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As if our lives depend on it…

By Jeeni Criscenzo
July 15, 2007

This is the third in a series of article on the Edwards and Kucinich campaigns.

We are at a moment in time when what we do–or don’t do–will not only impact our own lives but the future of humanity on this planet. It’s that critical ….

Thirty years ago, when I was balancing the responsibilities of being a single mom and a sole provider, I put aside my concerns about the safety of the food I fed my children and the car I drove to shuttle them around, the quality of education they were getting, the water we drank, the air we breathed, and the myriad experiences my family encountered every day, by thinking, “I can’t possibly do everything, so I’m going to have to trust that the people in charge are doing their job.” I seldom thought beyond those issues that directly impacted my daily life. There simply wasn’t enough time–or so I told myself. 

If you are reading this, you have probably come to the same terrifying realization that I have–the “people in charge” are NOT doing their job and most cannot be trusted. So where does that leave us? Do we have to take personal responsibility to do everything ourselves? Do we have to check the safety of everything we feed our children and ourselves? Do we have to check that the airplane we fly is mechanically safe? Do we have to test our water before drinking it and our air before breathing it? Do we have to stop illegal wars? Do we have to shut down nuclear power plants? Do we have to stop global warming?

We can’t do these things ourselves–we have neither the resources nor the time. That’s why, as a civilized people, we have agreed to elect individuals to govern, regulate and oversee. Unfortunately, we’ve made some god-awful bad choices–or more accurately, we’ve let others make those terrible choices for us. We’ve allowed the corporate-controlled media to tell us who our leaders should be. Like blind sheep we bleat their declarations of who is “viable” and who “doesn’t have a chance,” as if those conclusions were the result our own research and insightful analysis. This isn’t a poker game where we can fake our expertise, and the stakes are too high to leave the outcome to chance or the dictates of someone else with their own self-serving agenda. This time we MUST take personal responsibility for choosing our leaders, because only someone of impeccable integrity, proven courage and inspired vision can lead us from the precipice humanity hangs from. Choose wrong, and we all perish.

It doesn’t matter one flying-flippit how tall our next president is, as long as that person measures up when standing alone. Who cares how they choose to part their hair, as long as we know they will always choose what’s best for the people of our nation over what’s going to enrich their campaign coffers. There’s only one candidate running for President with a proven track record for making the tough choices, for having the intelligence to see through the cons in Congress and the backbone to buck the relentless pressure to enrich the military industrial complex rather than serve the people. That candidate is Dennis Kucinich.

Kucinich is the ONLY candidate who voted against giving President Bush a blank check to wage war on a country that was no threat to us. He doesn’t have to apologize for being fooled about the lies of WMDs because he was smart enough to know they were lies from the beginning. That’s the kind of wisdom we need in our President, because there’s no more room for mistakes of judgment no matter how sincere the apologies are after the fact. Imagine if the majority in Congress had the insight and intestinal fortitude of Dennis Kucinich in 2003 to never let the illegal invasion of Iraq happen in the first place! Just imagine what a better place we would all be in right now! Do the research–Edwards, Obama and Clinton have ALL said that they wouldn’t rule out the possibility of attacking Iran. Have they learned NOTHING from the past five years! Do you want anyone who has no concept of the insanity of war with Iran running our country?

Remember the scene in Fahrenheit 911 when the 3,000-page Patriot Act is being handed out to Congress? There was one man in the background who was actually READING IT–the ONLY Presidential Candidate who voted against that outrageous usurpation of our Constitutional rights–Dennis Kucinich.

Michael Moore has just come out with a new movie about another national disgrace–our healthcare system. SiCKO clearly pins culpability for our medical mess on the HMOs. But, while it’s politically popular to say that you’re all for fixing our healthcare system, only ONE candidate actually has the courage to propose a plan that eliminates the blood-sucking insurance companies from the system–Dennis Kucinich. I’ve heard some people justify keeping health insurance companies in the plan because it would be “unfeasible” to stand up to them. Should we say the same thing about every bully we encounter? I want a President who isn’t beholden to bullies, whether they’re HMOs, war profiteers or the oil industry. Back when he was the youngest mayor of Cleveland the banks and electric utility tried to shake down Dennis Kucinich. He stood on his promise not to sell out, even when it sidelined his political career for years. That’s what we need now–courage!

I’ll never go back to those innocent days of blind trust in our government. No, I can’t check up that every person is doing their job, but I can do everything possible to make sure that we have someone at the top who I can trust to set the tone and the standard for integrity, courage and a passion for serving the people. I’m not just asking you to vote for Dennis Kucinich, I asking you to commit the next six months to getting him the Democratic nomination. I’m asking you to work on this campaign as if our future depends on it–because it does. We have the candidate we’ve been waiting for, so what are YOU waiting for?

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