WaPo~Kucinich Reaches Out to the Neglected

[maddezmom]

Kucinich Reaches Out to the Neglected
Primary Travels Will Focus On 'Other America'
By Evelyn Nieves
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, February 15, 2004; Page A05


SAN FRANCISCO -- It was 7 p.m., well into the killing hours at the Sunnydale Housing Project. Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich (Ohio) had been whisked in the back of a van to the project's deadliest corner, the boundary between two warring gangs that police believe are responsible for eight or nine murders in the city so far this year.


The Democratic presidential candidate, in a navy pin-striped suit, jumped from the van to greet waiting residents. Two dozen people marching in a circle at the corner, as they do every Friday evening in a rally for peace in their streets, let out whoops of hello as he approached them. "This is great!" Kucinich said, smiling to his ears. He knelt down to hug two little girls who rushed to welcome the first presidential candidate to visit this part of San Francisco in as long as anyone could remember.

Kucinich, the longest of long-shot candidates, was on a two-day campaign swing through California. But Friday night, this neighborhood marked the beginning of a new mission. He was launching his "Other America Tour" here, an effort, he said, to spotlight the poorest, most neglected neighborhoods in the country.

Sunnydale, a square mile of row after row of brick barracks-like buildings where nearly half the families earn less than $15,000 a year, is as poor and neglected as San Francisco gets. People who have lived in the city for decades -- in the parts where two-bedroom fixer-upper houses bottom out at $500,000 -- often confess they have never seen Sunnydale, and are not even sure how to get there.

~snip~

more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A42609-2004Feb14.html

This article was mentioned on CSPAN yesterday and just had a chance to read. Hope it's not a dupe. :)

[snoochie]

1. The best

He is just the best.

Thanks so much for posting this. It really shows how very completely different he is from the other candidates.

I hope democrats wake up and start recognizing who their real allies are.

[maddezmom]

2. a kick for DK

:kick:

[Kanary]

3. *THIS* is why Dennis is my one and only candidate

Who else is even listening to poor folx?

Dennis is consistent with his concern for everyone.

What a commentary on our whole society that he's considered "unelectable".

Thanks so much for posting this!

Kanary

[maddezmom]

5. you are very welcome

I try to find a positive piece a day for Dennis and others. :)

[AlecBGreen]

23. Ditto Kanary

this is why he should be pres

[justinpower]

4. When DK was in Ohio last week

He visited a similarly impoverished neighborhood. I heard comments like, geez their own precinct captain doesnt even go there. Only DK, going to the people.

[Damn Ann the Man]

17. Can DK WIN his home state?

Go Kucinich!

[diamondsoul]

18. HEEEY!!!

That's what else he needs to do!! They need to...shoot, I gotta get in touch with HQ now!

He's missing something from these visits and it will likely boost his number massively!

[bread_and_roses]

6. Kucinich IS the best

of the lot, no doubt in my mind. Who else even talks about the poor in this country, much less goes to poor neighborhoods? Who else even talks about the insane "War on Drugs" and its' use as a tool of oppression and control of minorities and the poor? (With the side benefits of being a usefull tool to control activists.) If the Dems gave these people a reason to come out and vote we could crush the Republicans without worry.

[snoochie]

7. "If the Dems gave these people a reason to come out and vote ..."

corporate control would be loosened.

The first salvo in the battle between corporate and public control would be fired, if he were the nominee.

Sadly, the corporate-friendly candidates are all in the frontrunner positions, and most of the voters don't seem to have noticed or they don't care.

[Kanary]

13. "Reason to vote" *must* be remembered during the GE!

You are soooooooo right!

I keep hearing about the need to get "the poor" registered and voting... yet, most don't seem to realize that "the poor" know there's been nobody on their side. Clinton? Hah.... the welfare deform bill of his took care of the poor, alright.

The forgotten "Other America" is only remembered by Dennis.

Thanks for saying what needed to be said.

Kanary

[LWolf]

8. Kick for Dennis

:kick:

[WhoCountsTheVotes]

9. Imagine an Edwards/Kucinich ticket playing offense against outsourcing

Imagine them giving anti-corporate speeches in every town in the US. In Edwards' thick drawl - "nah folks, as President, I promise I won't get deh-rahled by scandals paid for by some rich people (said with a contemptuous sneer) that don't wanna pay a living wage - I'll keep mah nose clean and my britches on (read: Monicagate). And you all gotta vote, every time, and yall gotta make the calls and write the letters and boycott when we have tah".

Bush wouldn't stand a chance, and we'd win Congress by a comfortable margin. But we won't - the Democrats will probably pick some pro-corporate VP, like Gore/Lieberman, just to let the Wall Street Journal know that we aren't serious about all this populism. The Corporate Media will give the Dem lots of favorable press coverage - then bam, October Surprise and the same corporate media will declare the Dem "irrelevant".

Ah well, maybe 2008.

[Paulie]

10. Dennis is a mensch

Makes me proud to be a supporter! :loveya:

[Zomby Woof]

11. We supporters know he is the one

:-)

[IrateCitizen]

12. What? Doesn't he realize these people don't vote???

And you can forget about any donations. It's best not to waste your limited campaign resources on poor people. Soccer moms and NASCAR dads is where the REAL push needs to be made.

</sarcasm>

It's things like this that just re-affirms for me my support of Dennis Kucinich. I wonder how many other candidates have visited these forgotten neighborhoods within the American experience?

[revcarol]

15. Children don't vote either.

And he prizes them.

HE'S THE MAN!!

[Lydia Leftcoast]

16. The last one I remember paying attention to poor people

is Robert Kennedy. ;(

[revcarol]

19. Before that, Eleanor Roosevelt.

The Bush administration is literally killing the poor.

[Kanary]

22. Robert Kennedy has been in my thoughts a lot

All the effort that went into Appalachia, and all the other pockets of poverty.

Where have all the Dems gone......

Kanary

[no name no slogan]

21. Which is why it's so funny....

that DK's STILL raising money, even though he's not a "serious" candidate.

He not only talks the talk, he walks the walk. GO DK!

[ThirdWheelLegend]

14. Dennis is for the people..

Kucinich is the true voice of the people.

TWL

[lams712]

20. This is why I LOVE DK!!!!!!!

n/t

[tmwat]

24. What do you think about the "Other America" theme?

Does it resonate? The reason I ask is that I'm organizing a forum with DK in another Bay Area low-income community next week. The question has come up as to whether or not we should promote this event with this theme because people in that community might be offended by that term -- they don't want to hear their community called "other"....

I'll be asking people in that community directly but wanted to bounce it off folks here.

[maddezmom]

25. one thing is for sure it's a reality, no one wants to talk about

an article about the Struggling 'Other Memphis' Skeptical of Candidates :
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A23949-2004Feb8?language=printer

and the thread here at DU:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=132&topic_id=296260

edited: to add link to Washington Post

[IrateCitizen]

26. No, it works when contrasted with the "America" we all see...

... every time we turn on our television sets. The "America" where everyone lives in a 4-bedroom house in the suburbs or a posh apartment in the city, the "America" where the most common vehicles owned are Lexus, Mercedes and Hummer, and so on.

Most people don't live in that "America" anymore. By calling it the "other America", you're drawing attention to how people's perceptions are not the same as reality.

[LWolf]

27. This is a good point.

The number of people who live in that media driven "America" compared to the rest of us...

Even the people living in the media cleansed SUV/suburb america aren't portrayed realistically. You don't see the hours/commute/jobs they work to maintain that lifestyle, the family time, both quality and quantity, impacted, the degeneration of values into a consumer competition.

And then there are the rest of us. Who work the hours, suffer the loss of quality "real life" time, and still don't make the $$ to stay afloat. Or those of us without jobs, homes, health care.

[IrateCitizen]

28. Yup. Now you're getting into the meat of it.

I can certainly sympathize with this, because it's pretty close to what I'm living right now.

I live in a town about 37 miles from midtown Manhattan, and I take the train into the city every day. The entire commute (train and walk) is about 1:15-1:20 each way. If I told you that the vast majority of people I see on the train look like zombies, it wouldn't be an exaggeration.

Personally, when I came to evaluate this choice of lifestyle, I immediately set to work to get my teaching certificate and get out of it. I'm lucky in the respect that I can right now -- that my wife and I don't have kids, that we have a co-op instead of a house, and so on.

But when I look around my area (Westchester County), I just can't figure out how anybody can afford to live around there. Between my wife and I, we make well over $100K per year -- but if we were to buy a modest house, we would barely be able to stay afloat. And when I think of our situation, we're actually pretty well off. What about the countless others who are working two jobs in order to be flat broke (or in debt) at the end of the month?

I've read from several sources that happiness in a society isn't based on attainable wealth -- it's based more on relative wealth, or how much you have compared to those around you. Here in the US, when we see the happy suburban families in a five-bedroom house with a couple of luxury SUV's in the driveway as the "norm", it can't help but breed discontent for the countless people whose reality is vastly different from that.

[LWolf]

30. That's right.

I live in the northern tip of Los Angeles County; a bedroom community, swelled to almost 300,000. Who come here for (relatively) cheap houses, and commute to LA to work. A commute of 1-2 hours each way, each day. And I teach their kids while they are "down below."

I can tell you that by the time they get home, they are too tired to do anything but put some food and the tv in front of those kids, after they pick them up from whoever is providing daycare.

And I'm a teacher here. I am as far over on the salary schedule as I can go, and have a decade's worth of time put in. My single salary makes enough to buy a house, but not in a housing tract. My house, built in 1950, is on a postage-stamp piece of yard, zoned industrial. Next door to an abandoned chicken farm, across the street from a large equipment yard, and next door to a poor working class neighborhood. Down the street from our version of the "projects." My house is 800 square feet. Needs more repair than I can currently pay for. And is seated directly in the drainage path of the street. Half an inch of rain, and the water rises above the curb and halfway to my front door. My vehicle is 10 years old and will have to last another 10, because there is no budget to replace it. I'm currently supporting one adult son, who was laid off and is frantically searching for something...anything, to bring in some income to help out here and keep himself afloat.

I appreciate, beyond words, Dennis Kucinich offering a breath of hope to neighborhoods like mine.

[Kanary]

29. Ask them.

Organizers have the opportunity to actually check out these kinds of questions with the people involved.

What we think doesn't really matter..... we're not the ones affected. I can't decide for others what they want to be called.

Names and labels are important to people, and can be an opener to further communication, or can be a stopper. None of us like to have others make those decisions for us. It's the first step in mutual respect.

Kanary