I am still trying to figure out how the Democratic Party has come to nominate Mr. Empty Suit and his friend, the Other Old White Guy when there were candidates like Dennis Kucinich and Bill Richardson to offer real change and thorough experience. Just listen to Kucinich here, working a crowd that was largely disinterested when he began but was building up a pretty good cheer by the time he was done. He’s not stroking people with feel-good bullshit like Obama did through the entire primary season (only to stab the progressives in the back as soon as he had it in the bag), he’s telling the crowd to stop daydreaming and see what the last 30 years of Republican administration (and Bill Clinton’s “Republican Lite” DLC) have done to this country. The media and the right-wingers like to characterize Kucinich as a “crazy”, but there’s nothing crazy about one word of this speech.
Maybe Americans are just blind to what is right in front of our faces. This Canadian journalist sure as hell gets it. So does this Australian journalist. Any pretense of Barack Obama being the least little bit different than the usual lot of wishy-washy namby-pamby Democrats has been completely wiped out by this slickly produced propaganda show, and the real progressive elements of the party have been slotted into low-profile spots except for Teddy. If Ted weren’t a dying man, though, you can bet he wouldn’t have gotten that prime-time moment; he’d have been stuck in some unwatched hour talking to an empty room.
Whether it’s impeaching Bush, opposing the Iraq War AND the efforts to extend the war into Iran, restoring the rule of law and the primacy of the Constitution, or any of the other issues Kucinich has championed, time and again he has turned out to be right, while Barack Obama courts the evangelicals and neo-cons by riding the fence. Choosing between John McCain and Barack Obama is scarcely a choice at all; both are panderers and connivers who have no trouble sucking up to the right-wingers. Wake up, America!
