Monthly Archives: August 2003

I’ve been talking to a bunch of people about blogs and their effect for a book I’m supposed to be finishing this week. This is an interview with Governor Dean’s campaign manager, Joe Trippi. Feel free to use it as the Creative Commons Attribution license permits. And corrections appreciated.

(pdf) Continue reading →

When I was growing up, Dennis Kucinich was something of a political hero. I was in high school when he was elected mayor of Cleveland — the youngest mayor of a major city ever. I was also very involved politically. I say “something” of a hero, though, because then I was then a right-wing loon (chairman of the Pennsylvania Teen-Age Republicans, youngest member of a delegation at the 1980 GOP convention). I admired his drive and strength of character; I had little patience for his politics.

I’ve grown-up a bit in the last 25 years. I’m now, well, not a right-wing loon, and now not at all involved politically. But I am still an admirer of Dennis Kucinich — indeed, now more than ever. I don’t (yet?) buy the anti-free trade stuff. But his is a powerful and right voice in this amazing election.

I am of course a bit biased by his embrace of Creative Commons — which has been a part of his blog from the start. But the test for me is always character, and the measure of character for me is whether someone can say what’s right, regardless of consequence, just because he believes it is right.

This is Edwards defending affirmative action in North Carolina; this is Dean opposing he war. This is Kucinich, here and elsewhere, articulating views that he believes right, whether or not they are views that will win him favor.

The post about Gilmore was the example here. I have been astonished by the debate around that event. It made me realize how that there are two sorts of people out there when it comes to civil rights. The question that divides us is not whether we believe in civil rights — obviously, everyone (interesting) does. The question is how we believe in civil rights. (1) One sort believes that when someone else acts — either intentionally or carelessly — to infringe a right, it is right (or even maybe a duty) of the person whose rights have been wronged to defend the right regardless of consequence. (2) Another sort believes that when someone else acts — at least carelessly — to infringe a right, the right thing to do is to decide whether, all things considered, it makes sense to defend the right.

Type two sorts are the majority of us. We’re the “reasonable” ones. Apple doesn’t make commercials about us. We do what everyone would. I’m sure in the right context, I would have to fight all of my instincts to resist being a type two sort. There have been a couple times in my life when I have succeeded, but just a few.

Gilmore is type one — in this context, and many others. (He once, for example, scolded my wife for inviting him to a party with an Evite because it was wrong, he believed, to demand he give up his privacy just to respond to an invitation.) And while I don’t agree with the underlying values that he sometimes pushes (for example, I not only thought it wrong for him to scold my wife, I think Evite is great), I do admire the ability to be type one in a world of type two’s — especially when I agree with the underlying value (as I do w/r/t the British Airways incident).

Thus, I agree with Kucinich, Gilmore is a patriot. At a time when reasonableness by those in power must be taught, his was a patriot’s act (unlike the other Patriot Act). And I admire Kucinich’s willingness to say that here — in a space where some of the most well reasoned contributors (and some others as well) have strongly taken the other view. This is the (only) part of Reagan I continue to admire; it is the part of Kucinich I increasingly admire; it is the part in these candidates we should all respect: the willingness to say what’s right, regardless of consequence.

Thank you, Congressman, for taking time in this space. And thank you for the character of your campaign. Continue reading →

With and estimated 50 million Americans and Canadians left without power and in some cases water, common sense requires us to reflect on the absurdity of deregulation of public utilities. In the first case, the right of utility franchise is vested in the people. We give utilities permission to operate, and enable them to set up a profit making business in exchange for the promise of affordable and reliable service. In 1992, investor owned utilities pushed the Democratic House to pass HR776 which granted electric utilities broad powers. The bill was supposed to restructure the electric utility industry to spur competition.

Utilities used deregulation to effect a series of mergers limiting competition. In order to accelerate profits, cost cutting ensued, involving the layoff of thousands of utility company employees, including some who were responsible for maintenance of generation, transmission, and distribution systems. A number of investor-owned utilities stopped investing in the maintenance and repair of their own equipment, and, instead, cut costs to enhance the value of their stock rather than spending money to enhance the value of their service.

A prime case in point is FirstEnergy Corp, late of Ohio. FirstEnergy formed through a merger of utility companies which owned nuclear power plants which often were neither used nor useful, and as a result incurred huge debt. FirstEnergy’s predecessor, The Cleveland Electric Illuminating Company (CEI) in the 1950s and 60s was a high performing blue chip stock until they invested in nuclear power. FirstEnergy has tried without success to keep online a very troublesome nuclear power facility at Port Clinton, Ohio, the Davis-Besse plant. Davis-Besse is currently shut down and has been for some time. FirstEnergy and federal regulators failed to properly monitor the operations of the plant, resulting in conditions where the plant’s reactor vessel was threatened with a breach when boric acid ate into the head of the reactor. Continue reading →

I thought it would be appropriate in Lessig’s blog to discuss what led to my adoption of the Creative Commons License and the GNU General Public License for our work on the Kucinich presidential campaign.

As a good friend of many artists and engineers, I understand and support their need to make a living. As a father, I don’t believe our government has any business locking up kids for sharing files on the Internet. As a Congressman, I have taken an oath to uphold the Constitution of the United States, which states very clearly in Article 1, Section 8, that “The Congress shall have Power: To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.”

“Yes, we did produce a near-perfect republic. But will they keep it? Or will they, in the enjoyment of plenty, lose the memory of freedom?” — Thomas Jefferson in a letter to John Adams

The framers knew the importance of the progress of science and useful arts. Their intention was clear. Unfortunately, corporate interests have intruded on our process of government. The overwhelming influence of political money from corporate interests has corrupted the ability of Congress to protect science and the arts. Today, much of our science and useful arts is coming forth from sources independent of monopolies, thanks to people like you. Yet Congress continues to try to limit certain activities of inventors and artists in order to preserve corporate power and domination. We must, once again, move to reclaim the promise inherent in Article 1, Section 8.

In my case, I have chosen the free content and free software licenses because I believe they will promote these important goals better than more restrictive “proprietary” licenses. On my presidential campaign, we are currently developing a policy requesting that our supporters license their works to us and others under free license as well. This is valuable because it will provide a body of work to be used by grassroots activists to create their own tools to promote individual and community based expressions of democracy. For example, anyone will be able to take photos, video, audio, or software and reuse it to create their own materials — without hiring an attorney to negotiate rights (sorry Larry). In this spirit, feel free to rip, mix, and burn my work here.

This is what the American Revolution was all about!

Dennis J. Kucinich
Des Moines, Iowa

This entry and my personal blog are licensed under a Creative Commons License. Continue reading →

I was reading Gilmore’s reply to Lessig’s earlier post and the conversation it stirred, and it moved me to share some of my own experiences with our fellow bloggers.

I have to admit to a feeling of resentment at the extent of the security searches every time I travel by air. The armed guards, the x-ray machines, the metal detectors, the pat downs, the search of luggage and personal effects, the removal of shoes, and for some, I suppose, the explanation of prosthetics, pacemakers, and appurtenances, constitutes a massive invasion of privacy. We have just come to accept this as a natural state of things because, like Gilmore, we’re all suspected terrorists. I find myself having to explain to people why I, as a Presidential candidate, am repeatedly shuttled off to that special line of selectees identified by the SSSS stamped on my ticket. The transportation security agents inform me that a computer has made this decision. I want to know who programs the computer. Is it John Ashcroft?

Even though I don’t feel as though I’m getting special treatment or that I’m entitled to special treatment, it makes me wonder how much of a threat I must be since I really do intend to replace the entire government. So when people occasionally recognize me getting the magic metal detector wanding and dutifully submitting to searches of my person, extending my arms and my legs spread-eagle, I explain with a smile, “I’m running against George Bush.”

What I’ve been able to determine from an informed intelligence source (oxymoron) is that I tend to get selected because I buy one-way tickets. This poses a dilemma. Should I change my campaign and do round trips say in a continuous loop from Seattle, Washington to Washington, DC in order to avoid greater suspicion or do I plan a practical itinerary from Seattle to San Francisco to Austin to Oklahoma City to Des Moines to Cleveland to Manchester and gain near public enemy status? The real reason that people who travel point to point instead of round trip are more likely to be subjected to a search is because, I’m told, that the hijackers bought one-way tickets. This is an interesting type of profiling that goes on. One which seldom invites an iota of self-reflection about America’s role in the world or about the basis for the murderous grievances which misguided individuals may have against us. It would be useful to have a national dialogue about our democracy and the manner in which it has been undermined since 9/11. The alternative is to proceed, robot like, and submit to metal detectors, x-ray machines, magic wands, pat downs, and the shuttling of point to point travelers to a point by point inspection.

It seems to me that the Bush Administration, with its moral obtuseness, its inconscience on matters of civil liberties, and its craven attempts to demolish the Bill of Rights has prepared for the American people a one-way ticket of sorts. When it comes to the quality of our democracy we are traveling on a road to nowhere.

Airline security is, as we have learned, a deadly serious business. The traveling public deserves assurances that they and their loved ones will be safe in the air. But when does security in a democracy morph into something profoundly anti-democratic. This is a discussion we need to have. And the answer, as Gilmore knows, cannot be simply “search me?”!

Dennis J. Kucinich
On the road to Des Moines

This entry and my personal blog are licensed under a Creative Commons License. Continue reading →

Yesterday, Rob asked several questions:
1) It is almost certain that you will be working with a Republican-controlled Congress at least initially during your tenure. Given that, do you believe it likely that you will be able to get the Congress to pass bills authorizing programs for national health care, withdrawal from NAFTA and WTO, reversal of the Bush tax cuts (which will probably be permanent by then), and dealing with other hot-button issues that the Republicans have been so steadfastly against. You can’t just declare these things by executive order; and I don’t see how you can get such “radical liberal” programs passed. That makes many of your 10 key issues non-starters.

My nomination will set the stage for a Democratic Congress. In 1932, when president Franklin Roosevelt was nominated, he ran on a platform of broad economic reform, which excited people to come out in vote in their own enlightened self-interest. As a result, FDR led a Democratic sweep, which resulted in a pickup of 90 House seats and 13 Senate seats. This was accomplished because he represented profound change. He represented jobs, he represented rebuilding America, he represented a hope for popular control over predatory corporations. My nomination will reverse the results of the 1994 election when the Democrats were unable to regain the House and lost the Senate principally because the parties’ ties to corporate interests muted the differences between the parties and discouraged the Democratic base. My nomination will excite the Democratic base, will broaden the reach of the party, and will engage third party activists to join us in a mighty effort to reclaim our government.

2) You state that one of your first acts as President will be to unilaterally withdraw the U.S. from NAFTA and the WTO and institute a regime of “fair trade agreements.” Do you believe that our global trade partners will be receptive to such a regime, given that almost by definition those agreements will be fairer to us than to them? Or will we instead see a return to the bad old days of preferential tariffs and trade wars, which the WTO was created to try to prevent? Or even worse, would withdrawal merely accelerate the migration of trade from our country to other countries with more open trade practices? Would we not then be hoist by our own petard?

We are now being hoisted on the petard of NAFTA and the WTO. America’s trade policies have been dictated by powerful multinational corporations whose flag is not red white and blue, but green with a dollar sign. Our nation is approaching a $500 billion trade deficit, which represents a genuine threat, not only to our economy, but to our Democracy. Global corporations have used the United States to help create a multinational trading arrangement which denies both American workers and workers of other nations the protections of basic labor law. NAFTA and the WTO were written specifically to preclude the enforcement of rights to organize, collective bargaining, strike, rights to safe work place, and right to a secure retirement. This enabled corporations to move jobs out of America to places where workers have no protections. NAFTA and the WTO have facilitated a race to the bottom in terms of wages and workers rights generally. The WTO essentially locked in the NAFTA trading regime by making any attempts to modify the basis of trade WTO-illegal.

The question is not whether or not America trades with the world, the questions are what are the rules of the game. And America is claimed by rules which are rigged against us. I have said that I will cancel NAFTA and the WTO in order to return to bilateral trade, conditioned on workers rights, human rights, and environmental quality principles being written into our trade agreements with other nations. The is the only way that we can stop corporations from coercing wage concessions or breaking United States unions. This is the only way that we can re-empower the hopes of people of all nations for a better standard of living and for control of the institutions of their own governments.

This issue reflects not mere differences of opinion within our party but a great divide. On one side of the divide stands global corporations and their political supporters. On the other side stands workers and their supporters. I stand resolutely with America’s workers and with those peoples of the world who are also striving for human dignity. I will continue to challenge all other Democratic candidates on this issue to see whose side they stand on so that the American people can clearly see whose side they’re on. It’s not enough to say you’re going to fix NAFTA and the WTO, the only way to fix it to exercise the withdrawal provisions of both laws and return to bilateral trade, conditioned on workers rights, human rights and environmental quality principles.

Dennis J. Kucinich
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

This entry and my personal blog are licensed under a Creative Commons License. Continue reading →