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Dennis Kucinich's courageous and visionary presidential campaign excited a
new generation of young Americans to involvement in the 2004 Democratic
Primary elections. His speech to the 2004 Democratic Convention will long be
remembered as a clarion call to purpose in the Democratic Party.
Kucinich's Presidential candidacy was a continuation of his challenge to
the war in Iraq. He led 125 Democratic Members of Congress in opposition to
the war. His "Prayer for America" speech in Los Angeles in February of 2002
inspired tens of thousands of emails, many urging him to run for President.
He insisted early on there was no proof of any "weapons of mass
destruction". He toured the country, warning America about the dangers of
attacking a nation which did not attack us. Today he is seen as the prophet
who predicted hundreds of billions of dollars wasted, countless lives lost,
America's credibility in the world severely undermined. Today he insists
that the United States must withdraw from Iraq.
Kucinich has advocated the creation of a cabinet-level Department of
Peace, to make non-violence an organizing principle within our society. He
believes that peace, not war, is inevitable, if we are willing to work for
peace. He sees the world as being interconnected and interdependent. This
vision always strives to find the commonalities, the points where unity can
be formed. He believes the United States can best lead the way through full
support of the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty, the Kyoto Climate Change
Treaty, the Chemical Weapons Convention, the Biological Weapons Convention;
joining the International Criminal Court, signing the Landmine Treaty and
the Small Arms Treaty. As we rejoin the world in full support of principles
of international law, we help build the cause of human unity, he believes.
In his fifth term in the United States House, Kucinich has been a leader for
Universal Health Care, a full employment economy, fully-paid tuition at
public colleges and universities, repeal of the Patriot Act, the development
of bio-fuels as alternative energy and restoration of America's basic
manufacturing and infrastructure. He is currently leading an effort to
support the role of NASA in the development of basic research for civil
aeronautics.
Kucinich first came to national prominence in 1977 when he was elected
mayor of Cleveland at age 31; the youngest person ever elected to lead a
major American city. In 1978, Cleveland's banks demanded that he sell the
city's 70 year-old municipally-owned electric system to its private
competitor (in which the banks had a financial interest) as a precondition
of extending credit to city government. Kucinich refused to sell Muny Light.
In an incident unprecedented in modern American politics, the Cleveland
banks plunged the city into default for a mere $15 million. Kucinich lost
his re-election bid in 1979. Fifteen years later, Kucinich made his first
step toward a political comeback, winning election to the Ohio Senate on the
strength of the expansion of the city's light system which provides low-cost
power to almost half the residents of Cleveland. In 1998 the Cleveland City
Council honored him for, "having the courage and foresight to refuse to sell
the city's municipal electric system."
Kucinich was born in Cleveland, Ohio on October 8, 1946. He is the eldest
of 7 children of Frank and Virginia Kucinich. He and his family lived in
twenty-one places, including a couple of cars, by the time Kucinich was 17
years old. "I live each day with a grateful heart and a desire to be of
service to humanity," he says.
Kucinich has promoted a national health care system, preservation of
Social Security, increased Unemployment Insurance benefits, and the
establishment of wholesales cost-based rates for electricity, natural gas
and home heating oil. When the Supreme Court ruled that mandatory
arbitration could be a condition of employment, Kucinich introduced a bill
to reverse the Court's decision.
In his Cleveland, Ohio district, Kucinich has been recognized by the
Greater Cleveland AFL-CIO as a tireless advocate for the social and economic
interests of his community. He is currently leading a civic crusade to save
Cleveland's 90 year-old steel industry and the thousands of jobs and retiree
benefits it provides. While hundreds of community hospitals have been closed
throughout the country, Kucinich led a powerful citizens' movement which
reopened two Cleveland neighborhood hospitals. He was prepared to block a
railroad merger at the Surface Transportation Board until he gained an
agreement from the nation's largest railroads which improved rail safety
while diverting a heavy volume of train traffic away from heavily populated
residential areas. His promotion of rail safety improvements gained him the
top award from the Ohio PTA in 2000. His efforts on behalf of Cleveland's
poor gained the recognition of the National Association of Social Workers.
He continues to be a local and national advocate for the homeless.
Congressman Kucinich acts upon his belief that protection of the global
environment is fundamental to preserving the life of all species. He has
been honored by Public Citizen, the Sierra Club, Friends of the Earth and
the League of Conservation Voters as a champion of clean air, clean water
and an unspoiled earth. He was an early critic of nuclear power as being
risky economically, and environmentally, raising questions about nuclear
waste byproducts. As a state senator he raised so many questions about a
planned siting of a nuclear waste dump in Ohio that the idea was eventually
scrapped. Early in his first term in Congress he thwarted an effort to
repeal a provision of the Clean Air Act. As a congressional representative
to the global climate treaty talks, Congressman Kucinich encouraged America
to lead the way toward a sustainable, shared stewardship of the planet
through carbon reduction, and investment in alternative energy technologies.
He not only believes in sustainability, he practices it. Congressman
Kucinich is one of the few vegans in Congress, a dietary decision he credits
not only with improving his health, but in deepening his belief in the
sacredness of all species. In the 106th Congress, his call for labeling and
safety testing of all genetically engineered foods provoked a $50 million
advertising campaign by the biotech industry. Kucinich hosted an
international parliamentary session, attended by officials of 18 countries,
on the social, economic, political and health impact of genetic food
technologies. More recently he was one of the principal speakers at an
international conference on water rights, where he called for governments to
reserve public ownership of water resources. Kucinich is a dynamic,
visionary leader who combines a powerful activism with a spiritual sense of
the essential interconnectedness of all living things. His holistic
worldview carries with it a passionate commitment to public service, peace,
human rights, workers rights, and the environment. His advocacy of a
Department of Peace seeks not only to make nonviolence an organizing
principle in our society, but to make war archaic. His is a powerful,
ethical voice for nuclear disarmament, preservation of the ABM treaty,
banning weapons in outer space, and a halt to the development of a 'Star
Wars' - type missile defense technology.
He has been recognized for his advocacy of human rights in Burma, Nigeria
and East Timor. Together with the late Rep. Joe Moakley (D-Mass), he has led
a concerted effort to close the School of the Americas, which has been an
incubator of human rights violations in Central America. On the eve of the
World Trade Organization's Seattle conference, Rep. Kucinich organized 114
Democrats to help convince President Clinton to seek human rights, workers
rights and environmental quality principles as preconditions in all US trade
agreements. Kucinich marched with workers through the streets of Seattle
protesting the WTO's policies and with students through the streets of
Washington, DC, challenging the structural readjustment policies of the IMF. |
