BartCop Entertainment Archives - Tuesday, 20 November, 2007

The Editorial We

Not only is every single presidential candidate other than Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich unfit for the office of president, they're all unfit to serve in congress. Every one of the bastards who voted for the Patriot Act and to give Bush war powers and funding should be tarred and feathered and run out of Washington on a rail. Yeah, the Democratic candidates are falling all over themselves apologizing for their past mistakes. Apologies not accepted. No amount of politically motivated regret can make up for the loss of the lives of thousands of our American sons and daughters and millions of innocent Iraqis. They've all got blood on their hands. I've got more respect for the Republicans who aren't apologizing. At least they're sticking to their misguided convictions. The apologizing Democrats are openly admitting their incompetence. Only a fucking idiot wouldn't have known precisely what it meant to give war powers to a narrow minded cowboy moron like Bush.

NEW THIS WEEK

We're proud to present an exclusive interview with Dennis Kucinich by Michael O'McCarthy and Jennifer Lynne Ziemann. Kucinich seems to have more in common with the Dalai Lama than with any US President past or president. When you hear him express his own spiritual awakening, saying things like "Race, color, creed are just fractions of light through a prism of humanity," you'll know this isn't politics as usual, that he's a man of deep conviction who can't be bought by the corporate raiders currently running our country.

Then David Swanson of afterdowningstreet.org dissects the blatant manipulation of CNN and their outrageous handling of the broadcast debates in Wolf Blitzer Loses Democratic Debate.

You've probably never heard of Natalie Jeremijenko but she's one of the most forward thinkers on the planet, which you'll know for sure after reading From Robotic Sniffer Dogs to Urban Space Stations by Kim Thomas.

On the subject of torture, Keith Olbermann gave one of most magnificent televised rants of all time last week, and Mark Morford went on a rant of his own about the cretins complaining about Olbermann's rant. Check them both out in Rants of the Week.

Bob Zinner was lucky enough to catch John Mayall in concert this week. Zinner's a blues guitarist who has played with Jimi Hendrix, Eric Burton, Johnny Winters, Leon Russell, Steven Stills, George Duke, and Beck, so you better believe him when he says in his review that you should have been there.

Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi, screenwriter Irv Brecher, Bob Dylan, and George Gurdjieff, all join in the fun too.

COLUMNISTS: David Schoen, Lynette Sheffield, and zEN mAN.

CONTRIBUTORS: angryscientist, BartCop Entertainment, Justin Bilicki, Dave Brice, William J. Brink, The Creative Commons, Barry Crimmins, Jeff Crook, Cory Doctorow, Janis R. England, Daniel Ellsberg, Joe Falcone, Steven Finger, Thomas Good, R.S. Janes, John Kapelos, Paul Krassner, Art Kunkin, Ira Miller, Ironic Times, Robin Mencken, mizzima.com, oldamericancentury.org, Michael O'McCarthy, Tony Ortega, Sam Pizzigati, Pravda, Baron Dave Romm, Satan, Jane Stillwater, David Swanson, tbhpolitoon, wrapped-in-the-flag.com.

All copyrights reserved by original writers or artists.

Michael Dare
michael@dareland.com

President Dennis Kucinich

Interviewed by Michael O'McCarthy and Jennifer Lynne Ziemann

The concert audience of over 1,800 fans in the Thomas Wolfe auditorium Asheville, North Carolina, was stoked. They'd come to see Ani DiFranco, but when Democratic Presidential Candidate Dennis Kucinich came on stage just before her set, the audience stood and roared.

As Kucinich talked about a "Department of Peace" for foreign and domestic policy, the crowd went crazy as if he were a rock star, cheering even louder when he called for an end to unfair economic exploitation of third world people and resources. He was clearly one of the most humane and deeply spiritual presidential candidates this country has ever seen. We spoke to him after the concert.

LA FREE PRESS: Tonight's audience loved you. How do you convert that fervor and that movement into a voting block for you?

KUCINICH: 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. The people will help us work the internet and do research for us and set up rallies 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.

LA FREE PRESS: Your impeachment of Cheney has expanded to impeachment of Bush and Cheney. How do you see that playing out? Do you think there will be hearings or actual charges?

KUCINICH: 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 exists in the Constitution to correct abuses of power by the Executive.

This is a very serious matter and a profound principle of constitutional government checks and balances. The minute that Congress 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.

LA FREE PRESS: Do you believe there will be a war crimes trial?

KUCINICH: Let's take it a step at a time in terms of the various remedies. One is impeachment. There can be no greater punishment if you happen to be a high elected official, president or vice-president. 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 until I can see how the impeachment process is going to play itself out. We have to use the remedies that are available until we exhaust them.

LA FREE PRESS: How do you feel about the statement "The U.S. does not torture?"

KUCINICH: Well, its an obvious lie - like 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. 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 don't know if the President saw the pictures from Abu Ghraib, I don't know if the President saw the pictures out of Guantanamo, but government people acting upon the orders of government officials have in fact tortured, period.

LA FREE PRESS: You're the only candidate that believes in a true non-profit health care system. If the Senate, Congress, and the White House have exactly that, why don't the people have it too?

KUCINICH: One of the grand deceptions of the 2008 campaign involves candidates speaking about universal health care, as though universal health care 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. Under those circumstances,people would still be stuck with high premiums, co-pays, 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. The bill I co-authored, Hr676, is a single payer, not for profit system. Medicare for all. This bill provides that all of the assets in this country that are currently for profit will be converted into not for profit and the government will pay the bills.

The current system provides that $1 out of every $3 is spent for corporate profit, stock options, salaries, advertising, marketing, and the cost of paperwork. According to a Harvard University study, over $700 billion 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. Not only will we 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 of the amount they are paying now.

Some families pay $1000 or more a month. Imagine if you made $50 thousand a year and you paid 1% more in taxes. That would be $500 out of your gross pay. Let's do the math. Would you rather pay $500 extra in taxes per year or $12 thousand plus co-pays and deductibles?

This is one of the great corruptions of our campaigns because the insurance companies have spent tremendous amounts 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 company supporting 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.

LA FREE PRESS: Why do you think more of the progressive community is not out there on your bandwagon?

KUCINICH: 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 was the largest poll taken this year on the internet and I came up first, ahead of Al Gore, Barack Obama, John Edwards, and 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 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 the awareness is becoming more and more clear.

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 Qaeda'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 30,000 lb. 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. We've got leaders that feel they are not bound by the law, that proceed in a way that is unconscionable, licensed by the media that becomes complicit in their lack of straightforward analysis and criticism. Our nation is being stained by this. They don't get that the Patriot Acts took away our rights, they all voted for it. Edwards was a co-author. They don't get that eavesdropping and wiretapping is against the very fiber of this country.

LA FREE PRESS: How does being vegan effect your view of the ecology of humans and other natural life forms?

KUCINICH: 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, okay, but I will share my story. 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 met someone who was a vegan, and for the sake of love I changed my diet just like that. It was a very unusual experience because I would go into a supermarket and it was like learning a new language.

However, when I did that, when I got away from all processed foods, I got away from 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.

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, its just too uncomfortable. I don't like anything that interferes with my senses. I like to just be very aware of what's going on.

LA FREE PRESS: What's your position on the plague of domestic violence and gender apartheid that's running rampant in the US?

KUCINICH: It starts with 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 Non-Violence" 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.

There was plenty of violence in my home, when I grew up, of all kinds. And yet as you go through life you find there are all kinds of forces that can tear people apart. So if you take a compassionate approach and you have available counseling, then you can do something. The thing is to get people to understanding that they can go somewhere for help. Violence in schools is prevalent in so many places, but they're nothing but a reflection of the outside society. It really is a macrocosm of war perpetuating violence in any level of society, it just accelerates, it's an accelerant on all violence everywhere, every level.

Those forces unleash themselves in ways that cause destruction everywhere. You know Margaret Mead studied the islands in the South Seas; she found cultures that were non-violent. We learn violence; we can learn non-violent responses.

How can you tell people not to be violent when the nation in which they are a part wages war against innocent people?

LA FREE PRESS: How would you describe your view on class discrimination and separation?

KUCINICH: It's inherent in the capitalist system.

LA FREE PRESS: How do you hope to make a change when basically you have the entire corporate state against you?

KUCINICH: I don't take that personal. 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 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. 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 their head is what's important.

LA FREE PRESS: This country was founded on genocide and lack of respect for people of color. Do you see that endemic to the foreign policy of the United States? Can you ever see a truly bicultural and binational policy that treats all people on the planet with respect?

KUCINICH: Well the Euro-centric world, which our founders have broke away from, became the Ameri-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 demonstrably true that the world is interconnected. Once we come to a place where we acknowledge that we are all in this together, that we have brothers and sisters in every part of the world, that we are responsible for each other, then we have an opportunity to begin.

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, a powerful 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 led to the bombing of Iraq and could lead to the bombing of Iran. It could all change if we understand that regardless of what anyone would tell us, we are all essentially made of the same stuff. Race, color, creed are just fractions of light through a prism of humanity.

Read every issue of the new Los Angeles Free Press, including this one, here.