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Articles for Dennis Kucinich
From http://www.buzzflash.com/contributors/04/02/con04075.html
Letter to a Non-Wealthy Republican
A BUZZFLASH READER COMMENTARY
by David Swanson
I have often heard Democrats accuse Republicans of being selfish. That's nonsense. The economic policies of the Bush Administration have dramatically benefited only the wealthiest two percent of Americans. There are a lot of Republicans nowhere near that level of wealth. To my mind, most people who have voted Republican have not been selfish enough. I encourage everyone to vote their economic self-interest.
By voting Republican, you are voting for higher taxes. The vast majority of President Bush's tax cuts have gone to corporations and the extremely wealthy. What tiny cuts other people have received have been more than made up for by hikes in state and local taxes and fees. By closing loopholes for corporations and asking the super-wealthy to continue to pay their share, it would be possible to significantly reduce taxes on those who actually have trouble paying them -- that is, most of us.
By voting Republican, you are voting to send jobs overseas. President Bush is the first president since Hoover who is expected to finish his term with fewer jobs in the country than there were when he entered office. In fact, we've lost about 3 million jobs under Bush. Tax cuts for the super-wealthy didn't create jobs, so Bush tried tax cuts for the super-wealthy in case that might do it, and when that failed Bush gave tax cuts for the super-wealthy a try -- but with no success. He's out of ideas, but he steadfastly supports the trade agreements that are hurting our country and others, benefiting only multinational corporations. If we want to keep good-paying jobs in this country and encourage them elsewhere, we need a different approach to trade that replaces NAFTA and the WTO with agreements that don't destroy jobs.
By voting Republican, you are voting to pay more for health care. Every other wealthy nation in the world pays less and receives more health care than we do, because we have something they don't: our beloved HMOs and for-profit health insurance companies. We could do what other countries do and provide private health care with complete choice of doctors but with everything paid for by the government for less than what we're paying now. We could fund it with a tax on employers that would be lower than what they now pay for lousy insufficient health insurance. You would have no more premiums or co-payments. You'd just have comprehensive and preventive care. We all would, from cradle to grave, including the 45 million of us who now have no coverage at all.
By voting Republican, you are voting against affordable prescription drugs. There is no reason why Americans should pay 64 percent more than Canadians for prescription drugs. The same single-payer health care system that pays for your doctor visits can provide you with prescription drugs at no cost. But don't wait for Bush to create it.
If you keep voting Republican, you will be voting for lousy schools and voting to keep paying for preschool and college that could easily be free. We have the money to create not only excellent primary and secondary schools, but also to make quality pre-Kindergarten and college available free of cost. These projects sound like fantasies, but they would actually cost much less than what Bush has spent on tax cuts for millionaires.
If you vote for Bush, you are voting for unaffordable housing. We could create jobs at the same time as affordable housing if we acted nationally on the model that some states and cities have had great success with. Don't hold your breath as long as Bush is president.
If you don't vote to stop Bush after his first four years, you are opting not to be paid for overtime, not to have any job security or pension security, not to adjust the minimum wage for inflation. You are choosing longer hours for lower pay.
If you vote to give this guy four more years in the White House, you will be putting Social Security at risk of being privatized and gambled away on Wall Street. Social Security is sound through 2042 and will stay that way if you vote for someone who will leave it alone.
Of course, there are a lot of other non-economic reasons to vote for a President. I think we need to set them aside. I resent being lied to and the lives and dollars being poured into this war in Iraq. Others think it's courageous and noble. Let's set that aside.
I have problems with the "PATRIOT Act," which allows the government to search your home and private records without cause or notification. Others think that's necessary. Let's set that aside for a moment.
And let's try to get past the so-called social issues. I suspect that you don't view voting Republican as voting against your economic interest, but as voting for something else: defending your traditions or your morality. But keeping gay people from getting married won't make your own marriage any easier if you can't pay the bills. Protecting fetuses won't protect children if we can't provide them health care or education.
And no justification for voting for Bush will prevent billionaires from laughing at you all the way to the bank.
David Swanson
www.davidswanson.org
A BUZZFLASH READER COMMENTARY
Below you'll find Stephen Dinan's article Bush, Kerry, or World 5.0. I find myself pretty much in agreement with the ideas and sentiments expressed in this letter and want to pass it along to others. I would like to say up front though, that this article may be disturbing to some people in that it seems to imply support for Bush. If you read all the way to the end, Stephen sent an addendum apologising for the part of the article which was coming from his own place of fear. Bottom line for me (and I believe for Stephen also)- we need to win California for Dennis. We need all the help we can get to get the word out statewide about Dennis; on the net, in newspapers, indymedia, letters
and phone calls to registered voters, door to door, any way you can possibly help. This is crunch time. Please help get the word out for Dennis anywhere you think that it will help. Thanks, Tom
P.S.- here are some links which may be helpful:
letterwriting@k... - for addresses to write
http://www.kucinich.us/VolunteerAction/actionguide.php - general
tips, links and resources
http://www.kucinich.us/ watch the phone at the top right to find out
when California is being targeted for phone banking
http://www.capwiz.com/scccl/dbq/media/?command=state_search&state=CA
media contacts for California through Capwiz
Subject: Bush, Kerry, or World 5.0?
forward freely...
Bush, Kerry, or World 5.0?
by Stephen Dinan
stephen@radicalspirit.org
As the mainstream media and voting public increasingly focus on Kerry as the
man to beat Bush, I want to ask a provocative question, one whose answer is
typically assumed rather than addressed.
Would a Kerry administration for the next four years ACTUALLY be better for
the long-term health of our world than a Bush administration?
Many Democrats, blinded by disgust for Bush and his henchmen, proudly wear
the badge of ABB - Anyone But Bush. Their assumption is that Bush is the
absolute worst president we can have and we need to rally behind whomever
seems likely to defeat him.
The Bush administration has done a lot of disturbing things, from getting us
involved in an expensive, deceptive, and largely unjustified war, to rolling
back privacy and civil rights, to creating a secretive, corporate-ruled,
debt-ridden culture in Washington, to accelerating the decline of our
planetary ecosystems. America has begun seeming like an arrogant empire to
many countries in the world.
All of which seems very bad. Unless it turns out not to be. The reason I
say this is that the most fundamental need we have as a planet is to move
our structures of power and governance to a new level, rather like
installing a new operating system in a computer. We need to become
world-centric rather than nation-centric. We need to build the structures
of international peace, cooperation, and justice. We need to address our
massive global ecological crises. I am convinced that we need an
evolutionary step up rather than slight modifications. Instead of going
from the World 4.0 operating system to World 4.1, we need to do a full
upgrade to World 5.0. Since America dominates the planet, our government
and leadership are major determinants of how quickly that shift happens.
As dangerous as the Bush administration appears, it has also been acting to
galvanize and mobilize the forces that actually CAN lead us to World 5.0.
The problems of the current operating system are becoming much more obvious
and much more painful. This pain and frustration can drive us to create
another level of planetary health for the long term. The Bush administration arrived with a World 4.0 platform and has been headingsteadily downwards toward World 3.0 in such a way that the forces of World 5.0 have gotten much more active, focused, and engaged.
This can result in a slingshot effect, allowing a powerful launch in the
opposite direction, all the way up to World 5.0. To use another metaphor,
an addict typically needs to bottom out before getting into treatment and
getting clean. Bush is helping us to bottom out as a country with the current operating system.
This brings us back to the question of whether a Bush or a Kerry
administration for four years would be better for the long-term health of
the planet. For me, this boils down to how quickly and effectively either
administration would catalyze the emergence of World 5.0, which is the only
system that can address the issues we currently face. Is it better to have
four more years of World 4.0 with regressive elements of 3.0? Or do we want
4.1, with a few minor improvements to the basic operating system?
My answer, which will likely infuriate many ABB Democrats, is that we are
probably better served in the long term by four more years of Bush than
Kerry because I think that would build the passionate, revolutionary fire
necessary to make the great leap.
The reason is this: Kerry speaks the language of change but he doesn't have
the track record of a change agent. He's only passed seven bills in his
time in the Senate, if one Internet source can be trusted, and four of those
were largely symbolic. He has voted for key parts of the Bush program - the
Iraq war and Patriot Act for example - and is committed to continuing the
war and even increasing the size of our army. He has taken more special
interest money in the last fifteen years than any other Senator. He is one
of the wealthiest members of Congress via marriage. A man who can pay cash
for a $750K speedboat is going to be a bit out of touch with the needs of
the working class. If we dig deeper, it turns out he's even a member of the
same secret society as Bush, the Skull and Bones society of Yale. Finally,
he's getting heavy financial backing from the executive levels of various
media conglomerates.
In short, he is a World 4.1 politician - an establishment insider who is
positioning himself as enough of a populist and "winner" to get the
nomination. And it appears to be working.
My honest read is that if we elect Kerry as our president, he will do a
mediocre job and more or less perpetuate the status quo. Given party power
dynamics, though, he would still be running in 2008 as the incumbent. The
Democratic party machine would not seriously entertain another contender.
And then we would have two options: four more years of World 4.1 or a swing
back to World 4.0 with a new Republican challenger. It would be 2012 and
possibly 2016 at the earliest before we would have another chance for a
president of the United States who is leading us to World 5.0.
I don't know about you, but that seems like a long time to wait if you are
committed to creating World 5.0 and aware of the pain and suffering caused
by the current operating system.
One alternative, then, is four more years of Bush. If we can get past our
visceral reactions to the man and examine this through the lens of shifting
to World 5.0, Bush is actually a great catalyst - the last hurrah of a declining paradigm, the ultimate foe for the forces of 5.0 to triumph over. He's almost a caricature of the last worldview. There's every reason to bet that if he's in office for another four years, we'll have a great revolutionary leap to authentic World 5.0 leadership for America rather than a compromise formation of World 4.1. Sometimes things need to get worse before they get better.
I probably won't be able to bring myself to vote for Bush this fall, if for
no other reason than I would feel guilty admitting it. But in a funny way
I'd be cheering for him if Kerry ends up with the nomination. I want to
live in the World 5.0 system as soon as possible and I think Kerry would
actually decelerate that process rather than help it. I feel similarly about
Dean and Edwards: both talk the talk of change but neither is really
dedicated to the fundamental shifts necessary to launch World 5.0. Dean and
Edwards are World 4.1 or 4.2, although both have worked rhetorical magic
with their followers to give the impression that they are true agents of change.
There is, of course, one other option, which is what I've been putting all
my energy into for the last six months: nominate Dennis Kucinich. I believe
he's the leader we need for the new operating system. On all fronts, he is
a champion for World 5.0 and he's got the specific platforms, experience,
intelligence, and heart to pull it off.
The main problem has been a psychological one. Democrats have been so
entranced by the ABB rhetoric and so afraid of Bush's war chest that even
the most progressive factions have been stuck thinking we can't have 5.0
this round. We need to settle for someone who can beat Bush, they say,
which means sticking as close to 4.0 as possible with a few phrases about
change thrown in to appease the progressive wing of the party.
The problem with this logic is that anyone who is authentically,
legitimately, and actively working for the emergence of 5.0 is going to run
out of steam working for a candidate that is 4.1 or 4.
Kucinich world peace
I'm With Dennis
Dennis Kucinich for President
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