Washblog

Progressives now have a candidate for president in 2008 in Dennis Kucinich.

The corporate media made him their enemy during his 2004 run, when they either ignored him or attacked him. But despite opposition by the powers that be, progressives can only win by his running.

The corporate media have made their choice clear, as in this Associated Press statement on the day Kucinich announced, "New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton is considered the party's front-runner, closely followed by Illinois Sen. Barack Obama."

Considered by whom?

Ahh, there's the rub. Considered by the transnational corporations and their Democratic Leadership Council filter on behalf of transnational investors who don't give a damn about this country or its people, other than what they can steal from both.

Hillary and Obama are going to be buried in cash and favorable media coverage as the backup plan, in case the transnational investors can't cram another Republican down the throats of the electorate.

Dennis Kucinich with his consistent political history having already thrown his hat in the ring, what will we see and hear from liberal, progressive and party advocates for real change?

There was no way in 2004 that Kucinich was getting the Demo presidential nomination.

No way

Too many cowardly DLC strategists who refused to put a wet finger in the air. Just like Demo leadership in our state kept their fingers on the safe button rather than check the breezes.

As I've written in various commentaries, the "play-it-safe" politics in Washington State to re-elect Sen. Cantwell were hardly vindicated by her re-election.

Ms. Cantwell's margin could have been larger. The state could have sent an even more resounding statement to the national Democratic Party as well as the administration.

Addressing that same spirit of self-vindication on the part of Demo party members, the advocates most vindicated were those of us who were not reluctant to pressure our incumbent Senator. We knew which way the winds were blowing with the electorate regarding Iraq.

Had the "play-it-safe" tactic been suppressed;  had  more campaign emphasis been made on that immediate  electoral hot-button obvious to many progressives, Darcy Burner might have overcome that small margin of loss.

Their own polling shows the views of Kucinich are indeed mainstream.

He wants universal health care, as do the majority of citizens.

He wants to cut defense spending, as do the majority.

He wants to clean up the environment, as do the overwhelming majority.

He wants to bring the troops home from Iraq, as do the majority.

You couldn't be much more mainstream than Dennis
Kucinich.

With an election 23 months away, we cannot accurately say which way the electoral wind will be blowing then but we ARE fresh off a massive electoral shout that is still resounding.

This is the place from which to start  and we start from what we know.

What we know is that the majority of American voters are not members of anyone's think tank, do not follow Sunday morning political talk shows, do not gather around political commentary on Fox, CNN or MSNBC in massive numbers and are more and more disregarding the political exhortations of their pastors.

Polls keep showing among other things,

- a national electoral preference for some form of national medical coverage,

- the "secure" in Social Security much more than the notion of Wall Street driven private investment accounts,

- a strong live-and-let live approach to global relationships

- a rejection of an American Empire and the idea of U.S. military personnel as fungible and disposable global cops.

The corporate media have convinced the American public that candidates such as Kucinich are "out of the mainstream," which is an outright lie. Their own polling shows the views of Kucinich are indeed mainstream.

He wants universal health care, as do the majority of citizens.

He wants to cut defense spending, as do the majority.

He wants to clean up the environment, as do the overwhelming majority. He wants to bring the troops home from Iraq, as do the majority. You couldn't be much more mainstream than Dennis Kucinich.

But the mass media have little to do with the mainstream. They represent their owners, board members and advertisers. These are connected to those making billions from war, billions from pollution, and billions from the cruel "health care" system whose primary function is to produce profit, not care.

The corporate media see Kucinich as their enemy and will savage him if he should get decent polling numbers, otherwise they can be expected to try to destroy him with silence, not covering anything he does from fear that he might become a blip on the electoral radar if a profile is raised.

If one of the prime tenets of corporate capitalism is that if our highest patriotic duty is to consume, consume and consume some more, then we consumers are not interested in having our jobs outsourced. How can we consume if we have no earnings to spend?

Nor are we interested in which American mega-corporation owns rights to the water in Bolivia,

nor do we support the dumbass notion that all the seeds on the planet must come from Monsanto or they will die after one year's use.

And we haven't decided that we should all call our doctors and self-diagnose according to what a drug company has made the most recent scary story or how to obtain the "hardest on."

Now we have a wonderful choice with Kucinich. Old leftists like me, knocked down and knocked out so many times I'm sure there are those who think we must be punch drunk to keep trying for an outbreak of democracy, are urging people to get behind Kucinich in a Can't Lose Campaign.

Already liberal friends are braying at me that Kucinich doesn't have a chance. Corporate media echo this suggestion every four years in keeping the sheep in the fold.

Stray from the corporate-backed candidates and the world may come to an end.

The lesser of evils is the way to go, my man, vote evil -- let me assure you that evil is the way to go.

But Kucinich is not endangering the sacred "two-party system," staying within the lesser-of-evil shuffle, so at least we don't have to listen to the whimpering, "If you vote for a Green, the Republicans will win" (so vote for an evil Democrat, who will then stick bamboo shoots under your fingernails, but only nine fingers, unlike his greater evil opponent, who will go for all 10).

Please continue with the entire commentary at Online Journal

It's past time that we ask ourselves whether or not a true progressive and liberal approach to government has been vindicated - even encouraged - by the voice of the people.

It's past time that we ask ourselves if the timid and play-it-safe approach which assumes that a conservative-minded electorate mirrorors the pandering pretend social conservatism of the worst of the Republican offenders as a valid assumption.

So long as we make little effort to differentiate between the failed global politics of neo-conservatism and a progressive and compassionate liberality ...

- between corporate encouragement of war-driven profits and the legitimate progressive politics that does not advocate war as an economic foundation,

- between the failed domestic politics that have played the judgmental radical moral values record until its plasticity is seriously worn out, scratched and warped,

- between the voices of radical moral demogogues and genuine social conservatives who fall back on the real teachings of Jesus which are founded on a liberality of compassion,

we remain mere advocates of only a different version of business as usual.

These 24 months can really be a  timely moment, a "carpe diem" in which liberals and progressives move out of the Democratic left lane of the same corporate capitalist highway in which the Republicans occupy the right lane.

In terms of corporate media and economic power, Democrats dominated by Beltway politicians will not drift very far from thr lobbyist-controlled position of Republican lite.

With the wind changing direction Republicans dominated by Beltway politicians will not drift very far from a lobbyist-controlled Democratic lite.

The solution is not simple but the choice and opportunity are clear even now.

We have a window of time to take significant steps.

We can make legitimate and voluminous noise to extricate the Democratic Party from the Beltway thinking that only keeps the same drivers in the same seats.

We have an opportunity to truly separate the Donkey from it's scarred and crusted joining at the hip-pocket wallet with the Elephant.

We face hard work and an uphill battle but we can take over or break the Democratic Party free from that unhealthy relationship.

There is recent historical precedence in shifting a party into another direction by taking over its values and achieving political victory.

It happened to the Republican Party. But then they blew it.

We can do the same thing. Our time has come. Then maybe we'll be smarter. Then hopefully we'll ignore the lobbiests and their purses. And avoid the consequences of electoral repudiation and having to reluctantly hand governing back to Rethuglicans