Message 4 All Kucinich Supporters

[Breeze54]

http://progressivelytreva.efx2blogs.com/33381/We+Must+Not+Surrender.html">We Must Not Surrender

Cross posted with permission from author

Posted on Friday, January 11, 2008 at 3:54 AM in Fight for Freedom

The following is a message that I originally posted at my campaign blog in the Dennis4President community. I'm posting it here. It's unedited. Some things might appear a bit out of sequence and it is rather lengthy.

I opened with a suggestion for any one that did not have time to sit in front of their monitor to read it, or weren't up to reading a message that long, to copy it to read off line. That way, they can read it in doses, or at a more convenient time.



During the Dennis Kucinich campaign in 2003 we had a mascot. Our mascot was a horse that lived back in the days of the Great Depression (which lasted longer for most people, than the wealthy minority). The horse's legend was finally given its due with a book and a movie bearing his name in their titles, Sea Biscuit.

Sea Biscuit symbolized the "long shot" horse that raced from the back of the line to finish in First Place. Many Kucinich supporters expected our advocate/candidate to do the same in what is treated as a celebrity candidate horse race - the Presidential primary and final elections.

I made a point to watch Sea Biscuit and to read the book, just to find out why Kucinich supporters exclaimed, "Go! Sea Biscuit!"

Besides the obvious physical differences and such, I noticed another difference between Kucinich and Sea Biscuit.

Sea Biscuit's previous owner and trainer had trained this horse to lose to help other select horses win. They cashed in on this, the way plutocrats have worked through the media and our education system to train the majority of working class Americans to make certain types of decisions against our best interests. It was a way to enable schemers that worked through the government, economy, industries, and commerce to profit from the people's limitations, sacrifices and losses.

The turning point in Sea Biscuit's life as a race horse, as well as, that of his new rider and friend, trainer, and his owner, came when the trainer discovered similarities between Sea Biscuit and his rider and instinctively realized, the two were made for each other. It also came, because a group of people that had suffered losses and anguish found each other and then found their race horse - whose heart had been broken, side had been scarred, whose pain had evolved into rage and rebellion.

As Sea Biscuit and his rider (another long shot) were going through the process of de-programming their self-defeating conditioning to evolve above them, they made improvements that showed on the track. However, they weren't winning race after race during the early part of this transformation process. The horse, rider, trainer and owner kept trying no matter how much heckling they got from people that laughed at their small horse, large rider, and each one's reputation in the racing circles.

Then they won.

Each one won because, at least, one other person believed in them and cared. Each one won, because somebody believed that you don't throw a good horse away on account of something that works against him, or a couple of men, or a boy, or a woman.

Sea Biscuit's trainer and owner paid attention to what worked for the horse and his human friends and what was working against them. Losing a race provided them with the question, or obvious explanation of why the race was lost.

If we pay attention, we know what's working against us. We know that our opponents are cheating. We know that they lie. We know that they use the resources in their possession and control to rig the human race to the White House.

If our efforts to send Dennis Kucinich to the West Wing and Oval Office end contrary to our needs and desires, then we have now and the next four years to formulate a way of trying to break down the barriers and, just in case, to get around them. We must be smarter than our opponents. We must out-wit them.

When I get wind that certain entertainment industry insiders support Dennis Kucinich and share some of our values, or more, I wonder why they don't get together and tap into the wide-spread talented and skilled allies to create a new media that doesn't come off as a radical one, which Air America presents itself as FOX's polar opposite.

Humor is one way to influence people. It works best when something within it resonates sentiments that already exists in the majority of the audience members. Humor also has healing properties. It helps us to keep our sanity when we're under the type of stress that can weaken our will, attack our immune system, and drain us until we surrender.

We must not surrender!

I noticed, all the Democrats and some alternatives that decided to vote against Cheney and Bush by throwing their votes to John Kerry and his running-mate John Edwards. I remember how these people reacted after Election Day in November 2004, after Kerry and Edwards conceded to Bush and Cheney, despite obvious signs that the election was riddled with problems, which included evidence of fraud involving certain types of ballots and bags full of paper ballot stubs for the opti-scan ballots. The taste of defeat and the prospect of another four years of BushCo was bad enough. Kerry's and Edwards' decisions and conduct following the election and the electoral college was the acid poured on these voters' wounds.

For a very short time many of them were finally willing to open their eyes and ears to what we were saying all along. Some of us knew that these people, like most Americans, are slow learners and slow to make changes in their thought and behavior patterns, which have been conditioned in part by plutocratic influences that operate through the mass media.

The problem with our side is that some among us share a certain debilitating belief with most other Americans. This belief is that when the election results and the so-called winner are declared then we can all take our focus off the political and government "diversion" and back to narrowing it on our personal interests. If any one on our side has adopted this problem, then I'm here to tell you that this is part of why we aren't making much progress.

It took over 200 years for slaves in this country to gain the same legal protections of rights, humane treatment and respect that were considered to be a birth right to most Euro-Americans. That American Revolution is just one cycle in a series of cycles which make up the unfinished American Revolution that began long before George Washington was declared the first US President.

Let us bear in mind that dark and gloomy times have given many people through the long stream of human generations plenty of reason to think that they would always be oppressed, hunted, attacked, tortured and killed.

Gandhi, Martin Luther King, and many others risked their lives standing up to "authorities" despite all efforts intended to convince them and their forces that since one side was well equipped and in control, the other was not, these people needed to give up, submit and accept the status quo as a way of life. These aforementioned leaders and scores of people that shared their spirit and dreams sacrificed dearly for the benefit of others.

They had plenty of reason to groan, "We're done. It's over. We lost. They won." They could have given up. Maybe, they would have lived to watch their kids grow and to play with their grandchildren had they given up, gone home and focused on their personal lives. I dare not even imagine what life would be like for all the people whose lives they touched had it not been for their determination and strength to keep moving on.

We can challenge the corporate media. We can expose the "news" for what it really is. We have the means to do it.

I have newspaper production under my belt. I can write fairly well. I love to dig for information, assess it, combine it, and form a synopsis of what I find. I am also very creative in other ways. I have been studying things which help me to think and imagine strategically. I have much to offer. I recognize this within myself.

Dennis has much to offer, as we know. So does his wife. They recognized this within themselves. Dennis took his basic experience and dreams to college to develop a sound foundation to build upon it in the direction he chose to take his life on behalf of others.

What about you? I do not want any one of you to tell me that you have no assets to offer. I guess, many of you have taken inventory of the resources you can offer. You might even find that you have more to offer than what meets the eyes.

Now, imagine we bring our talents, skills, knowledge and other resources and pool them together. Imagine, we develop various departments which can operate through a network.

Imagine what we can accomplish. If not this year, then by November 2012. If it means, we have no other option, but to push up a goal four more years ahead, let us avoid dooms-day projections that work like rain on a small camp fire.

United We Stand; Divided We fall.

Keep the faith.

Sincerely,

Treva L. Van Fossen.