doing this every single day for over a year.
But watching Kucinich over the past 3 days was a wonderful lesson in campaigning for anything one believes in and wants to do no matter what. Something incredibly spiritual and dependable seeps from his eyes as he speaks. He can look straight at you in the eyes and say what you have heard him now say over and over again for three days and it feels fresh and heartfelt.
I spoke at length with one of his interns in New Hampshire, Sanjay Seth. What a huge amount of enthusiasm he displayed for the congressman and his efforts to become our next president. He reported on listening to him every day and while he heard the same speeches on the same topics over and over too, he reported that it always felt like Kucinich was saying what was in his heart. Sanjay smiled, he always smiled while I was watching him work, he loves doing what he is doing, advance work on the campaign.
I intend to return to New Hampshire at least for a day or two during the primary voting on January 8th. It would be great to see how the people there have taken in Kucinich's message of hopeful hard work (my words).
Tomorrow I will write here at length about the impeachment teach-in because to me that was one of the best events that I could have had the pleasure to attend. But what better way to introduce the events from the past few days than to introduce the people I met who work there on the campaign.
Starting in no particular order, there is Sanjay Seth who comes from North Dakota and seems to thrive on hard work. At 19, he is in charge of the advance detail work for when the congressman appears say at a bookstore or at a convention or in a school. He gets the podium ready, makes sure all the material needed to spread the word is available and that most important of all, that those who want to join the campaign have the material they need to make the choice to sign up.
Sanjay tells with glee the story of his father, a doctor in Bismark, North Dakota who helped him to see what Kucinich is all about by having walked up and down with Kucinich signs pasted all over him on one of the coldest days in Bismark and how people stopped and spoke to him about Dennis' run for the presidency during the previous election.
Here we are in 2007 and Sanjay is making his way throughout the state of New Hampshire trying to make things as nice as possible for Dennis and so that he can make a mark on what is becoming one of the most ad hoc organized campaigns a valid and potentially successful candidate has probably ever assembled.
Sanjay is not interested in politics as a career, he is a poet and we look forward to seeing some of his work.
Hal, excuse me Hal, I didn't stop to get your last name but Hal is another wunderkind working with the campaign who put together Kucinich tv. If you have ever watched it, you know what a great thing it is to have an internet tv connection to the campaign and it was all started by, set up and thought up by our pal Hal.
That is the start of my report. It could go on forever, but my eyesight has walked out the door. By the way I am listening to one of Dennis' favorite singers, Michael Franti. Check him out too and you will not be disappointed just as Dennis is no disappointment.
Friday, November 30, 2007
Saturday, November 24, 2007
Off to see Dennis
It is now time to go off on the road again to visit with the folks who are listening to Dennis Kucinich in person. I am following this obsession to make known who he is and what he is talking about to as many people as possible. I don't care to be a part of the world that just repeats what they are told but rather to be one of those who listens and questions and then takes it upon herself to try and relay the answers to the questions we may have about where he stands on issues and why he came to those conclusions, etc.
For this trip what interests me is very minute. I hope to take other trips and to follow him into other communities to see what happens when he speaks to other citizens. But on this trip, what I am most concerned about is the way in which the mainstream media is talking or rather not talking about him. I want to know what he sees as his part in making that happen, what he feels about it in general and what he thinks he can do to change that.
Most of my feelings on this topic are evolving as I am beginning to pursue the answers to these questions and what it could mean for our democracy that certain candidates are listened to and other candidates are ignored, if not forcibly shut up in front of a huge audience as Dennis was at the CNN debate in Las Vegas.
When we begin to understand the answers to the questions of what makes a candidate interesting to the media and what it is that keeps voters from being able to hear what a variety of candidates have to say, then we can have a better vantage point from which to evaluate how well or not our system of government works. If there is going to be true voter equality then there has to be also the complementary attention to making sure we hear what all the candidates have to say about the issues that affect us all.
That is what this road trip is about. How well does he really communicate to an audience when he is allowed to speak and not with a thirty-second clock and not with a moderator who is noticably disinterested in hearing his comments. And then, what do his listeners like about what he hears and what don't they like?
These questions just don't get asked and need to be. I hope to then find a forum where we can all not just read my report but discuss it.
Stay tuned for further developments as they occur.
For this trip what interests me is very minute. I hope to take other trips and to follow him into other communities to see what happens when he speaks to other citizens. But on this trip, what I am most concerned about is the way in which the mainstream media is talking or rather not talking about him. I want to know what he sees as his part in making that happen, what he feels about it in general and what he thinks he can do to change that.
Most of my feelings on this topic are evolving as I am beginning to pursue the answers to these questions and what it could mean for our democracy that certain candidates are listened to and other candidates are ignored, if not forcibly shut up in front of a huge audience as Dennis was at the CNN debate in Las Vegas.
When we begin to understand the answers to the questions of what makes a candidate interesting to the media and what it is that keeps voters from being able to hear what a variety of candidates have to say, then we can have a better vantage point from which to evaluate how well or not our system of government works. If there is going to be true voter equality then there has to be also the complementary attention to making sure we hear what all the candidates have to say about the issues that affect us all.
That is what this road trip is about. How well does he really communicate to an audience when he is allowed to speak and not with a thirty-second clock and not with a moderator who is noticably disinterested in hearing his comments. And then, what do his listeners like about what he hears and what don't they like?
These questions just don't get asked and need to be. I hope to then find a forum where we can all not just read my report but discuss it.
Stay tuned for further developments as they occur.
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
Who Knew?
Who knew that Dennis and Larry Flynt, the publisher of Hustler magazine, were friends? Did you know that? Iread today on alternet that they were friends for 40 years. That seems a little odd since Dennis would have been close to being a child when he met Larry Flynt but with Dennis, all things are possible.
What I do know is that if Dennis is now getting endorsements from Larry Flynt, he must be hitting some lucky number. Remember that Mr. Flynt is the one who is holding a number of very salacious cards about the Republicans. Personally, all the slime that has been coming out about the far right and their fellow travelers, the Christian fundamentalists, has made me wonder just what is going on in this world of money and greed? I think perhaps I just answered my own question. If you are that covered in one vice, greed, why would you foresake other vices? I mean who in their right mind really can trust a party that has fostered this type of behavior? This is why I think it is time to flush, literally, all this influence peddling that goes on in the name of greed from politics. It opens up such a vast world of vice and sleaze and who knows this better than both the left and right wings of the greed machine that runs this country.
I don't know about you but I find it more reprehensible that people have these lavish homes with more square footage than any normal family ever needs and that they have had to cut down forests and pave over pastures and destroy natural habitats in order to create for themselves this perfect home. In the meantime, people are starving and the food banks are empty but the haves, those with way more than anyone could ever need, cannot be responsible caretakers of the planet. That to me should be the moral issue we all get our underpants in a tizzy about. Why is gay marriage such an evil thing when people are stripping the planet of its resources for one little group of people to enjoy while keeping out everyone else?
So, I come back to the constant question, the one that names this blog and that makes me want to know just why not Dennis? What would happen if we all were having the time of our lives here living within the bounds of what the earth has to offer us all and keeping our lives safe by following a program of peace rather than seeing the world as a violent place which every right wing nut case says it is?
Let's stop the fear mongering and end the greed and the way it has destroyed our planet and get back to what matters: that we live in peace and harmony with one another, that we all have a living wage and good health care and safe water and food and air to breathe and that we help all who need it no matter who they are.
That is what Dennis Kucinich advocates for as well and why it is time to have a Kucinich presidency.
Think about that as they ratchet up the claims that we need to go to war again against another unenemy.
There really is strength through peace as Dennis has been saying.
What I do know is that if Dennis is now getting endorsements from Larry Flynt, he must be hitting some lucky number. Remember that Mr. Flynt is the one who is holding a number of very salacious cards about the Republicans. Personally, all the slime that has been coming out about the far right and their fellow travelers, the Christian fundamentalists, has made me wonder just what is going on in this world of money and greed? I think perhaps I just answered my own question. If you are that covered in one vice, greed, why would you foresake other vices? I mean who in their right mind really can trust a party that has fostered this type of behavior? This is why I think it is time to flush, literally, all this influence peddling that goes on in the name of greed from politics. It opens up such a vast world of vice and sleaze and who knows this better than both the left and right wings of the greed machine that runs this country.
I don't know about you but I find it more reprehensible that people have these lavish homes with more square footage than any normal family ever needs and that they have had to cut down forests and pave over pastures and destroy natural habitats in order to create for themselves this perfect home. In the meantime, people are starving and the food banks are empty but the haves, those with way more than anyone could ever need, cannot be responsible caretakers of the planet. That to me should be the moral issue we all get our underpants in a tizzy about. Why is gay marriage such an evil thing when people are stripping the planet of its resources for one little group of people to enjoy while keeping out everyone else?
So, I come back to the constant question, the one that names this blog and that makes me want to know just why not Dennis? What would happen if we all were having the time of our lives here living within the bounds of what the earth has to offer us all and keeping our lives safe by following a program of peace rather than seeing the world as a violent place which every right wing nut case says it is?
Let's stop the fear mongering and end the greed and the way it has destroyed our planet and get back to what matters: that we live in peace and harmony with one another, that we all have a living wage and good health care and safe water and food and air to breathe and that we help all who need it no matter who they are.
That is what Dennis Kucinich advocates for as well and why it is time to have a Kucinich presidency.
Think about that as they ratchet up the claims that we need to go to war again against another unenemy.
There really is strength through peace as Dennis has been saying.
Monday, November 19, 2007
Why Conservatism Fails Now
I don't know why we listen to the conservatives who seem to want to find any way to defend their policies and to attack the Democrats. There is never a sense of seeing that they have made a very huge mistake in the ways in which the country and the world have been altered according to their own false perceptions. Michael J. Gerson has been on the airwaves too much lately talking up his new book with its "brave" title. I have a feeling this man would like to run for office himself. Unfortunately, he is as incapable of reversing the image of the conservative movement as anyone else who takes on that task and the reason is simple--they have completely failed to both move this country forward in any kind of meaningful way and when it comes to trying to discuss the problems they have created, they refuse to see why their ideas didn't work and just want more chances to fail more.
I realize that there are times when healing is an important issue in any time of great upheavel. However, the upheavels have not ended. We are not finished with the kinds of empty rhetoric accompanied by the narrowly defined reasons for hopeful assessments of the what the Bush administration has bequeathed us all. There is nothing but disaster after disaster to look at no matter which way you turn and that is not some partisan jab at the conservatives in this country but an honest assessment of what conservatives have failed to do and have failed to correct for. By asking us to also place blame on the Democrats when they had a majority in the House and Senate while this train wreck was occurring and then to say there was inaction in the Congress is like asking us to look in the mirror and not see ourselves. They continue to posit these Alice in Wonderland statements and to lie as if there were no reason to tell the truth and then expect us all to fall in line and continue these policies that are pointing to nothing but their own shame and failure.
It really doesn't matter that the "surge" is working in Iraq because the numbers of people who have been destroyed, the amount of property destroyed, the infrastructure destroyed, the faith in their own futures destroyed and you really think we can sit down and talk rationally about the effectiveness of the "surge."
What we can talk about is how every one of their policies was wrong to begin with, that they lied and falsified everything in order to go to a war that never should have been fought. I don't care how they justify it now and tell us what a great job they are doing now. They never should have been there to begin with and had they told us from the start why, the real reasons we had to go to war and let us honestly vote on it, then we could all say, yes, it was a failure that we all participated in. But no! Their idea of democracy is to get their way anyway they can and never mind what others with opposing views feel or think.
So, yes, conservatism is dead, thank God for that. It has died and those trying to resurrect it like Michael going on the radio and television to plug his awful book with its "daring" title, ought to be glad that it has failed and find something more suitable to the real world in which we all live that meets the needs of everyone not just themselves and their friends.
After all, had they really cared about any kind of fiscal or governmental responsibility we most likely would be sitting here talking about things with our budgets at surplus levels and our world not quite so fractioous a place.
I realize that there are times when healing is an important issue in any time of great upheavel. However, the upheavels have not ended. We are not finished with the kinds of empty rhetoric accompanied by the narrowly defined reasons for hopeful assessments of the what the Bush administration has bequeathed us all. There is nothing but disaster after disaster to look at no matter which way you turn and that is not some partisan jab at the conservatives in this country but an honest assessment of what conservatives have failed to do and have failed to correct for. By asking us to also place blame on the Democrats when they had a majority in the House and Senate while this train wreck was occurring and then to say there was inaction in the Congress is like asking us to look in the mirror and not see ourselves. They continue to posit these Alice in Wonderland statements and to lie as if there were no reason to tell the truth and then expect us all to fall in line and continue these policies that are pointing to nothing but their own shame and failure.
It really doesn't matter that the "surge" is working in Iraq because the numbers of people who have been destroyed, the amount of property destroyed, the infrastructure destroyed, the faith in their own futures destroyed and you really think we can sit down and talk rationally about the effectiveness of the "surge."
What we can talk about is how every one of their policies was wrong to begin with, that they lied and falsified everything in order to go to a war that never should have been fought. I don't care how they justify it now and tell us what a great job they are doing now. They never should have been there to begin with and had they told us from the start why, the real reasons we had to go to war and let us honestly vote on it, then we could all say, yes, it was a failure that we all participated in. But no! Their idea of democracy is to get their way anyway they can and never mind what others with opposing views feel or think.
So, yes, conservatism is dead, thank God for that. It has died and those trying to resurrect it like Michael going on the radio and television to plug his awful book with its "daring" title, ought to be glad that it has failed and find something more suitable to the real world in which we all live that meets the needs of everyone not just themselves and their friends.
After all, had they really cared about any kind of fiscal or governmental responsibility we most likely would be sitting here talking about things with our budgets at surplus levels and our world not quite so fractioous a place.
Friday, November 16, 2007
They Know He Could Win
Yes, they do and they are terrified of a Kucinich presidency. That is why they do not let him speak and do not let him participate. They know that every single one of us who knows what the truth is, meaning, we know that war is not the answer, that the rights of workers trumps the rights of the rich and that the health and well being of every single person on the face of the earth is more important than corporate profits will vote for Dennis in a heartbeat. Having him shut out of the debate even while he sits and bides his time on the platform is a travesty.
David Swanson wrote an excellent piece today on the Downing Street blog and I agree with him and in fact had written something similar last night before I got so tired from being so frustrated that I gave up and just let my eyes close as I watched the non-debate unfold. It was like watching someone who smiled for no reason at jokes he must have had running around in his head, in other words, the definition of a crazy person.
Blitzer behaved as disorganized and ignorant as any of the media people I have seen thus far. I don't, as a rule, watch television due to the total dumb illness that seems to attract advertisers to the tube in order to shout at me to buy things I never would ever in my life need. Not only would I never buy fast food in order to bribe someone to do my work, I would never want to delude myself into wanting to be some unfortunately ultra-rich woman who can just lounge around and enjoy my own self-image. The long list of symptoms that pharmaceutical companies have dregged up and that numbers of doctors of all kinds have agreed to push as real diseases makes me ill. I have a difficult time sleeping at night worrying about all those people who are so afraid of their bodies that they actually believe that every one of the problems the doctors and drug companies have found to sell to us can be cured by taking a pill. Were it ever so simple and so easy.
Life is so much more complicated and what is annoying is even people like the current crop of candidates is beginning to wake up to the fact that the media is not serving even them well. I just cannot imagine how any of them walked away from last night's event and felt that they looked good--not even poor Dennis who became and looked very angry (not that he didn't have reason to be angry) and my final question to all the candidates is: Why do you put up with this?
I would not. Maybe that is why I am not running for president. I cannot take the sheer stupidity and insanity that is allowed to run rampant across these screens and that people pay good money to support and that the world is in essence dependent upon to get accurate and trustworthy information from. At the end of it all, the only thing I want to know is why if you are such a good person, any of you, you let yourselves be treated that way and why are you so afraid to hear what Dennis Kucinich has to say? Could it be that all you really care about is your own campaign numbers and your own little slice of the pie, even you, the moral pygmy of the group, John Edwards?
I agree that most people who watched last night will never watch again. They have been shown all the reasons why not to watch and all of the reasons why not to care. I wish I could not care any longer either. It would make my life a whole lot simpler on the day to day front. Obviously not in the long term. But remember this: They are only trying to shut up Dennis Kucinich because they know we all want him so let's make sure he wins. We must shut these people up and make them pay attention to the truth. War is not the answer, we all need to help one another get what we need to have a good life which includes a decent wage, fair and equitable laws that respect human rights and a healthy and clean medical and food chain that is there for us all.
Pray that this happens and then get out there and work for Dennis in as many ways as you can.
David Swanson wrote an excellent piece today on the Downing Street blog and I agree with him and in fact had written something similar last night before I got so tired from being so frustrated that I gave up and just let my eyes close as I watched the non-debate unfold. It was like watching someone who smiled for no reason at jokes he must have had running around in his head, in other words, the definition of a crazy person.
Blitzer behaved as disorganized and ignorant as any of the media people I have seen thus far. I don't, as a rule, watch television due to the total dumb illness that seems to attract advertisers to the tube in order to shout at me to buy things I never would ever in my life need. Not only would I never buy fast food in order to bribe someone to do my work, I would never want to delude myself into wanting to be some unfortunately ultra-rich woman who can just lounge around and enjoy my own self-image. The long list of symptoms that pharmaceutical companies have dregged up and that numbers of doctors of all kinds have agreed to push as real diseases makes me ill. I have a difficult time sleeping at night worrying about all those people who are so afraid of their bodies that they actually believe that every one of the problems the doctors and drug companies have found to sell to us can be cured by taking a pill. Were it ever so simple and so easy.
Life is so much more complicated and what is annoying is even people like the current crop of candidates is beginning to wake up to the fact that the media is not serving even them well. I just cannot imagine how any of them walked away from last night's event and felt that they looked good--not even poor Dennis who became and looked very angry (not that he didn't have reason to be angry) and my final question to all the candidates is: Why do you put up with this?
I would not. Maybe that is why I am not running for president. I cannot take the sheer stupidity and insanity that is allowed to run rampant across these screens and that people pay good money to support and that the world is in essence dependent upon to get accurate and trustworthy information from. At the end of it all, the only thing I want to know is why if you are such a good person, any of you, you let yourselves be treated that way and why are you so afraid to hear what Dennis Kucinich has to say? Could it be that all you really care about is your own campaign numbers and your own little slice of the pie, even you, the moral pygmy of the group, John Edwards?
I agree that most people who watched last night will never watch again. They have been shown all the reasons why not to watch and all of the reasons why not to care. I wish I could not care any longer either. It would make my life a whole lot simpler on the day to day front. Obviously not in the long term. But remember this: They are only trying to shut up Dennis Kucinich because they know we all want him so let's make sure he wins. We must shut these people up and make them pay attention to the truth. War is not the answer, we all need to help one another get what we need to have a good life which includes a decent wage, fair and equitable laws that respect human rights and a healthy and clean medical and food chain that is there for us all.
Pray that this happens and then get out there and work for Dennis in as many ways as you can.
Thursday, November 15, 2007
Why We Don't Get a Debate
Why are we subjected to this idiocy that is not perpetuated by the candidates but by the idiot media folk who cannot listen nor respond to what the candidates or the people want which is to really debate the topics and to talk.
I am embarrassed to say, I cannot stand to listen to the likes of Wolf Blitzer and the other people asking questions tonight. It is as if they are more interested in their own reputations and standing tall against the candidates and pushing their own ideas around than in any kind of real debate between the people who are actually going to try and run this country.
It is frightening to listen to this kind of idiotic grandstanding. I cannot bear it and would love to see the debates taken over by the candidates themselves and have them pick the topics, end this one-word answer without the proper context to tell the people listening why you are saying what you are saying along with the real disorganization of the questioning.
This is not a reasonable way to choose or to learn, it is like scrambling every idea and having it chopped and diced by the media and then asking the candidates to make sense of the insanity and not just talk in the abstract but in terms of the substance.
I am embarrassed to say, I cannot stand to listen to the likes of Wolf Blitzer and the other people asking questions tonight. It is as if they are more interested in their own reputations and standing tall against the candidates and pushing their own ideas around than in any kind of real debate between the people who are actually going to try and run this country.
It is frightening to listen to this kind of idiotic grandstanding. I cannot bear it and would love to see the debates taken over by the candidates themselves and have them pick the topics, end this one-word answer without the proper context to tell the people listening why you are saying what you are saying along with the real disorganization of the questioning.
This is not a reasonable way to choose or to learn, it is like scrambling every idea and having it chopped and diced by the media and then asking the candidates to make sense of the insanity and not just talk in the abstract but in terms of the substance.
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
So You Say You Want a Revolution
Did you receive the email today from the Kucinich campaign? Have you heard about the campaign's plans to hold webcast town hall meetings on the constitution? It made me think of what would have happened had the Framers been able to do all of this with technology. What would the Constitutional Convention have looked like?
As Gore Vidal noted in The Nation recently, Dennis Kucinich is about the same height as James Madison was. Not a bad comparison to make, I thought, and then the email arrived announcing the newer Constitutional Convention and I am thinking what if we could have been at the first one with our video cameras and been able to post it on YouTube so the whole world could have seen and heard what the original Framers had in mind and what they debated and watch the unfolding of the document that has shaped so much of our lives?
Over the next 10 weeks, there is something similar about to happen for us presented by the campaign and I intend to watch it and critique it as I think anyone in their right mind should be doing. Having had to watch in this kind of helpless, dreamlike state as the Bush administration trampled and tore at the Constitution, remaking it in the image they wanted it to be in, now is the time to once again learn what it really says and how the checks and balances of a truly democratic country is supposed to work.
As with all such ideas/concepts/documents there is much that is said that is worthless and was not meant to be but was put in because it is a document debated by humans not some extraterrestrials who know better than we do how to run a country. It contains the kinds of flaws that any human made article is going to contain. However, what Bush and his allies objected to is the constraints it put on their power and that is something we all now need to watch as we move forward in our time here. How has the lesson of the executive seen in the terms of the Bush Framers been or will be passed down to the next president?
I daresay that if it is a Republican presidency we will see much more of the same with even more vigor and if it is a number of the current candidates from the Democratic side it will also be much more of the same.
I think I can safely guarantee that if it is a Kucinich presidency it will not be more of the same but a radical retaking of the very real document that formed this country's government and how it is to govern and relate to its citizens. Let's all watch and see what the talk will be about and let's also talk about it with some concern for what has happened to the Constitution by those who have been sworn to uphold it.
As Gore Vidal noted in The Nation recently, Dennis Kucinich is about the same height as James Madison was. Not a bad comparison to make, I thought, and then the email arrived announcing the newer Constitutional Convention and I am thinking what if we could have been at the first one with our video cameras and been able to post it on YouTube so the whole world could have seen and heard what the original Framers had in mind and what they debated and watch the unfolding of the document that has shaped so much of our lives?
Over the next 10 weeks, there is something similar about to happen for us presented by the campaign and I intend to watch it and critique it as I think anyone in their right mind should be doing. Having had to watch in this kind of helpless, dreamlike state as the Bush administration trampled and tore at the Constitution, remaking it in the image they wanted it to be in, now is the time to once again learn what it really says and how the checks and balances of a truly democratic country is supposed to work.
As with all such ideas/concepts/documents there is much that is said that is worthless and was not meant to be but was put in because it is a document debated by humans not some extraterrestrials who know better than we do how to run a country. It contains the kinds of flaws that any human made article is going to contain. However, what Bush and his allies objected to is the constraints it put on their power and that is something we all now need to watch as we move forward in our time here. How has the lesson of the executive seen in the terms of the Bush Framers been or will be passed down to the next president?
I daresay that if it is a Republican presidency we will see much more of the same with even more vigor and if it is a number of the current candidates from the Democratic side it will also be much more of the same.
I think I can safely guarantee that if it is a Kucinich presidency it will not be more of the same but a radical retaking of the very real document that formed this country's government and how it is to govern and relate to its citizens. Let's all watch and see what the talk will be about and let's also talk about it with some concern for what has happened to the Constitution by those who have been sworn to uphold it.
Thursday, November 8, 2007
Can we be critical?
I was asked this question at the Presidential Debate in Philadelphia and have had that question bumping around inside my head ever since. I didn't quite know how to answer it because this is a time of outright political partisanship which cannot be betrayed, I thought, by thoughts of why Dennis should not be always listened to. I mean the forces are arrayed so strongly against him and the media cannot help but repeat endlessly that he is unelectable and thus everyone feels compelled to parrot those thoughts so . . . how can I be so full-throated in my acceptance of whatever Dennis says?
It was definitely a good question and one that stuck me in the throat and made me uncomfortable. I returned home after the debate all fired up with having met Dennis and Elizabeth Kucinich and having found them to be the kind of people one would like to believe belong headquartered in the White House not because they will return it to some mythic past but will alter it forever. It is possible to stand near them and think that they can be elected because so much of what they stand for is about what all of us who are progressives believe this country and all countries should be about. Not because we want to impose these ideas on others but because underneath it all, we feel they speak to a humanity in us that transcends all kinds of divides. That they are the true uniters when it comes to speaking the truth and saying what matters and genuinely wanting to end the brutality of our lives and replace it with what it is we all want. Whether we look at this with some kind of scorecard of progressive demands, e.g., a not-for-profit health care system, an end of wars of all kinds, a world in which workers' rights, the environment and the need for goods are all considered important and based on fairness.
Yet the question remained, can I be critical of Dennis or of the platforms or of anything in the position I have taken as a blogger asking why not Dennis? Then I read an article, the cover article, of the most recent issue of The Progressive which is about Dennis by John Nichols. It asked in another context a similar question: Can Dennis give up his dream of becoming the next president and challenge the Democrats solidly enough to pay attention to the needs of the rank and file Democratic voter who has wanted and voted for an end to this war and so many other issues that have not been honored by the Democrats sent to Congress with this mandate.
If Bush thought in 2004 that he had political capitol to burn, the Democrats were handed a check that could have been cashed and paid them the presidency in 2008 as well as a cooperative Congress had they listened to who elected them to do their jobs. Instead they took the check and tore it up. It was not what they wanted. They wanted real money and real cash and they wanted to let the world know that politics was going to stay the same no matter who had voted or said what.
If Schumer has his reasons for voting for the torture of "enemy combatants" and I am not sure just what those reasons are, we can surmise the reason for Diane Feinstein's capitualtion having a lot to do with her husband's money coming from being a military contractor. Constant war is good business, I fear. But we know that there has been no cry for their recall from their constituents, of which I am one.
So, we have sent Democrats off to war, as it were, and they ended up fighting for the other side just as we have seen them do for so long that it should have come as no surprise. Just as the protests against the war have seen none of our elected officials make an appearance (except for Dennis on occasion) it is often a fact of life these days that it makes no difference how much most of us want a change that change seems to be that annoying amount of coins in our pockets that we never know what to do with. It is not the abstract noun of meaningful movement from where we have been to some place new and different and difficult because of how it stirs up the cobwebs and makes everyone rethink the way they do things.
That takes me in a circuitous route back to the original question I asked myself at the start of this entry: Can I be critical of Dennis? The answer then becomes no. The no means, I cannot be critical of Dennis and his reasons for running for office because he is the only one who stands between me and utter and complete despair. Were there no Dennis Kucinich in this race, who would be saying any of the things that need to be said, that we need to have said for us by someone who has been elected and who risks all in the saying of them.
I often wonder from a writer's point of view what it is that can keep someone moving forward as Dennis does. He goes to a rally and he shouts out what is the best anyone can say about workers' rights and about health care reform and the crowd cheers, go crazy with him and then the unions and the progressives desert him when it comes time to give support. Why? Now that is the real question. Not can we be critical of Dennis but why isn't Dennis critical of us?
Why doesn't he come back at us and ask us to do what we are shouting at him in approval of? Why doesn't he bow to our rejection of him and go home? Why does he persevere in the face of the media's diminishment of his run for office as if it were a foregone conclusion that he would never be president? Why does he go forward as if he has not been slammed so many times that were it someone like me, I would be a mess of jelly sitting in the corner asking what had I ever said that causes such hostility?
Perhaps he understands something that none of us does, not me, not John Nichols, not the people in all those newspapers who belittle him and that is that this is a fight, a real fight that needs to go forward against all odds. Not because it is comfortable or safe and certainly not because he has any assurances of success but because he believes in us and in our needs which are no different from his or the women in Iraq or the men in Sudan or the children in India. We are all of a fabric that depends on each other. I know he knows that and that I do believe is what keeps him moving forward for us, for him and for those to come.
That is the answer to my questions, at least for now. I hope we can all hang onto that thought and not become the parrots of the media but remind them that they too are a part of this fabric and have some responsibility to more than themselves and the advertisers.
It was definitely a good question and one that stuck me in the throat and made me uncomfortable. I returned home after the debate all fired up with having met Dennis and Elizabeth Kucinich and having found them to be the kind of people one would like to believe belong headquartered in the White House not because they will return it to some mythic past but will alter it forever. It is possible to stand near them and think that they can be elected because so much of what they stand for is about what all of us who are progressives believe this country and all countries should be about. Not because we want to impose these ideas on others but because underneath it all, we feel they speak to a humanity in us that transcends all kinds of divides. That they are the true uniters when it comes to speaking the truth and saying what matters and genuinely wanting to end the brutality of our lives and replace it with what it is we all want. Whether we look at this with some kind of scorecard of progressive demands, e.g., a not-for-profit health care system, an end of wars of all kinds, a world in which workers' rights, the environment and the need for goods are all considered important and based on fairness.
Yet the question remained, can I be critical of Dennis or of the platforms or of anything in the position I have taken as a blogger asking why not Dennis? Then I read an article, the cover article, of the most recent issue of The Progressive which is about Dennis by John Nichols. It asked in another context a similar question: Can Dennis give up his dream of becoming the next president and challenge the Democrats solidly enough to pay attention to the needs of the rank and file Democratic voter who has wanted and voted for an end to this war and so many other issues that have not been honored by the Democrats sent to Congress with this mandate.
If Bush thought in 2004 that he had political capitol to burn, the Democrats were handed a check that could have been cashed and paid them the presidency in 2008 as well as a cooperative Congress had they listened to who elected them to do their jobs. Instead they took the check and tore it up. It was not what they wanted. They wanted real money and real cash and they wanted to let the world know that politics was going to stay the same no matter who had voted or said what.
If Schumer has his reasons for voting for the torture of "enemy combatants" and I am not sure just what those reasons are, we can surmise the reason for Diane Feinstein's capitualtion having a lot to do with her husband's money coming from being a military contractor. Constant war is good business, I fear. But we know that there has been no cry for their recall from their constituents, of which I am one.
So, we have sent Democrats off to war, as it were, and they ended up fighting for the other side just as we have seen them do for so long that it should have come as no surprise. Just as the protests against the war have seen none of our elected officials make an appearance (except for Dennis on occasion) it is often a fact of life these days that it makes no difference how much most of us want a change that change seems to be that annoying amount of coins in our pockets that we never know what to do with. It is not the abstract noun of meaningful movement from where we have been to some place new and different and difficult because of how it stirs up the cobwebs and makes everyone rethink the way they do things.
That takes me in a circuitous route back to the original question I asked myself at the start of this entry: Can I be critical of Dennis? The answer then becomes no. The no means, I cannot be critical of Dennis and his reasons for running for office because he is the only one who stands between me and utter and complete despair. Were there no Dennis Kucinich in this race, who would be saying any of the things that need to be said, that we need to have said for us by someone who has been elected and who risks all in the saying of them.
I often wonder from a writer's point of view what it is that can keep someone moving forward as Dennis does. He goes to a rally and he shouts out what is the best anyone can say about workers' rights and about health care reform and the crowd cheers, go crazy with him and then the unions and the progressives desert him when it comes time to give support. Why? Now that is the real question. Not can we be critical of Dennis but why isn't Dennis critical of us?
Why doesn't he come back at us and ask us to do what we are shouting at him in approval of? Why doesn't he bow to our rejection of him and go home? Why does he persevere in the face of the media's diminishment of his run for office as if it were a foregone conclusion that he would never be president? Why does he go forward as if he has not been slammed so many times that were it someone like me, I would be a mess of jelly sitting in the corner asking what had I ever said that causes such hostility?
Perhaps he understands something that none of us does, not me, not John Nichols, not the people in all those newspapers who belittle him and that is that this is a fight, a real fight that needs to go forward against all odds. Not because it is comfortable or safe and certainly not because he has any assurances of success but because he believes in us and in our needs which are no different from his or the women in Iraq or the men in Sudan or the children in India. We are all of a fabric that depends on each other. I know he knows that and that I do believe is what keeps him moving forward for us, for him and for those to come.
That is the answer to my questions, at least for now. I hope we can all hang onto that thought and not become the parrots of the media but remind them that they too are a part of this fabric and have some responsibility to more than themselves and the advertisers.
Tuesday, November 6, 2007
Here's one for the books--What if
Dennis Kucinich becomes the next president of the United States because the dummies in the House of Representatives continue to act as they did today while Dennis pushed through his resolution to impeach Dick Cheney? Did you ever read a more convoluted and assinine story of sheer stupidity and moral turpitude than that displayed on both sides of the aisle today? It reads like a piece out of Alice in Wonderland. What is is not and what should be cannot be and on and on while Dennis Kucinich walks across the room and gets what he needs and the job is done.
What world do these jokers live in and what makes them think that by shooting themselves in the foot and looking like the assinine idiots they have proven themselves to be all along that they have in any way changed the debate?
Okay, now I have calmed down a bit and can replay for those who have not yet seen this drama unfold what I have read about what happened today when Dennis Kucinich, lone man with the mission of protecting all of us, came forward and after 6 months of work has finally gotten through another loophole the articles of impeachment brought to the floor of the House of Representatives for a vote. The democratic leadership wanted it tabled because this was not "a priority." Then, in order to get at Nancy Pelosi, the GOP decided in their infinite wisdom not to vote to table the resolution. So they ended up voting, after about an hour on whether to vote and then due to the craziness of this mirrored world in which those in politics choose to live, the resolution ended up passing and will go on the House Judiciary Committee.
Rep. Kucinich has now accomplished the impossible and made the Republicans vote to bring the articles of impeachment against Cheney forward in order to embarrass Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats. I think I could not have dreamed up this plot had I been looking for the most fantastic way to tell the story of this entire period in which we live. In the time it takes to tell this odd story, I am still sitting here thinking, but how could they have been so stupid? Don't they realize that what they have done is just handed Cheney's head on a platter to be convicted of the crimes of which he has been accused?
On top of that, don't they see that because the numbers are really on Dennis' side that this could be the very thing that pushes voters now to see who is on their side, listens to them and does the work they have been voted into office to do? I don't know about anyone else, but there is something so satisfying in the ways in which their awful tactics have finally helped to shoot the man who shot the man in the face that I am happy for the moment and feel that at least for now there is a chance of justice being served and in such an amazing way and with Dennis at her side.
What world do these jokers live in and what makes them think that by shooting themselves in the foot and looking like the assinine idiots they have proven themselves to be all along that they have in any way changed the debate?
Okay, now I have calmed down a bit and can replay for those who have not yet seen this drama unfold what I have read about what happened today when Dennis Kucinich, lone man with the mission of protecting all of us, came forward and after 6 months of work has finally gotten through another loophole the articles of impeachment brought to the floor of the House of Representatives for a vote. The democratic leadership wanted it tabled because this was not "a priority." Then, in order to get at Nancy Pelosi, the GOP decided in their infinite wisdom not to vote to table the resolution. So they ended up voting, after about an hour on whether to vote and then due to the craziness of this mirrored world in which those in politics choose to live, the resolution ended up passing and will go on the House Judiciary Committee.
Rep. Kucinich has now accomplished the impossible and made the Republicans vote to bring the articles of impeachment against Cheney forward in order to embarrass Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats. I think I could not have dreamed up this plot had I been looking for the most fantastic way to tell the story of this entire period in which we live. In the time it takes to tell this odd story, I am still sitting here thinking, but how could they have been so stupid? Don't they realize that what they have done is just handed Cheney's head on a platter to be convicted of the crimes of which he has been accused?
On top of that, don't they see that because the numbers are really on Dennis' side that this could be the very thing that pushes voters now to see who is on their side, listens to them and does the work they have been voted into office to do? I don't know about anyone else, but there is something so satisfying in the ways in which their awful tactics have finally helped to shoot the man who shot the man in the face that I am happy for the moment and feel that at least for now there is a chance of justice being served and in such an amazing way and with Dennis at her side.
Countering the Negative
Too often lately I have had to listen to someone say, I agree with Dennis but I cannot vote for him because he is unelectable. Oh really?
What makes people say that? I had begun to think it was about the difficulty Kucinich has getting his ideas out to the public, how often the media trashes him and makes fun of him and his ideas. Then I realized that was not the case, and I didn't realize this because I had some golden and grand insight into the problem, but because Suzanne came up with it this morning and it was sheer genius.
I had be expounding on the clash between the gatekeepers and the people who just think in negative terms. Then she rightly, I do think, saw that it had more, much more to do with the ways in which we have all been infantilized by our government. We never have to see or hear an awful thing, for example, about this war and when we are exposed to it, it is cropped and abridged so the full horrors of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are kept from us. In fact, it is even worse than that, we let those who show us that horror be attacked for being unAmerican and traitors for daring to suggest anything our soldiers do can be anything but the most noble and honest and exceptional only because they are Amerians.
Returning to Suzanne's perception though, it is clear that if we are told that someone is unelectable we believe it. We don't ask why or how that idea came into being. We let them say because they can say it and are in need of keeping someone like Kucinich from being in the White House that he is unelectable and then we all fall into line and say the same thought without ever asking ourselves is that true?
Not unlike what we were fed about the need for war with Afghanistan and Iraq, we tend to parrot what we are told and rarely question whether there is any truth to it. Even now when we have been told so many lies, we tend to continue to believe what the authorities say, because we have been educated that way. Authority figures are the supreme commanders of our thoughts and deeds. In school, we cannot challenge it and as we continue in life, there is no way we can alter that early imprinting unless we are aware that it has happened to us.
Think back as to why you believe that Dennis is unelectable. Just come up with the reasons for them saying this. What are those reasons? Isn't it funny, but there aren't any that come to mind because we have only been sold a bill of goods that are not really there. It is like three-card monty on the streets. You think you see the card that you should bet on but you are just being fooled while your pocket is being picked.
The next time someone says to you that Dennis Kucinich is unelectable, ask that person why. Let him or her try and formulate the reasons and see if they have any more meaning than that they have just been told that so often they believe it.
My response is we should all grow up and learn to make these decisions for ourselves. Vote for the man who does care about you and your needs and then tell the authorities that you are an adult too and can make up your own mind, take responsibility for how this country is governed and in the end of it all behave like the ones who need to make the difference because that is the job of all adults.
What makes people say that? I had begun to think it was about the difficulty Kucinich has getting his ideas out to the public, how often the media trashes him and makes fun of him and his ideas. Then I realized that was not the case, and I didn't realize this because I had some golden and grand insight into the problem, but because Suzanne came up with it this morning and it was sheer genius.
I had be expounding on the clash between the gatekeepers and the people who just think in negative terms. Then she rightly, I do think, saw that it had more, much more to do with the ways in which we have all been infantilized by our government. We never have to see or hear an awful thing, for example, about this war and when we are exposed to it, it is cropped and abridged so the full horrors of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are kept from us. In fact, it is even worse than that, we let those who show us that horror be attacked for being unAmerican and traitors for daring to suggest anything our soldiers do can be anything but the most noble and honest and exceptional only because they are Amerians.
Returning to Suzanne's perception though, it is clear that if we are told that someone is unelectable we believe it. We don't ask why or how that idea came into being. We let them say because they can say it and are in need of keeping someone like Kucinich from being in the White House that he is unelectable and then we all fall into line and say the same thought without ever asking ourselves is that true?
Not unlike what we were fed about the need for war with Afghanistan and Iraq, we tend to parrot what we are told and rarely question whether there is any truth to it. Even now when we have been told so many lies, we tend to continue to believe what the authorities say, because we have been educated that way. Authority figures are the supreme commanders of our thoughts and deeds. In school, we cannot challenge it and as we continue in life, there is no way we can alter that early imprinting unless we are aware that it has happened to us.
Think back as to why you believe that Dennis is unelectable. Just come up with the reasons for them saying this. What are those reasons? Isn't it funny, but there aren't any that come to mind because we have only been sold a bill of goods that are not really there. It is like three-card monty on the streets. You think you see the card that you should bet on but you are just being fooled while your pocket is being picked.
The next time someone says to you that Dennis Kucinich is unelectable, ask that person why. Let him or her try and formulate the reasons and see if they have any more meaning than that they have just been told that so often they believe it.
My response is we should all grow up and learn to make these decisions for ourselves. Vote for the man who does care about you and your needs and then tell the authorities that you are an adult too and can make up your own mind, take responsibility for how this country is governed and in the end of it all behave like the ones who need to make the difference because that is the job of all adults.
Monday, November 5, 2007
Vote for Dennis, vote early and often
I mean why not vote as often as you can for Dennis? People do not take him as seriously as he should be taken and yet, he is the only one running for president who has a long list of ideas and proposals that match exactly what most people say they want in a democratic candidate.
My biggest fear is that we will all say this mantra over and over and we are even now beginning to see it in the media too (e.g., Rebecca Traister's piece in Salon.com) but to be honest there is something that Dennis offers that this mantra does not express: Dennis is truly one of us. He is all those weird and yet acceptable guys who have made it and been able to do things for people and put his life on the line to do it.
Beyond that kind of sustained presence in the world of politics, a world none of us would want to be in, Dennis is the kind of person who is not swayed by the passing fads of what is right now but may be of only transient interest and truly only of interest to win elections.
I have been receiving reams of emails (I know that is not literally true) from the Clinton Senate office informing me of how much she has been doing for the state of New York and the country in this past legislative session. Mrs. Clinton would be a much better long-term Senator from my state than she will ever be a president. Not only because she loves, truly loves to put together these tedious but necessary positions of the most mundane aspects of life but because what she could teach the younger senators coming up about it they will not learn anywhere else.
Unfortunately, she is not aware of her own strengths and must pursue the presidency with a kind of obsessive need that matches the kind of power grabbing this country needs to rid itself of.
The reason I am in favor of seeing a Kucinich presidency has more to do with who he does not represent, who he does not favor and who he cannot be rather than who he knows and who is giving him the kind of coverage he rightly deserves.
For now, that is something all of us need to begin to think about. Dennis Kucinich represents a counter-narrative to the stories the media present as to who is the lead and why. Kucinich is not about pretending to be a Robin Hood manque, he is in fact a man of strong principles who looks at the world as it is and says that it cannot stay this way.
That is why he is a threat to the people who support the Clintons and the Obamas and the Edwards, etc. It is because he does not take that kind of money and he is not in any way thinking in the same ways that they are. That is what I mean by the fact that he offers a counter-narrative. Think about that. Think about what it feels like not to think about who has the best chance of winning but who should win because of what he will do to change the ways in which the world is run.
That is the ticket as far as I am concerned. The ticket is we need someone to run this country and turn it radically around from the ways in which Bush and company have been involved in directing it.
Spend some time reading lots of political theory now and you will begin to see that there is another way of life that is more gratifying than what every other one of the democratic candidates offer. Everyone of them but Kucinich see the world as it is right now and just want to tinker with it, Dennis wants to radically alter it and that is why they won't talk to him. He sees what is and knows it is wrong. But he says it in the best ways possible.
Vote for Dennis and vote often and vote early and tell all your friends to do the same. He is after all, our last best chance at changing the world.
My biggest fear is that we will all say this mantra over and over and we are even now beginning to see it in the media too (e.g., Rebecca Traister's piece in Salon.com) but to be honest there is something that Dennis offers that this mantra does not express: Dennis is truly one of us. He is all those weird and yet acceptable guys who have made it and been able to do things for people and put his life on the line to do it.
Beyond that kind of sustained presence in the world of politics, a world none of us would want to be in, Dennis is the kind of person who is not swayed by the passing fads of what is right now but may be of only transient interest and truly only of interest to win elections.
I have been receiving reams of emails (I know that is not literally true) from the Clinton Senate office informing me of how much she has been doing for the state of New York and the country in this past legislative session. Mrs. Clinton would be a much better long-term Senator from my state than she will ever be a president. Not only because she loves, truly loves to put together these tedious but necessary positions of the most mundane aspects of life but because what she could teach the younger senators coming up about it they will not learn anywhere else.
Unfortunately, she is not aware of her own strengths and must pursue the presidency with a kind of obsessive need that matches the kind of power grabbing this country needs to rid itself of.
The reason I am in favor of seeing a Kucinich presidency has more to do with who he does not represent, who he does not favor and who he cannot be rather than who he knows and who is giving him the kind of coverage he rightly deserves.
For now, that is something all of us need to begin to think about. Dennis Kucinich represents a counter-narrative to the stories the media present as to who is the lead and why. Kucinich is not about pretending to be a Robin Hood manque, he is in fact a man of strong principles who looks at the world as it is and says that it cannot stay this way.
That is why he is a threat to the people who support the Clintons and the Obamas and the Edwards, etc. It is because he does not take that kind of money and he is not in any way thinking in the same ways that they are. That is what I mean by the fact that he offers a counter-narrative. Think about that. Think about what it feels like not to think about who has the best chance of winning but who should win because of what he will do to change the ways in which the world is run.
That is the ticket as far as I am concerned. The ticket is we need someone to run this country and turn it radically around from the ways in which Bush and company have been involved in directing it.
Spend some time reading lots of political theory now and you will begin to see that there is another way of life that is more gratifying than what every other one of the democratic candidates offer. Everyone of them but Kucinich see the world as it is right now and just want to tinker with it, Dennis wants to radically alter it and that is why they won't talk to him. He sees what is and knows it is wrong. But he says it in the best ways possible.
Vote for Dennis and vote often and vote early and tell all your friends to do the same. He is after all, our last best chance at changing the world.
Friday, November 2, 2007
The time has come to stand up for Dennis
As he now will be using an arcane legislative move in order to bring to the House floor next week, on election day no doubt, the articles of impeachment against Dick Cheney. There is no doubt in my mind that on this Dennis is corrent in what he is doing and he must be supported. We must all take a stand behind him and with him and urge everyone we know to get that vote moving forward and to have it known in this case who sees the wrongs committed against the constitution and the American people by a mad man who believes wrongly in his own rightness.
I have written about the two of them, Bush and Cheney, at length and there is a new article on my website to look at about them. But Dennis is taking action and it is the most important event of this month and we must do all we can to stand with him on this.
Let's get the word out as best we can that the articles of impeachment against Dick Cheney will be put on the House floor next week and make sure everyone we know knows about it and helps by calling all those wimpy Congress people who do not sign onto this due to their own fears of retribution.
Please help Dennis and stand with him on this extraordinarily brave move.
Peace must be with us too.
I have written about the two of them, Bush and Cheney, at length and there is a new article on my website to look at about them. But Dennis is taking action and it is the most important event of this month and we must do all we can to stand with him on this.
Let's get the word out as best we can that the articles of impeachment against Dick Cheney will be put on the House floor next week and make sure everyone we know knows about it and helps by calling all those wimpy Congress people who do not sign onto this due to their own fears of retribution.
Please help Dennis and stand with him on this extraordinarily brave move.
Peace must be with us too.
Lots of talk about Dennis and UFOs
Lots of people are discussing with some kinds of enjoyment what Tim Russert tried to do to Dennis the other day by asking him about the UFOs he reportedly said he saw and felt a connection to. I personally have no idea what to make of the comments as they are all out of context and I have not read the book from which the comments are being extracted. I find it is always dangerous to have one's words taken out of context but what it points to is this:
Those who are favorably inclined towards Dennis already and from the amount of material I see on the web, that number is huge, there seems to be a lot of understanding and reverence for the predicament the man is in. So in the interests of reporting on something I do know more about, let me say this and move onto the sense of this growing swell of understanding of what Dennis stands for.
But first let me say, it is fine that they pick things apart badly and it is also fine that in the midst of this two things may be going on. One is the feeling I have about who Dennis is that he may just not want to get into a brawl over something that was written by a friend and second that the media loves to take apart people who are after them and see through them.
Therefore enough has been said by me about this whole issue.
What interests me is just how the media continues to trivialize and debase a candidate who has done so much for those of us who are walking around feeling like we are the lepers in this very rich and materialistic society. Dennis' example is a lot more reassuring than what the others have to offer and for my money and the time I am spending thinking about what he has to offer, I am willing to go for broke, as it were, in terms of thinking out loud about a) how hard it is to feel like such an outsider all the time and then you find a candidate who is not truly an outsider but knows what one feels like and b) that he has the intellectual and spiritual stamina to keep at this no matter what is thrown his way is quite remarkable.
onto some facts:
1. Dennis' poll numbers are rising
2. Dennis doesn't take money from corporate interests
3. Dennis is fighting to impeach the vice president and the president
4. Dennis is in favor of a not-for-profit health care system
5. Dennis is opposed to all war
6. Dennis' idea about a department of peace means so much in terms of how he sees the conjunction of domestic policy with foreign policy
7. Dennis knows that all this chest thumping about China is a lot of grandstanding by his colleagues who for the most part have voted for every measure to give China favored nation status
Finally, if you have the time and the inclination, go to my website and read the article about Bush and Cheney's militarization being like the students from Columbine www.deborahemin.com
We have lots of wake up calls being given to us these days. We need to wake up to them and sound the alarms to all our friends and family. We may no longer have the kind of choices a true democracy needs if we don't act soon.
Thanks for checking in here today.
Those who are favorably inclined towards Dennis already and from the amount of material I see on the web, that number is huge, there seems to be a lot of understanding and reverence for the predicament the man is in. So in the interests of reporting on something I do know more about, let me say this and move onto the sense of this growing swell of understanding of what Dennis stands for.
But first let me say, it is fine that they pick things apart badly and it is also fine that in the midst of this two things may be going on. One is the feeling I have about who Dennis is that he may just not want to get into a brawl over something that was written by a friend and second that the media loves to take apart people who are after them and see through them.
Therefore enough has been said by me about this whole issue.
What interests me is just how the media continues to trivialize and debase a candidate who has done so much for those of us who are walking around feeling like we are the lepers in this very rich and materialistic society. Dennis' example is a lot more reassuring than what the others have to offer and for my money and the time I am spending thinking about what he has to offer, I am willing to go for broke, as it were, in terms of thinking out loud about a) how hard it is to feel like such an outsider all the time and then you find a candidate who is not truly an outsider but knows what one feels like and b) that he has the intellectual and spiritual stamina to keep at this no matter what is thrown his way is quite remarkable.
onto some facts:
1. Dennis' poll numbers are rising
2. Dennis doesn't take money from corporate interests
3. Dennis is fighting to impeach the vice president and the president
4. Dennis is in favor of a not-for-profit health care system
5. Dennis is opposed to all war
6. Dennis' idea about a department of peace means so much in terms of how he sees the conjunction of domestic policy with foreign policy
7. Dennis knows that all this chest thumping about China is a lot of grandstanding by his colleagues who for the most part have voted for every measure to give China favored nation status
Finally, if you have the time and the inclination, go to my website and read the article about Bush and Cheney's militarization being like the students from Columbine www.deborahemin.com
We have lots of wake up calls being given to us these days. We need to wake up to them and sound the alarms to all our friends and family. We may no longer have the kind of choices a true democracy needs if we don't act soon.
Thanks for checking in here today.
Thursday, November 1, 2007
In Honor of Having Met Dennis
It was not a dark and stormy night but a wonderfully beautiful night in Philadelphia where I met Dennis and Elizabeth Kucinich for the first time. I was so impressed with the two of them and the people who work with him that it kept me awake a good part of the night afterwards. I should not say this I think but I don't know how people can campaign. It is like being in an opening night every night of the week and there is no let up in sight. Of course there are the primaries to look to but they loom so far away in some cases and this constant being on and available to people must continue as does the work you have to do for the people who elected you to represent them in Congress.
There, now I feel better, admitting that I could never do what he does and does so well. Nor could I work as tirelessly as the people in the campaign with him. That had to be said.
But then I have to also say that all Americans should be allowed to do what we did and go to a debate or some other major campaign stop and see the whole process in action. It is the kind of education that we all need. Civics classes will change radically were all Americans allowed into the world of the campaigns. You see what no reporter can bring to light for you.
For example, and this is a very petty example of what you can observe: We were watching the debate down in the bowels of this building at Drexel University where all the campaign people who were not in the auditorium with the candidates were hanging out and watching the debate on numerous television screens. Each candidate was assigned a room. Hillary's campaign had blacked out the windows of her room. Obama's staff had taken posters with his name on it to block out the view of his room. The rest of the campaigners were open and you could walk by and watch them watching the debate and talking to each other and making phone calls and munching on their pizzas.
Then while watching the debate on the television in this larger room, we Kucinich people were not as focused on each other and what we each thought but more on just watching the debate as it unfolded. Of course it unfolded over a long period of time and we had to wait 25 minutes into it before anyone asked Kucinich a single question. The disappointment in the room was quite extraordinary. We didn't like our man, as it were, being ignored so obviously.
I intend to write at much greater length and will let you know where that article is when it shows up but the thing to remember is the kind of metaphor the blacked out room of Hillary's staff and the room equally obliterated with Obama's picture and the rest of the candidates being more open and visible in their staffrooms. It conjured for me an image of someone who values secrecy more than anything and is just too reminiscent of the current occupant of the White House and the Obama move to be as secretive in his way made me realize even without watching him in the debate that he is not just inconsequential but a redundancy.
Where is the real candidate these days to be found? We found him after the debate willing and eager to stay and talk to everyone who wanted to tell him something or to ask him questions. His name is Dennis Kucinich.
There, now I feel better, admitting that I could never do what he does and does so well. Nor could I work as tirelessly as the people in the campaign with him. That had to be said.
But then I have to also say that all Americans should be allowed to do what we did and go to a debate or some other major campaign stop and see the whole process in action. It is the kind of education that we all need. Civics classes will change radically were all Americans allowed into the world of the campaigns. You see what no reporter can bring to light for you.
For example, and this is a very petty example of what you can observe: We were watching the debate down in the bowels of this building at Drexel University where all the campaign people who were not in the auditorium with the candidates were hanging out and watching the debate on numerous television screens. Each candidate was assigned a room. Hillary's campaign had blacked out the windows of her room. Obama's staff had taken posters with his name on it to block out the view of his room. The rest of the campaigners were open and you could walk by and watch them watching the debate and talking to each other and making phone calls and munching on their pizzas.
Then while watching the debate on the television in this larger room, we Kucinich people were not as focused on each other and what we each thought but more on just watching the debate as it unfolded. Of course it unfolded over a long period of time and we had to wait 25 minutes into it before anyone asked Kucinich a single question. The disappointment in the room was quite extraordinary. We didn't like our man, as it were, being ignored so obviously.
I intend to write at much greater length and will let you know where that article is when it shows up but the thing to remember is the kind of metaphor the blacked out room of Hillary's staff and the room equally obliterated with Obama's picture and the rest of the candidates being more open and visible in their staffrooms. It conjured for me an image of someone who values secrecy more than anything and is just too reminiscent of the current occupant of the White House and the Obama move to be as secretive in his way made me realize even without watching him in the debate that he is not just inconsequential but a redundancy.
Where is the real candidate these days to be found? We found him after the debate willing and eager to stay and talk to everyone who wanted to tell him something or to ask him questions. His name is Dennis Kucinich.
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