Gore Vidal on Dennis Kucinich; Gore Vidal AND Dennis Kucinich - Dec 9 - Santa Monica

[I am so annoyed that so many of my friends tell me that Kucinich has
the best position on issue after issue, but they are still going to
sup****t one of the other candidates because Kucinich cannot win.  This
is basically conceding our elections to cor****ate controlled media
and/or corrupt electoral processes.

Bush has been pretty bad.  Some of the Republicans running look at
least as bad, plus they are probably smarter, a bad combination.
None-the-less, what do we have to lose in the primary by sup****ting
Kucinich?  I know Clinton is bad, but are any of of the Cor****ate
favorites any better?  I don't really think so.  It appears to me that
the "goodness" of the candidates is inversely related to cor****ate
media approval.  The more their positions reflect the popular opinion,
say bring the troops home ASAP, the more the media belittles their
chances.  What kind of Democracy do we have here?

Personally, I think Kucinich would have a better chance of knocking off
the Republican candidates than would any of the other so-called
Democrats in the primary.  Of course there isn't much point in
speculating on that if Kucinich's sup****ters aren't willing to vote for
him in the primary!!

If you cannot bring yourself to campaign for him, or even to vote for
him, at least send his campaign $50 so he can stay in the running and,
to some extent, keep the others honest! -RD]

Kucinich for President  http://www.dennis4president.com

The Nation via Info Clearing House - Nov 28, 2007
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article18790.htm

Dennis Kucinich

by Gore Vidal

For the past two years I've been crisscrossing the United States
speaking to crowds of people about our history and politics. At the
same time, would-be Presidents of the greatest nation in the country,
as silver-tongued Spiro Agnew used to say, have been crowding the
trail, while TV journalists sadly shake their heads at how savage the
politicos have become in their language. But then, it is the task of TV
journalists to foment quarrels where often none properly exist.

As I pass through the stage door of one auditorium after another, I now
hear the ominous name of Darth Vader, as edgy audiences shudder at the
horrible direction our political discourse has taken. Ever eager as I
am to shed light, I sometimes drop the name of the least publicized
applicant to the creaky throne of the West: Dennis Kucinich. It takes a
moment for the name to sink in. Then genuine applause begins. He is
very much a favorite out there in the amber fields of grain, and I work
him into the text. A member of the House of Representatives for five
terms since 1997, although many of his legislative measures have been
too useful and original for our brain-dead media to comprehend. I note
his well-wrought articles proposing the impeachment of Vice President
Cheney, testing the patriotic nerves of his fellow Democrats, but then
the fact of his useful existence often causes distress to those who
genuinely hate that democracy he is so eager to extend. "Don't waste
your vote," they whine in unison--as if our votes are not quadrennially
wasted on those marvelous occasions when they are actually counted and
recorded.

Meanwhile, Kucinich is now at least visible in lineups of the Democratic
candidates; he tends to be the most eloquent of the lot. So who is he?
Something of a political prodigy: at 31 he was elected mayor of
Cleveland. Once he had been installed, in 1978, the city's lordly banks
wanted the new mayor to sell off the city's municipally owned electric
system, Muny Light, to a private competitor in which (Oh, America!) the
banks had a financial interest. When Mayor Kucinich refused to sell,
the money lords took their revenge, as they are wont to do: they
refused to roll over the city's debt, pu****ng the city into default.
The ensuing crisis revealed the banks' criminal involvement with the
private utility of their choice, CEI, which, had it acquired Muny
Light, would have become a monopoly, as five of the six lordly banks
had almost 1.8 million shares of CEI stock: this is Enronesque before
the fact.

Mayor Kucinich was not re-elected, but his profile was clearly etched
on the consciousness of his city; and in due course he returned to the
Cleveland City Council before being elected to the Ohio State Senate
and then the US Congress. Kucinich has also written a description of
his Dickensian youth, growing up in Cleveland. He has firsthand
knowledge of urban poverty in the world's richest nation. Born in 1946
into a Croatian Catholic family, by the time he was 17 he and his
family had lived in twenty-one different places, much of which he
describes in Dreiserian detail in a just-published memoir.

Kucinich is opposed to the death penalty as well as the USA Patriot
Act. In 1998 and 2004 he was a US delegate to the United Nations
convention on climate change. At home he has been active in Rust Belt
affairs, working to preserve the ninety-year-old Cleveland steel
industry, a task of the sort that will confront the next President
should he or she have sufficient interest in these details.

I asked a dedicated liberal his impression of Kucinich; he wondered if
Kucinich was too slight to lead a nation of truly fat folk. I pointed
out that he has the same physical stature as James Madison, as well as a
Madisonian commitment to our 1789 Constitution; he is also farsighted,
as demonstrated by his resolute opposition to Bush's cries for ever more
funding for the illegal wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. More to the
point, in October 2002 he opposed the notion of a war then being
debated. For those of us at home and in harm's way from disease, he
co-wrote HR 676, a bill that would insure all of us within Medicare,
just as if we were citizens of a truly civilized nation.

                               ***

Gore Vidal and Dennis Kucinich

Sunday, December 9, 2007
1:00 PM to 3:00 PM

Join Dennis & Elizabeth Kucinich, Gore Vidal
And a host of celebrities & sup****ters

At the home of Jerry Manpearl & Jan Goodman
Santa Monica , CA. 90402

Donation: $125.00 per person & $200.00 for two

Space is Limited, RSVP Required: (310) 458-7213
or jansorders@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 COMMITTEE (In Formation)

Aki Aleong, Aris Anagnos, Lila Garrett, Jan Goodman, Louis Gossett Jr.,
Hon. David Finkle,  Jim & Channa Horwitz, Earl Katz, Mimi Kennedy,
Julie Lopez Dad, Jerry Manpearl, Michelle Phillips, Hon. Bill
Rosendahl, Stanley Sheinbaum,  Bree Walker, Gore Vidal and many others

Event producer: Ilene Proctor

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