2500+ hear Kucinich on University of Minnesota campus

Lydia Leftcoast

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Sun Feb-22-04 01:14 AM
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2500+ hear Kucinich on University of Minnesota campus

Edited on Sun Feb-22-04 01:21 AM by Lydia Leftcoast

Sorry this is late, DK fans, but even though the whole U of M campus is a wireless hot spot, the network is open only to U affiliates with passwords, and the nearest commercial establishment with wireless was pretty far away, so I brought my laptop along for nothing. :-(

Anyway, we didn't fill Northrop Auditorium (seats 5,000), but we did fill almost the entire first floor to hear Dennis Kucinich speak as part of a full afternoon's program. This was a damned good showing with two weeks' notice and publicity consisting mostly of fliers around town.

Because of parking, I, like a lot of other people, arrived a bit late. Patch Adams was MCing and being himself. The first performer I saw was a local folksinger who goes by the name of Ellis. She had an especially effective song against the Patriot Act, and I wish I could remember the words, but it was about locking up freedom to protect it.

The next performers were Danza Mexica Cuahtemoc, a group that does dances of the indigenous tribes of Mexico. Their dancing and drumming brought the crowd to its feet, especially after the leader told us that this was not a cultural exhibition but a ceremony of preparation for battle, a prelude to fighting for freedom, human rights, and all that other good stuff. (He didn't say "all that other good stuff, " but you know what I mean.)

The next speaker was Kathy Kelly, a slight but powerful woman who has founded a peace group called Voices in the Wilderness. She spoke movingly of her experiences visiting Iraq and of the connections between peace and the environment.

There was some time to fill, so Patch Adams began reciting poetry from Pablo Neruda and another poet whose name I didn't catch. (The poetry was serious, by the way.)

In between, Dennis's campaign commercials and some of Move On's commercials were projected on a screen on stage.

Finally Dennis came out to a standing ovation from the crowd. He took up Kathy Kelly's theme of peace and told us about flying into Moscow and seeing all the little cottages on the edge of the city and realizing that those belonged to the people our country would have been ready to kill. He spoke against "us-them" thinking, which creates pretexts for war, and advocated "rejoining the world community."

"We must reject the dark doctrine of fear," he declared. "It is courage that will open doors for us."

"We have capacities that we haven't even touched," he said. "...This campaign isn't about me. It's about you, and the changes you are capable of creating."

I'm making the speech sound like a New Age seminar, but it was more than that. DK has a coherent vision for the future of America, and he linked it to the proposals in his platform that we are already familiar with. The delivery was vigorous and well-timed, with touches of humor.

After the speech, he fielded questions, and in past experience, this has been the most interesting part of the session. This time, however, he got several questioners who seemd more interested in making incoherent speeches than in asking questions. Still, DK was good at answering their questions, throwing in a few related comments, and tactfully moving on to the next person.

Especially interesting was his handling of one of these anti-choice advocates who takes a "we must protect the most helpless form of life" approach to the issue. When some audience members started booing, Dennis said, "Let her speak," and then went on to say that we need to work on making abortion less necessary, through sex education, birth control, and medical care and other supports for women with children. However, he said, we had to acknowledge women's rights to make their own decisions. The questioner started to raise objections to birth control, but Dennis just said, "This is something that we need to discuss with respect for one another" and moved on to the next question.

Afterward, I hung out in the lobby looking for other DUers. I finally met scarletwoman and her sister, as well as wheresthemind, no name no slogan, goodhue, and dpbrown. If any other DUers were there, sorry I missed you.

Then it was time to take off for the National Lawyers' Guild dinner in South Saint Paul. The Yahoo map directions were terribly unclear, and the suburban industrial area where the union hall is located was exceptionally confusing. I couldn't even stop and ask directions, because there was nothing but cars and empty buildings. At one point in my wanderings, I was funneled onto a freeway and ended up on the wrong side of the river.

Fortunately, I wasn't the only person to get lost, so they were still serving the buffet when I arrived. I ended up sitting with dpbrown, mrs. dpbrown, and two other Kucinich volunteers.

This was an NLG event, not a Dennis event, but it was interesting to hear the stories of the first two award recipients. The first recipients were the leaders of a successful clerical workers' strike at the University of Minnesota, after our Repiggie governor tried to freeze wages and slash benefits. The second was an attorney who has devoted himself to issues of fair and affordable housing for the past fifteen years.

After a long day, Dennis appeared tired and took a while to hit his stride, but he managed to hold the crowd by talking about how his personal experiences had shaped his conviction that you can't let other people define you, that you can't just accept conventional wisdom but find the reality that other people can't see.

In the question and answer period, which covered topics such as health care, voting rights for the homeless, the Guantanamo detainees, and fair trade, Dennis emphasized the legal apsects of these issues, as befits an audience of lawyers. Along the way, he threw in references to quantum physics, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Franklin Delano Roosevelt. His wit came through in these answers.

As he left, he was stopped several times by people who wanted their pictures taken with him. Each time, he graciously agreed. As we were going out, the organizer of the dinner said that 323 people had attended.

The evening continued (but without me--I'm too tired) at a downtown Minneapolis art space called House of Balls. I'll leave it to others to report the goings on there.

I came away from today as impressed as ever with Dennis's vision, passion, and intellectual gifts. It is sad that he doesn't get the recognition he deserves.