Wanted: an honest, courageous leader

Most people close to me are well aware that I hate politics. I also hate how events and policies, and terrorists, have so far in this millennium forced me to think about politics more and more. Though political matters naturally interest me, as a human being who cares about my world, and although I’ve always voted, focus on political matters gets my blood pressure up and ruins my inner peace and ability to focus on what’s really important to me in my life. That’s certainly not the role I want government to have in my country. I worked for the government long enough, and by law had virtually no political voice during that time, and I now want the government to be simply a solid, secure structure that does its job efficiently and sits in the background of my life, taking care of us all as it should. Low maintenance. We pay enough for it, after all.

I suspect these are the same reasons a lot of people with similar interests to mine try to ignore and stay out of politics and political discussion — and avoid reading or commenting on political blog posts like my past few. But that’s not how our country was designed. It was designed to be participatory, for everyone to have a part and a say in how it’s run; and in addition to how much I detest the ire and stress politics raises in me, I’m growing to hate our slanted corporate news media in the US even more, and I don’t think that anyone in this country can responsibly ignore politics right now.

If not for the internet, I would have no clue who some of the candidates are in this election or where they stand on the issues most important to me, because corporate America doesn’t want us to know the most important details about them. Even the televised debates so far that included more of the candidates have been significantly slanted in direction by the sponsors and facilitators and the questions that were allowed. These are far from the formal debates I was taught about in school. The corporate interests that control our media would rather steer our votes carefully in their preferred direction. This is the flip side of that coin we call Free Press. It’s a bigger side these days than the positive side of Free Press, because there’s so much money behind it. The corporate media can say pretty much anything they want, paint the picture they want, and they have the money to bring that picture right into our living rooms.

So in defense of what I think is right, much as I dislike it I will continue to post political content here in support of Dennis Kucinich until we have a Democratic nominee for the general election. I may continue after that, until we have a new president. Will anyone listen to me? Probably not. I think most voters still attempt to get their political information from television news and newspapers. Besides, I’m not rich, I’m not anyone of any importance, I’m not beautiful or famous, and who cares what I have to say? Nonetheless I’ll engage my right to speak out as long as I still have that right. You can continue to read here or not, and sift through for the content you prefer, or put up with my politics. That’s entirely up to you.

I intend over the next few weeks of primaries and caucuses to push as much attention as I can toward the candidate I think is the most courageous, consistent, and proactive person running, and who isn’t getting his fair share of publicity from news sources that should be objective rather than selective this early into the process of choosing our next president — unless of course they’re endorsing rather than reporting the news, as Dennis Kucinich pointed out in his complaint to the FCC against ABC.

Viggo Mortensen’s move yesterday in New Hampshire to show his public support of Kucinich has at least gotten the candidate a little more airtime. News Hounds provides a video of Dennis Kucinich and Viggo Mortensen on Hannity & Colmes. While the News Hounds site seems critical of Kucinich not having anything negative to say about Hillary Clinton, I admire the fact that Kucinich stuck to the issues and refused to engage in personal mudslinging. (correction: see Ellen’s (from News Hounds) comment below.) I also admire his courage in appearing on clearly conservative shows, where I think some of the other Democratic candidates are less willing to put themselves on the chopping block, so to speak. One of the show’s hosts, Hannity I think, needs to listen to what Warren Buffett has to say about how the wealthy are under-taxed in this country.

Daniel Geery, at OpEdNews.com, insists he finds Kucinich Still the Best. As he points out, Kucinich is the best candidate for any voter who is against the Iraq War, for fair taxation of the wealthy, for the environment, and for taking care of all Americans. He also reminds us that Dennis Kucinich is the only candidate who has spoken out and voted consistently against the Iraq War from the start; is against the Patriot Act; is for signing the Kyoto Treaty; wants to rebuild our infrastructure of schools, roads, bridges, ports, water and environmental systems; wants to break up corporate monopolies; is against privatizing Social Security; and wants a truly not-for-profit health care system that provides care to all Americans.

As you may know, Dennis Kucinich is fighting Texas Democratic Party officials, with the aid of Willie Nelson, to get his name on the Texas primary ballot. In Michigan, it seems, according to one source, that Democrat (Hillary Clinton) is the only major Democratic candidate who appears on the primary ballot, making theirs “a contest in name only.” Read what Chris Christoff has to say in Voters: ‘It’s like we don’t count’ at freep.com. Here’s another source for what appears on that ballot: The Green Papers 2008 Presidential Primaries, Caucuses, and Conventions. Well, at least Kucinich got on that one, but it still appears lacking to me. Without election and campaign reforms, it appears we can’t (and perhaps never could) get a completely fair election of a president in this country.

Update 11:43 AM — Thanks to Dandelion Salad, I found this YouTube video (which due to poor lighting is actually more of an audio) recorded in Manchester, New Hampshire, in which Dennis Kucinich talks about why it’s important for candidates to talk to those interviewers who may not agree with them, and Viggo Mortensen talks about why no vote is wasted. In doing so he told about people wearing Obama and Clinton buttons who came up to Dennis Kucinich to tell him how much they admired him, but who appeared not to want to vote for him because they didn’t want to “waste” their votes. This makes me wonder how many people are not planning to vote for Kucinich in the primaries simply because they think he can’t win. If they all voted for him, he’d likely not be such a long shot. In the general election we’re stuck with the top candidates in each party, whether they’re our favorites or not. But in the primaries, why would anyone not vote for exactly the candidate they most admire and think would be the best president? This isn’t the time to only bet on a sure thing. This is the time to bet on the best leader possible — and bet on our nation at the same time.

Update: 1:10 PM — Here is the latest video message from the Kucinich campaign: Kucinich Weekly Update 01 07 08. Thomas Gallagher, an independent YouTube video-maker is featured there, with his pro-Kucinich video, (Koo-sin-ich Re-mix) Dennis 4 President 2008.

Update: 3:28 PM — Note: I’ve updated elsewhere in this post to correct inaccuracies, and to add links I thought helped illustrate some points. I only plan one political post per day, so I may update each in this manner if needed. I’ll try to mark major updates so they’re obvious.