Muslims For Kucinich

The rally started at 3 p.m. (the size of the crowd is especially impressive considering that it was during the workday; a lot of people who wanted to attend may not have been able to get off work).

The rally featured a variety of speakers and singers. The speakers included the head of ILWU Local 23 (which just recently endorsed Dennis), a representative of the Natural Law Party of Washington, a representative of Solidarity in America (a movement started by ILWU Local 23), Angela Gilliam (an African-American feminist scholar who is a professor at a local college), and the head of the UW chapter of Kucinich for President (the student group were the official sponsors of the event and did much of the work organizing it).

The College Republicans or some other conservative student group decided to hold a protest. There were about half a dozen of them. They carried signs such as "Bush-Cheney 2004", "Get the Kooch off our campus", "Vote for Kucinich - Why are you laughing", and a rather odd one alleging that Dennis would allow serial killers to go free (it's possible that this was connected to the recent plea bargain of the Green River Killer, which has been all over the news in Seattle this last week, but what they thought Dennis had to do with it, I don't know). At first the protestors attempted to shout and boo (at one point, a speaker mentioned Dennis's support for a woman's right to choose and one of the protestors, who was standing right behind me, yelled out "Baby killer!"). But when the cheering and chanting of the crowd drowned them out, they moved around to try and get their signs on camera. The AP photo above is taken from such an angle that the signs are not visible. In any case, some Kucinich supporters moved to stand in front of the protestors and hide their signs with pro-Dennis signs.

After about 45 minutes, Dennis arrived. The protestors began chanting, "Four more years". Although the crowd was going to attempt to drown them out again, Dennis indicated for us to stay quiet then he allowed the protestors to do their chant. After that, he asked us if we wanted four more years of war, four more years without universal healthcare, etc, to which we responded with loud shouts of "No!" Dennis spoke briefly about his vision for improving America, then there were two more musical numbers. The first was a serenade to Dennis of "The Man from LaMancha" - the one that goes "To dream the impossible dream". Then we had a sing-along to John Lennon's "Imagine", which is Dennis's favorite song (I'm rather fond of it myself).

After this, we went inside to an auditorium so that Dennis could give his speech. The auditorium seats 750 and it was standing room only in there. I would estimate that at least 800 people were present and perhaps many more.

The protestor who had the "Bush-Cheney" sign came in as well but ended up in the balcony seats because the rest of the auditorium was full.

Dennis gave an introductory speech then took questions for most of the hour. In his speech, he told the story of Bobby Kennedy's visit to South Africa in 1966 and how he talked to students about apartheid. Dennis quoted Kennedy, "Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance." This was the message that he wanted to convey to the audience, especially the young college students in it. At times like this it seems like something has gone terribly wrong in our country but we don't have the power to change it. But we should remember that each little action is a "ripple of hope" that together become a current and a wave that can bring about real transformation.

On the same theme, Dennis told the story from Alice in Wonderland where Alice realizes that what she's been frightened of all this time is "nothing but a silly deck of cards" (my brief description here does not do justice to how Dennis told this story; he is really an excellent story-teller).

After this, Dennis took questions from the audience. The first question was about third parties. Dennis told about how he first entered politics in 1967 but didn't get endorsed by his county's Democratic party until the 1990s (of course, he spent the period 1979 to 1994 out of politics). However, he is committed to the Democratic party. He said that he considers his job to be doing "missionary work" for progressive values in the Democratic party. He also said that before we build a third party, it would help if the Democrats acted like a real second party. And he said that, whatever else you say about them, the Republicans have principles that they stick to and the Democrats ought to do the same.

The next question was about 9/11. This was similar to what Dennis said at the fundraising breakfast a month ago in response to the same question. Although he believes that finding the truth of what happened on that day is important, what's even more important is that we stop exploiting 9/11 so that the wounds never heal, and that one of the things he wants to do as president is to encourage dialogue and healing over 9/11.

The third question was about education. One of Dennis's plans is for the government to pay tuition for students to attend public colleges and universities (an extremely popular position with the college students in the audience). This would be paid for by repealing the Bush tax cuts. Dennis told the story of his own educational background. When he was growing up, his parents sent him and his siblings to Catholic school but they couldn't always afford the costs, so Dennis would scrub floors at the school and do other work to make the money to pay for himself and his siblings to stay in school. When he was 17, Dennis moved out on his own. He had to work for two years after he graduated from high school in order to afford college, and he had to work while he attended college, take out loans, and even take time off from school and go back to working before he could graduate. No one in his family had completed college, and many of them had not even finished high school. He told this story to illustrate how many students have to struggle just as he did, and that's why he wants to make it possible for everyone to attend college. He also commented on how we seem to have endless money to spend on tax cuts, wars, and the defense budget, but when it comes time to spend money to send our kids to college, suddenly that's going to break the budget or something. He said (correctly, I believe) that we already have the money to fund this program, but our priorities are wrong.

After this, the guy with the "Bush-Cheney" sign wanted to ask a question and Dennis let him have the floor. The question was about the Department of Peace and what it would do that the State Department doesn't already do. Dennis talked about how during the Kosova war, he became interested in studying the roots of war and violence, which he described as being like a virus that infects people. As long as violence pervades our society from our families to our communities, war will continue because it's just the same violence writ large. In order to bring about peace, we need to tackle violence in a systematic manner and make non-violence an organizing principle in our society. Thus the Department of Peace would promote and coordinate efforts against domestic violence, child abuse, and violence in schools and communities, and that is far beyond the scope of the State Department. The protestor seemed to have been silenced by this.

The next question was about whether Dennis will stand up to corporations. To answer this question, he told the story of Cleveland Municipal Light that defined his tenure as mayor of Cleveland. You can read it here.

After this, Dennis was asked about family planning. This was specifically in the context of reducing the world's population problems, but Dennis chose to go beyond this to talk about his views on abortion. He described how he had been pro-life but he began to listen to the women in his life who were trying to broaden his views when he saw how extreme Congress was getting, trying to pass laws that are unConstitutional. He described his journey and change of understanding on abortion as "one of the most significant in my life". He said that he now feels that prohibiting abortion is a denial of women's essential equality in society. If women cannot make their own decisions about what is right and wrong to do about their pregnancies, they are not equal moral agents with men (I've discussed the abortion issue elsewhere on this site and the Islamic perspective on it). Dennis said that he believes that through supporting sex education and birth control, the number of abortions can be reduced. Finally, he pointed out that if we truly care about the lives of the unborn and the newborn, we'll make sure that all women have access to pre-natal care, post-natal care, and child care (strange how conservatives' care for the baby seems to vanish once it's born).

The last question was about Israel and Palestine. Dennis listed four key steps that must be taken towards peace in the Middle East. Israel must tear down its "security wall". It must stop building the settlements. It must recognize and allow an autonomous Palestinian state. And it must work with the United States and the rest of the world community to rebuild Palestine's infrastructure, its homes, roads, hospitals, etc. Until the Palestinians can live their lives free of this oppression, there will be no peace. Dennis also talked about building a feeling of mutuality between Israel and Palestine so that each truly realizes that its security depends on the other. He finally said that when two brothers (i.e., Israelis and Palestinians) are killing each other, you don't stop the killing by taking sides, you have to help both equally.

This was all that Dennis had time for, because he had to go on to another campaign appearance, a banquet hosted by the county Democratic party where he was the keynote speaker. He stayed to shake hands with people as we filed out and allowed people to pose for pictures with him. When I came past him he greeted me with the Islamic greeting "As-salaam alaykum" loud and clear, as he has done every other time that I've met him at campaign appearances. I returned his greeting with pleasure.

I'm afraid that my account doesn't really give you a feel for what Dennis's speech was like. I hope that somebody made a video of it and will make it available. I've seen Dennis speak on several occasions. He is an excellent speaker, with a wonderful sense of humor and a way of engaging the audience and drawing them in. His speech today was simply outstanding, the best of all the ones I've seen. He really shone. What a great way to wrap up the week!