Becuase Everything Else Sucks

Kucinich Quits, but We Don’t!

By Manila Ryce
Published Sunday, January 27th, 2008, 2:07 am
Filed under: Personal Posts, US Politics

This is a repost of an email I received from Peacelf that he’s allowed me to share with you. You can check out his channel here. Subscribe to him while you’re at it. He makes some very thought provoking videos.

I don’t blame Dennis Kucinich for dropping out of the Presidential race. He has been marginalized since the beginning of his campaign by the monied corpora-political forces that own this country. Besides, Dennis has plenty of work to do in Congress, as one of the few voices of reason.

However, OUR work is not done. Our mission is not over. Yes, we like to think big, think about the day when The People will be back in power, when corporate politics will be no more. However, that day will only come when the day to day, grassroots work, of changing the country, of empowering our friends, family, and acquaintances, of educating our fellow citizens, empowering them with knowledge and critical thinking skills, then our struggle will be nearly over. The presidential campaign is only a small part of what we do.

Still, we must vote our consciences. That doesn’t necessarily mean settling for less, settling for neo-liberal politics, free market fundamentalism, or settling for those candidates who ignore the will of the people. It means we nonviolently struggle to make the election of a Dennis Kucinich possible in our local, city, and state government. We must change people’s minds. How many progressives look at their role as progressives of changing people’s minds? (Don’t forget the Green Party!)

Many of us spend way too much time seeking friendlies and entertaining people who think and believe the same as us. I realize there’s comfort in numbers. However, our goals are more than noble, they are morally righteous goals, deeply rooted in the most radical democratic traditions, and we will never change the world until we change individuals. That is where our work begins and ends. So, we must seek new ways to reach out to these who are disaffected, disempowered, disenfranchised.

Thoreau wrote that “There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one hacking at the roots.” I’m sorry to say, most of my progressive friends hack at the branches. We waste too much time debating political minutiae with those who oppose us, rather than raising fundamental issues about institutional power, racism, sexism, corporate power, white patriarchal power, the power of public education to indoctrinate, capitalism, free market fundamentalism, etc. with those who don’t think for themselves.

The basic freedoms we hold dear have been mythologized, bastardized into manipulative intellectualisms: right becomes left, up becomes down, and 1984 a satirical critique of socialism. That is the ways of the empire. We must straighten out the crooked, bend the straight, and upright the fallen. To use Jesus’ words, we must turn son against father and daughter against mother. We must disrupt the Matrix.

The Truth is ours to expose. We stand for the good. We want a better world, where love, compassion, justice, and hope prevail. But, we have to work more effectively. Change is gonna come, mark my words, only as long as we play our part in change.

peacelf

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7 Responses to “Kucinich Quits, but We Don’t!”

  1. OK

    So I ask, what now? What organization? How do we do this, together, as one?

    I have many ideas and so do some of the folks from our TN Kucinich group. Please allow me:

    Corporate investment into these candidates and the Big Money media locked Dennis out successfully (with support of the court and Democratic Party, I should add). Paul Barrow, the TN State Coordinator shared this in an email after Dennis left the race… wanting to establish such a net roots, spiderweb-like organization. But to begin, his idea is to focus on the media (happens to be his strong point, and also a writer at www.hotmedia.us).

    The “long term goal” will be:

    1) a volunteer effort informally called, for the time being, The Eurynome Media Project (EMP); 2) a paper, Who Controls the Media and Why; 3) organizational efforts to support and lobby for changes in legislation and the way corporations have interlocking power structures whose interests are in direct conflict with the public interest; and 4) I also hope that this will evolve, with the participation and shared responsibility of others, into an organization that can have a more expanding influence upon government not just for the people but by the people.

    Manila has excellent communications and media development skills and I am sure you know others like you (if anyone is looking to really join such a cause). This is not an arm-twist… just an idea from a like-minded, but very different kinda guy (which makes this all the more real to me… knowing that people of such varied background and interests can think so similarly).

    Contact me if interested. We must begin somewhere.

    Thanks,

    B’Man

    BuelahMan
    01/27/08 at 5:27 am

  2. […] Kucinich Quits, but We Don’t! […]

    Kucinich abandons White House bid + photos link + Vows to keep fighting for causes + Integritynow.org (vid) (updated) « Dandelion Salad
    01/27/08 at 8:15 am

  3. […] Kucinich Quits, but We Don’t! […]

    Thank you, Congressman Kucinich + Dennis Kucinich: A Tribute (vids; updated) « Dandelion Salad
    01/27/08 at 8:20 am

  4. Thanks to you ‘Manila’ I’ve been inspired to laud ‘Peacelf,’ myself. Am thankful to both of you for your efforts to awaken the ’sheeple’ of America.

    And a huge thanks to Dennis Kucinich for giving it his all; too bad the undemocratic and deceitful corporate media have denied giving him participation in the debates and/or fair press.

    camelien
    01/27/08 at 10:19 am

  5. I found this at the action center, but strangely Dandelion Salad cut off my comment.

    If you want information to convince the unfriendlies, we have all the facts on our side
    Iraq: Connect the Dots
    http://www.peacecandidates.com/news/iraq-connect_the_dots

    but only the backwash 15% even believe Bush, and they are so stubborn they will never listen to a librul(sic)

    We need to stop wasting time, and focus on direct actions that will return this country to sanity- like electing a new Congress that will support Kucinich’s legislation and put him in as speaker of the House.

    www.peacecandidates.com

    nadia
    01/27/08 at 10:49 am

  6. Sorry about that, Nadia. I deleted it because it had a 4 page link on it, not just what you posted in the above comment.

    I’ve copied your comment and added it to my blog post for this article on the Action Center. One link, I don’t have a problem with.

    DandelionSalad
    01/27/08 at 1:55 pm

  7. […] Kucinich Quits, but We Don’t! […]

    Dennis Kucinich’s Final Presidential Message To Us All (video) « Dandelion Salad
    01/30/08 at 1:16 am

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