The great left hope? – Salon on Dennis Kucinich

[pruner]

Many progressives are praising Dennis Kucinich for saying all the right things -- and then they're backing other Democrats. But the Cleveland populist says he's running to win.

By David Moberg

Oct. 18, 2003  | Rep. Dennis Kucinich caught presidential fever about 20 months ago. He had quickly written an impassioned speech, "A Prayer for America," about the evils of the Bush administration and his own hopes for the nation, which he gave to a conference of the Southern California Americans for Democratic Action. Without his knowledge, ADA leader Lila Garrett began circulating the speech on the Internet. Within weeks Kucinich received more than 25,000 enthusiastic e-mails. Last February, precisely a year and many speeches later, he initiated his presidential campaign at a labor union conference in Iowa, promising to deliver "a government you can call your own, a people's government, a workers' White House."

This week, with more attention to his Cleveland roots in a poor, transient, blue-collar family, he gave speeches relaunching his campaign with an equally undiluted progressive message as he flew around the country.

But if Kucinich initially felt the draft of political movement winds, those gusts haven't turned into a hurricane. Often dead-last among the nine contenders in national polls, such as a Washington Post/ABC poll released this week, Kucinich also has not yet succeeded in recruiting the support of many activists who agree with him on issues. He was an early opponent of war against Iraq and played the lead role in organizing 126 House members to vote against authorizing Bush to wage war. But Gov. Howard Dean and even Gen. Wesley Clark, both of whom have been somewhat less consistent war critics, have mainly benefited from Democratic antiwar sentiment. It has also been Dean, not Kucinich, despite Kucinich's closer ties to progressive movements, who has sparked a popular uprising so far with his campaign.

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2003/10/18/kucinich/index_np.html (premium content)

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

1. Even if Dennis does not win the Nom...

(and I don't think he will, sadly. America needs good people like him.) he will bring to the fore a lot of issues in this race, issues that the DLC would be happy to see dissapear.

Voices like Dennis' are best heard loudly and very often. Incessantly, even.

[DemBones DemBones]

2. This is what disappoints me so much about progressives today:

"Many progressives are praising Dennis Kucinich for saying all the right things -- and then they're backing other Democrats."

And the Democrats getting the most backing might as well be Republicans.

:shrug: I don't get it. :shrug:

[pruner]

3. what does this mean?

the Democrats getting the most backing might as well be Republicans

[RichM]

7. Well, for example, it refers to the ridiculousness of someone like Clark

benefitting from antiwar sentiment, when Kucinich is the real antiwar candidate, & Clark is only running as a "Democrat" because the Republicans wouldn't offer him the top job.

[JohnKleeb]

6. I dont get it either DBDB

How very sad and it makes me wonder, WHY.

[Tinoire]

8. I just got it a few minutes ago

I just hung up on a very good friend of mine (first husband actually) over this... :( After listening to 20 minutes of that NY accent screaming "Kucinich is unelectable" "Kucinich is unelectable" (urgh that's still ringing in my ears- those New Yorkers are shrill) and "You're not going to sell this guy to Iowa or to steel workers" (I gave him a HISTORY lesson on Dennis and steel workers I assure you!), I forced him to talk about the issues, any issue... but he hadn't been following any real issues... It made no sense to me that some guy in New York City, who hasn't followed a single debate or compared the candidates on the issues was yelling at me that I am being too idealistic and unrealistic. 3 thoughts after that:

1. I hope like hell he's not going to vote in the Primaries

2. I realized that these same people who aren't paying attention are the very same people we can blame Bush on because year after year they didn't paid attention to squat and kept voting for whatever Corporate America gave them as a choice after the Primaries

3. That some of these same people who aren't even paying attention are DARING to tell us who is electable and who isn't

4. That not enough people have taken the time to think about why and how we got here

Could it be because they had a life during all these years that we've been discussing and researching and fighting? And are still selfish enough to want their lives during this, the most important election of lives? ...................

They're not paying attention! They don't even really care (hell and my first husband actually cares because he's at least following in the papers and knew who DK was).

They're not paying attention. And they tell us that Dennis is unelectable...

Well, if they can't care enough to examine the candidates to get a good candidate up there- I'll be damned, really and happily damned, before I vote for anyone other than the man I believe in in order to cater to half asleep people.

If that much of America is asleep right now, then the fight is lost and America WILL DESERVE 4 more years of Bush. After the Primaries, after I've fought with all my might for Kucinich, if Kucinich doesn't win, I will not lift a finger to push the Democratic candidate because I owe absolutely no loyalty to people who are stupid enough to be asleep right now and no loyalty to a Party that seems to be going out of its way to marginalize a progressive candidate.

I am even more disappointed in fellow DUers who have been paying attention and who know how instrumental they are in getting the right candidate up there but who aren't working to make that person electable. We determine electable damn it!

Awww hell, the conversation didn't end pleasantly :( and now I am a bit sad

Thank God my friend John Kleeb is on IM :) :hi: John!

[IranianDemocrat]

4. Kucinich/Nader 04 baby!

With Kucinich's 1% and Nader's 2% we are on our way to national domination!!!

[pruner]

5. LOL

:)

[Tinoire]

9. Smaller movements have started with less

You have to love these times though

both during the last 3 years under Bush and the present pre-Primary times in the Democratic Party:

Never, in the history of America, have so many done so much for so few.

[Nottingham]

10. Whoo Hoo Dennis!

:bounce: :bounce:

[tlcandie]

12. I find this quite interesting ...snipped from the article

<snip>
Kucinich arguably has pushed the rest of the Democratic field to be more critical of the war in Iraq and more supportive of fair trade rules. After Kucinich came out strongly against Bush's request for $87 billion more for the occupation and reconstruction in Iraq, both Kerry and John Edwards also shifted into the opposition camp. For some supporters, it's worth having Kucinich in the race simply to set a higher standard for what counts as progressive. "It's real important for Dennis to be in the race because of what he does to the other candidates," argues Iowa Public Policy project director David Osterberg. "Somebody needs to say that's where we ought to be, even if it takes a couple of elections to get there."
<snip>

So, here's MY challenge..

THROW KUCINICH OUT! Now where are you all? Back to square one because he's the heart and soul of THIS movement that everyone is jumping onto the bandwagon for...

Because ELECTABILITY is in...he's out. If you are all correct in that he is NOT electable and he has no chance in hell, then it is a sad, sad day for Americans. A sad, bitter defeat that we give in to the media and others who tell us what THEY THINK is correct and electable!
A sad day because we may never get this chance again. A sad day because when you remove the catalyst there's nothing left but smoke and mirrors.

Sometimes I wish we were all poor like in South America, so we could get it! They didn't need million dollar campaigns, the media, electability...they just needed grassroots, a reason, a passion to TAKE BACK WHAT HAD BEEN STOLEN FROM THEM! Sometimes I envy them in that they never let their hearts and souls get stolen and they never lost hope or truly caved into the vision of the powermongers.

NOTE: I'm not dissing anyone's candidate. I am speaking about the phenomenan that is causing people not to vote even though their hearts tell them they should.

TAKE BACK YOUR POWER PEOPLE!!

EDITED: to show snips

[Tinoire]

13. Fantastic post!

I just posted something along those lines elsewhere.

We will NEVER get this chance again which is exactly why I will NOT accept a Centrist candidate this time.

IF NOT NOW, THEN WHEN?


Everyone... think about it and watch, please watch The Time is Now

[tlcandie]

14. Thanks Tinoire ...Coming from you .. that IS a compliment!

I was thinking about something else. I think most are afraid of the cabal and where we are headed, but I think they are even more afraid to move out of their comfort zone of politics.

That being said, most would rather do the centrist, same old gig thing rather than go for the real deal. Comfort zones and fear.

I just think 'electability' is an easy out; a nice compact, acceptable little name that can be used so they don't have to truly look into the mirror and face the fear looking at a NEW future... something unknown.

Someone said that hope has to be defined. People will not go for it if it can't be envisioned or defined and maybe the majority of Americans just aren't where they can envision and define what a NEW future for them would be exactly. Maybe this is where we are failing?

Dennis and his heartfelt campaign is awkard, scarey and seemingly unreal and something most would rather not touch unless they were left with no choice at all.

Oh, if Americans could only latch onto the wave sweeping South America and see what is truly possible for our country...if we could manifest that vision for them to all see and feel where it pulsated through their veins...then we could truly be free and be proud to live in America!

CATCH THE SPIRIT AMERICA ....

http://aroy.miena.com/
<snip>
Despite the pall of gloom that hangs over us today, I'd like to file a cautious plea for hope: in times of war, one wants one's weakest enemy at the helm of his forces. And President George W Bush is certainly that. Any other even averagely intelligent US president would have probably done the very same things, but would have managed to smoke-up the glass and confuse the opposition. Perhaps even carry the UN with him. Bush's tactless imprudence and his brazen belief that he can run the world with his riot squad, has done the opposite. He has achieved what writers, activists and scholars have striven to achieve for decades. He has exposed the ducts. He has placed on full public view the working parts, the nuts and bolts of the apocalyptic apparatus of the American empire.

Now that the blueprint (The Ordinary Person's Guide to Empire) has been put into mass circulation, it could be disabled quicker than the pundits predicted.

Bring on the spanners.
<snip>

[veganwitch]

11. i love that picture!

he broke into "this little light of mine" last night at the announcement party in dc.

[tlcandie]

15. This is what I was looking for earlier...

http://www.arundhatiroy.org.uk/

Confronting Empire...

<snip>
If we look at this conflict as a straightforward eye-ball to eye-ball confrontation between "Empire" and those of us who are resisting it, it might seem that we are losing.

But there is another way of looking at it. We, all of us gathered here, have, each in our own way, laid siege to "Empire."

We may not have stopped it in its tracks - yet - but we have stripped it down. We have made it drop its mask. We have forced it into the open. It now stands before us on the world's stage in all it's brutish, iniquitous nakedness.

Empire may well go to war, but it's out in the open now - too ugly to behold its own reflection. Too ugly even to rally its own people. It won't be long before the majority of American people become our allies.
<snip>

MUCH, MUCH more .. a MUST read! She is as inspiring as Kucinich!