RE: [Peace-discuss] Kucinich…
C. G. Estabrook
galliher at uiuc.edu
Fri Jan 4 19:25:17 CST 2008
Paul Street, a Chicago activist who has written about Obama more incisively and in more detail than practically any one else in the American media, here applies his not inconsiderable analytic powers to Kucinich and makes explicit the vague unease I've felt about him, ever since Alex Cockburn (among others) championed him in his struggles as mayor of Cleveland, thirty years ago.
Where a clear understanding of class politics should be in Kucinich -- e.g., from his struggles with the utilities in
Cleveland -- there is instead a vague New-Agey moralism. That seems to allow him to go into the tank for Kerry (in November 2004) and for Obama now (instead of Edwards).
Extolling the virtues of one's spouse seems a counsel of despair for any candidate, Clinton as well as Kucinich... (Incidentally, in regard to the "Catholic minority" in the UK, more people attend Catholic churches than Anglican on any given Sunday there. And the the UK's most celebrated new Catholic -- the mass-murderer Blair -- hardly sets a high standard of political morality.)
I have friends of an old Left persuasion who think Kucinich, on the evidence of his recent behavior in presidential campaigns, is a conscious and cynical stalking horse whose job is to encapsulate and therefore prevent any challenge from the Left to a typically hypocritical Democratic candidate ("talk Left, move Right"). I don't think that that's his motive, nor that he's a hypocrite, but I do think that they may be right on what used to be called the "objective effect" of his actions. --CGE
---- Original message ----
>Date: Fri, 4 Jan 2008 16:36:30 -0600
>From: Matt Reichel <mattreichel at hotmail.com>
>Subject: RE: [Peace-discuss] Kucinich…
>To: "Morton K. Brussel" <brussel4 at insightbb.com>, <peace-discuss at anti-war.net>
>
> I am not familiar with Paul Street, but I can say
> that this article is written with the sophistication
> of your typical fourteen year old . . .
>
> Firstly, like many others, he mis-understands the
> strategic reasons behind the agreement with Obama.
> All 8 candidates had similar arrangements, but only
> Kucinich made them public in the interest of
> transparency. Because of the anti-democratic rule in
> the Democratic caucuses in Iowa requiring a 15%
> threshold, you absolutely must bargain for
> supporters if you hope to gain a maximum number of
> delegates.
> Obviously, this ended up being a moot point as
> Kucinich failed to gain any state delegates, but it
> could have made a difference for him in progressive
> precincts, wherein he needed a few Obama people to
> get him over the 15% mark.
> 4 years ago, when I was in Iowa on Dennis's behalf,
> he made a similar arrangement with Edwards. The
> reason is purely mathematical: his team's
> calculations showed that he would benefit most from
> teaming with Edwards than anyone else. Nothing at
> all to do with political ideology.
>
> Secondly, there are more people in the United States
> who believe that aliens have visited this planet
> than who support the president. Mentioning this
> rather trivial factoid on Kucinich is nothing but a
> right wing provocation that the corporate media,
> like Street, had their childish fun with.
>
> Thirdly, Paul joins the right wing American
> mainstream in dissing Kucinich's marital life,
> another fact that has nothing to do with the
> politics of the election. If anything, it should be
> quite revealing that Kucinich has the brightest and
> most attractive spouse of any of the candidates: the
> others lack the intelligence and heart to even think
> about wooing such beauty and insight. Furthermore,
> She is not a "model" as Street claims, but a
> lifelong humanitarian born into a politically
> engaged family that is part of England's Catholic
> minority.
>
> Fourthly, Street claims that Kucinich is more
> interested in a personal agenda than the causes of
> peace and justice. He doesn't explain what the
> personal agenda is, nor does he give any evidence.
> Nonetheless, as the only candidate who campaigned in
> all 50 states 4 years ago, and the only one that
> raised the important issues of peace, human rights,
> universal health care and nuclear disarmament to the
> masses, despite a budget of basically zero, I think
> he more than demonstrated that he is motivated by a
> sincere interest in the issues. Especially since,
> unlike Edwards or Obama, he was born into an
> impoverished immigrant family!
>
> Having met and talked with Kucinich twice, I can
> guarantee that he is considerably more sincere than
> the vast majority of apathetic "mightier than thou"
> activists populating the Chicago area: those that
> are culturally "leftist" without actually having the
> political know-how to back up their supposed
> "rebellion."
>
> Street seems like this vast majority of the
> "American left," who possess the same problem as the
> "American right," in that they have typically
> American totalitarian personalities, with an
> aggression that borders on being psychopathic and a
> worldview that shuns humanitarianism and progress.
> Quite disturbing!
>
> -
> mer
>
> ------------------------------------------------
>
> To: peace-discuss at anti-war.net
> From: brussel4 at insightbb.com
> Date: Fri, 4 Jan 2008 15:01:43 -0600
> Subject: [Peace-discuss] Kucinich…
>
> FYI. Paul Street sours on Kucinich, and like
> Nader, prefers Edwards among the rest. --mmkb
>
> ZNet | Activism
> Goodbye Dennis:
> Kucinich Sells Out to Obama, Inc.
> by Paul Street; Iowa Campaign Report; January 02,
> 2008
>
> Barack Obama has excluded himself from the
> progressive coalition by the statements he’s
> made, unfortunately. He’s a lot smarter than
> his public statements, which are extremely
> conciliatory to concentrated power and big
> business...The people of Iowa and New Hampshire
> have to ask themselves: who is going to fight for
> you...Edwards raises the question of the
> concentration of wealth and power in a few hands
> that are working against the majority of people.
>
>
>
> - Ralph Nader, MSNBC, December 17, 2007
>
>
>
>
>
> For some time now, I’ve been giving a quiet and
> indirect sort of tribute to Dennis Kucinich.
> I’ve been praising him for backing progressive
> policy proposals and initiatives that
> “mainstream” (corporate) Democrats refuse to
> embrace: single-payer health insurance, de-funding
> the illegal occupation of Iraq, investigating
> civilian Iraqi casualties, the impeachment of
> Cheney-Bush and so on. I’ve been mentioning him
> as the only truly Left candidate in the Democratic
> presidential race.
>
>
>
> And all the while a little voice in the back of my
> mind has been saying, “but you know he’s
> really kind of a pathetic jerk who helps make the
> Left look stupid.”
>
>
>
> I don’t know when the voice started. Maybe it
> was when I heard about how he saw a UFO. Or when I
> heard him brag to a political audience that his
> vegan diet permitted him to be married to a
> woman half his age – a model he recruited
> through a truly bizarre public relations campaign.
>
>
>
> At some point it started to sink in that Kucinich
> was a knucklehead who cares more about advancing
> his own goofy and grandiose personal agenda than
> about furthering the causes of peace, democracy,
> and justice. I also realized that Dennis
> helped corporate media discredit Left sentiments
> and values by associating them with clownish
> narcissism, cultish mysticism, and laughable
> irrelevance.
>
>
>
> And now I feel freer than ever to say all this for
> a very simple reason. Dennis has done something
> truly and unforgivably pathetic, petty, and
> reactionary. He has told his admittedly small
> number of followers in Iowa to give their
> second-choice votes to the corporate media
> candidate and imperial war Democrat Barack Obama
> during the pivotal 2008 Democratic Party caucus to
> be held today.
>
>
>
> He has essentially lent his support to the class-
> and race-accommodator Obama, Dennis’ supposed
> fellow “change agent.”
>
>
>
> The contrast with the much more principled and
> serious Left leader Ralph Nader is pronounced. Two
> weeks ago, Nader endorsed John Edwards as a real
> corporation-fighting progressive and rejected
> Obama in a fascinating MSNBC “Hardball”
> interview with Chris Mathews (see
> http://www.youtube. com/watch? v=CLzytK6A3Fc).
>
>
>
> "The key phrase" in Edwards message, Nader said,
> is "that he doesn't want to replace a corporate
> Republican with a corporate Democrat. That's very
> key."
>
>
>
> Nader noted that Edwards' message of fighting
> corporate power is more stridently left than
> anything he's seen from an electable Democratic
> politician in a very long time. According to
> Nader, "people in Iowa and New Hampshire have to
> ask themselves a question: who's going to fight
> for you?" The answer, for Nader, is Edwards.
>
>
>
> At one point Mathews told Nader he’d “excluded
> Obama from the progressive coalition."
> Nader argued that Obama has “excluded himself
> with statements that he’s made, unfortunately.
> He’s a lot smarter than his public statements,
> which are extremely conciliatory to concentrated
> power and big business.”
>
>
>
> Nader told Mathews that Edwards “raises the
> question of the concentration of power and wealth
> and power in a few hands that are working against
> the majority of people.”
>
>
>
> Last Monday, in a Muscatine, Iowa press
> conference, Nader deepened his support for
> Edwards. “The issue is corporate power and who
> controls our political system,” Nader said,
> “and it’s not who has experience for six years
> or two years.” This was an obvious allusion to
> the ongoing debate over “experience” between
> Clinton and Obama.
>
>
>
> Nader called Edwards a Democratic “glimmer of
> hope.” He issued a public statement ripping
> Mrs. Clinton as a “corporate Democrat,”
> mirroring the precise term Edwards uses to
> describe Hillary and Obama.
>
>
>
> Nader praised Edwards’ more combative and
> populist posture of fighting corporate power as a
> heartening signal. “It’s the only time I’ve
> heard a Democrat talk that way in a long time,”
> claimed Nader, who rarely praises a leading
> Democrat.
>
>
>
> “Iowa should decide which candidate stands for
> us,” Nader added, saying that “Edwards is at
> least highlighting day after day that the issue is
> who controls our country, big business or the
> people” (see David Paul Kuhne, “Nader Throws
> Support to Edwards, Blasts Clinton,” Common
> Dreams, January 1, 2008 at
> http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/01/01/6100/print/)
>
>
>
> Nader is correct and Dennis is terribly wrong.
>
>
>
> The admittedly imperfect (from a Left perspective)
> John Edwards is considerably better than Obama in
> ways that matter The unabashedly partisan,
> pro-labor, anti-poverty, and “”Jeffersonian”
> Edwards is running to the Hamiltonian Obama’s
> “populist” and democratic left.
>
>
>
> It’s a bigger contrast than many progressives
> know or let on. Obama intones endlessly about
> “hope” and finding “common ground” and
> “consensus” with Republicans, evangelicals,
> and big business. He decries the nation’s
> supposedly horrid legacy of factional and
> ideological conflict – an allegedly frightening
> heritage he pins on the purportedly scary (late)
> 1960s – and claims to represent a new
> generational politics seeking to “get things
> done” above nasty old divisions. He claims to
> represent the glories of an America where hard
> work is rewarded and anyone can rise from the
> bottom (where he supposedly originated) to the
> top. He tells Wall Street’s global investor
> class (during an oration last summer at NASDAQ's
> headquarters) of his purported beliefs that “you
> are as open and willing to listen as anyone else
> in America ” and that “your work [is] be a
> part of building a stronger, more vibrant, and
> more just America. I think,” Obama absurdly
> adds, “the problem is that no one has asked you
> to play a part in the project of American
> renewal.”
>
>
>
> Yeah, okay.
>
>
>
> Sounding like a droning academic on many
> occasions, professor Obama has been known to put
> more than a few of his audience members to sleep.
>
>
>
> Meanwhile, Edwards has been delivering a steady
> diet of red-hot orations against business rule.
> Deploying the best stump speech in the campaign,
> he refers repeatedly to the labor movement as
> “the greatest anti-poverty program in American
> history.” He is willing to lose corporate
> sponsorship and media fancy in his determination
> to make “ending poverty” and fighting economic
> inequality and “corporate domination” of
> American politics and policy the rhetorical
> cornerstones of his campaign.
>
>
>
> In the place of Obama’s tiresome feel-good
> homilies to togetherness and shared American
> values and empathy, Edwards declares that his
> mission as president would be to give privileged
> corporate and business elites “Hell.” He
> promises to battle and defeat big business to make
> policy in democratic accord with a popular
> consensus that already exists for things like
> universal health care and fair trade. He says
> it’s a “lie” that “any Democrat is better
> than any Republican,” arguing that replacing big
> money “corporate Republicans” with big money
> “corporate Democrats” is just a game of
> musical chairs. He (rightly in my opinion) mocks
> Obama’s great healing narrative as singing
> “Kumbaya” and makes no bones about disliking
> the Republican right.
>
>
>
> His generational narrative is that the next
> generation of Americans is about to be the first
> in U.S. history to be worse off than its immediate
> predecessor. Passive Democrats who refuse to fight
> “corporate greed” to “reclaim our
> democracy” should look their children in the
> eyes, Edwards says, and "admit that they did
> nothing to stop the decline of opportunity and the
> growing inequality of wealth and power.”
>
>
>
> Edwards’ autobiographical narrative skips the
> Horatio Alger claims of heroic upward mobility.
> It simply states that he’s running for president
> on behalf of the working-class people he grew up
> with in rural North Carolina . Their hard work was
> not rewarded, he says, when their local textile
> mill closed so that its corporate owners could
> exploit cheaper labor abroad.
>
>
>
> Edwards rejects the notion that any but a small
> minority of Americans can to rise from poverty to
> riches under current economic and political
> arrangements. He takes little personal credit for
> his own ascendancy to wealth.
>
>
>
> His campaign’s concept of the division that
> plagues America is different from Obama’s. Obama
> has hitched his quest for power on a pledge to
> save the virtuous (Alexander) Hamiltonian Republic
> by reaching out across the supposed great divide
> between “red state” (white-patriarchal and
> more rural, evangelical and militarist)
> Republicans and “blue state” (more
> multi-colored, feminist, gay-friendly and
> urban-cosmopolitan) Democrats. By sharp and
> relevant (for actual progressives) contrast,
> Edwards speaks in (Thomas) Jeffersonian terms
> about the more real and fundamental fissure in the
> U.S: the split between the public and the
> country’s corporate-based power centers. He
> advocates “fighting and beating” those power
> centers on behalf of working people and the cause
> of popular governance.
>
>
>
> He’s even better on race than Obama. As
> Obama’s fellow black Chicago South Sider Jesse
> Jackson, Sr. noted in the Chicago Sun Times last
> November: “The Democratic candidates – with
> the exception of John Edwards, who opened his
> campaign in New Orleans and has made addressing
> poverty central to his campaign – have virtually
> ignored the plight of African Americans in this
> country”.
>
>
>
> It’s not for nothing that volunteers from the
> Service Employers International Union (SEIU),
> UNITE-HERE, the United Steelworkers, the
> Carpenters, and other unions are working overtime
> for Edwards in Iowa between now and the Caucus.
> And it’s not for nothing that Nader has endorsed
> Edwards and rejected Obama.
>
>
>
> For more details on the differences (and how
> remarkably conservative and corporate-friendly
> Obama is), please see my following articles:
>
>
>
> “ ‘Angry John’ and KumbayObama: Reflections
> on Iowa, Business Rule, and the Democratic
> Party’s Democratic Disconnect,” ZNet (December
> 20,
> 2007)(http://www.zcommunications.org/znet/viewArticle/15969)
>
>
>
> “Why I’ve Focused on Obama: Seven Points,”
> ZNet (December 29, 2007), read at
> http://www.zcommunications.org/znet/viewArticle/16046
>
>
>
> “Obama Speaks: ‘Oh Great White Masters, You
> Just Haven’t Been Asked to Help America,” ZNet
> (December 12, 2007), read at
> http://www.zcommunications.org/znet/viewArticle/15801
>
>
>
> “Obama’s Role: to Confuse and Divide the
> Progressive Base,” ZNet (October 19, 2007), read
> at
> http://www.zcommunications.org/znet/viewArticle/15602
>
>
>
> Why has the avowed left-progressive Dennis
> Kucinich embraced the corporate-centrist Obama
> (justly rejected in no uncertain terms by the
> iconic progressive Nader) over the labor-populist
> Edwards (embraced by Nader)? My guess is that
> Edwards helped create this sorry episode by
> letting himself be overheard (last summer)
> agreeing with Hillary that lesser candidates (like
> Kucinich and Mike Gravel) were messing up the
> presidential debates.
>
>
>
> That was a bad and authoritarian thing to say -
> and think. It is corporate media (whose God-like
> power Edwards dares not criticize in an election
> season) that most relevantly poisons the debates
> and the campaigns overall and Left candidates need
> to be heard.
>
>
>
> Still, it's no reason for a left politician to
> jump into political bed with the deeply
> conservative Obama phenomenon.
>
>
>
> Dennis may perceive the corporate media
> BaRoackStar as an unstoppable political juggernaut
> and figure that he might as well jump on the Obama
> train while he can.
>
>
>
> Maybe he thinks Barack will let him set up his
> cherished Department of Peace. No chance.
>
>
>
> I can’t believe Dennis actually thinks that
> “Obama, Inc.” is a progressive change agent.
> But then, when you believe in UFOs, all kinds of
> bizarre cognitions are possible.
>
>
>
> Goodbye, Dennis. You seem to like fantasies, so
> you should have some good fun with your new best
> friend Barack Obama. Fantasy is what he’s all
> about.
>
>
>
> Veteran radical historian Paul Street is a writer,
> speaker and activist based in Iowa City, IA and
> Chicago, IL. He is the author of Empire and
> Inequality: America and the World Since 9/11
> (Boulder, CO: Paradigm); Racial Oppression in the
> Global Metropolis (New York: Rowman & Littlefield,
> 2007); and Segregated Schools: Educational
> Apartheid in Post-Civil Rights America (New York:
> Routledge, 2005. Paul can be reached at
> paulstreet99 at yahoo.com.
>
>
>
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