Hear me now and believe me later: mockery of Dennis Kucinich is founded on fear of progressive politics, either from enemies on the right, or those who feel it threatens electoral viability and professional interests on the left.Reading the whole of Kos's diatribe, the only point of his that may have merit, in my opinion, is Kucinich's late-found belief in abortion rights. (Kos's point was not, as Sawicky makes it seem, that Kucinich is pro-life, but rather that Kucinich is not sincere, or is just flaky.) The rest is just ridiculous.
Update: More from MaxSpeak about "The Kase Against Kucinich."
4 comments:
Wow, I had no idea that my old hero Kucinich was the subject of so much angst over there at DailyKos (which I don't read any more due to my disgust at the proprietor's obnoxious attitudes on many issues...and I recall the precipitating issue in my final decision was, interestingly, his loathing of Kucinich!)
As a Christian and a peace activist, I am disheartened by all the attempts to smear Kucinich for being "wacko" in his spiritual talk about peace and transcendence. By the conventional standards of today, Jesus comes off sounding pretty wacky in the Bible. I'm still not completely sure that a Department of Peace would be my top priority, although I compeltely agree with the ideas behind it, and I would certainly never ridicule them. More immediately important in my view is the related issue of dramatically reducing the size of America's war machine by cutting the Defense budget by a huge amount. Plus this has the advantage of freeing up our tax money for truly deserving priorities such as health care, environment, and education.
As for Kucinich's flip on abortion....I do really think he was telling the truth when he said he was convinced by many feminists who spoke to him about that over the years that it it should be a woman's choice. It is hard for me to believe that someone who courageously takes all kinds of stands that are routinely ridiculed as crazy would make a switch for purely political reasons.
Kucinich has remained the same brave, fiery populist he started out as...but now he has also evolved into a feminist and spiritually-based peace activist. Sounds like a GOOD thing to me...
All that said, I'm still supporting Edwards for now in '08, even though I was a volunteer for Kucinich in '04. The media just don't give a guy like Kucinich a chance at all. So for the short term, I have to compromise and go for the fiery populist who is regrettably a little more macho and mainstream. But I think Edwards is a pretty good guy, and I think he would be a refreshing change from all the Presidents we have had during my lifetime.
Nevertheless, it is so sad that some people want to burnish their bona fides with the purveyors of conventional wisdom by bashing a good guy and courageous progressive voice like Dennis Kucinich.
if you go through all the comments on the kos diatribe, you'll find one that explains that DK changed his position on choice *before* even thinking about running for president!
DK started his journey from pro-life to pro-choice in May 2002, more than one year before he decided to run for president, and months before Paul Wellstone died. Dennis would have not run if Wellstone did!
Peace with Justice!
!si se puede!
Marcos
People can change their views on abortion. I did. Growing up I had a health class teacher who was pro-life. He heavily influenced me in that direction. Years later I was exposed to the pro-choice position and evolved I believe to where most people are regarding abortion: legal, safe and rare. Women should have the right to do what their conscious informs them to with legal access to safe procedures. But hopefully society can provide alternatives so abortion isn't necessary most of the time.
As for Kos and Kucinich, my sense is that DKOS is imploding overall. A shame because on balance the community is good and it's a useful resource. But Kos has become a slave to his greed.
I think there were many people associated with the Dean campaign--and Kos is likely one of them--who were angry at Kucinich for purposely undermining Dean in Iowa. That is, he joined forces with Edwards so that Dean came in third place. In the end, this did nothing to help Kucinich himself in the race, though it did for a moment help Edwards. But what it really did was give Kerry the momentum to win the whole thing, except of course--the presidency. This is at least how Kucinich's actions have been perceived. Perhaps someone has a better explanation of what happened.
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