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District 6 Supervisor Chris Daly
Photo by Luke Thomas
By Chris Daly
August 25, 2008, 5:30 p.m.
Denver, CO — Maybe his presentation is not very Presidential, but you’ve got to hand it to Dennis Kucinich. He’s the energizer bunny for economic and social justice in the Democratic Party. And tonight, he didn’t disappoint. Even as Delegates were streaming in, just before prime time on the East Coast, Kucinich brought the Pepsi Center to its feet with an impassioned plea:
“Wake Up, America!”
Kucinich landed stinging jabs on Bush-Cheney-McCain, calling them “neocon artists.” He took them to task for turning our country over to the oil companies, pharmaceuticals, and financial speculators. Most poignantly, and to rousing applause, Dennis called the war in Iraq “a war for oil,” and placed direct responsibility for the deaths of US troops and innocent Iraqi civilians squarely at the feet of Republicans.
Dennis Kucinich’s voice is unique in big-time Democratic politics and he legitimately represents the grassroots activist base of the Democratic Party.
Kucinich’s voice needs to be amplified. Â He’s the real deal.
The Hunger Site
August 29, 2008 at 8:56 pm
Too bad Kucinich doesn’t have the guts to back Nader-Gonzalez, given what Barack Obama is–pro-FISA voter, warmonger in Afghanistan, and advocate of nuclear power, clean coal, and biofuels.
August 28, 2008 at 9:31 am
Hey Brian, thank you for voting for Dennis 4 years ago. We Kucinich supporters truly appreciate it. But… then what happened this past year? Was there a better, more progressive candidate? Because if I recall Dennis did not change any of his platforms, perhaps merely adding some new ones. So my question is: who is it that needs to “wake up?” Did Dennis all of a sudden become “unelectable?” Your statement that “If America was going to “wake up,†they should have voted for Kucinich in the primaries.” It’s called corporate media manipulation. Between character assassination by Tim Russert, denying him several opportunities to debate the other candidates in the later debates, and just plain blacking him out in the press, to even many those who have woken up to the injustices of this regime Dennis Kucinich is totally invisible. To this day, as I constantly bring up his name and the courageous stances and protests he has made, it’s amazing how many people have never even heard of him! Chalk it up to the corporate-owned fascist media who scored another one (in coercion with the criminally-complicit DNC) by sticking him in a shitty time-slot at the convention. Ridiculous.
And I respectfully disagree with your assertion that the speech was “gimmicky.” It spoke truth to power, bravely, and did so in straightforward speech. In the span of 6 minutes he hit ALL of the important issues and didn’t hold back in telling it like it is — our country and constitution have been hijacked by a fascist administration.
August 27, 2008 at 7:21 am
Thanks, Brian, but the true progressives are not being distracted by the major party conventions or even the farcical presidential elections. We’ve got our plates full here in San Francisco for November.
True progressives are in our communities doing what it takes to build a base upon which we might bring those fundamental policy values which we all agree upon to bear on public policy at increasingly higher and ambitious levels.
One measure of our success is the lengths to which the corporate powers in San Francisco will go to thwart us and have their way unfettered.
What they’ve done to Daly, what they did to Mark Sanchez, the way that the Chronicle is marginalizing us as “far leftists,” the amount of money that Lennar spent to buy Hunters Point and which PG&E is spending to keep its monopoly franchise, all of this demonstrates that we’re on the right track and should keep focusing our scarce resources where we have a demonstrated track record of success.
We’ve truly come full circle when corporate power dismisses democratic participation in politics is the folly of the far left. And one reason we’ve done that is to replace protesting power with contesting for power.
And the far left so worships its status as the “alternative,” the “opposition,” wallowing in powerlessness, that it is wholly incapable of walking in power. This is why so many on the far left love to focus on protest rather than building power. For so long, the left was a mere annoyance to corporate interests.
Now that progressives have learned how to run viable campaigns that can win playing by the rules, corporate San Francisco has freaked out and, as part of the national Democrat party strategy, is politically cleansing the traditional progressive urban cores by SPURring gentrification.
Wasn’t one of Nancy Pelosi’s recent priorities to secure federal grants for SPUR, the San Francisco Planning and Urban Redevelopment Association, to tear down a traditional SOMA brick building to construct its new temple for development within spitting distance of Yerba Buena redevelopment?
And Obama, as some have quoted, is tiring of his message of change and a new way of doing politics. For once, I didn’t “tell them so,” but, then again, (Carter, Mondale, Dukakis, Clinton, Gore, Kerry) did I need to?
-marc
August 26, 2008 at 8:13 pm
Pathetic!
What if they gave a peace and nobody came?
Kucinich is the energizer bunny for getting the semi-comatose into the Democratic Party tent. And that’s all. Yesterday. Today. Ever.
Long live the new war president! Whoever it is!
What are promises?
(They are all war presidents.)
August 26, 2008 at 7:13 pm
As a lifelong Democrat who voted for Dennis Kucinich four years ago, it truly pains me to say this, but Kucinich’s speech was too gimmicky, all those constant, predictably inserted, “Wake up, America†chants. If America was going to “wake up,†they should have voted for Kucinich in the primaries.
I realize Obama is a better choice that McCain, but Obama’s idea of getting the troops out of Iraq is putting them in Afghanistan! Do you think with the billions of dollars we’re spending on that bunker of an “embassy†in Baghdad, that we’re going to withdraw from Iraq?
People keep saying that John McCain = George Bush III; well, guess what? Barak Obama = George Bush-lite.
I guarantee you that in four years, we will still be in Iraq and Afghanistan. And paying $7.00 a gallon for gasoline.
Is there any way Fog City Journal can have Marc Salomon fly out to Denver and report from the protest camps outside the Pepsi Convention center? Because that’s where the true progressives are.