Commentary The Kase for Kucinich By Emir Parrotta (February 22, 2004)

How boring! If John Kerry wins the nomination, the election and its debates would be a dull chit-chat between a free-trader and a free-trader, a war-monger and a war-monger, a Skull and Bones member and yet another. What a travesty.

Everyone should take a minute to think. If you wanted the war in Iraq, then, by all means, support Kerry, because he voted for it. And if you are in favor of giving government the right to take away our rights and violate the Fourth Ammendment, then lend your vote to ye Olde Man of Steal, John F. Kerry, who voted "Yea" for the USA PATRIOT Act.

Overall, his record is quite contrary to his rhetoric.

Yes, the bandwagon has rolled through many a state, including ours, and with great success. But just because he is ahead so far, it doesn’t mean you have to vote for him. Take a look at your options. You also got John Edwards, whose only plus is his opposition to NAFTA; otherwise he’s merely a Republocrat. Then you got Al Sharpton, who gets big applauses and cheers, which is a good thing, but his inexperience may be a negative factor.

And then, ah! There is Dennis Kucinich. So releiving. It’s like cracking open a cold can of seltzer water on a muggy August afternoon. That is a man who knows what it is like to be downtrodden. He had a poor, peripatetic childhood, and he even lived in a couple of cars. When he was first elected to public office in Cleveland, he was the youngest in history to be mayor of a major American city. As mayor he went against the city council, and resisted the pressure to privatize Cleveland’s municipal electricity company, Muny Light. Now the people of Cleveland couldn’t be more grateful for Kucinich’s firm ideals, as they have saved $195,148,520 since.

Let’s hear what John Kerry has to say. On February 14, the Massachusetts Senator said that he would send in 40,000 more troops to Iraq. If you ask me, I think we ought to get out. It was wrong to go in, so it’s wrong to stay in, as Dennis often articulates.

Mr. Kucinich offers a unique plan: Get the U.S. out, and the U.N. in. Bush and Cheney’s no-bid contracts to Halliburton and Bechtel are part of the war profiteering cycle that starts conflicts. It’s obvious; I mean, why would we go into Iraq if there was no credible intelligence confirming a security threat? The liberation motive is just too far-fetched to even talk about, as the double standards are obvious. Money makes the world go round, and around and around, dizzying leaders into making such destrucive choices.

Dennis Kucinich offers a good alternative to this greed-war paradigm. If you look at the contribution lists of the candidates, you will see the mega-trans-national corporations at the tops—that is, on Kerry’s and Edwards’. But not on Kucinich’s. That means that he is there to look after you, the Americans, and not the ruling class.

Kucinich opposes electronic voting, media jumbo-conglomorates, free trade, genetically engineered ‘food,’ sweatshops, and the renegade embargo on Cuba. In addition, Kucinich nobly took part in the renowned anti-Globalization march of 1999, in Seattle. Talkin’ ‘bout a man o’ th’ people!

He supports open debates, the arts, the environment, fair trade, universal health care, universal pre-school to college education, and workers’ rights. He would take the U.S. out of the job-exporting, anti-environmental North American Free Trade Agreement, withdraw from the WTO, and establish a cabinet-level Department of Peace.

"Not Iraq but the District of Columbia would become the fifty-first state," Ronnie Dugger of "The Nation" predicts in an article titled, "Progressives Should Vote Kucinich."

But he’s not the type of Democrat that wants to better the lives of the citizens while at the same time increasing taxes on the American people. He has a plan, a master plan, some might say. Kucinich’s proposal is to decrease the bloated Pentagon budget by 15 percent.. Half of our taxes are being spent on defense. Now, I ask you, the reader, would you spend half of your income on a burglar alarm? It just isn’t responsible to invest in foreign wars of choice and neglect the poor and working class.

Okay, but even if Dennis has cool proposals, his chance of beating Bush isn’t that hot, right? 

Wrong.

With unemployment at near-record highs and a never-ending "War on Terrorism" devastating populations and costing tax-payers billions, I highly doubt that if Dennis Kucinich wins the nomination, Democrats will reject him. Maybe, admittedly, a small segment of right-leaning swing voters could be turned off by the Greenocrat’s hard-core values, but look at the huge croud of Naderites and independents. They are getting as desperate as Los Desperados to get Bush and his cronies out and someone who caters to the needs of the people in. 

Congressman Dennis Kucinich has already been flooded with the endorsements of many Greens, the same people that were arbitrarily blamed for Al Gore’s loss in 2000. 

But imagine how ground-breaking this election would be. What kind of presidential debate would take place if "front-runner" Kerry is chosen? Think about it. The moderator would ask President Bush if he stands behind the Iraq war, and he’d say, "Of course." The same question would be posed to Kerry, who would be defenseless, as he supported the war in Congress. The same would happen regarding many other issues, from free trade to homeland security fear-mongering.

And then think about the uplifting policies of Dennis J. Kucinich, and how it would be like if he is chosen. I have explained how Dennis has progressive ideas and how he can beat Bush in 2004. I hope the the reader ponders my piece, and feels like he or she has a duty to do something in this world to halt the war frenzy and the attack on civil liberties. Well, there are things one can do, such as take part in the upcoming rally and march en masse in D.C. on March 20, in commemoration of the start of the jingoistic assault on Iraq. You can also contribute to the Kucinich for President campaign to help get the message out. You can also detonate your television (or just turn it off) and read alternative or foreign news; after all, if you don’t get it, you don’t get it.

So it all boils down to this. Although it is as insignificant as a termite in a midday’s sandstorm, I can proudly give my official endorsement to Dennis J. Kucinich. Not because we share the same middle initial, but because he is the only one on the slate who voted against NAFTA, the USA PATRIOT Act, and the criminal and deadly invasion of Babylon.