If Dennis Kucinich had no chance, does the United States?

January 31, 2008




Lund, Sweden - About a year ago I participated in a TV program here in Sweden about Iran and the issue of nuclear proliferation. Afterwards many wrote and thanked me for having pointed out that Iran is not the problem made up by leading Western political circles helped by their "free" corporate media megaphones.


I also said that the existence of nuclear weapons - including those in Israel - is the basic problem underlying nuclear proliferation.


Furthermore, I said that the most serious danger came from the country that has nuclear doctrines not for deterrence but for war fighting - for starting, fighting and surviving such a war unscathed itself, namely the United States.


But - other panelists in this TV debate said - that was not the real problem because the United States is a democracy while Iran and Saddam's Iraq are rogue, dictatorial regimes. Well, I said - perhaps it is time to question whether the U.S. is a democracy or analyze why it seems to fail so miserably.




Dennis Kucinich's withdrawal from the Presidential race highlights this problem. It seems to me that one can argue that:


- nuclear weapons are incompatible with democracy; no formally democratic nuclear state has ever held a referendum on whether or not its citizens want to be "defended" by nuclear weapons;


- nuclear weapons are by definition part of the "secret society" where transparency and media investigations are impossible; most of us have never seen or touched a real nuclear weapon;


- doctrines for the use of nuclear weapons militates against humanity, against psychologically healthy people's view of their fellow human beings on earth; most people anywhere would say no to a question such as: Would you accept that your government kills l, 10, 100 million people in country X?


- furthermore, the U.S. political affairs increasingly reminds me of a one-party system with two fractions, the Democrats and the Republicans; it is increasingly difficult to see any difference - at least in terms of foreign policy - between the different candidates in the lead; you may still remember how John Kerry (D) was unable to represent any alternative to Bush on the issue of the Iraq war;


- truly alternative perspectives are lost early - considered "not realistic" by the political commentators and the media; thus, Kucinich's quite predictable fate in this race. Any ethics-based, humanistic perspective is unrealistic whereas fantastic political catastrophes such as that of the US in Iraq is somehow considered Realpolitik - why?


- one reason is that there is what President Eisenhower called a Military-Industrial Complex in his farewell address; today I would call it the Military-Industrial-Media-Academic Complex (MIMAC); as a matter of fact: when the whole world looks to which individual will become the President of the United States, no one exercises any control of the structures of the MIMAC;


- free media can now also be defined by their freedom to distort, to silence, to be biased and partial, and to keep things in the dark for the citizens.




Dennis Kucinich has been a consistent critic of the US war on and sanctions against Iraq and other interventions. Contrary to the other candidates he never voted in favour of it in any way. He is the only candidate who has a plan not only for withdrawal from Iraq but also for what must be done to help Iraq afterwards. His slogan was "Strength Through Peace".


Kucinich speaks beautifully about the need for dreaming about a better world, imagining it and thinking in totally new ways. His British-born wife, Elizabeth, is professionally educated in peace and conflict-resolution. He's pioneered the idea of a Department of Peace. And he spearheaded the demand for impeachment of Vice-President Richard B. Cheney and President George W. Bush.


This together with his general foreign policy thinking is, from a peace professional point of view, by far the most intelligent, innovative and imaginative in US politics.


But he had no chance, they said. He was isolated by the MIMAC and other Realpolitik forces.


See him in this video explain the role of military-industrial General Electric owning NBC and NBC excluding him from the debate in Las Vegas. He also explains how GE supports the other candidates. It is public education, crystal clear talk - and devastating in terms of democracy:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0W93oU1SxTo&feature=related


If a democracy cannot find better candidates with more integrity and more benign policies but continued war and imperialism, if it can only select the President from among those who possess or are given millions upon millions of dollars by the particular interest of war and violence; and if it can only recycle family dynasties such as the Clinton's - with Bill Clinton being a non-convicted war criminal because of his bombings of Sudan, Afghanistan, the destruction of Serbia and the maintenance of sanctions against Iraq that cost an extra 500.000 innocent civilian lives - it is making a mockery of democracy.


We need to talk loudly about all this around the world. The election of the leadership of the United States has larger repercussions around the world than any other election. It is the problem for the whole world if the United States is not a de facto democracy but a caricature of it, bordering itself on the status of a rogue state.


If Kucinich had at least had a fair chance, many of us would have felt better about a possible future for democracy in the United States. It would have given us a hope - even he had not won, of course - that the United States can stop it sliding into moral decay, stagnation, and economic crisis. It would have given us just a little hope that it could find a new, sane foreign policy and a partnership philosophy with the rest of us.


Now such hopes for a new paradigm, a coming to its senses and finding its moral qualities, have been crushed. Indeed, if there is no chance for a Dennis Kucinich and what he stands for, I for one predict that the United States has no chance. And as a pro-America but anti-Washington, I can only regret it.




Here are finally some homepages about and with Kucinich.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-TiijrjFrI


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UxOHwu0CA5E


http://www.youtube.com/user/Kucinich2008


He is now moving on with www.integritynow.org (under construction as of this writing). Let's explore how those of us who believe in the UN Charter norm of peace by peaceful means can make meaningful use of Kucinich's courageous no-chance journey. For peace must have a chance, right?




Jan Oberg