Kucinich reloaded...memory lane.....

[Desertrose]

Got this email from a friend today & thought I'd share....



Speaking of The Man Who I Hope Will Someday Be Prez, I came across
the article below again and it made me think happy thoughts. Thought I
would pass it on...

It was before the speech, outside in the blazing sun behind the
theater, that I got the chance to speak to Kucinich alone. I told him
that we'd driven around together in a car 25 years ago, and he
surprised me by saying he remembered that day. But then I asked what
I'd really come to ask.

I remarked that so many people had been working for so long for
progressive change--on issues from corporate responsibility to
alternative energy to economic democracy. Was he as surprised as I that
not much actually had been accomplished? "In some ways, we seemed
closer then than we are now," I said.

The question came because of something that had been drilling in my
head ever since Bush took office, since the World Trade Center towers
came down, and especially during the war in Iraq: Progressive-minded
people seemed so often out of touch with what most Americans wanted,
needed. What was the point in us talking to each other constantly,
preaching always to the already converted? I told Kucinich I believed
in the ability of individuals to make a difference, yes, but that I had
grown weary of the beautiful-loser syndrome in which progressives
seemed locked.

It was then that Kucinich began scolding me.

He admonished my cynicism, saying I shouldn't go there: "When you lose
hope, that becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy that can stop us from
achieving that which may be just a little out of reach right now."

He referred to hope as an "imminent reality"--"a reality that is
waiting to be called forth." Indeed, one could say we called forth the
right to vote for people who were not property owners, he said. We
called forth the Emancipation Proclamation. We called forth the right
of women to vote and the ability of young people to participate in the
political process.

"Throughout our country's history, there are moments when change
happens," he said, "and it seems to have happened all at once. But the
truth of the matter is it came about because over the many years,
people relentlessly pursued their dreams and hopes. "

"My approach," he said simply, "is to try to draw the reality a little
closer." Later, inside the theater, the congressman said it another
way. Quoting Percy Bysshe Shelley from Prometheus Unbound, he spoke of
"hope creating from its own wreck the thing that it contemplates."

He'll not be president in 2004. But how grateful I was to be reminded
by Dennis Kucinich that countries can be transformed, that people have
the power and that some things never change.

And some things do.

The excerpt above is from "Kucinich reloaded" by Melinda Welsh, 6-5-03
found at http://www.newsreview.com/issues/sacto/2003-06-05/essay.asp?Print=1

[Earth_First]

1. The ability that Dennis has to fill a room so full of optimism...

will never cease to astound me. While working on his Presidential campaign during the primaries, I had the opportunity to speak with him a few times, one on one. The charge and renewed optimism that I recieved after these brief conversations I cannot express in quite the eloquant way that some may. However, if you have heard this man speak, you have felt exactly the way I have, and continue to feel through his ability to envoke truely progressive optimism in all of us.

P.s. I'm glad to see a DK group has assembled.

[Droopy]

2. That's our man Dennis

Hope personified.

[LWolf]

3. Another classic jewel from Dennis.

"When you lose hope, that becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy that can stop us from achieving that which may be just a little out of reach right now."

He referred to hope as an "imminent reality"--"a reality that is
waiting to be called forth." Indeed, one could say we called forth the
right to vote for people who were not property owners, he said. We
called forth the Emancipation Proclamation. We called forth the right
of women to vote and the ability of young people to participate in the
political process.

"Throughout our country's history, there are moments when change
happens," he said, "and it seems to have happened all at once. But the
truth of the matter is it came about because over the many years,
people relentlessly pursued their dreams and hopes. "

I'm going to have to forward this on; I found a need for it in one of the family/Thanksgiving conversations this week.

:loveya:

[eridani]

4. One of my favorite stories

http://www.dukenews.duke.edu/news/campaign_compassion.html

Saturday night, I found myself in a parking garage with Dennis Kucinich and a sleeping homeless man. This is our story.

It begins with me, a life-long Republican at an Iowa Democratic Party fundraiser. Four presidential candidates speak. Thousands of dollars are raised.

As we leave the ballroom, I ask Kucinich a question that mentions a homeless man sleeping in the stairwell of the hotel's parking garage. Kucinich immediately responds, "He's there now? I'll go visit him." And 20 minutes later, we meet at the garage's entrance - a congressman, an aide, a security agent and me.

The four of us walk down the dark stairwell. Kucinich stops. He doesn't want to frighten the sleeping man, and whispers to us to keep our distance. Three of us stand 10 steps above the concrete floor this sleeping man calls home.

Below, the congressman stands motionless, staring at this man whose poverty is absolute. Is Kucinich thinking of his own past? As a boy, his family sometimes lived in cars. Tonight, Kucinich's face says more to me than any speech he's ever given. I believe that he is suffering right along with this helpless and hopeless sleeping man. It is 25 degrees out tonight. How cold was the boy in Cleveland who called cars home?

The congressman finally kneels beside the man and leaves a gift. What will the homeless man buy with the significant amount of money Kucinich has left him? I'd like to think he is a Jean Valjean, a discouraged man for whom one display of compassion and generosity will inspire a new beginning. I'd like to think he will not buy drugs or alcohol. I'd like to be less cynical.

Before I joined the campaign trail, friends quipped that I'd come back a Democrat. I doubt it. But I also doubt that I will ever forget the sleeping man whose name I never knew and whose face I never saw. Nor will I forget the look of compassion on the face of a motionless Dennis Kucinich, as he visited a man whom most of his party and most of his country would rather ignore.

[eridani]

5. And in Florida--

http://www.folkmusic.com/archive/z_kucinich.htm

A candidates forum at the University of South Florida sponsored by the student government. All presidential candidates (including the President) are invited. DJK is the only one who responds. The appearance is, essentially, a speech/Q&A. Many college Republicans are in evidence with Bush/Cheney signs. Dennis is brilliant in his ability to present the issues in an almost entirely non-partisan way while at the same time making clear his positions. Never once does he mention W. He handles a number of intentionally trick questions with absolute ease and touches on issues that are of common concern to all students, irregardless of party loyalties. Some Repubs leave in frustration. More leave their signs under their chairs and join the crowd around DJK at evening’s end. At the conclusion of the Q&A DJK says, “I have one question I’d like to ask…” and asks me to come up and sing something. I seize on his talking points about combating the culture of fear that pervades our thinking individually and nationally. Beforehand he’d asked me to pick something to sing that would be familiar to the audience and that he could join in on. I chose “Get Together” by the Youngbloods and we delivered a serviceable duet that was a perfect exclamation point to his presentation.
--------------

Tim started with a song, DJK spoke. He was in rare form…quoting Shelley, Yeats, Decartes, Emerson…drawing in the crowd with wide-ranging references to physics, metaphysics, literature, history and art. Having listened to him, in order, address a union audience that morning, a religious audience that afternoon and a college audience that evening I was struck by his ability to present ideas that were intelligent without being elitist, compassionate without being corny, bold without being batty and spiritual without being sectarian. He answered complicated questions directly and clearly, drawing roars of appreciation even from those who expected him to be evasive. In fact, a group of Bush/Cheney supporters lamented near the end of the Q&A that they weren’t registered to vote in the primary because they would have liked to have cast theirs for Kucinich.

All in all, I’ve never…in my many years of following elections and voting…witnessed a candidate with the kind of expansive intelligence, with the ability to focus attention on issues common to all the citizenry while at the same time proposing solutions that are radical only in their uniqueness, not in their audacity. Kucinich is the rare candidate that is actually more humble than you’d like him to be. He mentions past victories only to prove that thinking and acting “outside the box” means there’s enough room for success for all. He challenges us to be courageous enough to believe that we can accomplish things. That we are more than we seem. That we are hampered not by inability but by fear. A cynic would decry his speeches as radical politics masquerading in the guise of self-help cheerleading. But the fact remains that our nation and this world is crippled by a sense of hopelessness and fear. We believe our problems are too great, our resources are too limited, our numbers are too small, our opponents to powerful, our time too short. We are sold a bill of inevitability and we are paying with not only our pocketbooks but with our souls. Unless and until we are able to wrestle our demons…be they personal or communal…we will never have peace. It requires a kind of reshaping of the national dialog and the courage to reject old paradigms for what they are: out-dated, divisive and unsuccessful.

[LWolf]

6. Your stories bring tears to my eyes.

But they are tears of hope.

Too often, feeling alone against the pack, swimming upstream, I am tempted to give up. To abandon the efforts to reach people, to effect change, to believe in them. When one person can continue to shine his light, and reach out to all, regardless of what is happening in the larger political picture, I am humbled. If he can do this, I can support his efforts by doing my own little part out here. I can do the same right where I am.

[eridani]

7. Yet another tearjerker from William Rivers Pitt

http://www.truthout.org/cgi-bin/artman/exec/view.cgi/4/3375

In speech after speech, in place after place, Dennis Kucinich asked the same question time and again. “How much change,” he asked, “are you ready for?” The people gathered in these places, people who came out by the hundreds, always leaned forward hungrily, always cheered, always waited for the word. Without fail, Kucinich brought that word, and people left filled.

It comes down to this. Dennis Kucinich is running for President, but he is also formulating a national movement that will be in place long after the race is run. This movement, in all 50 states, will stand ready to defend the most basic American principles that have been lost for years. The movement stands for the workers. The movement stands for the families. The movement stands for the environment. The movement stands for health care. The movement stands for peace.

The movement stands for America. During his speech in Dubuque, Kucinich said, “My campaign is about bringing the end of fear in this country, the fear which keeps us from standing up for our own interests, the fear which causes people to take positions that are against the interests of the American people. The red in our flag stands for courage, not fear. The white in our flag stands for purity. The blue in our flag stands for loyalty. When Francis Scott Key wrote the Star-Spangled banner, he posed a riddle to all of us. He asked a question. Does that Star-Spangled banner yet wave in the land of the free and the home of the brave? He made the connection between freedom and bravery, between courage and democracy.”

“My candidacy,” he said in Dubuque, “is about calling forth the fearlessness that exists in the heart of every American, calling forth the courage to meet each day on its own terms. Without fear, with confidence, with hope, with the anticipation that we can meet the challenges, whether they be terrorism or poverty. This campaign is about a celebration of who we are as Americans, about the path of fearlessness that will lead us forward in the world, about the path of courage which will lead us to a country where we have health care for all, jobs for all, education for all, and peace in the world. We are capable of this. It is time to create a new America. The time is now. The time is now.”

Dennis Kucinich reminds people why they are Democrats, why they are progressives, in the first place. He is the soul and the spirit of those beliefs personified, he is Franklin Delano Roosevelt returned, walking and talking and preaching in the 21st century. Anyone who doubts this has not seen the man in action, has not met the people who surround him and support him.

This run for the White House is about far more than winning that office. If you think the end of the primaries will spell the end of his run, think again. If the Democratic Party should win the White House in 2004, a powerful progressive network will have to be in place to push the new administration in the right direction, and against the tide that has been unleashed. This is what Dennis Kucinich is constructing, one brick at a time.

This tide has only just begun to rise. How much change are you ready for?

[rhite5]

8. The first time I heard Dennis speak was on a Sunday in July 2003 ...

He was in Eugene and had just come from a Democratic Party Chili Feed held at the Wayne Morse Ranch (which I had not attended). Now in the early evening he was speaking in a very large lecture hall on the UofO campus. The hall was packed with many standing along the sides and across the back.

I was not yet a Kucinich supporter. I did not know what to expect.

I was still reeling from the emotional roller-coaster of the spring of 2003, the huge Anti-War marches united around the world, the Invasion of Iraq on false pretenses and the disgusting, embarrassing "Mission Accomplished" crap. (I had also lost a nephew that spring, a well-loved obstetrician in New Mexico, lost in an avalanche in Canada.) A severe political rift had existed for some time between me and my extended scattered family who almost all supported the war.

I was mesmerized. The Kucinich message of HOPE underscored the entire address. "Imagine Peace," he said. Tears came to my eyes.

I was hooked.

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