Roll Call: Kucinich Supporters - Democratic Underground

rjones2818

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Thu Jun-07-07 09:22 PM
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Roll Call: Kucinich Supporters

This was posted at DailyKos and at my blog All Over the Board:

Cross posted from Daily Kos:

We know that we're under represented on a what is said to be a progressive blog site. Perhaps it's a good idea to see who's who and start planning for the day that Daily Kos comes around! :)

rjones2818's diary :: ::

I start from the point that we are all citizens of the world. I don't support one government for the world. To me, that chance was lost with the death of Alexander the Great. I look to Alexander for a basis of how I look at how the people of the world should interact:

THE OATH

"Now that the wars are coming to an end, I wish you to prosper in peace. May all mortals from now on live like one people in concord and for mutual advancement. Consider the world as your country, with laws common to all and where the best will govern irrespective of tribe. I do not distinguish among men, as the narrow-minded do, both among Greeks and Barbarians. I am not interested in the descendance of the citizens or their racial origins. I classify them using one criterion: their virtue. For me every virtuous foreigner is a Greek and every evil Greek worse than a Barbarian. If differences ever develop between you never have recourse to arms, but solve them peacefully. If necessary, I should be your arbitrator. You must not consider God like an autocratic despot, but as a common Father of all; so your behavior may resemble the life siblings have in a family. On my part I should consider all equals, white or blacks, and wish you all to be not only subjects of the Commonwealth, but participants and partners. As much as this depends on me, I should try to bring about what I promised. The oath we made over tonight’s libations hold onto as a Contract of Love".

Some will argue that this wasn't didn't actually get said by the great king, but I'll argue that it doesn't matter. The Oath is perhaps the finest call to unity that has ever been made, whoever wrote it.

A second foundation is the idea of a social contract between a government and it's citizens. The basic theory is set forth in the book On the Social Contract by Jean-Jaques Rousseau, which describes a way of implementing such a contract. I believe that governments have social contracts with citizens. Dennis Kucinich showed he backed the idea, perhaps not with that in mind, in his handling of the (what is now) Cleveland Public Power crisis:

Cleveland's's publicly owned electric utility served an all-time high 59,664 residents and businesses in 1963. However, at the same time, city officials and others lost sight of the benefits of public power. Service declined and the municipal light plant began to purchase electricity from other sources to meet customer demands. As a result of the operational problems, the utility quite producing power and nearly went out of business. In 1977, then Mayoral candidate Dennis Kucinich ran on a platform to prevent the sale of municipal power to CEI. Only the wisdom of Cleveland's citizens, who voted 2-to-1 in February 1979, against selling their municipal power system, kept public power alive. The public utility chose to purchase electrical power from low cost power sources, and to concentrate on distributing this power to its customers with the best possible service. By 1983, a new attitude about public power permeated the City of Cleveland. The utility was given a new identity . . . Cleveland Public Power, to reflect the public's decision to keep the city in the electric utility business. Using its right to purchase power from a variety of sources, CPP began providing its customers with power at rates which were 15, 20 and even 25 percent or more below CEI rates by the late 1980's. Just like Cleveland, CPP was making a comeback.
For more on this use Google or go to http://www.cpp.org/cppinfohist.cfm">Cleveland Public Power History. This is the move that showed that Dennis stands for his pricipals for the citizens of Cleveland, and I belive for this country.

We know him now for his being a leader against the Iraq War, having not voted for the resolution to go to war and voting against the supplementals; we know him for calling out Big Oil, Big Government and the military industrial complex in his speech http://kucinich.us/node/4547">The Truth About Iraq and Oil; we know him for supporting Universal Single Payer Not-for-profit health care; we know him for being a strong friend of labor, being a member of the AFL-CIO; we know him for his opposition to NAFTA and CAFTA, and for bilateral trade agreements with worker protections; we know him for being an environmentalist, having propsed the Works Green Administration; and we know him for bringing articles of impeachment against Dick Cheney in HB 333.

We know that Dennis is the true progressive in this race. I know that I support Dennis Kucinich in his run for the White House, and know that he'll be a great president for all of the citizens of this country.

Here's how folks in New Hampshire reacted to him:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hh9yXaTPhts">Kucinich Wows New Hampshire Democratic Convention

I support Dennis Kucinich. Shouldn't you?

Go Dennis!

Kucinich 2008
http://kucinich.us

End Diary.