Kucinich reloaded...memory lane.....

[Desertrose]

Got this email from a friend today & thought I'd share....



Speaking of The Man Who I Hope Will Someday Be Prez, I came across
the article below again and it made me think happy thoughts. Thought I
would pass it on...

It was before the speech, outside in the blazing sun behind the
theater, that I got the chance to speak to Kucinich alone. I told him
that we'd driven around together in a car 25 years ago, and he
surprised me by saying he remembered that day. But then I asked what
I'd really come to ask.

I remarked that so many people had been working for so long for
progressive change--on issues from corporate responsibility to
alternative energy to economic democracy. Was he as surprised as I that
not much actually had been accomplished? "In some ways, we seemed
closer then than we are now," I said.

The question came because of something that had been drilling in my
head ever since Bush took office, since the World Trade Center towers
came down, and especially during the war in Iraq: Progressive-minded
people seemed so often out of touch with what most Americans wanted,
needed. What was the point in us talking to each other constantly,
preaching always to the already converted? I told Kucinich I believed
in the ability of individuals to make a difference, yes, but that I had
grown weary of the beautiful-loser syndrome in which progressives
seemed locked.

It was then that Kucinich began scolding me.

He admonished my cynicism, saying I shouldn't go there: "When you lose
hope, that becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy that can stop us from
achieving that which may be just a little out of reach right now."

He referred to hope as an "imminent reality"--"a reality that is
waiting to be called forth." Indeed, one could say we called forth the
right to vote for people who were not property owners, he said. We
called forth the Emancipation Proclamation. We called forth the right
of women to vote and the ability of young people to participate in the
political process.

"Throughout our country's history, there are moments when change
happens," he said, "and it seems to have happened all at once. But the
truth of the matter is it came about because over the many years,
people relentlessly pursued their dreams and hopes. "

"My approach," he said simply, "is to try to draw the reality a little
closer." Later, inside the theater, the congressman said it another
way. Quoting Percy Bysshe Shelley from Prometheus Unbound, he spoke of
"hope creating from its own wreck the thing that it contemplates."

He'll not be president in 2004. But how grateful I was to be reminded
by Dennis Kucinich that countries can be transformed, that people have
the power and that some things never change.

And some things do.

The excerpt above is from "Kucinich reloaded" by Melinda Welsh, 6-5-03
found at http://www.newsreview.com/issues/sacto/2003-06-05/essay.asp?Print=1