Dennis Kucinich at River Run Bookstore, Portsmouth, NH, Feb. 04, 2007

Written by: Barbara Hilton on Feb 6, 2007 9:56 PM EST

We attended an inspiring event with Dennis Kucinich and his wife, Elizabeth on Saturday.  The Bookstore was full to overflowing with people, some from as far away as Connecticut, Cape Cod, and northern Maine.  He began his talk by thanking the Bookstore for supporting the democratic process.  "As someone who actually reads books," he said, "we're going to bring books back into vogue, especially books about diplomacy."

He then mentioned the old folk song Down by the Riverside with the refrain "ain't gonna study war no more."  He spoke of the consciousness of the country as it is today. "Young people can't remember a time when there was no war."  He said we needed a time of transformation where we could reconnect with the world community.  "We understand that the world is one web of communication, transportation, trade. The dichotomy of  'us versus them'  thinking creates alienation. The U.S. is isolated from the world and this belies the fact that the world is one."  His idea is that the U.S. needs to express "the imperative of human unity--I'm you, you're me." We need to lift everyone up, not just save ourselves.  His Presidency, he said, will be about a definition of the U.S. in the world that encompasses the concepts of nuclear non-proliferation; sustaining the UN and upholding its charter to abolish all war; upholding the Kyoto Treaty, as well as land mine and biological weapons treaties; seeking alternative energy, protecting our climate and saving our globe; functioning within the framework of international law; working with the world community to act on a vision of the world as one.  New Hampshire, he said, has a chance to create an America we know exists, to stop the rationalization of war, to stop the threatening.  He mentioned the need for healthcare and jobs for all, how the U.S. should to be a power of moral force in the world, not a military force.

 He looked around him and motioned to the shelves of books surrounding him. "Tom, you must have a book here by Tennyson. The one with the poem 'Come my friends, 'tis not too late to seek a newer world.'  And here in New Hampshire, where you surprised the nation in 2006 by taking a strong stand for peace, you have the ability to be the architects of this new world. This is the moment to change our country in a profound way.  My candidacy will give you that chance."  He called on us "to redefine our country, war shall be no more, we will reunite with the world community.  It is our intention to build that world and that nation." Ahhhh, sounded wonderful! 

He then went on take questions.  The first was how he would respond to preventing a future 9/11. Kucinich answered by saying that the tragedy of 9/11 was compounded by our government's reaction to it. "The world," he said, "was united after 9/11. There were one million Iranians holding candles for us, but our leaders chose to follow a different path."  Look in the book by Bob Woodward, Bush at War, on page 49.  On the day after 9/11, Donald Rumsfeld was discussing a war with Iraq.  Our government created a country driven by fear and we are fixed there.

He went on to say that most of us have faced some tragedy in our private lives and the way that we got through it was to talk together. Talking, he said, is a human way to deal with grief.  But grief sometimes drives people apart.  "Elizabeth, my wife, came up with an idea so powerful--the 9/10 Forum--to try to reconnect with our highest aspirations of who we were before 9/11; to connect with the best that is within us.  Do you remember?" he asked.  We have reconstructed the social network of America around fear and terror.  It is reinforced by the media.  We need to reclaim this.  He then went on to talk briefly about Elizabeth and her background of humanitarian efforts--working with Mother Theresa, working in Tanzania, working on sustainability--and now her idea of the 9/10 Forum.  He handed the microphone over to her and asked her to stand and explain more about it.

Elizabeth talked about her idea of the 9/10 Forum and rediscovering who we were, who we thought we were, what are highest aspirations were.  When we always look at problems, she said, we see more problems.  What did the founding fathers have in mind when they created this country? We need to tell each other stories of what was best in our lives.  When we meet each other on the street instead of asking "How was your day?" we need to ask "What was the best part of your day?" We need to engage everyone in rediscovering and manifesting this narration.  We need to inspire each other.

The next questioner asked Dennis to give an example of how, in his Congressional career, he was able to persuade a colleague who may have disagreed with him.  He went on to relate an anecdote about a radio show he was on where he took an anti-war position.  Another Congressman was on the same show and this other guy tore him to pieces.  Dennis didn't respond.  The next day on the floor of the House they encountered each other and Dennis said to him "I'm willing to hear what you have to say. You do not need to attack me to have your view known." The other Congressman's composure changed and he said "I'm sorry.  Let's find a way to work together."  We build relationships one by one, he said. He then quoted Lincoln: "With malice toward none, with charity for all."

 At the State of the Union Address, Kucinich had made a point of sitting on the aisle where he could meet the entire government.  He said he was on a first-name basis with ambassadors as well as the President.  As the President went by, Kucinich reached out his hand and whispered in his ear.  Bush kept walking, took about three steps, and came back. " What did you say?"  asked Bush.  "Mr. President," said Congressman Kucinich,  "I wish you peace."

We have the opportunity to put these principles into practice and we can do so globally.  We can find common ground. Then, when there is a misunderstanding, instead of calling another country a member of "the axis of evil," we can call them on the phone and ask "what did you mean by that?"  We are victims of the way we see the world.  The power of love changes everything.  I, Barbara,  must say, this sounds idealistic.  But from my experience, it is also true.  

Mr. Kucinich talked about his forty years in public office--first as a City Councilman, then as a Clerk of the Court, then Mayor, then U.S. Congressman and now, for the second time, a candidate for President.  "We can transform relationships." This is the animating principle behind his idea for a Department of Peace which he will reintroduce on the floor of the House this Tuesday. We have to transform the essentials of who we are.  We can't think of ourselves as Democrats or Republicans. Within the trajectory of evolution there was a break where humankind took a quantum leap.  We are at that threshold of a quantum leap in politics.  "Our home is not war, poverty, alienation, but peace, prosperity, humanity.  People of New Hampshire, take the key, unlock the lock, open the door,  and walk through."

The next questioner rose and in an emotional and passionate plea said "We can't have peace without action."  She went on to say that Bush has committed war crimes and that it is a matter of justice to impeach Bush, Cheney, and Gonzalez.  She spoke about the loss of habeas corpus.  She said she wants people of conscience in the House of Representatives to start impeachment proceedings.  She talked about her belief that Bush was worse than Hitler and the fact that the current administration is destroying the Iraqi culture.  Kucinich responded by thanking her, saying he understood her passion and that what she had said was very powerful.  "This administration has broken international law and must be held accountable."  Impeachment is not off the table, as far as he is concerned.  But, impeachment proceedings right now might change the dialogue that is happening about getting out of Iraq and he didn't want to do that.  He spoke about the administration's current move toward conflict with Iran through misinformation--how they were laying the groundwork for war.  He believed that the degree to which the administration moved toward this war with Iran was the degree that they were moving toward a Constitutional conflict. "I have said if Bush keeps moving in the direction he's going with Iran, he is moving in the orbit of impeachment.  He needs to be held accountable for Iraq, but now we need to focus on ending the war with Iraq." 

The Congressman spoke directly to Laura Pines, who had posed the question about impeachment and had travelled three hours from Monroe, Maine to do so.  She wore big buttons with pictures of dead children from Iraq on her sweater .  Kucinich went on to tell her and the rest of us of the trip that he and Elizabeth had taken after the recent bombing of Lebanon by Israel.  "Elizabeth and I were the only U.S. government-connected people to go into South Lebanon after the war.  Everything was destroyed--bridges, water systems, sewer systems, schools, social clubs, recreation areas, stadiums, cemeteries, fruit groves, factories, small businesses, mosques and churches,roads, everything.  People were sitting in front of a store where they had worked and everything behind them was rubble.  The smell of death was everywhere. 30,000 buildings were destroyed.  Children were playing around land mines. They went to Qana, where Christ was purported to have performed his first miracle. They had read reports of people killed by a bomb over an apartment building.  They said they wanted to pay their respects to the people who had died. They were taken to the town square where there were rows of graves with pictures of the dead on each slab.  They passed one with a picture of a little boy.  The picture was the kind that would have been taken in an American department store. The boy was wearing a bright red sweater and had a bright smile.  And, here he was, this child, dead at their feet.  They both started weeping.  "A hand came around to comfort me," the Congressman said.  Then the person whose hand it was led them to the next grave.  There was a picture of a mother with her children.  "This was my family," the man said.  "It was a moment of transformation for us," said Kucinich.  "This man gave comfort when he had such a great loss."  

He went on to tell about how word spread that someone from the U.S. Congress was there in Qana.  The Kucinichs had taken interpreters--people who were fluent in Arabic--with them.  All of the town was destroyed but the people kept saying "Tell the American people we love them. Tell the American people we're not terrorists.  We want peace.  We don't hate Israel."  There were signs which read "America, this is your Democracy."   Kucinich said he was amazed to see the humanity of people who had suffered so much, the desperation, the desire for peace, to connect so much.  And the armaments, the fragments of bombs, had "made in the U.S.A." stamped on them and they were supplied by the U.S.A. The Kucinichs brought home a 40-pound bomb fragment and took it to the Democratic National Committee Meeting where he talked about it in his speech. So, "this capacity for healing--we have that too.  The plight of people in Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Israel, Palestine, Syria, Pakistan, India, the U.S. after 9/11--there is much heaing to do."

Now Iraq.  "I'm sharing my world view. I led an effort against war and against funding the war.  I have a 12-point peace plan.  All these candidates running for President who voted for the war, now they say they wouldn't have.  Will this pass the test in New Hampshire?"  the Congressman asked. "No!" a few of us responded.  "These candidates who say they are against the war but fund it--will this pass the test in New Hampshire?"  "No!" I enthusiastically responded. "The media already has chosen the next President, " he said.  "It makes it easy.  We don't even have to vote.  But New Hampshire has a way of making its voice heard." His world view as President will be to act as if the world is one.  He is not going to use aggressive war. 

The next questioner was not satisfied with the answer about Impeachement.  He said the Founders put it in the Constitution for a reason.  This is the time to use it.  He actually stood up and took the microphone away from Congressman Kucinich and, facing the audience, took over. He approved of the Congressman's twelve-point plan saying "it makes sense." He again reiterated the obligation for impeachment.  He rambled saying things like "with foreign policy articulated by Dennis, no one would want to attack us" and ended by again stating "Impeachment ought to be on top of the list."  I, for one, was glad when he stopped talking and sat back down. Dennis responded:  "I'm not saying it's off the table."   He also said, "I don't want to be the 'Impeachment Candidate'." He said that he was reading a particular document now about Iran and that Congress must cut off funds.  The troops, he said, were being used as pawns.  He is focusing now on getting his colleagues to stop funding the war.

The next question was about how to get the media to take his candidacy seriously. He replied that he is relentless and persistent.  He had been in thirty-five elections and won twenty-eight of them.  He stressed that the media will pay attention to what we here in New Hampshire think.  He needed us to help build a movement.  "Help me, help us, change America and change the World."  He then went on to discuss how the media pays lots of attention to candidates who voted for war and how the media is talking about war with Iran.  "Determine a candidate's world view," he suggested.

The next questioner asked Kucinich to say a quick word about immigration.  Dennis asked how many of those in the audience had ancestors who came from elsewhere? Almost all hands went up.  "We are a nation of other countries. E pluribus unum, out of many, one--the motto of the country. People who want to journey here are welcome."  Look at the results of the NAFTA policy.  Look what has happened to OSHA and labor laws.  He went on to talk about the drive for companies to make money and use cheap labor.  We must remove incentives.  The country must have a policy that leads to citizenship if people have participated.  He talked about his own surname having been changed by immigration officials--they added the "h" on the end. He said he came from an amalgam of people and cited many different countries.  He then paraphrased Walt Whitman from Song of Myself , "I contradict myself, I have a mulititude of humanity within me."  He said he would embody the policy : "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore.  Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"  He said America was a beacon of light and the best hope of the world.  America has the capacity to inspire the world and we will recreate that capacity given to us by the founding fathers.

The next questioner mentioned the report issued by the IPCC on Climate Change which had recently been headlined in The New York Times.  He asked Dennis what changes he would make to our country's energy policies in view of the fact that our entire infrastucture was built around cars and oil-dependent transportation.  Kucinich answered that we needed to disengage military might from the need for resources.  "We need to reconnect with nature." He cited Morris Berman's book Reenchantment of the World and talked about how industrialization separated us from our own nature.  He mentioned Thomas Berry and Save Our World.  "I intend to inspire the nation as Kennedy did...to bring together collective intelligence and resources in a grand effort toward conservation...green building...to start to conserve what we use and create a transition away from fossil fuels."  He talked of newer technologies and said this would be the animating principles of the country.  "I have the freedom to do it. I'm unbought.  I have clarity of vision." 

 He then said that he had to leave and gave his web site address:  Kucinich.US.  He said he had a bill for universal healthcare and asked people to read the legislation.  "No more for-profit healthcare.  Join us.  The election's today, now a year from now."  

The audience was enthusiastic and it took the Congressman another fifteen to twenty minutes before he got out the door.  Some people wanted his autograph on their copy of his book A Prayer for America which was published in 2003, others wanted to shake his hand, and still more had questions.  One questioner, who had come from Cape Cod to hear Kucinich and was originally from Denmark, asked him his opinions about the prevalence of religion in American politics considering how it was such an important factor in the War in Iraq.  I didn't have my notebook out at that point, but Kucinich responded by saying among other things that there needed to be a definite separation of church and state.  The man stated his belief that the Prime MInister of Denmark would be fired if he even mentioned religion. That seemed like a good consequence to me and a saner way to govern a country than having a leader who claims that God talks directly to him.

Photo credit goes to Jesper Redanz.

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Location: Portsmouth, NH 03801