Why Not Dennis?

An interesting article about Dennis' district

2008-01-30T17:52:00.000-08:00

Sometimes we just need to read a good piece of writing and one that can also give us hope. This article from a Cleveland paper is one of those.
http://www.freetimes.com/stories/15/39/fives-a-crowd
If you get a chance, please read it. I hope it is fair, because not being from Cleveland, I have not a clue as to what to make of it except that it reads hopeful regarding Dennis' chances of winning the primary on March 4th and then the election for his seat. As you all know, this is vital to the voice we have come to depend on in order to get the word out about what this intelligent man sees as both the problems and the solutions.
I think a bit more money sent his way would be helpful. I think words of support also go a long way. In addition, I think it is fair to say that no matter how you feel now that Dennis is not there in the race trying to make the candidates talk about the real issues, you can see what happens when they don't. It has become a free for all where it is only about the personal attacks and the kind of corrosive baiting and jabbing at each other. That is because we have basically a Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum to choose from. They are so similar in terms of what they stand for that they have already wasted the rare opportunity to talk about therefore what it means to have a woman as president as opposed to a black man. Would that this discussion with all of its interesting historical and intellectual and psychological importance could really take place.
When will there be this opportunity again? And yet they blow it each time. They refuse to see themselves as needing to address the one thing that makes each of their campaigns unique.
In Dennis' case, what made his unique was that he was trying to re-introduce to the American public the importance and the content of the Constitution. Would that we had really listened to him.
But no regrets. We move forward.
Strength through Peace.

Here is one of the problems

2008-01-29T04:34:00.000-08:00

Here is one of the problems about the news today and said in his own inimitable way:
http://www.comedycentral.com/motherload/?ml_video=81284
However, it is clear that the problem goes beyond the news business and their ways of tearing down the system of reliable reporting. While Colbert is funny and witty in this spoof of what makes the new news today, he is not wise. Wise would have been to talk about the way the news is not any longer about giving us information we need to make our own minds up but about programming us to think in certain ways. That is what made me so angry last night while watching the president give his awful speech and the poor governor of Kansas have to rebut that with her cliche rich but meaningless set of ideas.
Would that I could have watched Law and Order simultaneous with the president's address. At least loads of my inner violence could have been sublimated into finding the perp and getting him arrested and prosecuted and sent to his just reward.
No, I had to watch the president stand up there smirking away, though the tv crews must have been alerted to be on smirk patrol and hold back showing too many of them, all the while piling up a long list of further lies and innuendoes that had so little resemblance to the truth that his twin daughters appeared there together for the first time to prove to themselve, I think, that they would be right to reject this family. (This is a bit of wishful thinking.) Thinking wishfully though, what a lot of drugs and/or liquor had to have been consumed last night before that performance. Would that we could have a check of the DC water system this morning to see what its alcohol and drug levels are at. Ted Kennedy looked like his forehead was going to explode as the Bush went on about No Child Left Behind. Poor guy and now we trust him to annoint for us another one to go on to do the peoples' business when he didn't have a clue about the president and his trickery. Yikes.
But my most pointed barb is for that governor of Kansas. I hope all of you were in as much pain from listening to her as I was. This woman needs a new speechwriter. She needs someone who lives with blood running in their veins and with some sense of the historical moment in which we are living.
To call Hillary cold and this woman alive is a point worth pondering. I think perhaps she was being tested by the FDA as the next best sleeping potion. Guaranteed to make you want to just check out but permanently. That may be her drawback. Here is a party, the Democratic Party, that wants to inspire more to its ranks and they put up as its rebutter the butt of probably lots of bad but just jokes. I think all of us could have written that speech at some point in our lives and then thrown it away because we would have known just how horrible it was.
Then I think of Dennis Kucinich fighting to be back in the House of Representatives now and I am so upset and scared. I am so sad to see that the world is as evil and nasty as it is. These masters of the universe just don't want to have lots of money in their pockets, they want to have all the money in their pockets. Dennis sees this. They know he knows what they are up to and they want to shut him down.
I am frightened because this country could do something so many good things if we had a leader who understood what the world was truly about and what was needed to make it right. We need someone who has more than a winning smile and who looks good in a suit. Please help Dennis now and contribute to his Congressional race and keep one sane voice there to make this system be what it is supposed to be.
Together we can do this.
Strength through Peace.

It ain't over till it's over

2008-01-27T16:37:00.000-08:00

It may seem as if the fight is over but not by a long shot. I know that Dennis' campaign began to seem like too long a shot given what he has to face in Cleveland in order to retain his seat in Congress. But for many of us who have stood with him because he made us see exactly what was possible, there is no end in sight as far as I can tell. I shall certainly be here as often as I can be dishing out the same kind of stuff I was going into before only not just in response to his and our hopes for his successful bid to be President 44. That may have to wait a bit.
However, there is some awfully good news afoot as far as I can tell. The waters are parting a bit and there are people stepping up to do their bit and to keep on moving the impeachment call further along. It is work that must be done.
If you have not yet done it, go to afterdowningstreet.org and sign on there to lend your voice and to see what all is cooking in terms of impeachment. If you live in Maine, check out the truly progressive candidate you have there, Laurie Dobson and sign on with her and help her out. If you know of other candidates who are trying to break the mold and get those who understand what the consitution means elected, then get in there and help them too.
Our lives are too short to be tied up this way. Let us clean out the mess that has been made so that when we elect a new president, whoever it is understands that we will all be watching and the crimes committed on the last watch will not be tolerated.
This is the word now. It must be gotten out there and the work is tremendous but so necessary. No good will be done until the impeachment process is completed.
Write to everyone and tell them so. Now. Today.
Strength through Peace.

The Question is Still the Same

2008-01-23T10:56:00.000-08:00

And now the answers become clearer and clearer. Are you keeping up with the Sibel Edmonds case? Do you remember her? She is the FBI translator who discovered that a number, a large number in fact, of our most trusted public servants have been selling nuclear secrets to some of the countries we say we want to see disarm. I know, this is truly an Alice in Wonderland world we live in but please bear with me as I go further into the rabbit hole to extrude some of the choicest findings I have.
First, we have this woman whose case has been ignored for at least 5 years now. The Times of London has printed up some of the choicier tidbits. We have read all over the place about her and her troubles on our behalf. Then we start to see the connections between her case, the Valerie Plame Wilson case and the rising tide of illicit and unsavory details of certain persons lives come spilling out to the point that they must resign from office or find another means of employment that keeps them closer to their families.
Then we have this other piece of news today, though not news to those who have been keeping up with Congressman Kucinich. Now we know, sort of, how often the administration lied in its run up to the war in Iraq. We still don't hear anyone other than the usual suspects calling for the impeachment and maybe now we know why it is off the table. Maybe it is true as so many of us have been thinking that the only reason to keep it off the table is that people are worried about their own skins.
Perhaps as Sibel Edmonds relates, there has been lots of illegal wiretapping going on and that is why some members of Congress would rather not do anything to fire any flames of anomisity. I mean, if there were a possibility of a leaked wiretap that exposed something you really didn't want anyone to know, then what are your options but to keep lots of things off the table.
I know this all makes me sound like this huge conspiracy nut, but stop for a moment and think about the irrational behavior as we observe it and ask yourself, if I were a member of the Congress and could make history and make this administration accountable for the death and destruction that they are culpable for, wouldn't I want to make sure that happened? What would really stand in my way? Certainly not some vague notion of more important business and the threat of not enough time.
Let us ask them, for certainly there is no harm in that.
And let us ask the media who control not just the public airwaves but also some of the larger military contractors what they would have to lose if Dennis Kucinich were president?
Perhaps you have some better answers. Perhaps you too have insights into this whole mess that can straighten it out and explain to the populace why the biggest criminals on the face of the earth right now are walking around with so much power?
Please explain will be the title of my blog. Until then, please remember,
Strength through Peace.

There is so much to report on today

2008-01-22T08:52:00.000-08:00

Leaving aside the ridiculous free-for-all that Dennis was excluded from last night and turning to more positive news, let's begin with the thought that impeachment is gaining ground. Take a look at yesterday's Common Dreams.org and you will see an article by Marjorie Cohn about it and also and even more important, there are the names and telephone numbers of all members of the House Judiciary Committee, pick up the phones and begin to call and leave a message.
Second, there is this wonderful video of an interview with Elizabeth:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1320493559993974997
For close to 30 minutes you have Elizabeth Kucinich laying out the entire program her husband would enact once he is elected president. It is a very telling video in that Elizabeth Kucinich sees no need to lambast peoples' personalities but to take to task the very structures in this government which are not working in service to the people who elected these officials. And for good measure, she continues the critique many are making of the selling out of the DLC leadership to the corporate interests that have also infected the Republican Party as well. Her voice is a refreshing retelling of what a Kucinich presidency would mean to all of us. I urge you all to watch it.
More from me later about the Congressman's reactions to the exclusion from the debates and a discussion in my own mind of why those who feel that the media are not engaged in a form of conspiracy are only fooling themselves, trying to rid themselves of the nightmare times in which we live.
And I am going back into that Common Dreams article to get the quote from one of the responders to the kind of grit that Kucinich displays by hanging in and not giving up.
Strength through Peace.

History of War No More

2008-01-21T07:54:00.000-08:00

Thanks to this blog's good friend, Brenda O'Connor, here is a link to a speech made by Dennis before the vote leading to war with Iraq. Read this and you too shall weep:
http://www.wagingpeace.org/articles/2002/10/03_kucinich_vote-no.htm
I am sure when you look at this speech and how Kucinich went through the resolution point by point in order to make clear to all of us that there was no basis for voting for that war that he made it also clear to all who took the time to read the war resolution, that there was no basis for war at all.
In fact, according to my reading of it, there was never a cause to go to war with Iraq in the 1990's but that is another discussion for another time. What we do know is that within that war resolution was all the misinformation that was gathered by this administration, what amounts to a large portion of lies, used to dupe a nation into believing that Iraq was a co-sponsor of what happened on September 11, 2001, that Iraq was in pursuit of means to further inflict damage on this country and others in its own geographic region and that Iraq's willingness to do that was a clear call for the US to take on a unilateral position of punishing them, in effect, for violoating UN resolutions.
What can one say when you read this speech? How much more information and cause do you need to do two very important things: 1. Impeach the vice president and president for lying to this nation about the reasons for going to war and 2. Elect Dennis Kucinich for president.
Brendan O'Connor has made some more interesting suggestions about what can be done to put the word out about why Dennis was excluded from the debates, 4 now in total. Perhaps it would just be good if we could just get a call out to people to go to his dennis4president.com website where all the Congressman's responses can be found and where as well, it is clear from what he says that this is truly about the corporate drive to ambush anyone who dares to disagree with their goals.
Would that it were true that the whole system could be played as fair as we are promised it is. We know of voter fraud and we know of how the machines can be rigged. Yet, do we see much discussion of this in the mainstream press? Of course not, why would they want to discuss the means by which they are complicit in rigging the votes? It is not a surprise to me that they have turned this whole election cycle into a horse race. That is how they deem it should be discussed and that is how it is discussed. Just as they blame us for needing to dumb down the news, when most Americans vote against such a tactic, they blame us for needing these "better" machines to register the votes because the people in some counties in Florida in 2000 could not mark their ballots correctly.
Blame is very easy to pass around for all kinds of problems in this country and yet we seem inevitably to blame the victim no matter which way we turn. You have a say in how these things will turn out and must exercise that option every day. You must talk up Dennis Kucinich's platforms and plans. You must describe to your friends, co-workers and family why there has to be a real choice of candidates and not ones decided by the corporate powers that be whose real interests are money and power not about our lives and our ambitions as a people.
So, there it is, the case was laid out, people chose to ignore it, including many of the people running for president today. Think with the logic of what will happen if they are allowed in office again let alone become president.
There is truly Strength through Peace.

Here is the most important link you can read

2008-01-19T11:02:00.000-08:00

If you vote or if you have decided not to vote. If you are a responsible person or you have just decided to try and be a responsible person, read the full interview with Dennis and see what you can do to help the campaign.
http://www.alternet.org/stories/74268/
After you have read this, send it to everyone in your address book. Tell them to sharpen their pencils because we are going to most likely have to write his name in many places.
But what a gas if the first person ever to have a write-in campaign wins the presidency of the United States and you helped that to happen.
I have never read anything that has made me as proud to be a part of this campaign as Chris Hedges' piece. He let Dennis speak and when you hear him, which of course you can do with a simple click onto YouTube and there he is, so many instances of him speaking and from so many different places.
One of my favorites is of course his interrogation of Donald Rumsfeld.
Anyway, read the linked article, read it and think what the world would be like if this man were president and then do everything you can to make him that.
Read and pass it along. Tell your friends to read it and pass it along. The revolution is going to come with a pencil sharpener.
Strength through Peace.

Dennis can make you weep with hope

2008-01-19T04:40:00.000-08:00

At the end of a great interview with Chris Hedges in the Philadelphia Inquirer, our man Dennis Kucinich said the following:

Violence is learned; so is nonviolence. I am looking at helping to create a social transformation here. This isn't just about winning an election. Elections come and go. Where is the country? What happens to our nation? What happens to the people? Politics cannot just be an inside game between competing corporate interests. It amounts to the condition under which people live and survive. I see a much higher purpose to what it is we do. That is why I continue to participate.

If you want to understand why he continues going like he does, read the entire article. (Sorry, I forgot to presever the link while getting the quote, but it is up on alternet.org today.) You cannot understand what he is about, I agree, and he tells it to Hedges in the interview, until you have read his autobiography. There is the knowledge born of what I cannot say that no matter what you do what is right and go up against whatever it is that needs to be countered and then you just keep fighting for what is right.
We all know that Dennis has the answers to so much that is wrong with our country. However, in the interview I read for the first time his analysis of the ways in which the corporate influences grew in the Democratic party. I highly recommend reading the article just for that.
A brilliant man, our man Dennis, but also a really tough guy who will not stop. He may lose and he may lose in Cleveland too but that will not stop the fight.
It is not just time that we take back the country but also the party. The people in charge are all about something the real Democrats of this country were never about. I don't understand them and to be honest, I don't care to. I just want them out. We need a clean sweep of the politicians in this country and to ask them to answer truthfully as to where they stand on issues and to vote for them based on the honest answers.
Do we know that all of the front runners now are in favor of war as a policy of government? Yes we do and we have not their words but their votes to show exactly where they stand.
Let's stand beside Dennis. If his name is not on a ballot, put it there and make sure everyone you know does the same. It is not too late, it is never too late, get those pencils sharpened and get ready to work.
Strength through Peace.

Some HIts and Too Many Misses

2008-01-19T02:54:00.000-08:00

Impeachment is not just an option put into the Constitution by some wise men but a real remedy for what is wrong these days with our current administration. With every piece of news that comes out about the way this government is being run, we find more and more evidence of the crimes, the treasonous behavior that the president and vice president have been involved in almost from the start of their terms in 2001. Yet, it is difficult for this country to get its mind around it all.
Rep. Wexler, running for re-election in Florida, has become a more current member of the team going to bat for Dennis' articles of impeachment. He has now delivered to his colleagues on the House Judiciary Committee the 200,000 signatures he has gathered online in support of the impeachment of the vice president.
These are difficult times, there is no denying that. Even though it looks like there may be no way to move this forward, or that we will run out of time, the momentum and dedication to this impeachment drive continues to gather steam. Why?
It needed tax our minds too much to observe just what we read in the news every day that what is and has been going on in the White House is not just illegal but also deeply immoral.
Having said that, I also think it is important that those of us who want to support this motion, keep in mind that those who are in favor of it in the House and/or are running for the Senate need our support. For these reasons, I urge you to take a look at who is running for office in your district and in your state for the House and the Senate.
I think then it is time still to feature those candidates who support the impeachment and will work towards it from this moment forward.
If you live in Maine, I know that Laurie Dobson, who is running for the Senate as an Independent is totally behind the impeachment and would be working in the remaining two weeks of the president's term to impeach him and the vice president. I know that Congressman Wexler is running with this being one of his largest reasons for re-election. And of course, Kucinich is running for re-election in Cleveland's 10th district. Please do what you can to support them and as more candidates become known to me, I shall inform you of them as well.
Strength through Peace.

Dennis' supporters are the best

2008-01-17T05:43:00.000-08:00

When I read the comments of those who understand Dennis' message of hope and real change, then I know he has struck a chord in the American people that is good and clear and comes through loudly. There is always a double edge to this kind of message and that is the powers that be are very jealous of their power and while Dennis himself is not a threat, his message is and it is the real message of change for this country.
The backers of Dennis get that. They are fully aware of how he will change the way American conducts herself as a nation and the way she will treat not just her citizens but all people. While the Masters of the Universe like us to believe they are all powerful, they are not. Dennis' message proves that and the lengths they will to to in order to stop us from hearing Dennis' message says a lot about their vulnerability.
It also says a lot about the ways in which the parties at this point have become a mirror image of each other. I find it hard to believe that if Hillary Clinton were excluded from the debate or Barack Obama were that Dennis would not challenge the tv networks making that decision on their behalf or stand next to them and usher them onto the stage because of his belief that these airwaves belong to the people (which they do) and because the truth is not so fragile that it cannot be talked about by everyone.
You don't see Hillary or Barack or John Edwards making a move to help Dennis get on the stage with them. Don't you wonder why? Don't you ask yourself why is Hillary so unwilling to acknowledge a fellow member of Congress who is a valid candidate for president just as she is and make it clear that discrimination of any kind is wrong.
Obama too. Where is that dulcet voice when it comes to the exclusion of someone from the debate who in this last instance had been invited? Where is their outrage at injustice and a clear violation of the principles of fair play?
Not a word has been spoken by any of them as far as I can find and doesn't that say something to you and to me about what these candidates are all about?
Yes, they do mean change, but in a very narrow sense. They want us to change our minds about what is right and wrong and what is good and bad and just follow them no matter where they take us and for what reasons.
I offer them a challenge: Tell us what you think of a viable candidate being excluded.
Please.
Stength through Peace.

It looks like a no-go tonight

2008-01-15T18:28:00.000-08:00

We sure do live in a different type of world than I had thought possible. I mean if you watch enough of the movies and read enough of good old American folklore you begin to think that the good guys get to win every now and then and that they even get to feel the thrill of some kind of victory for their ideas and the fact that they aren't just fighting for themselves but for all of us.
You might think that if the world was the way a filmmaker like Frank Capra envisioned it in some of his work like Meet John Doe.
Then there is the real case of Dennis Kucinich. The real case of a man who goes to the mat every single day for each and every one of us and seems not to find the kind of justice and fairness that we might love to hold onto and to believe in.
It is as if there were just the huge corporate artifice that determines and manipulates all the workings of our society. If you don't fit into it and don't even think it is such a good thing, that same corporate culture turns on you and wills you out of the public eye. It pushes you out of the whole frame so that the public has to really work hard to find out about you, the public has to go against all the dreck they are fed by that corporate media in order to stick with you.
Dennis Kucinich wrote an amazing story of his early years in Cleveland. In some ways it is much like Frank McCourt's Angela's Ashes except that it feels a lot less like an angry man's recounting of his hard life and more like the kid who survived that ordeal or rather who survived those endless ordeals is here to help us. He did have that courage to do something for us and to be here every day doing for us what he found the strength to understand.
You and I can learn a lot from reading that book. While it is not a great work of literature and there are moments too when the horrors of his life seem to even overpower his prose--but the man had a vision of something outside of him.
We laugh lots of times about the nuns and how they are so mean, etc. But in Kucinich's case, they saved his life and pushed him to do what he really needed to do. Of course there was something that came into his life from his mother and as little as that might have been considering that she had 7 children, there was something of the love for Dennis that he can also count on to give back when he fights for the things that we need to have in this country:
1. Fair wages and decent working conditions
2. Universal health care
3. Free pre-K through 4 years of college for everyone
And then the other side of the coin in his understanding of the policies that need to be in place:
1. An end to the war and the return home of all troops
2. An impeachment of the president and vice president
3. An end to NAFTA and our removal from the WTO
4. An end to the Patriot Act
5.Restoration of the constitution's guarantees
6. Civil Rights for all
The list is long and the work is hard. He needs all of our help. Please do help.
Strength through Peace.

Dennis Wins a Bit of Good News for Today

2008-01-14T18:59:00.000-08:00

Here is some good news and some weird news too. The weird news first. The campaign asked all of us to call NBC and the DNC in order to complain that Dennis was not included in the debate in Nevada on NBC. So today a judge rules that Dennis is entitled to be in the debate and that if they don't include him they cannot have the debate.
I had called the DNC, told them I was a member of the Democratic Party and was working for Kucinich and wanted to know why they didn't let him debate. I called to speak to Karen Finney who is the press person for the DNC and while I called her because I knew her, I also thought we could have a conversation about this.
However, no conversation was possible. She claimed that my number was not clearly stated on her voicemail but of course I doubt that. She also contended that the DNC did not have anything to say about the debate, it was up to the network and they were entitled to decide who could debate.
Oh really? Is this how the Democratic Party represents its members? Is this the kind of party we want to represent us? Well, I don't think it is the party that makes these choices, I think it is the people in charge of the party right now and for one thing, her comment seems to be not the whole truth. According to the press reports about the debate, the DNC is a partner in this debate and should be defending the decision of the network to have invited Dennis who met the criteria for the invite and then they decided to disinvite him.
Where is the party at that they have no concern for its members or for the ways in which these decisions are made? I question not just the ways in which the party has become corrupted, yes corrupted by their own needs but also not a very good participant in the democratic process itself.
If this is what has become of Howard Dean, that he is now just this little dictator sitting up in DC with an agenda of his own that will exclude members of the party based on some set of criteria that are of his own making, then it is time for the party to ask for him to step down and to take his apparatchiks with him.
Yes, I am outraged. I am outraged because there is no sense of either fairness or commitment to the party in this kind of exchange between a member of the DNC who is a paid worker of the party and one of the party faithful, i.e., Dennis Kucinich.
The other piece of good news is that the recount in New Hampshire will go ahead and not for the reasons of Dennis trying to win but for the reason that there is a discrepancy and that discrepancy has to be addressed. It doesn't matter to Dennis that no one else is willing to address the issue of the veracity of the counts done by these machines but it does to those who want a fair election in November and once again Dennis is standing up for all of us when everyone else is just concerned with their own little slice of the pie and their own moment in the spotlight and not much concerned with the issues that they are sworn to uphold.
God you got to love them or you are going to find yourself going nuts.
There is Strength through Peace and thank God that Dennis leads the way.

Let's go Michigan

2008-01-14T06:58:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow is an important day in Michigan and many of us who are supporters of the Congressman's bid for president are looking to that state to make a loud and clear statement about their support as well. Go to the polls tomorrow and vote for the one candidate who understands and supports through legislation, not just on the campaign-trail promises, but real work that a legislator is supposed to do. And that then gives voters the evidence they need that the person talking about these issues truly understands them and works for them.
This past weekend, Elizabeth Kucinich has been in Traverse City, Michigan and there has been much news of her effectiveness as a speaker on the issues as well as the warmth with which she addresses the crowds she meets.
More on this to come but first let me write here about all the good things we can say about why anyone in Michigan thinking about getting out to vote tomorrow must do so.
I have to put in my favorite plug for Dennis at this point which has to do with the one issue that most people in Michigan are extremely aware of and that is jobs. There is no other candidate who is fighting for the life of the worker in this country like Dennis Kucinich. If you have not had the time to pay attention, here are some points of interest. He is intent on ending NAFTA and ending the US involvement in the WTO. Let me explain briefly that sending jobs overseas in order to create a totally consumer society as has been done in the past two forms of administrations, i.e., the Clinton and the Bush administrations, has cost us the work force and the unions and the health care and the tax base and the kind of life this country has prided itself on and we have both the Clintons and the Bushes to thank for that. Also we can thank Senator Edwards for voting this way too despite his newfound belief in the cause of the middle class.
That to me is the one issue we can all unite on--jobs and the importance of understanding the role unions have played in our country in terms of protecting and defending workers from both the predations of the corporate bosses as well as for setting the agenda to protect the work force both in terms of occupational health and for demanding fair and just pension and retirement plans that as we can see are now the tennis ball of all negotiations.
If for no other reason, get out there tomorrow and vote not just your wallets but your hearts for the one man who is going to make a change by bringing manufacturing back to this country and leading the way in the fight for the worker and his/her rights to strike, to bargain fairly with none of this guillotine of the pensions and health care being held over all negotiators' heads.
We need a real leader and not just someone with promises.
Remember that tomorrow as you go to the polls.
Strength through Peace.

War, war all the time

2008-01-13T18:21:00.000-08:00

We ought to know by now that when George W. Bush says he is off to the mid-east to make a peace deal that we should not believe him. Every word he uses has some other meaning to him that it would be good some day to find a lexicon for. In this case, too much evidence is pointing to the fact that he is off to the mid-east to drum up support for his ill-advised need for war with Iran. Monies have been allocated to the Saudis for weapons and to the Israelis of course too.
However, our misspoken president seems to be gaining no comrades in his way to war with Iran but I don't think he cares much or that much of the kind of discouragement he is hearing will deter him.
That being said, where are these mainstream candidates that are so interested in change? Where are their words of warning against what the president is about to do? I don't hear it. But I do know what Dennis kuinich is saying and has been saying all the time, with no wobbles (and that is a new euphemism for flip-flops) in his thinking. He voted against the war with Iraq and he has voted against the funding of the war and he is not wavering.
So you change agents, where are you truly? What do you offer us your intended receivers of these miraculous changes that are guaranteed to make our lives better once the world has anointed you as king or queen of the world? I am waiting to hear how these changes you plan to institute are going to influence the events that are occurring right now as you run around the country promising something that no one really wants.
Do you really think this country wants real change? Do you think that this is anything other than some kind of bland and meaningless wand you are waving at us and hoping to hypnotize us into believing we want our lives to change, that we want to do the work to change?
Certainly, no one has pushed as hard for the real change this country needs than Dennis Kucinich and yet everyone is afraid of him. Afraid of him and his ideas because what they ask us to do is to really commit ourselves to the real changes that need to be made in the fundamental structure of the corporatization of this country. And most of us are just too damn afraid of that because it might mean that what we have been fed and feeding ourselves for so long turns out to be really toxic and we have been complicit in its use.
So, think about the guy running around the mid-east thinking he is fooling anyone that he wants peace when what he wants is war. Think about that group of candidates running around the country thinking they are offering change when what they are offering is the semblance of a word and nothing more.
Then think about Dennis and Elizabeth Kucinich out there on the trail truly listening to the problems of all peoples and making them see what the real change could be.
In that way we cannot give up hope because they have not. I urge you to think hard about who you vote for not just in the primaries but in the election as well.
Strength through Peace.

This deja vu is totally unnecessary

2008-01-12T13:35:00.000-08:00

One should never report about the constant depression one feels about the campaign process in this country if you truly want to represent what the Kucinich camp is like. Because, as you will see in the next posting, which is from a Kucinich not often heard from, Elizabeth is not a negative person and her thoughts are forever on the positive. However, not being of that kind of inner strength, I am using this one blog to voice the kind of inner struggle that has gone on in watching the campaign from the vantage point of New Hampshire to the return to my home base in New York City.
First I have to say that it felt at all times, to this blogger, that the campaign had to fight too many battles all on its own with very little support from the powers that be, in fact with no support from the powers that be. And that is a discussion to be held elsewhere. But the people who came out of their way to come to Manchester to help Dennis and to lend their time and talent to the campaign, were pretty much a very enthusiastic bunch of dedicated people who look at him and see the way the country could be, should be and must be in order to open up the clogged and swollen arteries of injustice and poverty and cruelty we as a nation are paticipating in.
Then this morning my partner, Suzanne, and I went out for breakfast at our local diner and as I often do, I picked up the local paper, The Queens Chronicle, because I was interested in the front page story on Foreclosures. But as we broke apart the paper, she took one part and I took another, an article about the primaries and Super Tuesday landed in my lap. I read the article, rather I skimmed the article and there at the very end of the article, "Southeast Queens to Obama: Character Should Trump Race" was the following:
Volney Cain, a clerk at the J & S Variety Store on Sutphin Boulevard, said Obama's race doesn't matter if his desire to be president doesn't come from a "genuine place." Cain said the ideal presidential candidate would have to be able to strike a balance, as with most people, between conservative and liberal ideas, and he couldn't find any of the potential nominees he felt did so. The candidate he is most impressed with so far? Dennis Kucinich.
There buried at the end of this article is the kind of speaking out of the hearts of the followers of Dennis that I also discovered when I was in Manchester. It is easy to be so discouraged that you cannot take the number of assaults this campaign has to weather from the refusal of ABC News last Saturday to allow Dennis to join the debate to this coming one on NBC and the primary race in Texas asking for a loyalty oath that Dennis would not give to the large field of primary contenders in Cleveland gunning for his Congressional seat as well. It feels enormous and frustrating and like some huge sysiphean struggle that comes at us all who care about what this candidate has thought through and for which we know he will fight for to watch these battles mount and distract from the real work that needs to be done.
However, there is a faith in the system, or rather, in the constitution, that allows Dennis to continue to fight and to forge ahead and as we shall see in the coming weeks, this will lead us all somewhere we cannot predict.
There really is Strength through Peace.

All Military News all the Time

2008-01-10T06:30:00.001-08:00

Watch the news all of you. The tricks and the fakes are beginning. First the Tricky Dick move, and I mean Dick Cheney, not Nixon, about the Iranian gunboats and now we can see there are several articles today about both the worsening condition in Iraq, Pakistan and Afghanistan as well as the fear factor being ratcheted up while the President flies off to Israel to make nice with the Israelis and to castigate the Palestinians for their behavior. Will Mr. Bush make any comments whatsoever about the increased number of settlements going up on Arab land? I sincerely doubt it but he sure will find the time to talk about how unhelpful it is for the Palestinians to voice their concerns.
I am afraid, not by what is being reported, but by what it signifies. Only too clearly this administration has been making it known that their only strategy for dealing with any situation is at the point of a gun or in the current cases at the dropping of bombs from high in the atmosphere whose targets are mostly long gone before the bombs fall.
I have had the distinct honor of listening to Dennis talk about this kind of strategy. The use of endless war as a means both of foreign policy as well as a means of filling up the pockets of their friends with all the available money from the treasury in order to make them fabulously rich.
I have read in places that even Grover Norquist was opposed to this war based on fiscal concerns. Of course, he allowed the administration to muzzle him until after the elections so no one would know that according to fiscal ultra-conservatives, this war is a huge mistake.
None of us who support Kucinich for president or for a return to Congress has any doubt about where Dennis stands on these issues. The only candidate to propose a Department of Peace, Kucinich is running on the theory that we can rise to our better natures in order to put an end to this insanity.
More Marines are on their way to Afghanistan (they are reporting 3,000) and more deaths of American soldiers in Iraq (they are reporting 6-9 in one incident alone) and then there were the reports of the covert operations going on in Pakistan over the weekend. Then the government decided to create this false tape of what happened in the Gulf of Hormuz this Monday. How convenient that right before the primary vote, the tapes appear along with the suspicion that they are falsely reporting what happened.
Dick Cheney learned his lessons well from the former wearer of the Tricky Dick mantle. Now it is time to place it where it belongs today. We must move forward on the impeachment issue so that we can end this endless war and get the people responsible for so much death and destruction to pay the price for it.
Please help us. Help us by donating to the campaign and by helping physically to call your friends and family and explain to them why this is a crucial time in the campaign. With all of us pulling some of the weight we can help Dennis to help us.
Strength through Peace.

They are running out of ballots

2008-01-08T12:40:00.000-08:00

After predicting a record turnout for this primary, there seems to now be a good chance that 8 of the cities have begun to run out of ballots. In fact, they were running out of ballots with 6 hours to go. What does that say about the primary election here?
Well, for one thing, it means that we should begin giving up all the old cliches about what has happened in the past, stop thinking of this in terms of what Clinton did here in 1992 or what McCain did here in 2000 and begin thinking about what the candidates today are saying and what that portends for the continuing election process.
Since I am completely out of the election forecasting business, what this signifies to me is that even when they knew there would be a huge turnout, they were not prepared for how large a turnout there would be in fact.
My mind wonders what this could mean and how to interpret it. I mean if you knew there were X number of people eligible to vote in your state wouldn't you be prepared with many more ballots and shown a bit more professional standards than this. What a weird response to being the premier state primary!
Oh well. This is less suspicious than using an electronic system by Diebold, right?

Why a Constitutional Initiative?

2008-01-08T08:48:00.000-08:00

There is the question that should have been asked the other day. I didn't ask it and now I am. I will even take a page out of Dennis' playbook and ask and answer the question myself. I hope not just for my own edification either.
The question is: What was that Constitutional Initiative about on Sunday night? Why was that station in Manchester packed that night and what were people there to hear?
Having attended a few of these initiatives, I can tell you that the one thing that always stands out for me is how vital this document is and must be if we are to continue with a rule of law of any kind that means anything for all of us. The ability to pick and choose just what he would like to obey today and what he would like to ignore today as being legally binding is not a choice anyone sworn to uphold it can make.
Thus when we say that we want our troops out of Iraq or we want to end the Patriot Act or we want to have universal, single-payer, not-for-profit health care, we are also saying we want to see the gentlemen who are not upholding their oaths brought to the Congress for the Impeachment hearings they so justly deserve (as do we) so that they can be held accountable for their crimes.
It is my belief and not the campaign's stated policy that without impeachment none of the other things can get done. When these crimes are allowed to go unpunished we forfeit the one redress we were given in the Constitution to end an illegal government's reign. Or rather to redress the illegal actions of representatives of our government.
Thinking of that one possibility given to us, we must seize upon it. There is no time like the present to do that.
Write, call, spread the word.
I am up on my soapbox today about this. I woke up thinking about it and will be writing about it until we get some action in the Congress as we are entitled to when there is a bill sitting in the Judiciary Committee.
Make it known how you feel about this and about all elected officials who will not act on it.
Keep March 19th, the fifth anniversary of the beginning of the illegal war in Iraq, marked in your calendar. Actions will occur and you can be a part of it.
When you and I act, things happen.
When people talk about the constitution as a living document, not in the sense that originalists mean it, i.e., with an agenda to fulfill, but in the way that those who understand what its real importance is--to guide the country in its making of laws.
Let's say that the nation is waiting for this kind of change, that means a return to what matters rather than this constant listing towards disaster.

They are at the polls

2008-01-08T08:10:00.000-08:00

Well, the race is surely on and the workers here are at the polls, talking up the day and thanking people for voting for Kucinich. The streets of Manchester are emptier by far than they have been since I arrived here on Friday. The circus atmosphere on the street is gone. There is even parking. But the candidates are all meeting and greeting and the supporters are no longer on the streets in quite the same vociferous ways.
However, the troops are at work and it is quite an impressive group of interns and volunteers who have fanned out across Manchester and whose lunch is getting prepared and will be delivered to them so they can continue standing there to remind voters that Kucinich is their man. In each one of their bags is a copy of the constitution so they can hand them out. As one intern said, "I am giving away constitutions like hot cakes."
You cannot quite believe the amount of effort it takes to mount one of these days but this is the quietest the office has been and it is almost as if everyone has left town. They haven't but they are out on the streets with signs and that trusty constitution.
The candidate himself is talking on the radio and meeting with reporters and will also be at the polling places.
The sun is out and the weather is warm. There is a crowd of people giving away t-shirts and caps from the AARP. I had to get into an argument with them about the way in which they are backed by the insurance companies. Even though I am not a resident here, the man in charge of the sidewalk effort gave me his card in part, I think, to get the complaining old woman out of their sight and away from the people they were trying to sign up for their health care reform package.
Not being content to just rail against AARP, a nice young man was handing out smoothies from Stonyfield Farms, and I had to complain to him about the amount of sugar in the company's product. I think they have all been given the same customer service training. He, too, told me he would tell the company that their product is too sweet. In one 6 ounce bottle, there are 23 grams of sugar. One could go into a diabetic fit just from drinking one of these. I don't think it is fair to advertise a product as being organic but not also labeling it as too sweet for anyone to drink.
I realize I am going a bit afield here but there is a reason for this. The other day when I was talking to Viggo Mortensen, he said that he couldn't believe the honesty with which Dennis presents himself. There is no difference in what he says or how he says it depending on where he is. What you see is what you get would be the way he can be defined. That is not the way other candidates present themselves. I have heard Hillary speak or try to speak with a Southern accent when in the south and I have to confess that little by little the two men who are labeled the top two men are beginning to sound the same as well. It is as if some kind of chameleon streak has begun to run through them and now what we see is what we think we see, and not who they are and what they really stand for.
In all instances, they stand for the status quo. Holding the line at some centrist track is not change of any kind. It is a shell game to use the language to pretend things, to pretend you are against the war while voting to continue funding it. To pretend you want to change the health care system but are in the pocket of the pharmaceutical companies and the health insurance companies then what you want is what they want--to keep their high profits while denying a good number of their subscribers coverage for those things that were in the contract but which have been changed since you signed up. Of course, there is nothing wrong with wanting to vote for someone who plays a successful shell game and can promise what he or she has no intention of ever delivering, please go ahead.
There is no time like the present to just get the word out that there is truth and there is just the appearance of truth. Ask everyone which it is they prefer.

Interviewing for Dennis

2008-01-07T11:28:00.000-08:00

For a change of pace now, I can report that I had to do two interviews this weekend for the campaign. One went up on the Huffington Post Saturday night when the news was flying about Dennis being excluded from the debate. I got a call from the national campaign that I had to be ready to interview Melissa Etheridge in about an hour or so. The only quiet place I could go to was the back seat of my car and so I went there and talked to her and kept notes and came back to the office to write it up.
Then on Sunday morning, Viggo Mortensen flew in on the red eye from California to help get Dennis' message out. He was furious that he had been excluded from the debate as well. So, I spent about 30 minutes talking to him in person. He was an interesting guy and had a lot to say about the history of his ideas, that is, he really thinks through the greed issue ruining this country and as for me that is my big theme now too.
Corporate greed has ruined any chance we have for a true democracy. It was enjoyable to watch Mortensen rail on and on against it so that I could sit back and let him use his energy to get it all going out there. I rested and listened.
Then I took a nice walk. There is actually time to go for walks when you get left out of the more general transport. Manchester is not a big town. At least the downtown is not big. As an old mill town it is impressive to look at. To walk through it on a Sunday during the primary season it is even more impressive especially when I was thinking about how to construct the article about talking to Viggo Mortensen.
Now I am thinking about all the other important issues that this campaign deals with on a daily basis and how they can all get lost if we don't all keep up with them. That is part of what really makes a campaign, the keeping track of all the issues as well as all the people involved in getting the word out about them.
Melissa and Vigo lent their voices to the disgust with ABC.
But here in Manchester, day in and day out, there are many people working most of the 24 hours of the day to help get Dennis' message out.
I hope to begin giving them a chance to talk up too on the blog.

Monday before the Primary

2008-01-07T08:30:00.000-08:00

We are getting close to the time when all good men and women are about to cast a vote for the kind of change they want to see. The real change and no matter what we all now think of that word, it is a really good thing to know that we can all make a difference. Each of us can do something by calling ABC News/Disney and let them know what you think about their preemption of citizens' rights to choose and to be given the information they need in order to make an informed choice.
So here is the phone number, 212/456-7777 and ask for the complaints department.
Another way to make a difference no matter where you are is to remember that impeachment is the most viable way to make those changes happen. If we don't impeach and continue to push for that, we will go through this over and over and I don't think any of us really want that. Right now, thinking about how much is wrong with government and why so much needs to be fixed, what we need to understand is that without holding our representatives accountable for their oaths of office, we abdicate our greatest power to hold them legally to that.
Thus, you want change, then you have to do some things too.
One of those things is to stay tuned here for all the updates about the impeachment events. I will provide it soon.
Also, there is more information about the undecideds and other great stuff from another follower of this blog. I will advise you too about all of that. What I am saying today is that we have loads of other interesting information about to flood this blog about the cool folks who are working here for Dennis' campaign and who believe in him so much that they have foregone comfort, sleep, good food, showers, clean clothes, time to read and money. So, in honor of their efforts, I am going to bring their stories to you over the next two days.

The time is running out

2008-01-06T13:36:00.000-08:00

And we need everyone's help to get the word out about what Dennis Kucinich's campaign stands for. I have been plugging away and from the comments I am receiving (thanks to John and Brendan in particular), the word is getting out. More and more people are asking for the URL for this blogspot and we are looking at the moment of reckoning here in New Hampshire. Of course, this is not the end of things no matter what happens. But considering the number of undecideds still being polled in this state, it is a big question that the mainstream media won't acknowledge. They want you to know certain things and not other things.
Just as they were adamant to frame the questions that the candidates would have to answer last night, such as the way they framed the discussion about health care. Each and every one of those four people kept promising to change things. Change is now the new debased word that needs to be forgotten and ultimately restored when the meaning of it has been redeemed.
You shall know them by the real change they make. Just please tell me what kind of real change they are advocating? A little bit of disguised pandering to the health insurance industry never hurts a candidate who takes money from them for her campaign, Hillary.
Just like you can rail about corporate greed and not ever taking one penny from the health insurance companies, but there is obviously nothing wrong about taking money from the larger hedge fund managers, John Edwards.
Then my last word on this kind of duplicity is to say, if we really want to see change, if we really want to make a change in how our government governs us and relates to the world, then we have to return to the real agenda that a true Democrat like Dennis puts forth. Ask and demand an end to this illegal war and bring to justice the criminals who lied and cheated in order to send innocent people to their deaths. Demand that our health care system be fair and equitable and not the privilege of those who can afford it. And not run by people whose sole job is to deny us the coverage we pay for.
This is just the beginning of the fight and it won't be over until we are able to turn the ship of state around. We can do it and we must do it in order to change for real the terms under which the government governs us.
Please, please, lend a hand and get the ship moving in this new direction, back to the principles that helped to give it birth. We can all do it if we just start thinking that thought and seeing where it leads us to act, to help and to serve the common good.
There really is strength through peace.

Live from NH, 3

2008-01-05T18:33:00.000-08:00

Dennis is always able to point out how the quibbles between the candidates sound like the distortions of people who can't quite understand how the debasement of language captures them in their own webs.
The real change that Dennis always talks about is the kind of change all of us know about. It has to do with full-employment of our citizens. It has to do with the reality of the subjects rather than talking about some kind of nebulous ideas that mean nothing.
Finally we are going to talk about what is happening in Iraq. Blaming the Iraqis for the failure of the surge when we should know there is no way a war that was illegal could be anything other than an occupation hated by everyone. The Kucinich resolution HR 1234 is the way to end the war.
What the congressman finally said that made everyone take a huge last gasp--that we should vote with courage or we will get what we deserve. He meant it and felt it and it was great to hear him say it.

Live from New Hampshire, 2

2008-01-05T18:18:00.000-08:00

What Dennis is focusing on is how the media is going to town in frightening us and that they must stop. Why should the media have this kind of power to scare us with the ways they frame the questions? It began with the opening "report" on terror.
Dennis is adamant that we must lead the world in nuclear abolition. While the Democrats continue to discuss going after terrorists, what they really mean is setting up a permanent state of war.
The most serious issue is an end to the reliance on nuclear power leading to a continuance of nuclear proliferation.
Now we turn to the social services that the government has promised us. the propaganda is flying all over the screen.
Their idea of change is to keep the same systems while putting the difference of costs into their pockets.
Now we know that Hillary has been constantly consistent in always keeping the same system we have. How are we to understand Obama? He, too, does not understand where the for profit system leads us all. Kucinich is the only one proposing a single payer universal health care system.
dennis is now calling the debate of chameleons. A really funny but sad observation of who we are being given as the "viable" candidates.

Live Response to Democratic Debate by Dennis

2008-01-05T17:45:00.000-08:00

Dennis will be talking in response to the comments being made by the democratic candidates even though he is not at the debate itself. We have already been there on the campus marching through the grounds expressing our discontent with Dennis being silenced. It was a loud and impassioned throng that came out in the hundreds to give a civil response to the control of the debate by media conglomerates. It was thrilling to see the numbers of people who came out and shouted and chanted as Dennis and Elizabeth Kucinich marched with banners at their backs and cameras flashing at them. In the snow we trudged around with the sounds of the snow underfoot being lost in the raucous exuberance of Dennis' supporters who felt both disappointed and confident. Disappointed that we are shut out, not just Dennis. Confident that what Dennis represents speaks for all of us.
So, the horse race talk continues. There is not much to recommend their commentary but to laugh at the incredible double entendres these people spew forth as if they were not aware of their own arrogance. It is an incredible show of hubris, spread across the airwaves with no corresponding self-awareness.
Now that the media gets to determine what the discussion should be and to frame how the nuclear terror threat presents itself. Dennis strongly opposes any further inflaming of the situation in Pakistan. He comes out against the whole notion of further militarization of our response to the condition in Pakistan.
Let me continue in another post. Stay tuned.

Things Happening Fast and Furious

2008-01-05T07:42:00.000-08:00

It is almost unbelievable to see the news today about Kucinich. Talk about there being a constant storm of problems facing a campaign, then just peruse the news today and you will see that he is in court in Texas for a really good reason. The Texas Democrats require a loyalty oath for him to be on the primary ballot.
I can hear the voices of people going, can you fXXXXXX believe that? What country is this? He must be standing up for all of us when he refuses to sign up to support the Democratic candidate no matter who it is. We remember, don't we, Mr. Kerry reporting for duty? That is not an option this time around is it?
While we know why Dennis is the Democratic candidate who is the most true to the real Democratic Party, we know too that it does not require a loyalty oath to be a member of the party nor to run for president.
How much brain matter does it take to realize that the premise of the primary process is not to have to swear your loyalty to a party when you are a valid member of that party.
Thus the lawsuit is justified and the following one is as well--going to the FCC to sue ABC News for excluding Dennis from the debate tonight. What the hell are we looking at here? A campaign that cannot be allowed to exist due to the fear factor and thus is relegated to the courts to sort out its access problems is making a mockery of the whole election process.
This is a mockery of a democracy. Please start complaining to the appropriate authorities.

Being back in New Hampshire

2008-01-05T06:29:00.000-08:00

I am back in the Granite State where there is snow and lots of people, lots more people than when i was here in November covering Dennis when the other candidates bussed in and bussed out. Dennis has been here pretty consistently since then.
The streets in Manchester are filled with candidate signs, there are people all over the place with buttons on their chests, placards on their cars, dazed glances on their faces and lots of jolliness among us all. It is like being at a carnival with the stakes being a lot higher than guessing the weight of the fat woman.
Lots of work going on in the Kucinich headquarters where more and more people show up who are either sick or injured in some way but so eager to work. Then there just is the horde of devoted kids (to me, they are kids) who seem to work like there is no tomorrow. Actually there is a big tomorrow coming up and they know it and are geared up to get the signs out, to talk to people and get them to vote for Dennis and to find their efforts so focused is a very good sign.
Dennis on Bill Moyers last night was good and filled with all the most incisive information he has been putting out there for Americans to pay attention to during his long campaign. Bill Moyers was a bit stingy when it came to giving him time, after remarking about how little time he gets during the debates. However, Kucinich kept the juices flowing and listed every one of the points he knows is important to all of us.
Here is the list of them, in my ordering:
1. Impeaching the president and vice president for taking us into an illegal war.
2. Getting all Americans health insurance based on a universal, single-payer system that will end the monopoly by the insurance companies.
3. Ending the war in Iraq and bringing the troops home.
4. A free education for everyone beginning with pre-K through four years of college.
5. An end of NAFTA, the WTO.
6. A return of the health to the planet.
7. Fair wages and treatment of all workers.
While this list may seem like just a laundry list and/or the most obvious things that should happen for this country, no other candidate is getting to this level of specificity.
Listen to them all, they sound like the same side of the record. As he said to Bill Moyers last night, he should be included in all the debates if for no other reason than there is no one else countering what the other candidates are putting forth.
Strength through Peace.

So little time, so much to say

2008-01-04T03:29:00.000-08:00

There is so much going on and then again way too much to say about it all. For one thing, it is not believable that again we must fight to get Dennis, and others, onto the airwaves because some media company thinks it has the right to control who gets to participate in the debates. If you have not yet written to ABC News to let them know in no uncertain terms to allow all the candidates to speak on Saturday night, then please do so now. Contact Independent Primary.com in order to voice your concerns. They have links to both ABC and to Fox, which is preventing Ron Paul from participating in the Sunday night Republican debate. (And as has been said by many, it is a good thing not to let the media companies determine who we hear but that all candidates are treated fairly. We do have recourse to these insults to the process and we can get into that later.)
So, that is the biggest worry right now--denying Dennis and Joe Biden and Chris Dodd as well access to the American public who will be voting for them right before the New Hampshire primary.
Second though, on the plus side, Bill Moyers will be interviewing Dennis tonight on his Bill Moyers Journal. Please check that out and I will write about it tomorrow, from New Hampshire where I will be in order to report on what people in New Hampshire really think about Dennis and not rely on the obviously slanted media to tell us.
Moving along to further concerns of mine regarding all things Dennis, his current book, the autobiography, The Courage to Survive.
If you haven't read it, please do. It will tell you the real story of what makes the man run and work so hard and where that stamina in him comes from. I will be writing a separate review of the book both here and I hope on opednews.com too. I will keep you all posted.
Finally, make sure to keep up with what is happening on the campaign by logging into the campaign website: www.dennis4president.com
Strength through Peace.

Believe me, Mr. Cheney, there is still time

2008-01-02T19:03:00.000-08:00

No time like the present is what I have to say and if you are reading around today, perhaps you saw this article popping up:
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/01/02/6125/
That's right, it is impeachment talk time again and not as if we couldn't all use a lesson in how to hold elected officials to the standards we expect them to adhere to. So, if we can all say to Madame Speaker, yes we have time and the need and the interest to see the vice president and then the president held accountable for their criminal actions, then perhaps we will see some action taken and sooner rather than later.
I wonder just where the two of them think they will be able to go once they leave office without the thought/fear/worry that some marshall will not show up at their door some day with a warrant for their arrest. Because to be honest, the fear of this is an awful fear to live with. They have instilled it in others and maybe it is fitting they experience it as well. But the most important thing is that they need to be held accountable so that the next office holders who have similar inclinations towards the constitution will not do a damn similar thing or else face the consequences of their actions too.
But read it and think how can we make this happen and make it stick. Dennis needs to be credited with starting the ball rolling on this one and having the courage to put it out there. There are not many people today with that kind of courage.
Vote as if you know your own heart and the needs of this country and we shall all be fine.

How do you feel about torture today?

2008-01-02T06:08:00.000-08:00

I don't know about you but after reading the op-ed piece by Kean and Hamilton in today's New York Times, I felt sick all over again about the ways in which this country has been run over the past 7 years. (I am not giving any other previous administrations a glance right now because there isn't enough time.) After I finished reading their outraged comments I again found the stomach ache that will not go away had intensified. A sure sign of my own outrage and disgust with a government that has no sense of decency or legalities and a way to see why we must not falter now when it comes to reversing the horrible trends set by them.
A friend of mine is a friend of George Tenent, the former head of the CIA. She has been in the past pretty certain that her friend would not do what people say he has done--condone the use of torture, etc. I hope she can truly know this man and know that he would not have gone along with this regime's ideas but I have to confess, I don't buy any of it. They are all guilty whether by actually authorizing it or not stepping in to stop it.
Yet, we are too in our own ways guilty of sitting idly by and not getting this administration out of office as soon as we knew what was going on. I know lots of people are getting thoroughly disgusted with the way things are shaping up politically right now. They watch the broadcast news which has already been way too vocal about who is ahead and who should win. They listen to these same guys who over and over have lied to them about many things of importance and believe them. I know there are those we can argue with about this fact and those who just don't care, but this is directed to those of you who care.
Now is not the time to give up or give in. Now is the time to redouble every last bit of that energy that was there for real change in the way things are going here. I should add that if you read the foreign press at all you will see that this country is not the only one plagued with rising debt, rising abuses of power and rising costs of living for the middle and lower classes and more and more protections for the wealthy. It ought to awaken more of us to the fact that this kind of greedy need for power is an epidemic and needs to be stopped.
Unfortunately, there are human beings in places like Guantanamo and other sites we don't know about who are facing a daily regimine of inhumane treatment, along with the 2 million or so felons in this country, and we need to find a way to put an end to this kind of warfare against humanity. It threatens us as well. My stomach is testimony to that.
If you can make it to the news sites on the web, begin to campaign for the one candidate that can and will make this change--Dennis Kuinich--and don't give up until the votes, all the votes are counted in November.
Every one of us means something to the world and right now we are also the voices of change and a better world.
Strength through Peace is more than a slogan, it is a way of life.

Video Blog - Vote Kucinich in 2008

2008-01-01T17:28:00.000-08:00

Make a Difference--Vote Your Own Interests

2008-01-01T11:11:00.000-08:00

Today could be a great new start for all of us. By voting in every way for Dennis we are voting to make everyone's life better.
I have never met anyone as determined as Dennis Kucinich to make all our lives better. What more can we ask of a candidate? In fact we can ask nothing less.
Strength through Peace.

Join Dennis' Resolution

2007-12-31T16:06:00.001-08:00

Now is the time for all of us who care about this country to make the same resolution as Dennis has made. We, too, will fight to restore the integrity of the Constitution. We will work to impeach the vice president and then president for the numerous crimes they have both committed. We will work to ensure greater peace among all nations by refusing to aid in the funding of the current wars. We will repeal the massive tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations. We will guarantee civil rights for all segments of the population--gay and straight, citizens and those who want to be, workers and the unemployed, those in need of help of any kind and those able to provide it.

It is only by doing as Dennis has already resolved that we will be able to do two important things in 2008:
1. Elect Dennis Kucinich president of this country
2. Make sure that we immediately begin to improve the health and well being of not just this nation but the planet's as well.
Strength through Peace.

Assassinations, Terrorism and the lack of diplomacy

2007-12-27T16:41:00.000-08:00

Another sad day today. Former Prime Minister, Benazhir Bhutto was assassinated today by persons thus far unknown. And for all the time and effort many of the candidates will put into saber rattling (e.,g., Rudy G. who was out with his statement first today about the terrors we face) and the kinds of pandering to the better way of life we have here (e.g., Mike H., who had not many words to say about the woman who had just died by putting her life on the line for her country) and what others will put their lips around in order to make their "feelings" known, I can say that what I would expect Dennis Kucinich to say would contain more of the context in which this killing happened and less about how great a country we have and how we are so much more expert at thwarting the killers among us.
I think it is time to think and to really consider what this woman has done by putting herself out there for her own country. It is a sad day, yes, and she was, as we all now realize, a woman who was after power in a country where Muslims were the majority. However, that doesn't mean that all Muslims were opposed to her and to her more liberal ideas. Surely her appeal to the poor and the women of Pakistan will mean that her death will be a bitter pill for the constituency of hers. She is also a strong model for the women around the world who would like to see a better world for themselves and to be able to live even in the face of fear with the hope of making things better for themselves and their country.
I just finished reading Dennis' autobiography and in some ways there is something to take from that book in the wake of the assassination. We are all given an opportunity to wake up to our connectedness. We are all given an opportunity to see that when we reach out to each other to work for our common good that we have the opportunity to instill hope in everyone around us.
We can bemoan the horrors of the violence of someone shooting that brave woman and then blowing themselves up or we can look to her life for the lessons of strength and commitment to make things better that she so believed in that she put her life on the line to try and make that happen.
Sadly, Pakistan is descending into further chaos because of the mistrust and the anger and the frustration the people there feel with their lives and the lack of choice to make things better. Here, too, we can all complain and feel frustrated that the message of courage and the will to make a better life for all is within our grasp if we are allowed to truly speak out and be heard.
Dennis Kucinich tries to do that every day and he does it without the press that doesn't want to hear what he has to say because his ideas run counter to their corporate concerns.
In his book, he describes how his life took these disastrous turns at the most inopportune times. For example, while his family sat in the church waiting for him to graduate from high school, the pastor tried to prevent him from receiving his diploma. He owed the school money and the pastor told him that if he didn't pay then and there, no diploma. Dennis figured out that if he didn't let him graduate then he wouldn't feel the need to repay the debt. So, he signed a note and received his diploma and paid his debt on time. He knew what he wanted and how to find the means to get it.
Prime Minister Bhutto wanted to help her country and to free it from the tyranny it has lived with under a military dictatorship. She has seen her father hanged and her husband tortured. She has seen other members of her family assassinated. She was a strong figure and we owe her the respect and the dignity of mourning her loss.
Yet, I feel that it is important to us to remember the context in which she lived and died and for us too to pay attention to the strong men and women among us who are there ready to lead and who deserve not just our support but our trust.
We mourn the loss of a great leader for Pakistan. We mourn the loss of a human being to death and to violence no matter who or where. We need to find the leaders here who will help us to deal with this troubled planet and heal it and which is why I keep harping on the comparisons of strengths and ideallism we have here in Congressman Kucinich.
Sometimes it takes a shocking loss to remind us what we have in abundance.

On a Sad Note

2007-12-21T12:34:00.000-08:00

No matter how you feel today, your thoughts and prayers should go out to the Kucinich family for their loss of their brother, Perry. It is a difficult thing to lose a sibling especially when he is younger and I do hope that Dennis is finding consolation in knowing that we cannot control what happens to people even when they reside so deeply in our hearts.
With this sadness in mind, I have been thinking about all the good that the Kuciniches do as a couple and how they have affected people and their attitudes towards politics and towards the needs of the people politicians are elected to represent.
There was an excellent article in Huffington Post by Matt Simon about a visit that Elizabeth Kucinich made in lieu of Dennis' ability to be there. He had returned to DC to vote on the war funding issue and she had gone in his place to see a young man who many in the campaign have visited. He is a very young man living in a nursing home with MD and working diligently for the legalization of marijuana. Eleziabeth spent a good deal of time with this young man, Clayton Holton, and listened to what his needs are and what his story is all about.
Compassion is a word that gets thrown about as if it were just a commodity. Or maybe something you can order up on command, when it is needed. But compassion is a way of life and it extends to everyone no matter who or what they are or what they may be suffering with or from. We had to swallow every time someone referred to GWB as a compassionate conservative as if someone hadn't just made that up in order to give him a tag line that might mean something to someone who doesn't think being compassionate is something you work at.
Looking through the resume of GWB it is hard to come up with an instance of true compassion in his past. I can't help but think of one of the things that galvanized Cindy Sheehan against this president was the way he talked to the families of service men and women who had died. It was as if she could sense in his lack of presence any of the qualities one associates with someone capable of experiencing someone else's loss.
Elizabeth Kucinich seems quite qualified to be labelled as compassionate. It is in her resume and it is in her ability to sit and listen to someone who wants to tell her about him or herself and describe the kind of pain they are in whether physical or mental or spiritual.
With all of that wordiness, I guess I am saying, thank God that Elizabeth is with Dennis now while he mourns the loss of his brother and carries on his way to the presidency.
With all the labeling of who is and who is not compassionate based on their own personal history, it is easy to forget what the word really means and where it comes from.
I wish the whole Kucinich family a recovery from the pain they are in.

When Governments Lie too much

2007-12-19T07:40:00.000-08:00

It is now only too obvious that this current administration is addicted to lying and almost about every word that comes out of their mouths is a lie. No longer should we waste our energy worrying about whether they are telling the truth. Our default position should be that they are guilty as charged and we can stop wasting time debating whether or not to impeach or whether they will change. The answers are yes and never. They will need to be impeached so that there will never be another power grab as the one going on now.
If you aren't frightened by it then you are not paying attention. There are good people, like Ray McGovern, the former CIA analyst and John Kaminski from Maine who have had really good insights into the trouble we are in and have come away with hope in their hearts. They are far better people than I am. I am frightened by what I see.
One part of me says, get rid of everyone of them. No one who has served in government and taken money from any corporation should ever be allowed to serve the public. You cannot have two masters.
If money is one of your masters, then you cannot serve the people. The people must come first and with that as their oath along with their oath to defend and protect the constitution, public officials whether a dog catcher or a postal employee or a congress person or the president, needs to take such an oath and to be held to it.
I don't care if there are complementary foundations that would like to offer help to the candidate. We should all pay for the campaigns and maybe then they will not be as long and as exhausting. Maybe they just don't serve our national good at all.
Conversely, we could decide to put all public servants on a service contract. In other words, you apply for the job, you have other candidates for the job and we all interview you and get to make a selection based on a popular vote, e.g., as in a democracy.
But the point is, could we have elected in a fair election, a president such as George W. Bush? Most likely mistakes are made but then others elections would not be tied to his and we could have impeached him 4 years ago and not let this madness continue unabated this long.
I know it is easy to place blame on all of us for not stopping them. We have been watching a very long train having a very big collision. We do not know if we are going to get hit by it so we are scared to move or to change anything. No matter what rock you look under there is damage to this country from this administration and it is just time to look and pray for those who will truly represent us and not the people looking to get even richer than they are now.
If a woman who worked in Iraq and was gang raped there by her fellow employees, i.e., Halliburton employees, and cannot be properly defended and protected, then we none of us has the luxury of going out on the streets to protest alone. We need a critical mass. The best protected still of that political mass is to vote. To vote for Dennis Kucinich in the primaries because you know he is right and no matter how little time he has had to speak out nationally, you know he is right.
He is right to urge you to vote your heart and give to the country the gift of a real change for the better. Not just change for change's sake but change that means the course of this country will be re-routed to conform to the rules and laws set down in our constitution.
When our government has used the obvious course of all dictators, to lie to the public, we know we are going in the wrong direction but we also need to not just be promised a change in direction but a way to get to the new goals.
I can think of no more reliable way to make sure we are heard than at this point to vote. Not just to vote but to work as poll watchers and other election day officials so we can also be assured that all the votes are counted fairly.
As a way of changing what they used to say in Chicago on election day: Get the vote out and count it fairly.

Water Cooler Talk, 12/17/07

2007-12-19T07:38:00.000-08:00

Here is my fantasy: This Monday morning, workers in an office building in Manhattan are not working. They are standing in front of the water cooler discussing what they saw on kucinichtv.com last night. They and their colleagues are all fired up thinking about what is going on in this country and particularly in regards to what has been done to the constitution that is supposed to be the legal means by which this country is governed.

Last night, they heard the congressman as well as John Kaminski and Ray McGovern discuss what has been going on in terms of the shredding of that document. They heard these three men speak in level tones about a topic most of them probably would not have spent two hours on a Sunday night thinking about had these not been the times we are actually living in rather than the times we wish we lived in.

I mean it is just before Christmas. It is a time of parties and anticipating the break from the normal schedule. Yet, these are also the times when it is necessary to stop and talk and think about the ways in which the constitution of the United States has been perverted and shredded by an administration and followed along by a Congress only too willing to throw it out in order to gain for themselves whatever personal advancement they are interested in.

However, my fantasy cohort of office workers is really angry and unnerved by what has been happening. They listened to Gore Vidal introduce the discussion with such sadness and contempt in his voice that they were primed to really think about what they could do.

The one thing that struck all of them was how no other candidate is taking the time to educate us on what the constitution says and what the framers of it meant when they wrote it. Rather than it just being a document that sits somewhere lifeless and unread, the document is quoted, the document even sits inside the jacket of the congressman and he is able at a moment’s notice to bring it out and show you just where the constitution describes, for example, what rights we have as citizens when it comes to our privacy. He can show you the 6 instances where impeachment is mentioned and how nowhere within the document is there any mention of God granting us these rights. This was human work for humans living in the early years of this country’s beginnings. The promise of this series of discussions is that at the end of it all, there will be a white paper giving the country the results of these discussions as well as suggestions for amendments.

For many of the office workers, they are playing a new game called, “Did you know”? For example, they ask each other a question about the constitution’s description of the separation of powers and the checks and balances that is supposed to ensure. When they think about it, they are amazed to think now about what happens in their daily reading of the papers. What is in fact a signing statement? Where is that allowed in the constitution? What is the FISA act and where is the warrant authorizing the government to eavesdrop on a citizen? What is the law about torture? What is an international treaty and when we sign it, what are our legal obligations? The questions begin to outnumber the players of this game and yet, they keep spilling out of their mouths because they are just beginning to understand the serious discrediting of the laws the current administration is guilty of. Thoughts turn to impeachment and why this valid process for removing from office of persons who are lying to their country in order to start a war and to continue it is not being applied as the constitution warrants it should be.

This is the beginning of my fantasy of what could happen if more and more people would take the time to listen to the Constitutional Initiative that Congressman Kucinich has begun and will continue. Since it is free and available to anyone with an internet connection, it is a serious concern of mine that so few people tune in to listen to the discussions of these topics and how they are affecting the government that runs this country.

We need more than 500 people to tune in and to stay tuned in and to participate. We need everyone to care about and defend the constitution because if we don’t, who will and if we don’t, what will happen to it?

Do you feel the anger yet?

2007-12-14T06:55:00.000-08:00

I am trying to stay relatively cool in my response to the Des Moines Register's stupid decision not to allow Dennis to debate. We know the reasons for it and yet, we can all be as mad as hell and wondering what to do to change the circumstances of how we receive our election coverage in order to make an informed choice when voting.
For many the chance to vote is slim to nonexistent due to the feeling of total disenfranchisement by a system that seems so geared towards the ones that the corporations and the media jointly agree will serve their own interests best. We see it all the time and it continues despite what we know to be the truth of that statement. Hardly a fact about itself that a democracy should be proud of nor that these candidates who have been annointed by the media/corporate interests should feel proud of.
I have often asked myself a question: What would I do if I were Hillary, Barack, or any of them and saw the way that Kucinich is treated during a debate and/or not let into a debate?
What would you do?
Would I sit there like a lump on the log and not even pay attention to the way he is not given equal time? Would I be thinking well that is just more time for me to say what I want to say? Would I identify with his struggle at all and decide to offer a hand and a voice so that he received an equal share? Would I stop to think, even in some kind of self-serving way that perhaps people are making judgements about me based on how I let this happen and did nothing?
I don't know but I can guess that if the tables were turned and no one was letting Hillary talk or Barack talk, that Dennis would not stand there and act as if someone were not getting a fair shake. I can feel that about him and his sense of how the world should be when I watch him talk to people.
Did you see the video clip where he asked himself a question at the Black and Brown Debate last week? Did you see how he both asked the question of himself with such politeness and then thanked himself for asking the question? Did you see Hillary laughing at it all as if the pet had just stood up and done the most fantastic trick. Well, he is not the pet, but he is the only one who knew how to ask a good question and to answer it fully.
Start getting a bit angry now because we are truly running out of time and we need everyone to get involved and do something to make sure Dennis is our next president. Start with that premise and work backwards as to how you will make that happen.
thanks.

When Enough is truly Enough

2007-12-13T14:19:00.000-08:00

My good friend Kevin wrote to me last night because he was so angry that Dennis had been blocked from participating in the last Democratic Debate in Iowa today. Do you know why the valid presidential candidate was disqualified? The purported reason had to do with where the campaign's headquarters were located.
Perhaps another reason is at the heart of the matter. And it so happens that Kevin's anger and the reason that Dennis was denied the opportunity to speak about his ideas specfically related to health care has to do with who was one of the sponsors of this "debate."
Kevin is a good friend and his health concerns are large because not only is he on disability but his wife has MS. Her illness is a huge drain on their finances. He wrote to me earlier this month about Dennis and what he had to say about health care, that he was in favor of a single-payer, unviversal health care system that was and will never be a for profit delivery system. This bill hich he co-sponsored with John Conyers of Detroit is a vast overhauling of how we would receive our medical benefits. Kevin was quite sceptical as to whether or not this could even be passed in the congress with the kinds of money the insurance industry has and the way they would fight this.
Others too have written about this. You see, they don't ask how Dennis would fund this because that is really a no brainer, they ask how will he get the insurance industry and the pharmaceutical industry with their enormous lobbies to not butcher his ideas and keep them from becoming a reality?
I understand only too well too what it is like to spend and spend on insurance and to never really get what it is you need. The insurers fight you every step of the way. It is a frightening system that causes such awful problems for so many people that it could fill long ledgers of names of people who would benefit if only we could get this type of universal coverage administered the way Medicare is administered now.
But, then there is the huge stumbling block--the insurance industry. Who is one of the largest backers of the organization sponsoring the debate today? The insurance companies, in fact all of them. If you live long enough to join this organization, from the moment you give them the check, your mailbox is flooded with all kinds of insurance forms to sell you anything that can be insured. This organization's whole purpose in life is to be a shill for the insurance companies. In fact, if we all stretch our minds back a year or so ago, it was AARP that had a membership revolt when they found out how that organization that purported to represent their interests was really representing the interests of the pharmaceutical companies when the whole argument about Medicare drug coverage was proposed by the Bush administration.
So, the fact that Dennis Kucinich is in favor of and proposed, in essence, to end our servitude to the insurance companies, is it any wonder that they are in favor of thwarting his efforts to get his message out?
I watch with interest who the companies are that sponsor these debates and for the most part, not one of the companies spending their money to host these events are representative of the interests of the majority of us who work hard, try to save a little bit and are stretched financially in more ways than we care to report to anyone.
I have listened to Dennis answer questions about this plan while following him around in New Hampshire. I can tell you one important lesson I learned from his description of his health care reform ideas is that we don't sit in judgement of what people need. When a person is in need we help because that is what we are here for.
It can be applied to every social service we need to extend to the citizenry of this country and only one person is talking that way and making it clear where he stands and who he represents. That is why Dennis Kucinich is not allowed to speak--because he really does represent us and what we need.
A more humane way of dealing with all of our ills could be possible if we all get out there and elect Dennis Kucinich for president whether his name is on the ballot or not. It is like making a real investment in all our futures.

An Official Announcement

2007-12-10T04:04:00.000-08:00

I am not a celebrity but I sure can spot some of them when I am in a restaurant in New York waiting for someone to join me. I cannot name the man I spotted the other day and asked to write for the Kucinich campaign. I have no idea why he refused to help us. Therefore I will not share his name. It would only embarrass him come election night when Dennis takes the presidency and he had not signed on to help. I cannot inflict that kind of pain on someone whose work I admire but who has not yet stepped up to the plate to work for a candidate.
Perhaps, and this is just a wishful thought, he will do so soon and just needs to think a bit more.
Sean Penn certainly stepped up to the plate in a big way last week. I first read the whole speech in its entirety on Commondreams.org and I can tell you, it was a big and happy surprise. The Huffington Post picked it up over the weekend. It gained a lot of peoples' attention who are hungry to hear more about Dennis and to be shown that he is on the minds of lots of people. The complaint level is rising, I think about what is not being reported and what is.
I had a nice little op-ed piece published by opednews.com over the weekend about how Dennis' backers will sink the good ship MSM. I hope that people begin to realize as the MSM does already and as the other corporate interests that back the so-called front runners that their do too that a Kucinich presidency means that business will not be as usual. It means that there will be an actual fair wage for workers and good benefits for all and that this screwy economy that rewards only the rich right now will come to a halt.
Did you ever wonder what it would mean to take on the corporate interests? Did you ever see the parallels between the lack of interest by the MSM in Dennis and the fact that he wants them to be governed the same as you and I are governed? Then, perhaps, it is not such a big mystery why they ignore him. In fact it becomes increasingly clear that his way of seeing how fairness actually does matter will wipe out the kinds of unearned but more truthfully robbed wages the corporate bullies receive while denying to the workers the same kind of largesse.
There is a corporate underbelly to this whole world's economy that no one really wants to expose. Oh, yes, Naomi Klein has been and continues to expose it. Take a good look at her new book, The Shock Doctrine and you will begin to understand why Dennis' ideas are more than an inconvenience to the powers that be. Were this new way of looking at the ultra-rich and their priorities to be revealed and what's more, ended, then there would be a real revolution again here on these shores but not against some foreign or faraway power but against the men and women who are enslaving most of us and have no scruples about it whatsoever.
It is a shame tha this does not get reported in our supposedly free press. But it doesn't and it won't. That same press is owned by these same slave owners. Yes, there are sights and sounds that many people are waking up. That is why, for example, we can read about the real reasons for the stage hands strike on Broadway that you won't read about in the New York Times but can read on alternet.org
So, it is time for us to officially announce our freedom from this tyranny and let our voices get out there and say what is needed and how to go about getting it.
We need to see more leaders like Dennis Kucinich step forward too and say the same things. More voices would be a very positive sign.

Interview with Dennis Kucinich

2007-12-06T09:58:00.001-08:00

Are You Keeping Up with the Congressman?

2007-12-05T17:38:00.001-08:00

I swear every day it gets harder and harder to keep up with all that there is to report on and to think through when it comes to a Kucinich campaign. I try to keep up and that is what I am supposed to be doing and I am having trouble doing that.
My recent post on the Huffington Post got a number of people excited that Dennis' campaign is both not getting the coverage it should while at the same time we are all so greedy that whenever something does appear, there is a cry for more and a cry to each other that finally someone is talking about him. I feel honored, honestly, to be in the position of being one of those with the ability to write about him.
The writing itself is difficult at times. Waking up each day to write about the campaign or where he has been or what he has said about something is not that easy. There is a certain lag time that may creep in to having to digest what has been said.
Take the Iran issue. There he was first thing the other morning, as soon as the report was made public, he had a response. His response, like most of his responses, had a lot of clarity to it. But if you go back a few days before that NIE came out, what was he saying? That there was no reason to go to war with Iran because there were no nuclear missiles coming at us. We are not a nation that should be engaged in pre-emptive war. That is not allowed. That is why he is trying to impeach the vice-president and then the president.
Let's all think this through. Whether that NIE had come out or not, Kucinich would have been saying exactly what he has been saying and saying it to the students in New Hampshire and saying it on national television, saying it on Kucinichtv.com and elsewhere. In fact, wherever they do allow him to speak.
And speaking of allowing him to speak. Did you see the clip from the Brown and Black Debate for the Iowa caucus where he asked himself a question? If that was not the purest form of Kucinich humor. Straight from the midwest with lots of dignity but a good laugh too because he did actually get to be asked a question he thought was important and to answer it as well and then, being polite, he thanked himself. Even Hillary found the formatting of it funny. Though did she find it funny that the audience went nuts over what he had to say?
That is the thing about listening to him speak. The audience loves him. Give him five minutes or five seconds and he is going to get everyone's attention and they love him.
That also says a lot about someone getting no attention and yet being the darling of so many progressives who know just what Dennis Kucinich stands for and if they are hearing him for the first time, then they are aware of hearing someone speak to them about the issues they care about too, that are about who they are and what their needs are.
More catching up to do.

Health Care Report from New Hampshire, Part 2

2007-12-03T05:55:00.001-08:00

I am sure that most of you saw the hostage situation unfold in New Hampshire on Friday. I did a bit of reading around of the papers and the blogs to see how people responded to the situation. It is unfortunate that the sympathy by and large all goes to the people who were taken hostage and none of it goes out to this poor guy who had no other way to bring attention to the fact that he was in desperate need of real mental health workers who could work with him to end whatever was obviously disturbing him to such a severe degree.

This man, Leeland Eisenberg, didn't take a gun into the Clinton campaign headquarters and he didn't fire at anyone nor did he hurt someone. What he did was make a really bad call for help. What he got was a lot of attention for a problem that is truly huge in these states where the funding has been severely cut or is nonexistent for good mental health services as well as substance abuse programs. I don't have the figures right here but will find them as to what New Hampshire spends on such cases, but it was known to people in Rochester, NH that this man needed help. Why he didn't receive it is a mystery.

The kind of Sherlock Holmes we need right now is the one who actually sees there is no mystery involve. We all need to be covered for our mental health problems just as we need to be covered for our problems with drug abuse and anger management and our depression and our more severe forms of mental illness. Without this type of coverage in place along with the facilities and professionals who are trained to work with this part of the population, we won't have a decent and democratic form of health care. We will continue to maintain a very discriminatory form that is based solely on your ability to pay.

We cannot send our mentally ill to Bangkok for weekly therapy sessions. While many travel there for surgery, the kind of intense and personally involving care a person with a mental illness deserves and requires is quite different. It also means that we as a society must learn to value all humans no matter their ability to perform as we do.

Dennis' comments to the man in New Hampshire about there being those who do not truly deserve health insurance and the benefits in his plan were fair and would have helped Leeland Eisenberg. He would not have had to take a political ad by Clinton and turn it into a personal message to him that he could get her help if he could get her attention.

Health Care Report from New Hampshire

2007-12-03T05:42:00.000-08:00

It has become clear to many in this country how poorly our current health care truly cares for us. While I was in New Hampshire last week, I heard Dennis speak about his plan for a single-payer, not for profit system and how it would work. But first a little scene setting.

We were at Phillips Exeter Academy in Exeter, NH. The school hosted a Town Hall meeting where a few students had been chosen to ask Dennis questions, which he answered and then he answered questions from the audience. (A report on the following exchange I am about to mention is at the Exeter Times website.) An older gentleman stood up and asked about what Dennis could do for him. It turns out he was a prostate cancer survivor but now his wife was stricken with some form of lymphoma and required an injection every two weeks that cost $10,000 a shot. That is an incredible sum of money and he wanted Dennis to look into this fro him and to see just how the company making this drug could get away with these kinds of charges.

After Dennis promised he would investigate this, another gentleman spoke about what Dennis would do to make sure in his proposed system of health care that there would not be abuses by those who were either malingerers or those who just never took care of themselves.

Dennis, in his own fashion, answered the question. One of the things I came to see was how he would place in context his own reasoning. Answers to questions are not just straightforward rote recitations of facts and figures. There was this constant use of both his own personal experience and how that influenced his ideas. In this case, he spoke of watching his mother die from emphysema. He then moved on to say that of course we would always encourage people to live healthy lives but we would never penalize someone who didn't. According to the world as Dennis sees it, we all could be this woman who ended up with a disease out of the blue that requires this kind of extraordinary treatment. Plus, we are all here for each other. There are those who take excellent care of themselves and something horrible happens. There are those who don't take care of themselves. But the system is there for all of us. This is what a democracy is to Dennis and it made a lot of sense to a lot of people in the room that night.

Then today in the Boston Globe I read the op-ed piece by this doctor who had been assured that his daughter would receive two years of post graduate health insurance on her parents' policy and things didn't work out that way. He said in his piece:
Two important lessons can be learned. First, we need to sever the connection between healthcare and employment. People need continuous, portable coverage that is affordable, comprehensive, and equitable. Second, we cannot depend on the private insurance industry to provide this for us.
Piece-meal reform such as the new law will not work. Both employers and the public support the concept of single-payer healthcare. Big business is starting to realize that a single payer system will be the only affordable way to cover everyone. When will our politicians understand that their political futures will depend on supporting this kind of comprehensive reform?
Michael Kaplan is a family physician and a member of Physicians for a National Health Plan and the board of directors of the Universal Health Care Education Fund.

What happened in the granite state

2007-11-30T11:35:00.000-08:00

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.

Off to see Dennis

2007-11-24T18:32:00.000-08:00

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.

Who Knew?

2007-11-20T09:44:00.000-08:00

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.

Why Conservatism Fails Now

2007-11-19T09:23:00.000-08:00

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.

They Know He Could Win

2007-11-16T10:40:00.000-08:00

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.

Why We Don't Get a Debate

2007-11-15T17:42:00.000-08:00

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.

So You Say You Want a Revolution

2007-11-14T05:30:00.000-08:00

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.

Can we be critical?

2007-11-08T02:53:00.000-08:00

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.

Here's one for the books--What if

2007-11-06T18:00:00.000-08:00

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.

Countering the Negative

2007-11-06T13:07:00.000-08:00

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.

Vote for Dennis, vote early and often

2007-11-05T08:24:00.000-08:00

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.

The time has come to stand up for Dennis

2007-11-02T13:10:00.000-07:00

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.

Lots of talk about Dennis and UFOs

2007-11-02T11:03:00.000-07:00

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.

In Honor of Having Met Dennis

2007-11-01T19:04:00.000-07:00

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.

Dennis on my mind

2007-10-29T08:01:00.000-07:00

Today I watched Dennis' video on his signing up to run in the Democratic primary in New Hampshire and was swayed once again. It is an odd experience for me to feel swayed by a politician. I like writing about politics and their intersection with culture and the arts but to be involved in this more direct way is new to me. It also makes me wonder why am I feeling so tied up in this campaign.
As I look at the times in which we live, I see how extraordinary they are. While the Chinese may say that it is a curse to live in interesting times, and in some ways they are correct, on the other side of that curse is the blessing that when it is necessary, all of us can rise to the occasion and contribute. Many years of thinking about the ways in which the culture and arts intersect with politics have gone into getting me to this point of wondering just who represents my needs and goals the best. I don't think I have ever asked the question before. I never asked either who did I think could get the country and by extension the world out of the mess that is sitting here in our laps.
So, I watched the video and listened to him and asked myself if there were things I disagreed with. Of course there was one tiny point that slipped into my thinking that made me a little uncomfortable and that was I have a difficult time with the state motto of New Hampshire--Live free or die. It has been a rallying cry of the libertarian wing of the Republican party and it seems like an awful expression. However, Kucinich did say some things I thought I would never hear a person running for office of any kind in this country say and that was that we are not here to be the best or on top of everyone else. First principles according to the ways in which this country was first conceived live within Dennis' thinking. Not the most practical thing to say and while it annoys me that most candidates say the most bland and all things to all people stump speeches day in and day out, Dennis is much more of the moment. Things are happening at the moment he is speaking and he is not unaware of them.
In this way, reveries of other stump speeches of other candidates began to rumble through my mind and I know that there is a certain boredom that has to set in when this is what you are saying day in and day out to mostly press people who will then go out and say what you said with some kindness towards it or with some animus towards it.
All in all, life is hard when you have to be on in that way every day.
Blogging is like that too. Every day there has to be a topic of concern to say something about. I have been talking about Dennis for the Huffington Post as well as on myspace and now here. It feels like a new kind of obsession that should lead to either some new insights into what makes politics interesting in and of itself or will grow tiresome and tedious.
But since I do know we live in much too interesting times, I think there will be a very large percentage of the time when there will be more than a human can say in one day.
Today I am preparing to go to Philadelphia for the debate on MSNBC. I hope to be able to blog from there and tell what I have seen and what I hope to see down the road from there. What I do know is this, in my catalogue of skills for anyone I want to have to listen to at all, there has to be some real intelligence as well as a commitment to things of an abstract nature that are not about making us all wealthy and powerful but that speak to the more realistic aspects of life.
We all need good health care and we all need to be able to work and to retire. We all need to eat and if you are watching the papers these days you know that there is a severe food shortage at your local soup kitchens so if you think of it, take in some food now. No one in this or any country should be going to sleep hungry. We also know we all need to be educated and to receive an education that is not just affordable but free.
Start listening to Dennis for the next couple of months and ask yourself, why not Dennis? He is saying everything you want to hear and most likely is going to deliver what he says.

John Nichols got it right

2007-10-27T05:42:00.000-07:00

Hello again on a finally fall day in New York City. I was so pleased last night to read on Common Dreams that John Nichols has understood what Dennis has been saying for a long time about the run-up to war and about war in general. There were many comments about his article, none of them about anything other than what Dennis has been saying about the war.
Many complained about how Dennis is still a member of the Democratic party. Others complained about how ran for president in 2004 and then supported Kerry when he won the nomination. Many complained that he will show up in the convention center and not be out on the picket lines during the Democratic convention this summer. I cannot speak to any of that. To me this is about as relevant an issue as what someone saw in their tea leaves this morning when they got out of bed.
What matters most is that someone in the media is beginning to see why Dennis matters and what this country needs as an antidote to the years of Republican mis-rule. It is going to take someone as iconoclastic as Dennis but who is a part of the Democratic party to fix what has been disastrously broken while at the same time lead us in a way towards healing. He is no messiah come to claim us but a perfectly human being who has loads of incredibly good ideas and wants to be of service to this country.
I urge us all to read more and look for more of the media beginning to listen to what Dennis has to say. There was a great interview with him posted up on his website the other day from a paper in Monterey. I think it is also important to urge your local papers to begin to acknowledge his presence and to write about him. You, too, can write about him and get his name out there for people to start talking about.
Life is too short for us to be worrying about the popularity of someone judged by the amount of money they have been able to raise. Ask yourself just whose money are they all playing with? What kind of a person do you want up there leading the agenda for the next 4-8 years? What will help us to regain some stability and feeling of confidence about ourselves and our own abilities to make the world a better place in which to live?
For these very abstract and not all that specific reasons, there is someone I think can do the job. For the ways in which he articulates his reasons for wanting to lead the country, go to his website.
At tne end of this long election cycle, I do hope we come out with a clearer purpose that serves more of the people who are in need of help rather than just the wealthy who seem to have found a wonderful set of accomplices for stealing the government coffers.

If the Question is about Hillary

2007-10-26T10:36:00.000-07:00

Then we need to ask a number of piercing questions about her and the way her campaign is being reported about. There is a big difference between the way the media portray a candidate and the way a candidate most likely feels about the way she is presenting her ideas.
At this moment, let's just focus on the whole notion of polling. I find it quite objectionable to turn the campaign process into a long and tedious horse race. Americans have a fascination with numbers and believe in numbers they can find surety. I don't think though most of them when asked can tell the difference between a factor and a percentage. So, if numbers are so great, what can we say about them other than that? If Hillary is ahead by 30 percentage points then what does that mean? It then becomes someone else commenting on the differences between numbers and the history of these differences and what they might predict.
The other way to report this campaign process though is much more interesting and has to do with what a candidate actually stands for and what he or she is promising to whom he or she will do when elected. Then a look at numbers can be interesting. But it is who gave how much money to whom and why. Looking at those numbers seems to provide more insight into what interests the candidate represents because no one gives money to someone they hope loses.
Then there is the more time consuming and less quantitatively reported coverage of the campaigns. In this type of coverage, it matters who said what, in what context and what it means. Then we can all sit down and discuss, for example, what is the vote for the Kyl-Lieberman bill all about? Why did Hillary for that and what was she looking to do?
How do you interpret her stance on war and on threatening war in instances that seem particularly Bush-like in their manner? I see it as a way of saying, vote for me because not much will change if you do. To me, that is the kind of impact a war mongerer has.
On the other side of the coin, there is Dennis who is not voting for war measures and is not equivocating about where he stands about this war, the coming war with Iran or any other war.
What press person has been willing to talk to him about these positions? Who has been industrious enough to get in there and talk to him about what a war economy does to us all? Who has talked to Dennis about how equal rights for every citizen translates into a call for war no more?
I could go on and on in this way, but go to his website and read each and every one of this positions on the issues you care about. Rather than re-iterate his comments, I am more inclined to put into perspective what the others are saying as opposed to what we can see documented of what Dennis has to say and beyond that, why, in all good conscience, it makes sense to vote for him.
Peace is a wonderful blessing and his message of strength through peace is the subversion of what the war mongers all believe. To them, peace only comes from the show of the military muscles. It is a sad statement about how we have been trained to think in this country that too many people agree with that idea without really examining it.
Ask yourself, are you interested in just being a number in this election or do you want to really have a voice and elect someone who will be able to articulate your concerns?
Then ask yourself, why not Dennis?

They call it diplomacy but sure sounds like threats to me

2007-10-25T19:30:00.000-07:00

I have never really thought the word diplomacy was intended to be read as a wink-wink word that really meant a threatening statement used to intimidate someone to do what we want them to do. Today's attempts by the Bush administration via the harsh words and wording of the statements made by Secretary Rice made me wonder just how they define "diplomacy."
Perhaps to the current administration, the word just means do it my way or else. To others, such as myself, it means having a discussion where there is room and time to listen to each side without making any threats whatsoever. I don't know how you go to a bargaining table when you have already stated that every option, including dropping bombs on them, are still in play. Who would talk to people who have no interest in really listening except for exactly what they want to hear?
In the convoluted logic of the Bush/Cheney world it is hard sometimes to ever know why they even bother going through the hoops they set out. They are not truly kidding anyone about their intentions. I mean you don't get yourself set up for this kind of war for almost 2 years now and then just walk away, wash your hands of all the planning and movement of people and then say, oh well, I have changed my mind.
There are too many warships in the Persian Gulf right now and there are too many covert operations going on within Iran right now for this to be just a tease or a way to intimidate. This is a slow but gradual way to sidle into war without the need for any kind of declaration of war by the congress. Yet again, through sleight of hand which many, too many, of the people running for president endorse, this duo has gotten its way, circumvented that constitution and its rules for the ways in which war can be declared and they are now let loose to do as they please.
With cohorts in the press, such as the Washington Post, giving them all the propaganda they need and the senators running around acting as if this were just any other day at work, I am amazed at how simple it all turned out to be.
Those of you with sons of draftable age, I suggest you begin finding a way out of the country in order to protect your son from service to this miserable new war. There is no way any of this can happen without some form of the draft being re-instituted and they, Bush/Cheney don't care any more for the political fall out, they won't be in office.
Think about it, we are off to the races again and before most of us wake up to what they have done, there will be another long list of horrendous consequences to their misguided and ill-prepared war in Iran.
Don't say I didn't tell you so.

I Like Dennis, but he can't win

2007-10-25T06:17:00.000-07:00

I hear that line a little too often. It rankles and makes me want to ask people just what do they think they have their vote for? How many of them threw it away on John Kerry because he was touted as the front runner? How many of us were totally embarrassed by his performance at the Democratic convention and moving forward to see just how poorly he responded to each and every attack that came at him? Do you really believe that by voting for who the media tell us is the lead candidate and can get elected that you are using your vote wisely?
I have to say that the way the media create the horse races makes me a bit frustrated. Most of my time is spent reading up on people and thinking about what they have to say. I care little for who thinks Hillary is in front now or that Obama can win now. What I do care about is what each of these front runners is saying about things that concern me and drive me out there to vote.
The unkept and little spoken secret of the media as well is just how much they need certain candidates to win for their own financial reasons. There is no secret that one of the reasons, for example, Valerie Plame got no support in the media when she was first outed as a covert CIA operative was that those who pilloried her were big Republican supporters and supporters of the war. The Washiongton Post, for example, was one of those newspapers that couldn't say enough negative things about her for reasons that were purely political and had nothing to do with the issue of a serious and important law being broken and that no one has yet been held accountable for it.
But I am straying from the original point I am trying to make. We are all voters and our votes must count or there is no democracy here. If we go to the polls and vote with what we believe are our best interests, then we vote for whom we want not for whom we think will win. The point is to vote and to have our say. This is not a lottery and this is not some kind of wishful thinking. These are the facts on the ground of what makes a true democracy.
I wish the press played fair and I wish the people we elected worked for the common good. I wish money and power were not such attractive things for too many of the wrong people. I hope to post soon on my website www.deborahemin.com a good essay on the nature of greed in this country and how it has disrupted the policies we have to live with.
But an equally significant factor is that we are all very bothered by what we see as the culture of corruption in Washington. Dennis has stood up at times when no one else would and we can make as he does jokes about how short he is but sometimes this kind of David and Goliath battle is essential to our well being. That reminds me, I am also working on an essay about that. We can look at King Saul and we can look at David's battle with Goliath. We can use these tropes from the Bible and apply them today in some ways to help us understand what is at stake.
From my perspective, what is at stake right now is the continuance of the life of the planet. I would rather vote for a vegan, peace-loving short man who understands and respects the constitution than whomever it is the media tells me to vote for.

The Press' Problem with Dennis

2007-10-24T06:11:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I saw the press' problem with Kucinich close up and then saw it again today. First it was on some blogger with AOL and then today it is in Salon. I am a little fed up with the stupidity of this media age and can only with great exhaustion counter the idiocy by asking: Where have you been in reporting about Dennis' ideas rather than something Shirley Maclain, of all people, had to say about him from some event that may or may not have taken place a few years ago. I mean the reality of the world is such that this kind of coverage would have me pulling my hair out if I were Dennis.
He may just pull the consitution out of his pocket instead and begin to tell us about the articles of impeachment which is what is on his mind and should be on all of our minds. He is right and as has been reported on in more credible sources, he is convinced, as are too many Americans whose voices don't get heard either, that the president is either a criminal or insane. I vote for both descriptions and am looking for that really good legal straitjacket that would take the president and his country out of our collective misery.
I will talk and talk about the insanity of the Cheney/Bush team because to me it is quite self-evident. There is no way anyone with an ounce of sanity within them would ever be talking about destroying other countries that have never, I repeat, never attacked us. What can we do?
There is a woman in congress who needs to be bombarded with messages saying put impeachment on the table immediately. Serve it up and don't let anyone not eat their peas and carrots. It is necessary to do this and if you don't, the fate of this planet may be in your hands and you should then be relieved of your office for dereliction of duty.
Then the senators should be informed that none of them will have a place at the table either if they do not try these two gentlemen and find them guilty of war crimes. They are butchers and murderers and I am going to stop this rant and go back to what Dennis would be doing and is most likely doing right now.
He is reaching into his pocket and pulling out the constitution and pointing out how to get the job done. He is telling us all to look at the rules, the rules we must abide by in order to make a democracy such as ours work and then get to work getting in touch with Pelosi. She must be told in as many voices as we can raise, put the items of impeachment on the table now and don't let anyone leave until their plates and ours are ready. We need the Cheney/Bush team gone and out of our way so we can guarantee the continued existence of the world.
We also need a president like Dennis who will keep us in line with the constitution because he really does understand it and respect it.
Make that call now, the life we all save, the lives we save, will be ours.

Ladies at Lunch

2007-10-23T05:09:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I had the privilege to be present for the birthday party of a very wonderful woman who is involved politically and socially on a number of issues. Her friends were invited to come for a wonderful meal while I spoke to them about my novel, Scags at 7, which they had all purchased and read so we could talk about it.
What was truly amazing about this experience, beyond how they praised my book and who doesn't like to be told that their novel moved someone to tears, was how the conversation eventually wound its way to politics.
At that moment, seizing on the opportunity to promote the candidate I think is worth the most consideration, I started talking about Dennis' ideas about a Department of Peace. This novel and workable idea whose time is certainly upon us sparked a great deal of enthusiasm as well as support for Dennis. They all saw what it takes firsthand to keep a family together and keep the kids safe and these were women for the most part who are very comfortable financially and have a high level of accomplishment under all their belts.
What struck me as the best of this discussion was the way in which their own accomplishments as writers, artists, event planners, therapists, etc. coincided with more of Dennis' ideas than would immediately strike was as necessarily so. The other key component in the discussion was how hungry they were for an alternative to the usual suspects from Washington and the great gaping mouth for cash--no matter who it came from.
Their disillusionment with Hillary was so apparent because her name never came up. That struck me so much more after they had left than during the talk. Her name was never mentioned. It was as if to these highly successful women, her candidacy was just another re-iteration of what the men were doing so why bother even wasting your time speaking about it.
This goes to show, I do believe, just how much more widespread Dennis' support is than the main stream media is willing to report. There are of course many reasons for their concerted efforts to ignore him and the most apparent of these is that he does not attract the advertising dollars that a name like Clinton does.
I guess if we want the same old, same old as president in the next election, then we have a really long list of people to choose from and if we want someone new and daring and honest and smart, then we have one good candidate to talk about and to support.
The question still remains: Why not Dennis?

Many Mountains to Move

2007-10-22T06:57:00.000-07:00

There are just days when you read the news and see why a Dennis Kucinich presidency will make a huge difference to the way we live on a day-to-day basis. I can begin by looking at something that is very important to me and to anyone who feels the threat of war and the advancing drums of the Cheney/Bush team making it clear just how loud and long a boom of war they are about to commence.
Remember Shock and Awe the two dummies of the last military disaster? Remember the way it not only terrified the Iraqis but us too? I remember lying in bed on the night we went to war with Iraq and knowing full well that the whole Cheney/Bush team was lying to us about the WMDs and the fact that millions of people had marched all over the world and it had not stopped what was going to become and has now become the worst military disaster imaginable.
Let's pray to God that this next war can be averted by getting many more of the congress to stand up to the two psychotics in chief and help them let go of the controls. The military which had sworn it would not go to war with Iran--where is it these days? And no amount of marching in the streets or banging on pans will stop these mad men.
How do you stop them? Some kind of legal straitjacket would be a good way to begin. We definitely know that they are certifiably insane and need to be pulled back from the abyss where they are taking us too.
Do you remember the film Dr. Strangelove? Remember the cowboy on the rocket at the end? There is the perfect image of our president at the end of his term in office. Don't let him fool you that he wants to live in Dallas and run a peace institute. He just needs to be institutionalized and then we can all breathe a bit deeper and more safely.

Getting Started

2007-10-21T17:12:00.000-07:00

Getting a blog started with the title, Why not Dennis, is a rather daunting project. First of all, Dennis Kucinich deserves a lot more attention than he has been getting from the mainstream media as well as from the voters. I, for one, would not have thought much about him had I not read his website through and then signed up to receive his email postings.
At first these came through slowly and eradically. Now they are often and of such importance that I decided to take it upon myself to begin a frequent blog listing all the reasons we need to keep up the pressure to get the votes out for this incredible man.
What a lucky thing too that someone short, male, white and with a funny voice is running for president. He fits none of the stereotypes of a man who wants to take charge of the one of the largest military/industrial/technological complexes in the world. I think what those people fear is the way in which he may begin to dismantle it all. That's right, he is not interested in helping billionaires run the world, he is more interested in the nickel and dime kind of businesses that will help working people like you and me. There is not much money in good health care run for the people who need it. Nor is there much money for the array of consultants and lobbyists who want to keep the wheels of government greased for those who train and send out mercenary armed forces.
Think about the ways in which this country would be changed, not overnight, but certainly incrementally and constantly if a president of Dennis' caliber were running the show. My mind buckles with the number of possibilities that emerge when I ponder the array of changes, the magnitude of each one and how that would change, for the better, the way we live each and every day of our lives.
But we must hasten this time of change because the powers that be right now are on a truly horrific path to further destruction of countries, people and the environment. The only way to begin the end of their reign and to ensure that Dennis Kucinich is elected is to get involved in any way that you can.
Perhaps the best and most efficient way at this moment is to start talking about why Dennis is the best person for the job and that we don't have to fear who he is taking money from in order to do the work that we will be putting him in place to do for us.
Please think about this now and let's all get moving together.
Thanks.