What I Did on my Holiday Break

You don't get to see my face, but I'm the guy talking in the background.

Today is the 'Kucinich Money Bomb'

    Please donate! Kucinich has overwhelming support among Democratic activists and among the general population in polls that ask them solely about the issues. Let's help turn these factors, which should in a true democracy guarantee him to be elected, into an actual progressive electoral victory.

Kucinich answers health care question....from himself

Thanks for donating!

     I just wanted to say thanks to the two special individuals who recently donated $100 each to the Kucinich campaign through our ActBlue link on the side! I hope it felt as good afterwards to you as my donation did to me.

Doing the Right Thing

If this doesn't convince you to vote for Kucinich, I don't know what will.

'Making the case for WWIII' cartoon

If an alliance of first world nations like France, Germany and the UK joined in battle to stop America’s reckless foreign policy, it might be good for America in the long run. It might be a good wake-up call to dead-end citizen demographic who simply don’t give a shit about anything other than themselves.

They don’t care about kids.

They don’t care about economics.

They don’t care about law.

They sure as Hell don’t care about the environment.

But they do want to control you and monitor you in every way imaginable.

If America is conquered, we might get our taxation realigned with reality, we might get universal healthcare - we might even get our economy rolling again.

In all seriousness, if the Esercito Italiano (Italian Army) came knocking on my door, I think I might just say “Ciao! Sangiovese?”

Leave it to Dennis

    

Kucinich Video Remix

Here's a great new Kucinich video that just came out. Show your friends!
    

I no longer fear the Kucinich revolution: Part 4

     Another great comic from Town Called Dobson.

In Parts One and Two, I discussed the support Kucinich has and the irrational fear also associated with electing Kucinich. In Part Three, I discussed Kucinich’s time as Mayor of Cleveland and how the GOP slander machine stating “he drove Cleveland into bankruptcy” is an out right lie. Today we are moving on to the real important stuff - issues.

I have heard a lot of talk from the candidates stating “any Democrat running for President will be better than Bush.” I believe that sentiment is true. But I also believe there are varying degrees of HOW MUCH BETTER they will be than Bush. In the comments in the previous parts of this series, there are claims that the changes we (The People) want to make to this country “can’t be done.” “The shift is too fast, these things will take time to change.” Oh I hope not.

We have 50 million people in this nation without health care. The rest of us have health insurance that is precarious. My wife just got a letter from our policy holder, Blue Cross, asking whether her recent yearly physical was the result of a work related injury - she has been out of the workforce for over ten years, yet we had to go through the damn motions with these chuckle-heads to get the claim paid. If it was something serious like cancer, I can’t imagine the red tape that would get thrown at our face. With Americans daily needing health care that either allows them to live or die, this is not a problem we can gradually ease our way out of. We need swift, decisive legislation and leadership to get us out of this mess. Kucinich is the lone candidate that has universal health care for all as part of his platform - everyone else is offering “insurance.” I have enough of insurance. Haven’t you?

Our jobs are being sucked out of this country at an alarming rate. A very alarming rate. When I was growing up in the real town of Dobson, NC, the town of 1,200 people was teeming with textile mills. They were everywhere. Even the gas station across from the court house had rented out one of the car repair bays to a guy who was making socks day and night. Jobs were plentiful, parents could send their kids to UNC or NC State and there was enough money to retire at 60. That was the horrible days of the Carter Administration in 1980. When Reagan got into office, the borders began to open for business and the jobs from my hometown were siphoned off and weren’t replaced with new jobs. Now, the number one industry in North Carolina is logging. People in that Congressional District (NC-05) have had to go through “skill retraining” several times since then. You simply can’t have a single career anymore in rural America. Hell, you can’t even keep the same employer for more than four years - right about when you would receive matching funds for your 401K you find yourself out of work. Now, 27 years later, our economic base, the middle class has been pushed off a cliff and they (we) are tumbling toward a very nasty end. Our open border policies need to be clamped shut and not over the span of three decades. We need to exit NAFTA, CAFTA, GATT and the WTO today, now, 10 minutes ago. Which candidate has this as a policy? Take a guess. Kucinich. And oddly enough, this actually makes him appealing to conservatives.

This brings us to the mother-fucking war. BushCo wants another $50 billion on top of all the other requests. Hillary wants to keep troops there, Obama wants to take our time getting out of Iraq. Biden wants to split Iraq into three pieces and keep troops there (that means we will be fighting a six front civil war). No thanks. We need out, we need out now. Kucinich is the only one willing to state the obvious - the war was a failure and we need to get out. He was the only one in the race not snookered into voting for the damn thing to begin with. Hillary was for the war up until six months before the 2006 election. If it took her that long to figure out the war was an idiotic idea, then for me, she doesn’t have the mental capabilities to get this nation out of the cesspool of despair we are in.

If you look at Kucinich’s voting record and his anthology of submitted legislation over the past 10 years, they read as if written by someone with prescient abilities. I am not saying he is a soothsayer or a prophet from Ohio, I am saying he is one smart guy and we need more of people like him in Congress, not less.

Our nation is in serious trouble and we have long since passed the point where half-measures would make any difference. Unless we get a President that is willing to actually take, Honest-To-God bold steps, we may be seeing the last days of Jefferson’s America.

Hillary, Obama and Edwards would be an improvement to what we currently have in the White House, but their histories show they are ill-equipped to handle the challenges ahead of us.

Only Dennis Kucinich has risked ridicule and even his political career to do the right thing. His political past has been nothing BUT a series of career-ending decisions, but every decision has been for the benefit for the citizens, never corporate interests. That is why he keeps getting re-elected.

He is the only one that has ever gone out on a limb for We The People. Now, I wonder how many VOTERS will join him? How many will join the Second American Revolution?

On the Need for the Progressive Movement to commit to victory

     This is a post I put up over at my DailyKos diary about a week ago. I thought I'd post it here for comments and criticism:



     This is in response to calls that I see from well-meaning progressives that our principles should be sacrificed in the name of the immediate 'winning' of an election. To be specific, I'm talking about the progressives who have already dismissed Dennis Kucinich as being 'unelectable' and in preference prefer one of the other Democratic candidates who, while they surely are more easily elected than Dennis Kucinich, do not represent a major shift in policy from the current Republican administration.

     What I might ask is, at what point do we start putting in the effort to make the 'unelectable' electable? The progressive movement, like any other movement, is supposed to deal with challenges and often even defeat. But I believe it's important that our goal is always clear and we strive towards it. Each time we neglect a progressive candidate and start campaigning and supporting one which does not adequately represent our values, we distort our message to those we are trying to convince. Political campaigning is not simply about getting more votes for an upcoming election, political campaigning is an education process by which the political consciousness of the average American should be transformed. When people go out and campaign for a Barack Obama or a Hillary Clinton, the people that we are trying to get interested in politics get the wrong message. They see otherwise intelligent progressives enthusiastically supporting minor refinements to the status quo. This not only leads to a lack of interest in politics, because of course if the candidates from both parties have very similar views and in the end will do more or less the same thing then it's pointless to care which one wins, it also makes it unclear which principles one should defend. Instead of trying to convince Americans that peace and diplomacy are important, people who hear the campaigning of the conservative Democrat supporters get the message that war, as long as it's waged effectively against the inherently evil terrorists, is perfectly fine. And then what happens once the conservative Democrat comes to office and disappoints the American people? Those who are jaded by this event may turn to the GOP having associated the problems with the Democratic administration with progressive values themself, which they were told that their candidates embodied.

     Imagine how much more effective a progressive movement would be that, instead of sacrificing its message to support the lesser evil of the two corporate-approved candidates, spent its time and efforts convincing Americans of the need for progressive change, to distrust what they hear on the corporate-owned media, and to commit to their principles and the struggle for real change. It may not be able to win the next election, but a movement that stuck to its principles would gather momentum and eventually would achieve success. In addition, members who see the movement as being dynamic, principled, and committed to actually changing the country are much more likely to be enthusiastic about it and help propagate it. A movement which has no apparent principles and is not commited to significant change is not going to excite any interest.

     The conservatives in power must feel very lucky. After 8 years of some of the worst administration that they could dish out, the progressive movement appears to already be giving up on the historic opportunity that this gives it. In a political environment where an end to the Iraq war is a highly politically favored position, many on the left refuse to support a pro-peace candidate and prefer to support one which wants to end the war as soon as 'possible' (where the 'possibility' of ending the war depends on when the imperialist objectives that originally started it will be accomplished). I think it's time that the progressive movement lives up to its name, both in the sense that it should be progressive, but also in the sense that it should 'move' and work towards long-term progress.

Don't let the media decide your vote for you

    Here's a good video to spread around the web. YouTube source here.

Obama's "Plan"

Pack a lunch and donate to Kucinich!

     Since Kucinich is not going to be doing the corporate world's bidding while in office, it's important that we help support his campaign get enough money to give him sufficient publicity. If everyone just donates a little then we can really make a difference. We don't need to be able to raise as much as Clinton or Obama will (which would be nearly impossible) but if we get our numbers up there high enough then it will be enough to get the message out (at some point the money raised starts to give diminishing returns I'm sure). It's very easy to pack a lunch instead of going out to a restaurant, buying one less beer at the bar, or skip some other thing you do each day and give that money to Kucinich.

     Yesterday I gave my first contribution ever ($20) to a political campaign. You can give to Kucinich via the ActBlue link to the right hand side of the screen. Or, equivalently, you can give on this website which is this blog's ActBlue fundraising page. As you can see 1 person has donated on this page (moi). You can also click on Kucinich's name and see how our blog is doing in terms of ranking against the other Kucinich ActBlue fundraising pages.

     Actually, the good feeling I get from giving that $20 is worth more than what I could have otherwise bought with it. Looking back on this a couple of years from now I will be able to say that I helped finance the president who has just given us universal health care and instant runoff voting. Or, if things don't turn out that way, I can at least say 'Don't blame me for the war with Iran, I supported Kucinich".

Unofficial Kucinich merchandise

     With the official Kucinich store not online yet (you can order over the phone though) I got anxious and decided to create some of my own bumper stickers. In the next few days I'd like to also create a shirt. I currently have 3 designs for bumper stickers, but I have a free CafePress shop so I can only put up one design at a time. If anyone wants a bumper sticker with the following designs on them let me know. I'll put it on the CafePress website with zero markup. The website is here.

'I no longer fear the Kucinich Revolution' cartoon

And the text that does along with the cartoon:

Most folks I know have a preferred candidate - Hillary, Obama, Edwards or Gore. But the crazy thing is, they will turn right around and say, “you know who I really want to vote for? Kucninch.”

I have those same feelings - I love Kucinich and think he would make the best President. His values most closely resemble my own. Why not vote for him?

Irrational fear. Total fear that the Republicans will lie about Kucinich and Fred Thompson will win the election. Wait, the GOP is gonna lie anyway, no matter what, so why the fear?

One thing I finally noticed about Kucinich during the AFL-CIO debate was how Kucinich always made more points during his alloted time than other candidates. I have been thinking about this and found the answer when I was reading the transcript. Kucinich doesn’t equivocate. He doesn’t dance around an issue - he goes straight for the explanation and since his past is not littered with idiotic support of bad bills, HE has nothing to fear, so why do I?

Yes, why do I fear? Do I think Hillary can win? No. I think she loses the election, the second she is nominated. Isn’t THAT something to fear? Do we think Fred Thompson, Gingrich or whatever other ass-wipe the GOP nominates will give a shit about universal healthcare, the environment or peace? Nope, it will be a straight continuation of 8 years of BushCo. Isn’t my fear displaced?

Who is the strongest Democrat in Congress? Kucinich.

What Congressman never LOST their spine in the politically crushing days after 9-11? Kucinich.

Who knows how to answer a direct question asked by We The People? Kucinich.

I think something changed for Kucinich during the AFL-CIO debate - I can’t put my finger on it, but something changed. Maybe it was his eagerness to address We The People with truth, honesty and integrity? Maybe it was just the other candidates equivocating on whatever nonsense answer their staff prepared for them months ago?

Maybe it was because the other candidates showed fear and Kucinich didn’t. He never flinched.

That is leadership as I see it. And from this point forward I will NOT fear to support Kucinich.

He is just like me. My values are the same as his. If I was in Congress, I would vote like he does. I no longer fear. I refuse to allow the GOP to manipulate me into supporting lesser candidates.

That just might be called courage

The progress of the Kucinich campaign

    For a grassroots movement like ours I think it's important that we occasionally evaluate our progress and determine in which areas we need to improve or accelerate our efforts. We can't just turn on the news and see how the various campaigns are going when the mainstream media is trying to fix the outcome, so that avenue is out of the question. We need self-evaluation, and while I'm most definitely not the most qualified person supporting Kucinich to do this, I'd like to give a couple of my thoughts on the matter.

    For one, polls. For those of you who are involved in the Kucinich Action Center you are probably already familiar with this (if you're not sign up!). But Kucinich has been doing VERY well in polls on the major news media websites. For example, take a poll by ABC news asking "Who do you think won the Democratic debate" (the debate held last Sunday) which at the time of the following screenshot had over 42,000 people voting.



As you can see, Dennis Kucinich is firmly in the lead (click on the picture to make it larger). While some of this lead may very well be due to the large activist community surrounding him, it is promising nonetheless (and to be fair, part of Obama's ranking is probably also affected at least some in this same way). If you didn't get to vote in this poll you can do so here. As far as I know, ABC, nor any other mainstream news outlet that also had polls on their site where Kucinich was winning, has decided to write an article about the result.

     On the youth front, things are looking positive as well. On a Facebook political poll Kucinich is in first place, with Gravel in a secure third. If you add up Kucinich's support with Gravel's they combine to total almost 47% of the votes. While those who voted in this poll are surely more of the activist type, the good news for us is that among the youth there are many more Kucinich and Gravel activists than there are for the other candidates, although Obama is in a very close second. Here's a screenshot of that poll.



    Secondly, a political questionnaire over on this website has shown how closely the average American's political views are to Dennis Kucinich's. This site asks you to specify your position on many issues and also rank how important they are to you (whether they are 'meh','important', or 'key'). The site is not just for Democratic candidates, but also Republicans. At the time of this writing there have been 137,492 total submissions, and out of those 79,401 of the results ranked Dennis Kucinich as the best match. This shows what we've thought all along, that Dennis Kucinich stands for change and that America wants it. The trouble we face is countering the media and letting the public know that Kucinich's views match their own.


    I think we have a good foundation. We have a candidate, no, the only candidate, who is in touch with the American people. And after 8 years of neocon rule, the American people are ready to try something new. There probably hasn't been this much disgust and mistrust in our government in quite some time, and it's the progressive movement's responsibility to seize on this historic opportunity to make a real change for the better in our lives.

     But to do this we really need to build a powerful grassroots movement. I mean really powerful. Not only do we need to convince people to vote Kucinich, we also need to still convince people to become volunteers in the Kucinich campaign. We have to be everywhere, and must force Kucinich into the national dialogue. We still have to work on methods of organizing political action in areas that we aren't necessarily strong in (the Red states come to mind). We need to get out there on the streets putting up fliers and talking with our neighbors because not everyone engages in political discussions on the Internet (of course the vast majority do not). We need to not only have the organizational skill to convince people that Kucinich is the best candidate, but we also need to be able to develop ways in which we can reveal to the people who support Kucinich how many others do as well, giving them confidence that Kucinich can actually win this election. You can't count on the media to do this for you once you reach some critical level of support. It most likely, if history and economic forces mean anything, will not. You have to assume that the media will actively sabotage the campaign, and so develop countermeasures against it. I hope to talk about more of these issues in later posts.

     But what if Kucinich loses? It's certainly not impossible, we are the underdogs after all. I feel that some Democrats think that supporting a losing candidate is a waste of their time, as if all the activism was worth nothing. I think this is completely wrong. Working for the Kucinich campaign, whether he wins or loses, helps to bring about a more progressive tomorrow. Each person you are able to convince to support progressive ideals keeps that knowledge with them, changing the way they think about politics and increasing the chances of progressive success in the next election. By struggling against the things that keep progressive candidates from winning (lack of money, the media, etc) the movement learns to develop strategies and organizations that help to combat these problems. And lastly, political struggle makes you a more politically conscious individual. By struggling against our existing institutions, the contradictions that exist within our economic and political system rear their heads and our awareness of them becomes much more acute. Just imagine how many Kucinich volunteers are for the very first time struggling with the idea that the mainstream media might not accurately represent reality. And not only are they hearing explanations about the effect of media power by others in the campaign, but they get to see it firsthand and this real life lesson stays with them longer than anything they could have read in a book. I'm sure each one of us will learn something concrete by working in this political campaign, whether we are fully aware of it or not. In the end, whether Kucinich wins or loses, we can make this election season a victory for progressivism. If we work hard enough, who knows, maybe we'll even have a progressive in the White House.

The Economist - Clinton, Obama are right-wing

     I don't usually read The Economist because the magazine is a right-wing publication, but as I stood around waiting in the Paris airport last week for my flight back home I picked it up with an interest in what they had to say in the article Is America Turning Left?. In the article we find the following commentary:

Second, America, even if it shifts to the left, will still be a conservative force on the international stage. Mrs Clinton might be portrayed as a communist on talk radio in Kansas, but set her alongside France's Nicolas Sarkozy, Germany's Angela Merkel, Britain's David Cameron or any other supposed European conservative, and on virtually every significant issue Mrs Clinton is the more right-wing. She also mentions God more often than the average European bishop. As for foreign policy, the main Democratic candidates are equally staunch in their support of Israel; none of them has ruled out attacking Iran; Mr Obama might take a shot at Pakistan; and few of them want to cede power to multilateral organisations.

     This probably comes to no surprise to those who read this blog, but I thought it was nice to find this statement in a typically conservative media source. After 8 years of Bush, don't we deserve a truly progressive president, not one who is still conservative with respect to what is typically seen in Western countries?

Impeachment

Vice President Cheney knowingly and willfully lied and deceived the American public and Congress. Several times, he asserted 1) that Iraq was connected to and aided the terrorists of 9/11, 2) that Saddam Hussein had stockpiles of, as well as sought materials for, weapons of mass destruction, and 3) that the threat of a terrorist attack with the use of such weapons was imminent. The intelligence regarding 1) was most definitely fabricated; the intelligence community had no legitimate evidence of any kind. It was quickly discovered after the ill-conceived invasion that Hussein did not, in fact, have stockpiles of WMDs, nor did he seriously seek materials in Niger, which means 2) was a deliberate lie. Of course, lacking WMDs, the claim of 3) is ridiculously false; Iraq was underfunded and ill-equipped to develop, construct, and deploy weapons of mass destruction.

Unfortunately for the American and Iraqi peoples, these outright lies led to both parties suffering needlessly. Every day in Iraq, violence disrupts any attempt to rebuild the country. Every day in Iraq, American soldiers - our sons and daughters - are put in harm's way, returning home sick, injured, or in a coffin - if at all. Every day in Iraq, tax dollars get washed down the drain of no-bid contracts, massive corruption and an almost complete lack of oversight. Every day in America, families wait anxiously to hear from loved ones fighting in a false and ill-defined war. Every day in America, more and more citizens become disenchanted and disenfranchised, pushed to the sidelines, seemingly powerless to set things right. Every day in America, the man most responsible for this mess is allowed to continue making decisions that literally affect millions of people.

Rather than roll over and let him get away with it, Congressional Representative Dennis Kucinich gathered the will of the American people and introduced a resolution to begin impeachment proceedings against VP Cheney. This is by no means an act unsupported by popular opinion; 54% of those surveyed favored the start of impeachment, and Cheney's approval rating has been dismally low for several months. The simple reason is Americans do not like being lied to.

No other presidential nominee has paid as much attention to the cry for justice as has Kucinich. No other has appealed to the system of checks and balances, so vital for a functioning democracy, to undo the damage done by this administration. He has taken the direct concern of real, every day Americans and translated it into action. He wants, as do many of us, Vice President Cheney to be held accountable for his lies and misdeeds. (This article only discusses but one facet of Cheney's scheming.)

If no other candidate on the ballot supports the desires of millions of understandably angry Americans, if no other candidate respects this republic enough to preserve it, if no other candidate has taken the initiative to right horrible wrongs, why should we even consider having any one of them as president?

In 2008, Americans deserve a candidate that listens to us, supports us, and responds to us. We the people demand a candidate worthy of our vote. That candidate, based on his bold stance against the deception and manipulations of this administration, is Representative Dennis Kucinich.

Universal Healthcare videos

Here's a couple of videos relating to Kucinich and his support for a universal healthcare plan. The first one I saw first over at Put Peace in the White House and is a spoof involving Monica Lewinsky and Bill Clinton. The second is Kucinich talking about universal healthcare during a CNN debate.

      

      

The Problem

     The purpose of this blog is to help elect a progressive President in the upcoming 2008 election. After 8 years of disastrous Bush reign, you would think this would be easy. Someone proposing universal health care, an immediate end to the Iraq war, free college tuition, instant run-off voting (IRV) electoral reform, support for gay marraige, clean energy alternatives, a repeal of the infamous Patriot Act, and protecting social security would seemingly have a very good chance of winning. All of what I just described is part of Dennis Kucinich's platform and yet, somehow, he is in the single-digits in poll numbers.
     How could this be? Are the other candidates offering the same options but have more likable personalities? I wish. The other candidates, with the exception of Mike Gravel, do not have solutions for these problems that are along the lines of those held by the average American. Almost a year after the Democrats were elected on a mandate to end the Iraq war they've still done absolutely nothing. Wait, no, that's not true, they gave it more funding. The front runner of the Democratic party is Hillary Clinton, a former board member of Wal-Mart, who doesn't support single-payer healthcare (any reference she makes to it refers to a pathetic subsidization plan for low-income Americans, whoop-di-do), describes herself as an "an emphatic, unwavering supporter of Israel's safety and security" showing that she has no grasp on events in the Middle East, has argued that we must keep "all options" on the table against Iran, voted for the Patriot Act, introduced the Flag Protection Act of 2005 which would require a $100,000 fine and a year in jail for the act of burning a U.S. flag, supports the death penalty, supports the Defense of Marriage Act which recogizes that the federal government only considers marriage to be between a man and a woman, and refused to label herself as a "liberal" in the CNN-Youtube debate.
    "THIS IS WHAT WE ARE GETTING AFTER 8 YEARS OF BUSH!?!" you ask. Yes, this is how the game is played. See, it's not Clinton's progressive political positions which have enabled her to grab the limelight for the Democratic nomination, it's her conservative positions. She pleases the big business and other conservative interests and is able to raise much more money. With this money and with support from the mainstream media the idea that she is a Democratic frontrunner is hammered into the public. The public, in turn, begins to believe it, and assumes that the reason she is the frontrunner is because others who have spent more time researching and who had time to watch the debates thought that she did the best and so they, in turn, support her, thereby completing the self-fulfilling prophecy.
     Here, let me show you some graphs. What I've done is take the Democratic presidential hopefuls and made graphs showing the amount of money that they've raised in comparison to their congressional scorecard ratings from various advocacy groups. It should be noted that I only did this for Clinton, Obama, Dodd, Kucinich, and Biden because they are the only people who were in the Senate or the House at the time that the 2006 congressional reports were published. I could have taken data from past congressional scorecards to include the other candidates, but since the issues were different in different years it's misleading to compare them. Anyway, what you will see is that the more progressive a candidate is, the less money they have raised (click on any graph if you'd like to see a larger version).

First, let's look at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) ratings¹:

This one is very dramatic.

Now the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) ratings²:



And the League of Conservation Voters (LCV) ratings³:


And finally, Peace Action West (PAW)⁴:

Another dramtic difference.

Now, just for comparison, let's look at what the conservative group American Conservative Union (ACU) said⁵:



     So as you can plainly see, the more conservative a Democratic candidate's views are, the more money they raise and the more they are considered the Democratic frontrunners. Something must be done about this because America and the world cannot stand to have another 4 years of the same old conservative policies, regardless of whether they are carried out by Republicans or Democrats. This blog's purpose is to hope to help in that effort.

† Amount of money currently raised comes from http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/money/dems.raised.html
¹http://action.aclu.org/site/VoteCenter?page=voteList
²http://www.hrc.org/Content/NavigationMenu/HRC/Get_Informed/Congress_and_Scorecard/Index.htm
³http://www.lcv.org/scorecard/
⁴http://www.peaceactionwest.org/downloads/PeaceActionScorecardLowRes.pdf
⁵http://www.acuratings.org/