The Hollywood Liberal

Michael O’McCarthy

REBELS IN HELL – by Michael O’McCarthy

A Review by Kathleen Hayden

Picture a time of oil wars, a constant specter of terrorism and trampled civil liberties, all orchestrated by a corrupt political system. Think you’re living in it? Sorry, today’s world is child’s play compared to the one imagined by Michael O’McCarthy in his new book, “Rebels in Hell.”

The novel accelerates the fears of today into the realities of a not-too-distant tomorrow. And it’s not pretty. Assassination is a political weapon wielded freely by corrupt power brokers to neutralize opponents, silence dissent or to just avenge hurt egos.

One such death order – of a liberal blogger who writes a tad too liberally – sends the reader down a path toward revolution. The journey isn’t obvious. Several plot twists shift the central character focus until it finally lands on a young man, who calls himself Coilean, La Artista, and his small make-shift family of rebels.

A disclaimer: O’McCarthy’s lengthy writing resume includes political blogging for a site I ran. (I was uninvolved with editing this book and read it for the first time after it was published.) So, I am well versed in Michael’s political views, as well as with his work as a writer. “Rebels in Hell” is the best of it.

The pacing of the action is quick and the story concise without losing its color. The book spans five years of a fictional future, set just after the current Bush administration. The settings jumps around from the paradise of the Florida Keys, to the rough beauty and driving conditions of Costa Rica, to the atmosphere of Miami’s Little Havana and finally to the excess of Washington, D.C.

In “Hell” you’ll meet assassins, insurgents, rockers and even a woman U.S. president. Here, you are no one without an alias – the primary protagonist has multiples by only 18 years of age — or a code name. Think The Assassin. The Agent. The Spider. The Patron. The veiled identities make it difficult to keep track of the story’s many shady operatives. But perhaps that’s the point.

As for the author’s politics – he self-identifies as a “democratic socialist” — those clearly shine through in his portrayal of the Beltway elite. Each member is skewered as morally bereft or sexually perverse. Usually both. And what is their goal? As one bureaucrat puts it: to “make the world safe for globalized capitalism and its appropriate form of democracy.” To that end, no individual’s life, nation’s sovereignty or American’s freedom is safe if it gets in the way.

The personal tragedies of the central duo, Coilean and his girlfriend Petra, drive their agenda: to stop those same powers-that-be. By any extreme means necessary. Ultimately that means employing the same strategy of violence they fight against. “We bask in our rebellion,” reprises the song of Coilean.

The novel’s political overtones are impossible to miss, though overall the author is surprisingly judicious. Violence pervades the entire book, but delivered in a measured tone and therefore still jarring.

Some readers may complain that the complex plot is tied up a little too easily. Too neatly. But I won’t complain. It’s a satisfying price to pay for an engaging story told in a tidy 133 pages.

This one is a quick read. I consumed it all while waiting for a delayed flight. It occurred to me while reading that Michael O’McCarthy must believe that the world we now enjoy is rapidly headed in the direction of the fictional one he paints – one of dictatorships and Front Line Defenders. His tale is intended as cautionary. Sitting there in the airport, after enduring liquid-free, shoeless security queues and listening to incessant loudspeaker warnings to report suspicious activity, it was easy to wonder if elements of “Rebels in Hell” were just a little believable for comfort.

Kathleen Hayden has covered politics online for 13 years for Time Magazine, CNN and, currently, as an executive producer at AOL News.

By Jason Claffey

DURHAM — As she ascended the stairs leading to the second floor of the Memorial Union Building at the University of New Hampshire, hands jammed in her olive-colored trench coat, long red hair falling over her shoulders, Elizabeth Kucinich and her entourage of campaign officials strode past dozens of students on their way to class or lunch.

Some students, who were either on their cell phone or lugging a bunch of books under their arm, turned their heads for a passing glance; others simply stared, as if to ask themselves, “Who’s that?”

She is the wife of Democratic presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich, and with her movie-star looks suggesting a taller Nicole Kidman, she would seem to make an appealing substitute for her husband simply because she can make people stop and stare.

But her educational resume — degrees in religious studies and international conflict analysis from the University of Kent in England, certificates in peace and reconciliation, experience with the American Monetary Institute — make her more than a jewel piece in Kucinich’s campaign, because she can talk the issues as well as her husband, as she proved Tuesday night during an hour-long discussion with about 20 students at a table in the Union Court lunch room.

Hey, how’s it going? Hope you are all enjoying your holiday season. Sorry I haven’t been posting much lately. As you may know I have been very busy working, both at my new job, and in my side business that I started when I was unemployed. I work in the television industry in Hollywood, and am currently sitting in the control room of the T.V. network in which I am now employed.
I am heading up north (San Francisco bay area) for the Christmas weekend, and hope to start posting again in a semi-regular basis soon. I am also recovering from burnout after 3 and a half years running all phases of the H.L.

If you have never built, and run a website before it can be very stressful work, every day is another new problem that you have never seen before, and you spend half your time trying to correct F**k Ups that never should have happened in the first place. Like the fact that the right sidebar on the site is all the way down at the bottom of the page instead of at the top where it belongs. (In Internet Explorer, but not Firefox which I recomend you all use, its a much better browser) I still haven’t figured that one out yet. I have been under much less stress lately (not to mention making a lot more money) back in the world of Television, Film & video.

Michael O’ McCarthy, and Jennifer Zieman have taken over some of the posting lately, and he will also be contributing semi-regularly to the site, Michael will also be syndicating his book “Rebels in Hell” right here on the H.L. Hope everyone has a great Christmas, Hannukah, Kwanzaa, or whatever you celebrate, and a Happy New Year, I’ll see you back here soon with some new stuff
Talk to you soon.
H.L.

By Michael O’McCarthy

The Courage to Survive

An autobiography

by
Dennis J Kucinich

Book Review by: Jennifer Lynne Ziemann

A preface note from Michael O’McCarthy:  Dennis Kucinich’s younger broth, Perry died on Wednesday, December 19. Jennifer and I interviewed Dennis last month during a campaign appearance in Asheville, NC. It was a remarkable interview (previously published here - now web-viral,) with the most progressive candidate for the presidency in recent memory. During our time with him he talked some about his family life. What we found in his book, as reviewed by Jennifer, is what an extraordinary family person Dennis Kucinich is. That furthers our respect for him. And we send him our dearest condolences in his loss as a kin with whom he was very close.

- - - 

The Courage to Survive

I picked up this to read after my partner Michael O’ McCarthy and I had completed an extraordinary interview with Dennis Kucinich. He is an immensely likable man, a working class hero. I was compelled to know more and after having completed this book, I definitely understand why he is who he is.

The Courage to Survive is the autobiography of Dennis as a young boy and young man growing up in the poor working class of Cleveland, Ohio. At times his family was so destitute that they lived in their car. A particularly poignant reference in the book is when Dennis upon the first night living in their car looks out the backseat window to see a towering torch of fire shoot from a long smokestack of a steel mill. He felt the light to be comforting as it shot up to fifty feet in the air illuminating their car. Throughout his childhood he would often seek that comforting light in the sky. This is such a telling working class American story where the comfort for the child does not take place in front of a warm, cozy fireplace but in the fiery illuminating light coming from a steel mill. Living in a car at one time and being a survivor of domestic violence, I understood how life could be so bad that you cling to every precious moment and you know in your heart that somehow you will survive.This story shows how the American dream is only given to a few while the rest have to fight tooth and nail for it. And that is what Dennis did. He struggled in a family plagued by mental illness, alcoholism and domestic violence. He was the oldest of seven children who scrubbed floors and shined shoes in order to help his parents pay for book and tuition fees at Catholic school. From his meager pay he helped to buy Christmas presents for his siblings. When his mother was hospitalized for depression after the birth of her seventh child, Dennis and three of his siblings were sent to an orphanage to live until his mother came home and his parents were able to get back on their feet.Despite his parent’s alcoholism and the constant evictions his family suffered —– there is a string of emotional togetherness. There is love between his parents, Dennis and his siblings. At times dysfunctional, their love is enduring and gets Dennis through the toughest times of his life. He was an asthmatic child and at times suffered debilitating stomach pains. Due to inadequate health care he discovered in his adult life that the ailment was actually Crone’s disease. He only discovered this after having over five feet of his intestines removed.

Dennis Kucinch’s story demands attention for its tale of stalwart survival. His love of education began at an early age with his Irish mother reading Celtic stories to him at bedtime. This set a pattern of self-education, which he did on a regular basis along with his normal schooling. He went to college and at one time worked two jobs to pay for it.

He discovered that his passion was service to the people and the path in doing so was politics. He writes about his campaigning for city council, his first failed attempt and how despite doctor’s advice due to the way stress could cause a flare up in his Crone’s disease he went on to succeed in his quest for city council. This as we know is merely the beginning to a miraculous career.

I found most endearing his faith. He speaks of it throughout the book and how it helped him hold on to the belief that he could succeed. I find this so endearing because of his present day politics. He is ardent in respecting everyone’s personal belief. He speaks of Chinese medicines, Dali Lama, UFO’s, and Christianity all in one breath. He recognizes that, perhaps, there is a greater force but everyone chooses what that force is. The Courage to Survive is truly a book that would give hope to anyone that reads it.

The Courage to Survive is also testament to why Dennis Kucinich represents the best politics for a progressive change in American history and thus, makes him the best presidential candidate in US history.

By Michael O’McCarthy

Dennis Kucinich Interview transcript

Complete transcript of Dennis Kucinich interview on November 11, 2007 in Asheville, North Carolina conducted by by Jennifer Lynne Ziemann and Michael O’ McCarthy.

M- Tonight’s concert with Ani Defranco was an amazing experience, it rejuvenated me in a way I have not been rejuvenated in a long time. The audience was a Kucinich voting block, how do you convert that fervor and that movement into a voting block for you?

D-From a practical standpoint we signed up several hundred volunteers tonight and many more who did not sign up will go to our website and join the effort. These are individuals who will canvas for us in North Carolina and other states. The people will help us work the internet and people who will do research for us and who will set up rallies for us and become not just a part of this campaign but a movement to take this country in another direction. Ani attracts that kind of energy. When I was with her the other night in Boston, it’s the same kind of electricity. It is an amazing thing to be at one of her concerts, so the proof is already there you just have to channel it. And when people see I’m there reaching out they respond, they respond very powerfully. This country really has the ability to change like that (snaps fingers) if you invite them and enroll them in this effort. I want to say in respect to Asheville, I was absolutely stunned when we pulled up to the bookstore Malloprops, and it was tumultuous, it was amazing, really, its just wonderful to be there to speak, what was really an impromptu rally that was put together in a couple days and to have a chance to sign copies of my book that just come out and to be here. Again what a great town, just terrific. We did well in Buncombe County in the 2004 election.

M- How many times have you been to Asheville in this campaign?

D-I have been to North Carolina a few times, but again today, you just can’t compare.

J- What I am curious about is that you originally started with impeachment of Cheney and that has expanded to impeachment of Bush and Cheney, how do you see that playing out? Do you think there will be hearings, Do you think there will be charges?

D- I think there will be hearings, because the American people are demanding them. The idea of Democratic leaders saying that impeachment is off the table is not where the American people are. The House of Representatives is the people ‘s house, it does not belong to the Congress. Congress must assert itself as a political branch of government. To say that impeachment is off the table when there are manifest crimes that have been committed is to nullify a section of the Constitution and to obliterate the one mechanism which exist in the Constitution to correct abuses of power by Executive. This is a very serious matter and a profound principle of constitutional government, checks and balances. The minute that Congress, the House of Representatives, says under no circumstances will there be an impeachment, you not only forgo accountability in the part of the Executive but you license further abuses. It is a very dangerous thing for our leadership to have said that. You know I am a democrat, but my love for my country is above my love for my party, so my country is in trouble right now and I brought those articles forward in response to a deep and heartfelt concern about the direction America is going particularly in respect to an impending attack against Iran.

J- Do you believe there will be a war crimes trial?

D- It is a separate issue. Let’s take it a step at a time in terms of the various remedies. One is impeachment, when someone is removed from office, there can’t be no greater punishment if you happen to be a high elected official, president or vice president and you’re removed from office. That may settle it. On the other hand if the president or vice president for whatever reason will not be removed from office, I believe they should be subject to criminal prosecution. If we can’t get criminal prosecution in this country, there are international laws that they violated. But there is a basis for prosecution under the laws of the United States. The only problem is I don’t want to go there till I can see the impeachment process is going to play itself out. We have to use the remedies that are available until we exhaust them, you take every effort to use each remedy until you exhaust them and if one doesn’t work you go to another.

J-What do you feel about the statement “The U.S. does not torture” “?

D- Well, its an obvious lie and the U.S. does not wage aggressive war, and the U.S. does not exploit the natural resources of other countries, and the history of the U.S. is a story of a righteous nation that wars with the forces of evil. There are a lot of mythologies that percolate kind of like methane bubbles up from certain landfills. The mythologies lend themselves to critical inspection, critical thinking. Any critical thinking applied to the issue of torture easily discards the notion that our government has not been involved in torture, of course it has. I do not know if the President saw the pictures from Abu Ghraib, I don’t know if the President saw the pictures out of Guatanomo, but unless he is talking of America in abstraction, but government people acting upon the orders of government officials have in fact tortured, period. The denial, which that is reflective of, begs that we go deeper into the mentality from which that denial is derived because the mentality would be a condition of civic disrepair, dysfunction and disaster.

M-You’re the only candidate that believes in a true non-profit health care system. Why do you think the people don’t get it that the Senate, Congress and the White House have exactly that?

D-We’re for it for ourselves, every public official in Washington is for a public health care in which they are covered. But Washington isn’t everywhere. One of the grand deceptions of the 2008 campaign, involves candidates for president, they are all doing it, speaking about universal healthcare, as though universal healthcare was a goal that once achieved will provide affordable accessible health care to all Americans. While the other candidates advocate continuation of the for profit system, they want government to provide more subsidy to the insurance companies. People would still under those circumstances and be stuck with high premiums, some of which will be subsidized by the government. People will still be stuck with copays and deductibles, which are sinking the budgets of many American families. Half the bankruptcies in America are tied directly to people not being able to pay their hospital bills. So the plan that I am talking about, that I am co-author of, is a single payer not the for profit system, Medicare for all. Hr676 is the bill I co- authored. Now this bill provides that all of the assets in this country that is currently for profit will be converted into not for profit and the government will be the payer, the government will pay the bills. The current system provides that 1 out of every $3 is spent for the activities of the for profit, corporate profit…stock options, salaries, etc, advertising, marketing, and the cost of paperwork. According to Harvard University study that over 700 billion dollars a year goes just for the for profit system. I want to take that money and put it back into health spending and direct care and suddenly we will have enough.
Two to three trillion dollars a year and spend it all on health care. Not only we will have enough money for basic care; we will have enough money for vision care, dental care, mental health care, prescription drugs and preventative care. That is how much money is in this system and there will be no more co-pays, premiums and deductibles. To the extent that the government needs more money to run such a system is the extent that you would have a moderate increase to the amount of taxes that are paid and still people will spend only a fraction to the amount they are paying now. Some families pay a 1000.00 or more a month. Imagine instead of paying a 1000.00 a month and you made 50,000 a year and you pd 1% more, that would be 500.00 on your gross pay. Let’s do the math would you rather pay 500.00 extra or would you rather pay 12,000 plus co-pays and deductibles. But what I’m talking about is getting away from the for profit system and all these others want to keep the for profit system going. As a matter of fact the Democratic party and the Republican Party has both been held captive by these insurance industries. The Democrats can say universal health care but even the for profit insurance companies want a universal system as long as they are controlling it. Because the government is going to subsidize them, it is a windfall for them and this is exactly the program that John Edwards and Hillary Clinton are talking about. Hillary Clinton knows we’re a profit system, she is for competition amongst profit making companies.

As we have seen these companies get from the government the right to provide health care but they make their money by not providing health care. That is how they make their profits by not providing health care. I am talking about a real change in the economy of this country and it will affect and it will appreciate the health of the nation, it will be good for business. It is an additional problem for manufacturing that they cannot provide for their workforce anymore; they are unable to afford it anymore. You end up with a workforce that is less productive, if you don’t have a healthy workforce you end up with problems with productivity automatically. So there are all kinds of factors that argue in favor of the United States joining every other industrialized nation in the world in providing for the health of our people. This is one of the great corruptions of our campaigns because the insurance companies have spent tremendous amount of money in trying to influence the Democratic primaries. Hillary Clinton is the second highest recipient of insurance money and John Edwards worked for a hedge fund that is heavily invested in insurance companies particularly Humana. Humana is the fastest growing support in the privatization of Medicare. So they are all out there talking about continuing the for profit system. It’s just not fair for the American people.

J- No, its not. My Dad had quadruple by-pass surgery and when he went back to the hospital because they thought he had a blood clot and he is laying their with all of this stuff going in him, they are asking for his co-pay.

D- Check it out.

J- Yeah.

D- So the emphasis there is not on wellness, the emphasis there is on money. And there is money there but the money is being directed by the insurance company, the system is upside down. So what I ‘m talking about is sensitive to what people go through. Families are losing their homes over the cost of health care. They are losing opportunities for kids to go to college due to illness in the family. Their whole way of life is organized around paying hospitals and doctor bills. And why should we be driven to poverty over issues of ill health.

If we had a not for profit system we can put the emphasis on prevention not on people being sick. Over a period of time you can put less demands on the system. The demands are up front in terms of services that you get to stay healthy, not in the emergency room where costs go through the roof because people haven’t been taking care of them selves and are on death’s door when they are brought in. That’s where the pressure, that where the cost of medicine goes you know goes sky high.

(at this point Public Relations guy politely interrupts to tell Dennis Kucinich that he only has four minutes left and Dennis replies much to our astonishment and pleasure that he will finish the interview!!!)

D-To do what? (he asks the PR guy)

PR guy—(incoherent reply)

D- We will finish the interview; I will meet you in the room. Here’s the key—thank you Marcus.

M- Thank you for your help tonight, MarcusD- Make sure— you know some of us have (in reference to his dinner (vegan, I imagine), Marcus, don’t lose my dinner (lots of laughter).

M- Alright, I am going to switch to another subject. I am a veteran of the sixties and seventies, human rights movement, anti repression movement. I have stayed involved in politics, what is it the last thirty years. You are without question the most progressive person running for president in recent memory, much less this time. So the question I had to begin to ask myself and others and I want to ask you tonight is that given that energy that was in that room tonight, that fervor and the articulate smart things about that fervor and the feminist edge to that fervor was very acute but that’s a great politic, why do you think that more of the progressive community is not out there on your bandwagon and working to get you elected as the next president of the United States?

D- I think that is changing, I think we saw a glimmer of the change that is coming. A few days ago when Democracy For America announced the results for their grass roots internet poll of Democratic activists, it turns out the largest poll that was taken this year on the internet and I came up first in the poll, ahead of Al Gore, Barack Obama, John Edwards, Hillary Clinton. And I think that symbolizes the potential of this campaign to be able to tap the Democratic activist. And people have had a chance to see all of the candidates now, and they see, by now they understand that I am the only one running that voted against the war and voted against funding the war. People get a chance to study this and as the elections draw near and the awareness you just spoke about is becoming more and more clear. So people will see for example that Hillary Clinton not only voted for the war, voted to fund the war almost 100% of the time and has plans to stay in Iraq at least until 2013. She has said on Iran that all options are on the table, and has backtracked as President Bush has moved toward war, but the truth is she has licensed President Bush. The speeches that she gave when the vote was taking place in the Senate not only raised question on Iraq but her ability to read this country and how she was swept up in a war. She said she was tricked by George Bush. Now I don’t think anybody who is going to be president of the United States can be gullible and I don’t think that anybody who is going to be president of the United States can be swept up in war fever. In a way her confession is almost a singular disqualification for the presidency. John Edwards voted for the war, gave ringing speeches in favor of the war, to fund the war, now he has apologized for his position. But in the same breath he was calling for aggression against Iran by saying all options were on the table in a speech to (unintelligible) which is a group that is supportive of Israel. What he shows that he has the same type of thinking that lead him to vote for the war against Iraq would lead him to support a war against Iran. Now, he’s pulled back a bit, but again what he said initially in a speech three times, he said all options are on the table with respect to Iran. Everyone knows that’s a euphemism for a nuclear attack, everyone understood that. He voted for China trade, now he is on a stump decrying China trade. He voted for the Patriot Act, he is one of the authors of that, now he’s on a stump decrying retraction of civil liberties. There’s a point, in which someone has to ask who is he? What does he stand for? He’s for the war before he’s against the war, he’s for China trade before he’s against China. He’s for attacking Iran before he’s against attacking Iran. I state this because as people get a chance to analyze where each candidate stands they then raise questions on should this person be president of the United States? Barack Obama said he opposed the war, gave a speech before the war started, that’s fine, but he got to this Senate and he voted just as many times as Hillary Clinton to fund the war.

M- Uh-HuhD- Now even in Chicago, especially in Chicago, where Barack Obama is from, I don’t think you could go to a war club and with a straight face tell people you are opposed to something you just gave billions of dollars to. They’re gonna go “What” so he’s got some problems and I think it’s a serious problem. All of them on health care, they’re all wrong, they’re all with the insurance companies, on trade they’re all wrong, and again none of them will say as I say it cancel NAFTA or get out of the WTO, no one wants to say that

M- Or cancel CAFTA

D- Or CAFTA see what we have, the Democratic party has been wrong on trade, horribly wrong since Bill Clinton pushed NAFTA through with the help of Bill Richardson for example. Then there is the issue of accountability on impeachment; the first debate we had, every one of the candidates said no, no impeachment. Well, the question is raised what would be their standard for conduct in the Oval Office? Does anything go? Can the President do anything? Can he or she use the armed forces of the United States to kill an unarmed people, which is what George Bush did? It’s dirty.

J- At his will.

D-There is a moral equation here, which history, morality and human decency requires that we look at. What gives the United States of America or our leaders the right to wage war against innocent people? By what law do we assume the right to attack Iraq, a nation that did not attack us and had nothing to do with 9/11 or Al Quaida’s role in 9/11 and neither the intention or the capability of attacking us? In what right do we assume the ability to launch a grandiose attack against Iran, using 30,000lb bunker busters dropping them down on nuclear research labs, which will create Chernobyl in effect? What right do we have to do this? What right do we have to even think about it? There is a moral dimension to this that needs to be looked at because it characterizes our times. Leaders that feel they are not bound by the law, that proceed in a way that is unconscionable, who is licensed by the media that becomes complicit in their lack of straightforward analysis and criticism, our nation is being stained by this. As a result we are losing our democracy. None of these other candidates see it; they don’t get it. They don’t get that the Patriot Acts took away our rights, they all voted for it, everyone in the Senate voted for it. Edwards was a co-author. They don’t get that eavesdropping and wiretapping is against the very fiber of this country. So, this progressive constituency that is out there, this constituency, working class and middle, you know still has time to compare the candidates and when they do this the campaign will begin to emerge in a very powerful way. And I do think its beginning to happen; we’ve seen little glimmers of it here and there.

J- Wow—You’re vegan and I am vegan myself. It affects the way I look at a lot of things, so what I am wondering how does that effect your view of the ecology of humans and other natural life forms?

D- Well, it’s a compassionate approach because you realize the choices that you make and what you eat affect other beings, other species, which do not exist for our utility but have an inherent right to exist apart from us. Now people can make the choice about whatever they want to eat. I’m not running for president to tell people they have to eat their veggies, ok. But I will share my story which is when I changed my diet my health changed dramatically. I was a meat and potatoes kind of guy and I was also someone who had Crohn’s disease. I write about this in the book, that’s out on the stands right now The Courage to Survive. I had this when I was a child and didn’t even know it. And every time I ate it was painful and after awhile you think oh that’s just part of life. Really if you have pain every day it becomes your friend, your companion, you don’t think about not having pain, its just there. So it wasn’t until I went through some pretty rough times with this, including some major surgery when I was twenty-one that I began slowly to think about what I could change in my life. Well, it took a long time to get there and finally I meant someone who was a vegan and for the sake of love I changed my diet just like that (snaps his fingers). It was a very unusual experience because I would go into a super market and it was like learning a new language.

However, when I did that, when I got away from all processed foods. I got away form sugar; I stopped eating meat, chicken, fish, dairy products. I stopped having a lot of the symptoms that went with the Crohn’s and when I was able to get rid of almost everything, the medication I was taking, like the box, just throw it away literally. Then a couple of years late, I discovered Chinese medicine and when that happened the symptoms were gone. Ten years and I have not had a symptom. I basically don’t have it anymore. But when you go through that journey, you realize that your choice of food can be connected directly to your health. But when you go through that journey you realize that there is other philosophical conventions related to the food you eat. The environment, for example, as well as certainly the impact on species. And for me the other benefit I have found is that I have an enormous amount of energy. I put in generally a solid 18 hours a day. The reason I’m able to do it is because of this diet that I am on. I couldn’t do it other wise; I would not be able to do it. Because the other diet slowed me down. The other diet I was sluggish, midway through the day I would get tired. Early in the morning, I would wonder why about 10:00 O’clock, I would start to yawn and just feel, you know your blood sugar cycle starts to undulate you know you go up, you go down, you go up, you go down. I don’t have that anymore, its solid, every minute I take, its right on the money. I am in better shape at this point than people half my age and I could probably beat most people half my age in a foot race. I am in excellent physical shape. But, diet, is centrally connected to it.

But going back to public policy, I will share this story with the American people. I know what I went through, I know how certain types of foods affected me and I also know that when I changed my diet it worked for me. Maybe with everyone it wouldn’t have that effect. Some people have a need to eat certain types of food. They’re probably right. But I saw something that just changed (snaps fingers). And of course, you know, in addition to that I don’t drink, I don’t smoke and I have never done drugs. So I can look at my life, my body as a vessel to keep clean and sacred. What I find is my own consciousness is in such a fine tune place and if I take anything into myself that moves or shifts one way or another is just, its just too uncomfortable. I knew I had food poisoning, very painful to say the least, and I fought taking anything. I don’t like anything that interferes with my senses. There was a point where I didn’t have a choice. But I don’t like anything that interferes with my senses. I like to just be very aware of what’s going on.

M- She has a vested interest and I do too in one particular question, (to Jennifer) so why don’t you go ahead and ask those questions.

J- I am a survivor of domestic violence so I would like to know what your position is on this issue especially the plague of domestic violence and gender apartheid that’s running rampant in the US.

(Kucinich pauses thoughtfully)

D-Well, yeah, absolutely, it has been. It starts with particularly men’s attitudes about women, which begin at a very early age. The notion of patriarch helps lend itself to violence. Violence is learned, and healthy peaceful responses can also be learned. The idea behind the Department of Peace and Nonviolence is to look at the range of incidences of violence, violence in America as exemplified by domestic violence. Any kind of violence at all spousal abuse, child abuse, elderly violence and to look at it passionately but with an eye towards dealing with it as a social, economical, and political phenomenon through application of principles of education. It can be changed. I think it was Emerson that once wrote that “every jet of chaos, which threatens to exterminate us, is movable by intellect into a wholesome force” and we need to look at the jets of chaos that bring violence into American homes. The Dept of Peace would through education teach children healthy attitudes about how to respond when someone says something about you that isn’t nice, how to respond when someone hits you. I would encourage healthy interaction between people. This creation of this indemnity would fund programs that deal with domestic violence in terms of educating young men, you know, in proper treatment of women, boys and girls and vica versa because some of the violence is the other way as well. Violence can be a two-way streak but we know the prevalence is much greater, male against female. In trying to deal with spousal abuse, it’s a little too late when it is in the courtroom or worse than that in the hospital or the morgue. The time to deal with it is with the attitudes. In families where that’s a problem families need access to counseling. And it should be something that is not so stigmatized. It should be something where people are given the chance to come together and work out their difficulties because if you don’t solve it in one relationship you end up being the victim or the victimizer in the next relationship. It never ends. It’s almost…its past on, just for example. So this has to be approached compassionately without blame. Life holds a caldron of emotion. When you read the book that I’ve written, for example, I am talking about my own experiences. I know what people go through. There was plenty of violence in my home, when I grew up, of all kinds. And yet as you go through life you find out, you know, there are all kind of forces that can tear people apart. So if you take a compassionate approach and you have available counseling then you can do something. In some cases, you know, there is many different ways that things are solved but the thing is to get people to understanding that they can go somewhere for help. Violence in the schools, look at this, this is prevalent in so many places and gun violence. The schools are nothing but a reflection of the outside society. It really is a macrocosm of war perpetuating violence in any level of society, it justs accelerates, its an accelerant on all violence everywhere, every level. Because it becomes so embedded in the consciousness of a country that these forces are inchoate or dissonant whatever you want to call it. Those forces unleash themselves in ways that cause destruction everywhere. Its almost, you know, the Hindu philosophy said that Shiva Vishnu exists simultaneously. We get a chance to consciously choose which one of those forces will work through us at any given moment. This requires a conscious attention; this is something you could learn. You know Margaret Mead when she studied the islands I think it was in the South Seas; she found cultures that were non-violent. We learn violence; we can learn non-violent responses. I gave you a more comprehensive answer to the question but domestic violence is just one symptom to a society that is unhinged. And our society has the potential to change dramatically but we have to stop our addiction to violence as a society and that touches every aspect of our life including media, our homes, our government policies. How can you tell people not to be violent when the nation in which they are a part wages war against innocent people? How can you sell non-violence? You just can’t, its impossible. So you have to again, in this case you get into macro-culture but you also appeal to people’s own abilities to try to change their own lives. This is something we do on our own. We make our choices in a sense on whether or not the relationships we’re in, do we stay in them or not, do we give people a chance to change, these are all choices that we make.

M-Parenthetically speaking both Bronislau Malinowski and Mead studied cultures that were either matriarchal or matrilineal.

J-How would you describe your view on class discrimination and separation?

D- It’s inherent in the capitalist system.

M- excellent answer-

J- Yeah—how do you hope to make a change when basically you have the entire corporate state against you?

D- I don’t take that personal. You have to show people.

J- How do you show people?D-You have to show people that acceleration of wealth upwards is not in their interest. Various Americans have lost their homes because of the corruption on Wall Street and the indifference of the Federal Reserve. They lost it through sub prime loans that shouldn’t have been written in the first place. They lost it because the government was a cop that went off the beat while the Security Exchange Commission and hedge funds were booking huge values from people writing these mortgages without documentation and every one is making money off of the increased value for the investors, more loans booked, more investors you have, the more the portfolio value grows. People make a lot of money and nobody can pay these things off and everything unravels. Oil companies are ripping off the American people; the government is pocketing profits. We’re at war for oil. My responsibility is to help people make the connections to the reality of how this affects their own life. Sons and daughters of America are dying in a war based on lies, a war that is being fought for oil. That’s the wealth of the nation accelerating upwards. Going to the car manufacturers, the oil companies. The life blood, the wealth of America goes upwards. Housing, energy policies, transportation policy, health care, insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies, it all goes upwards. You have to be able make the case to the American people. I have the ability to do that because of my life experience. Because of the way I grew up, because I understand what people go through, because I know that for most people having a roof over your head is what’s important. Practical aspirations for people and peace is a practical aspiration as well, so because I understand that I have the ability to speak in practical terms to the American people about why you put up with this? Why do you put up with a situation where you are losing your home because the insurance companies are ripping you off? When you are losing your retirement because these corporations, the heads of the corporations are stealing the retirement money leaving people destitute in old age. Why do you put up with the tax system? When the breaks are for people at the top and the taxes are paid for by people in the middle? It’s crazy. So I look at this from a practical standpoint and I can make the case, I am the candidate of the mainstream. The rest of these people are candidates of a radical corporate structure that takes the wealth of the nation and puts it in the hands of a few. But, you know they do it with a smile and they do it with the help of the media. But I come from a place where it’s different. I can stand for things and say things that none of the others can say because they’re a part of a system that they all are making something out of it, they are all profiting from it personally and politically.

M-Let me interject to ask, we want to get two more questions and we’re done.

D- okay

M-If that is fair. My question—I am going to try to put two questions together, if I may, as soon as I find the questions (paper shuffling). Where did they go? All right, okay. This is historical premise; historical premise in the sense that Europeans came to this country and the country was founded. It was basically predicated upon the treatment of African Americans and the indigenous national population that has been one of genocide and lack of respect for people of color. Do you see that endemic to the foreign policy of the United States and second to that question until that issue of the treatment of those people, my people in part and some form of reparation is done, can you ever see a truly bi-cultural and bi-national policy that treats all people on the planet with respect?

(Kucinich took a long thoughtful pause, with fingers folded under his chin.)

D-Well the Euro-centric world, which our founders have broke away from, became the Amer-centric world which has been a challenge for observers of America to be able to stomach. It’s inherent arrogance that has separated us from the world. That’s why I speak of the imperative of unity. Never before have we had such a technical infrastructure in our society where it is demonstratively true that the world is interconnected and cannot be denied. Systems of transportation, systems of communication, wherever people want to go. Changes in global climate, all nations contribute to greenhouse gases. Once we come to a place where we acknowledge that we are all in this together, that we have brother and sisters in every part of the world, that we are responsible for each other then we have an opportunity to begin. Then we can move towards a consideration of reparations because what’s there to repair if we don’t feel we have anything in common to the other person? How do you make the case? But when you realize our brothers happen to have red skin, lost their lands, their lands were stolen and their tribes were murdered. How can we ever repair that breach if we do not come to an understanding that we did that to our brother and sister? The pageant of Cain and Able has been reenacted since the beginning of time. How can we come to an understanding, a need that we need to have reparations if we are not ready to admit that we put our brother and sister in chains of the slave? And if we are not willing to accept the common effects of slavery throughout history, the degradation of an entire people, the suppression of the social growth, the economic growth, these messages that are still so powerful with us. The Kerner Commission report of the sixties would find, if it was revisited, that the conditions are manifestly worse than they were although there is no disturbance attended to today.

We must be repairers of the breach, our Christian bible urges us to do that and in doing that we repair ourselves. What’s happened is that there is a split in our awareness. By disassociating ourselves from others we split our own consciousness, we separate ourselves from ourselves, from our inner sense of knowingness and humanity. And we lose our moorings, we are adrift. But when we come to understanding unity there is forgiveness, love, real deep love that we have never experienced before. When we touch that something powerful a transformation takes place. And we will achieve a level of connection with people; the whole world will fall in love with America all over again. Until we understand the current of human unity, we will never be able to reconcile with the Muslim world; we will always be separate. That a million innocent Iraqis could have perished in this war without a cry of a heart, without an outrage on a level that would cry to the heavens is really destructive because what it tells is that the same kind of racism that permitted the theft of lands from Native Americans, that destroyed their culture, that led to black people being put in slave galleys destroying their families and their culture, that led to systematic discrimination in this country that still exists today. It lead to the bombing of Iraq, would lead to the bombing of Iran. And it could all change it could all change if we could understand that regardless of what anyone would tell us that we are all essentially made of the same stuff. Race, color, creed are just fractions of light through a prism of humanity. You have to in a sense go back to what the founding fathers said when they talk about equality, that we are all created equal, not that we end up equal, we know we are, but that we all are created equal. There’s something essential that we have in common claim for life, liberties, that these liberties are self-evident. We have to get back to that kind of awareness. The founding fathers, even with their flaws, they knew this. Now we are in a place where we can heal history.

See I believe, my view is that the past, present and future exists simultaneously. You can heal by reaching into the past; you can heal the present and provide for a new future. So we can’t trunk the past from the present. One of the things that is happening in this presidential campaign is that there is a philosophical violence that is being committed against this country by candidates who keep changing there position week after week to conform to where public opinion is.

M-hmmm, I agree.

D-Its like living, you know, it’s a prescription for insanity because you never know where anybody stands on anything, its just who looks good, you know. Its what Colbert calls truthiness. He is right about that. Nothing is true anymore, its what appears to be true that counts and when its all over people know they are being lied to they just don’t know what to do about it. So for my part, what I try to do is to hold that, to hold the ground of meaning not to slip into the Orwellian somersaults, but to hold the ground of meaning and to say… peace is inevitable. Its imperative for human unity, it’s imperative for truth. That’s what I do, thanks.

M- I have two softball questions.

D- What are they?

(It was nearing one o’clock and getting close to that 18^th hour)

M-The first one is and this is in all candor, when we first started watching you on the campaign trail, we’re your supporters, so, we believed in everything you said. But there were times during your early public appearances on camera, it seemed that you were unsure in what you believe in. The appearance came across that you seemed to hesitate that there was a hesitation in pronouncing your message. That changed, there’s a real sense of centeredness and a real sense of, I wouldn’t call it urgency but perhaps that is what it is, but a real sense of, this is not the best word I can choose, but mission to be delivered, i.e., the truth. What happened, what brought about that change, if you agree that there has been a change?

D- Well, sure there’s been a change.

M-What brought about the change?

D- Elizabeth. (he broke into a huge joyous smile)

M - (laughing) That was the second question.

D- Absolutely, no question about it. I am the luckiest guy in the world.

You may now choose one of those, (*) or, if you are rich you can do as High Princess of Media Paris Hilton suggests:Pop into your local High Colonic clinic where you —

By Michael O’McCarthy

From Ed Pearl

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
support
one of the other candidates because Kucinich cannot win. This is
basically conceding our elections to corporate 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 supporting Kucinich? I know
Clinton is
bad, but are any of of the Corporate favorites any better? I don’t
really
think so. It appears to me that the “goodness” of the candidates is
inversely related to corporate 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 supporters 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!

“Kucinich for President”
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article18790.htm

Gore Vidal : Dennis Kucinich

The Nation 11/28/07

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,
pushing 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 & supporters

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@gmail.com

HOST 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

—

Unconsciously, Many favor Kucinich

By MARC HANSEN
Des Moines Register: October 23, 2007

Don’t panic, but there’s a chance you aren’t supporting the
presidential
candidate you most agree with on the issues.

As we stumble toward the primary/caucus season, millions of voters (or
at
least dozens) are going online and taking surveys that match them with
candidates. And they’re not automatically matching up with their
favorite
candidates. This happened four years ago when the Democrats were
trying to
figure out how to beat George Bush. Most of them wanted Kerry or
Edwards or
Dean.

But surprise, surprise. When they punched in their select-a-candidate
surveys, Kucinich’s name kept blinking back at them on the computer
screen.
That’s the Dennis Kucinich whose poll numbers were below sea level, the
Kucinich nobody took seriously, the Kucinich who never had a chance.

Kathleen Ferguson of Des Moines says nothing has changed four years
later.
She found one of those surveys on the Web site of WQAD-TV in the Quad
Cities. She answered the 11 multiple-choice questions and decided how
important each issue was to her.

The topics were Iraq, immigration, tax cuts, stem cell research, health
care, abortion, Social Security, a line-item veto, ethanol, same-sex
marriage and the death penalty. Ferguson clicked “select a candidate,”
and
up popped Kucinich.

She had family members take the test. Kucinich came in first or second.
She
wondered what was going on. A lot of Democrats like what he has to say
on
the issues. Yet only a small percentage like him as their candidate.
“We’re not all that liberal,” Ferguson said. “Several of us are former
Republicans. It’s astonishing to see what we want was labeled too
far-out
liberal.”

A lawyer she knows took the test, and another friend. Kucinich,
Kucinich.

“To paraphrase Kucinich himself,” she said, “we can have a president
who
agrees with us on the issues and will work to institute the policies we
want, or we can have a president who’s tall.”

It can’t be just physical stature, but it’s almost certainly a
self-fulfilling prophecy. Voters might agree completely with a
candidate,
but if they don’t think the candidate has a decent shot, they’ll vote
for
someone else.

Ferguson, a paralegal at the Principal Financial Group, fits that mold.
She
supported Kucinich in 2004. She volunteered for him. But now she’s
trying to
decide between the two front-runners. “I threw away my voice last time
by
supporting somebody who had no support,” she said. “It’s important to
stand
up for your beliefs, but if I’m reasonably certain it’s going to be
Obama or
Clinton, don’t I have the responsibility to decide which is the better
candidate and support that person?”

Ralph Nader, George W. Bush’s best friend in 2004, would say no.

Ferguson gives Kucinich good marks for his debate performances. His
punch
lines get positive audience response. He’s quick on his feet in the
debates. When they asked him about prayer, Kucinich said he was praying
somebody would finally ask him a question.

David Redlawsk, a political science professor at the University of
Iowa,
isn’t surprised by the contradiction. Redlawsk and Rutgers University
professor Richard Lau wrote the book on this subject: “How Voters
Decide:
Information Processing During Election Campaigns.”

Redlawsk says you can’t read too much into these computer-match
programs.
They sometimes oversimplify a candidate’s positions. And even when they
don’t, issues aren’t everything to the average voter.

“That isn’t to say they aren’t useful,” he says. “People who go through
them
learn more about the candidates. But most people don’t make decisions
looking at every issue. They look at a limited set of issues, then they
look
at other things like personality, viability, who’s the best overall
fit.”

Voting on a candidate’s position on issues alone is a little like
dating
through the personal ads. You have to see the prospective suitor up
close.
Focus too much on content at the expense of context and you might miss
the
big picture.

Redlawsk then committed political science blasphemy. He said the voters
with
the most information don’t automatically vote in their best interests
anyway. “People are efficient at taking small amounts of information,”
he
says, “making good decisions with that information and moving on with
their
lives.”

Speaking of small amounts of information, I took the candidate-match
test.
All I’ll say is I like Mike Gravel and Ron Paul a lot more than I
thought.