I am so struck by how unique a politician Dennis Kucinich is, where everything he says resonates with a consciousness not usually found in government.  The piece I'm posting here, Your Vegan Holistic President, sent by Susan Steffes, charmingly captures a lot of what's special about him.

But first, in regard to Kucinich and then some, it was painful to see A Modest Proposal, by Doug Ireland, posted o­n TomPaine.com.  That's o­ne of our most visible and powerful organizations that promote the progressive message — significantly, in ads in the New York Times. I recently met John Moyers (Bill's son), Editor-in-Chief of TomPaine.org, at a fundraiser for his organization (a fundraiser I'd gone to before that, at the same place, was for Kucinich), and he couldn't have been nicer. Here was my email to Moyers, asking him if he would apologize for posting what Ireland wrote:

Suzanne Taylor wrote:

 A Modest Proposal, posted o­n your site, includes this nastiness:

The Take Back America Conference, organized by the Campaign for America's Future last week, was a PR exercise and a feel-good rally for its participants that allowed liberals to vent their spleen at the DLC without proposing or working toward concrete organizational initiatives and alternatives of the kind I've described. o­ne liberal Democratic strategist who attended called it a “nothingburger” that will leave no trace o­n the electoral picture a few months hence.

Your posting this article — which includes characterizing “dour Dennis” Kucinich as “cleaving to the dangerous, anti-rational, New Age voodoo fantasies of his guru, Marianne Williamson” — was ironic in light of a piece in The Nation, that's in wide circulation o­n the Net, about the Take Back America Conference.  Bill Moyers' “Presidential” Address extols daddy Bill's performance at the conference, and Dennis Kucinich's, too.

…it was a non-candidate who won the hearts and minds of the crowd with a “Cross of Gold” speech for the 21st century…There was little doubt that the crowd of activists from across the country would have nominated Moyers by acclamation when he finished a remarkable address in which he challenged not just the policies of the Bush Administration but the failures of Democratic leaders in Congress to effectively challenge the president and his minions…Kucinich, who earned nine standing ovations for his antiwar and anti-corporate free trade rhetoric, probably did more to advance his candidacy than any of the other contenders. But he never got to the place that Moyers reached with a speech that legal scholar Jamie Raskin described as “one of the most amazing and spellbinding” addresses he had ever heard. Author and activist Frances Moore Lappe said she was close to tears as she thanked Moyers for providing precisely the mixture of perspective and hope that progressives need as they prepare to challenge the right in 2004.

What Ireland wrote doesn't belong o­n your site, and could alienate people who support you.

Here is John Moyers' answer to me:

We don’t make our regular contributors, like Doug Ireland, toe any party line or agree with our own personal opinions. We’re here to create debate and we’re glad when a piece does that.

How about that?  Would they run anything that blithely mentioned “dirty Jews” or  “lazy Mexicans?” It is deeply offensive to print a comparably awful characterization of Marianne Williamson, who has had three best seller books, and is beloved by millions of people who are of a deeply spiritual persuasion.  Here's what Allen Branson, our webmaster, submitted for posting in Letters o­n the TomPaine.com site:

I agree that the left-wing of the Democratic party must build a solid base from which to work. Do you think that is going to happen by spouting divisive, close-minded and bigoted remarks about that part of the left that follows a spiritual path that's in other than the all-but-state-sponsored Judeo-Christian tradition?

The dangerous ideas of Marianne Williamson? Anti-rational, New Age voodoo? I've heard more tolerance from the mouth of Wolfowitz, speaking about Saddam Hussein!! I can think of no better way to NOT achieve the organization of the left than to let bigotry and bias drive a wedge between its various factions, as this sort of rhetoric is bound to do.

This situation is a reminder of the adage, “We've met the enemy and it is us.” Perhaps more of you might contact TomPaine.com, offering them some enlightening perspectives, as they are so sincerely working towards unifying us.

So, here's the treat about Dennis Kucinich, from Mark Morford, who sets this up with, “It sure is nice to dream”:

Your Vegan Holistic President

And then the new 2004 president had the gall, the unutterable nerve, to actually set up an official Department of Peace to promote, you know, nonviolence and human rights. That big jerk.

And then he repealed the snide and vicious USA Patriot Act, and promoted legit environmental causes and sustainability and actually tightened EPA restrictions and strengthened the Clean Air Act, gasp oh my God what the hell is he thinking.

And then it was revealed that, oh dear God what anti-American blasphemy, he eats no meat or dairy, and prefers organic and kosher foods and actually cares about issues of personal holistic health and therefore isn't a smirking well-funded crony of the toxic beef industry or big agribiz, and hence the bloated lobbyists from those groups are no longer swimming in favoritism and payola and what the hell is the world coming to.

And furthermore, he isn't particularly vehemently religious, not in the normal sense anyway, not Christian or strictly Catholic or Baptist or whatever Bush claims to be, Born-Again Failed-CEO Warmonger, I believe.

And in fact he's actually a rather unique amalgam, a loosely observant Roman Catholic who observes kashruth due to the influence of his longtime Jewish girlfriend, and yet who also supports alternative beliefs, has practicing Muslims o­n his staff, supports spiritual exploration, knows Shirley Maclaine personally, gives his own personal money to alternative spirituality research. What the hell? This cannot be.

And that damn hippie liberal, he actually wants to legalize medical marijuana, and he supports the rights of the poor and the working class, and more protections for the oceans, and universal health care and a reduction in military spending, and actually wants to change the world's opinion of the U.S. as this despised unipolar rogue into a more cooperative powerhouse role-model peacemaker. Oh dear. That does it. We're gonna be invaded by China any day now, for certain.

Let us imagine, just for a moment, just because it's entirely implausible and because it feels so utterly odd, that such a leadership, such an open and distinctive viewpoint, actually ran this nation.

Let us imagine the horror. Imagine the savage blow to the all-American mega-machismo, to the hardcore GOP hawks and the freerepublic.com psychopatriots and the Christian Bible gropers and the stunned CEOs, the insult to the giant angry fist of self-righteousness America now represents were someone like, say, Dennis Kucinich, the humble long-shot progressive Democratic congressman candidate from Ohio — the o­ne who represents all those viewpoints listed above — to actually became president.

Is it really all that radical? Is it really all that extreme to try and imagine a truly connected national leadership that promotes international cooperation and spiritual openness and the sacredness of the environment and a genuinely holistic worldview, o­ne who actually attempts to connect with and listen to its populace?

Why does this seem so far off, so utterly impossible? Have we gone so far down the road of BushCo-style isolationism and dread and knives-out bile that we can't even entertain a serious alternative, the notion that we actually could, as a country, stand for something as radical as peace?

Are we so deeply and repressively beaten down with war and terror and fake Orange Alerts and the idea that we absolutely positively must, no matter what, have a cold and corporatized iron-fisted leadership hell-bent o­n expanding American empire at all costs, that we can't even conceive of a sincere and pacifistic alternative?

Apparently, we are. That far gone. That far removed from what this nation actually stands for, stood for. At least for the moment. The tyranny of fear is in control. We are so absolutely goddamn certain we are facing a brutal and heartless world that wishes us perpetual violent ill that we simply must have an equally heartless and guns-drawn pseudo-fascist leadership to match it.

This is, quite simply, utter bull. We have chosen our own path. We have actively elected to become the strong-arm rogue superpower. We have created our own warmongering circumstance far, far more than it has been imposed o­n us.

Get this. According to his Web site, Dennis Kucinich's proposed Cabinet-level peace appointee would seek to not merely make nonviolence an organizing principle of society but actually strive to make war archaic, to “endeavor to promote justice and democratic principles to expand human rights … and develop new structures in nonviolent dispute resolution.” Man. What a heretic.

Is Kucinich the ideal candidate? I have no idea. He is merely o­ne of the most interesting, indeed a longshot and probably flawed and it's true that he just recently flip-flopped o­n abortion rights, and is maybe just a bit overly pro-labor, and who knows what else, and he could be trouble for the Demos in terms of shaking up the unified message the party so desperately needs right now.

But let's just use him as our example. Let's use his unique candidacy as a mirror to reflect how far we have careened down the path of indignation and megalomania and the idea that we, as a nation, are somehow locked into this warmongering, hateful mode, this hostile role as schoolyard bully of the world.

How shockingly naive it seems, how utterly childish to think we could have a president who actually promotes peace and empowers the U.N. and works toward interconnectedness, and in this day and age. Don't you know the world is at our throat? Don't you know it's all eye-for-an-eye and dog-eat-dog and o­nly the strong survive and kill 'em all before they come and eat our innocent babies?

Yeah right. How very sad. No o­ne seems to remember. No o­ne truly recalls the overwhelming sentiment just after 9/11, a stunned and saddened nation rethinking its core values, a deeply historic opportunity for a radical reshaping of America's world position and policy, our intentions, our national agenda.

We could've chosen a Kucinich-style path. We could've easily chosen peace and cooperation and humanity and communication. BushCo chose the exact opposite.

And now, here we are. Globally disrespected, almost universally feared and loathed and resented, our economy hammered, the vicious GOP war machine cranking o­n all cylinders, openly lying about the justifications for war, huge numbers of misguided citizens truly believing 9/11 is a valid excuse to annihilate Iraq and slaughter thousands, maybe Syria and North Korea and Libya and Lebanon and who knows who else, next.

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