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The mainstream is tuned into Hillary and Barack and have largely ignored the one man who has been sticking his neck out for Americans for decades.
A quick background of this courageous and patriotic individual, Dennis Kucinich, is necessary so that more people other than those in and around Cleveland, OH can know just what kind of man this guy really is. And to help communicate how I great Kucinich is I quote an article that appeared on PBS.org way back when Kucinich was trying to get the presidential nomination in 2004. Here is a brief glimpse into the past of a true American:
Kucinich left home when he was 17 years old, renting a $50-a-month walk-up apartment, enrolling at Cleveland State University and working at the copy desk at The Plain Dealer. He attended Cleveland State from 1967-70, but earned his bachelor's degree in speech communications from Case Western Reserve University in 1973. The following year he earned a master's degree in speech communications from Case Western.
At the age of 31, Kucinich became the youngest mayor of a major American city. But two years into his tenure, Cleveland became the first city to go into default since the Great Depression, prompting some members of the media to dub him "Dennis the Menace."
Cleveland's economy received plenty of unwelcome attention, and Kucinich was at the center of it. It was opening day at Cleveland Municipal Stadium in April 1978 when Kucinich stood on the mound to toss out the first pitch, wearing a bulletproof vest. Fans shouted "Kill the bum" from the stands, and boos from the crowd of 75,000 were heard.
Kucinich survived a recall by only 236 votes, but he lost his reelection to Republican George Voinovich the following year in 1979.
The congressman's rise back into politics in the 1990s came after a string of disappointments. Following his defeat in the mayoral election, his second marriage ended, he almost lost his house and he couldn't find work in Cleveland. Eventually, he moved to California where he wrote a still unpublished autobiography. Later, he returned to Cleveland and found his way back into politics, Dennis Kucinichwinning a seat in 1994 in the Ohio Senate.
His political success in the '90s, however, was based on one of the very things that caused his attempted recall. When Kucinich was mayor, local banks threatened to call in a $15 million loan if he didn't sell the city's municipal electrical system. He refused. Though at the time, it led the city into default -- and subsequently the recall that he barely survived and later a landslide defeat -- the move proved paramount to his later success.
In the 1990s Cleveland officials credited Kucinich with Cleveland's low electricity rates. His campaign symbol was a light bulb with the slogan "Because he was right." He won a seat in the state Senate in 1994, and two years later, in the U.S. House with the slogan, "Light up Congress."
Though Kucinich's presidential campaign hasn't received as much media attention as other candidates, he has enjoyed the support of long-time friend Ralph Nader, the leader of the group Public Citizen.
"Dennis is for real," said Nader. "He's very consistent in his public philosophy that the government exists to serve the people first, not the corporations. He's been very steadfast under that pursuit under enormous pressure."
Kucinich, a fourth term congressman and chairman of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, has promoted a national health care system, preservation of social security, increased unemployment insurance benefits and cost-based rates for electricity, natural gas and home heating oil.
In addition to his political posts as Cleveland City Council member, mayor, state senator and U.S. congressman, Kucinich has held a number of nonpolitical jobs. He has worked as a court clerk, radio talk show host, lecturer, media consultant, reporter, copyreader and surgical technician.
As you can see, Kucinich has a record of sticking by his beliefs and views and not changing them because special interests or corporate interests demand that he does.
Recently, Kucinich has been speaking out as an ardent supporter of quite a few bills that if debated and signed into law could allow America to move forward significantly. Some of those bills are:
-H.R.321 -Providing that the new permanent Council of Representatives of Iraq is encouraged to debate and vote on whether or not a continued United States military presence in Iraq is desired by the Government of Iraq.
-H.R.450 -Calling upon the President to appeal to all sides in the current crisis in the Middle East for an immediate cessation of violence and to commit United States diplomats to multi-party negotiations with no preconditions.
-H.R.170 -Of inquiry requesting the President to transmit certain information to the House of Representatives respecting a claim made by the President on February 16, 2005, at a meeting Portsmouth, New Hampshire, that there is not a Social Security trust.
-H.R. 505 -Requesting the President of the United States and directing the Secretary of State to provide to the House of Representatives certain documents in their possession relating to the White House Iraq Group.
-H.R. 515 -Of inquiry requesting the President of the United States to provide to the House of Representatives certain documents in his possession relating to the anticipated effects of climate change on the coastal regions of the United States.
-H.R. 685 -Requesting the President and directing the Secretary of State and Secretary of Defense provide to the House of Representatives certain documents in their possession relating to any entity with which the United States has contracted for public relations purposes concerning Iraq.
-H.R. 950 -Calling for the abolition of all nuclear weapons.
-H.R. 1066 -Requesting the President to provide to the House of Representatives certain documents in his possession relating to United States policy toward Iran.
-H.R. 2070 -To amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to impose a windfall profit tax on oil and natural gas (and products thereof) and to allow an income tax credit for purchases of fuel-efficient passenger vehicles, and to allow grants for mass transit.
-H.R.5266 -To provide additional protections for farmers and ranchers that may be harmed economically by genetically engineered seeds, plants, or animals, to ensure fairness for farmers and ranchers in their dealings with biotech companies that sell genetically engineered seeds, plants, or animals, and for other purposes.
-H.R.5267 -To prohibit the open-air cultivation of genetically engineered pharmaceutical and industrial crops, to prohibit the use of common human food or animal feed as the host plant for a genetically engineered pharmaceutical or industrial chemical, to establish a tracking system to regulate the growing, handling, transportation, and disposal of pharmaceutical and industrial crops and their byproducts to prevent human, animal, and general environmental exposure to genetically engineered pharmaceutical and industrial crops and their byproducts, and for other purposes.
-H.R.5268 -To amend the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act with respect to the safety of genetically engineered foods, and for other purposes.
-H.R.5269 -To amend the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, the Federal Meat Inspection Act, and the Poultry Products Inspection Act to require that food that contains a genetically engineered material, or that is produced with a genetically engineered material, be labeled accordingly. (man, genetically engineered food is important to him.)
-H.R.5270 -To ensure that efforts to address world hunger through the use of genetically engineered animals and crops actually help developing countries and peoples while protecting human health and the environment, and for other purposes.
-H.R.5271 -To assign liability for injury caused by genetically engineered organisms.
-H.R.6114 -To assist States in establishing a universal prekindergarten program to ensure that all children 3, 4, and 5 years old have access to a high-quality full-day, full-calendar-year prekindergarten education.
-H.R.6200 -To amend the Help America Vote Act of 2002 to require States to conduct Presidential elections using paper ballots and to count those ballots by hand, and for other purposes.
-H.AMDT.86 to H.R.6 -Amendment permits 30 communities to apply for grants to invest in alternative fuel vehicles under the Department of Energy Clean City program.
- H.AMDT.317 to H.R.2745 -Amendment sought to require the President to direct the U.S. Permanent Representative to work to strengthen and expand the Social Protection sector of the International Labor Organization (ILO) in order to allow the ILO to issue more field and regional units of the ILO, to increase site inspections of working conditions, and to issue more reports on such conditions to the international community.
-H.AMDT.475 to H.R.2601 An amendment numbered 23 printed in part B of House Report 109-175 to require the President to direct the U.S. representatives to the United Nations to commence negotiations for an international treaty banning space-based weapons.
Kucinich has an advantage over many of the Democratic candidates because he doesn't have to talk about bills he will support. He can talk about what he supports now because he's been taking action based on his beliefs for years now.
And unlike people like Obama or Clinton, Kucinich's bills have meat to them and address issues of popular importance right now like: health care, Iraq, nuclear weapons, agriculture, global warming, space warfare, etc.
Obama or Clinton may bring bipartisanship to America, but the stances being taken to create that bipartisanship caters to the neoconservatives in the Republican party and hands a victory to the Bush administration instead of the American people by ensuring that all that has gone wrong under Bush be continued by a Democrat instead of a Republican in 2008 thereby allowing for no panicking to occur on the Right if the party cannot rebound from Bush's lack of popularity.
Kucinich spoke these words earlier this summer:
I'm kind of the Seabiscuit of this campaign. And when I come from behind to win this race, people are going to say, no way are we going to run against this guy. ... Let me tell you, when I push through that agenda and establish a worker's White House, they're going to be there to say, 'No competition in 2012; we're ready for Kucinich for seven years, eight years.
Amen, brother. Americans, let's put one of our own in the White House.
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