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How
fitting that vegan presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich is running
on a "connective tissue" platform. Kucinich (http://www.kucinich.us)
intends to restore America's robust health-economically, environmentally,
socially, culturally, and most of all, ethically-by championing
a return to balance, to the true vision and values our collective
body craves.
Like visionary
Vitamin Ks, Kennedy and King, before him, Kucinich advocates an
evolutionary, rather than revolutionary, strategy.
A heartland
politician with heart, Kucinich received the Gandhi Peace Award
for 2003, placing him in the distinguished company of world citizens
Eleanor Roosevelt, Dr. Daniel Ellsberg, Dr. Helen Caldicott and
Cesar Chavez, among many others.
Now Kucinich
is running for the highest office in the land with a daring proposition:
"People are waiting for someone who connects with their heart,
for someone who doesn't judge them but who is ready to show the
practical application of peace and love in everyday America. Not
peace as an abstraction, but as something that can structure society,"
he told Rolling Stone magazine soon after formally announcing his
candidacy.
Kucinich calls
poverty, limited health care, a toxic environment, poor education
and racism the real "weapons of mass destruction," and
has outlined a ten-point plan for revivifying America from the ground
up. The man who proposed a U.S. Department of Peace is practical,
and progressive to the core.
His supporters
transcend cultural, ethnic, age and income strata. Some of the more
familiar enthusiasts range from Patch Adams to Shirley MacLaine,
Danny Glover to Marianne Williamson, Studs Terkel to Ani DiFranco,
Willie Nelson to Matthew Fox. While other candidates strive to woo
and win the "minority vote," or the labor vote, Kucinich
doesn't need to woo them-he IS them.
The eldest of
seven children whose Teamster Dad drove a truck for 35 years, Kucinich
sports the soul of a worker. His father died with his first retirement
check in his pocket, uncashed. Kucinich says, "I am of the
House of Labor and still building. This is my card of membership
in the House of Representatives. This card (House) is where my work
is. And this card (Union) is where my heart is."
Kucinich grew
up in inner city Cleveland, Ohio, where his family was often the
only Caucasian family in the neighborhood. People of color have
been his friends and allies his entire life. This same authenticity
of spirit resonates among Latino communities, with youth, with feminists-indeed,
with any subset of people who comprise the heart and soul of America.
To the multitudes
who've hungered for a leader capable of marrying conscience with
consciousness, Kucinich serves up a veritable feast. His declaration
of interdependence-not just within the U.S. or among nations, but
with all life on Earth-often moves listeners to tears, precisely
because it resounds with the force of a promise fulfilled.
The annual Peace
Sunday celebration held at Agape International Spiritual Center
in Los Angeles on November 23, 2003, showcases how Kucinich weds
the body politic with the body of Gaia.
The gathering,
billed as "A Call to Spiritual Activism," begins with
a confluence of cultural energies. The sacred music of Stephen Pike,
who wrote, "Saying Yes to the Kucinich Heartsong," wafts
through the Great Hall, together with the sweet scent of sage, an
herb used by indigenous peoples to bless, consecrate and heal. A
Native American woman shares a blessing for the ancestors.
Rev. Michael
Beckwith, DD, founder of the multicultural, transdenominational
9000+ member Agape congregation, introduces "Our brother Dennis,"
rousing the audience to a roar by intoning, "We're here to
download peace on this planet!"
And then Kucinich
takes the stage.
With laser eyes
beaming the twin rays of passion and purpose, he surveys the crowd
and says simply, "Every one of you creates the focus of peace
in your own lives. It's so important to bring this peace into the
public forum. We're told war is inevitable. We dress up our statecraft
in the notions of the inevitability of war. War then becomes a self-fulfilling
prophecy from which we cannot escape.
"Suppose
we act from a different paradigm: the certainty of the inevitability
of peace." (Enduring cheers.) "We get disconnected by
the loud drumbeats calling for war. There is something much more
powerful in meeting the challenge of disharmony. The most powerful
agency of change is the human heart.
 "We
need the agency of our own hearts to reweave the fabric of peace.
The advancing tide is for human unity, if only we have the chance
to claim it and to reject these efforts at making war inevitable.
"We must
embrace the world community-get the U.N. in and the U.S. out of
Iraq. That is just the beginning. We must take the step to be the
peace that we're advocating. Abolishing all nuclear weapons is essential.
The U.S. has this capability.
"It's time
to unify the world community. We have the opportunity to consciously
choose a new direction, where the peace within us becomes so radiant
that we will reject war."
Outside the
Agape auditorium, Kucinich supporters are wearing T-shirts that
read, "Kucinich: A Candidate with Backbone," and "Got
Kucinich?" Clearly, they know Vitamin K is key to our collective
body's well being. Despite the mainstream media blackout, Kucinich's
book, "A Prayer for America," is a New York Times bestseller.
It seems a lot of people know they're not getting their RDA-and
they've found the missing nutrient.
Kucinich is
offering us sustenance and sustainability, on every level. What
vitamin pledges to deliver more?
Amara Rose is a life purpose coach, interfaith minister, speaker,
writer and workshop facilitator. You can subscribe to her FREE e-newsletter,
What Shines, through her website, www.liveyourlight.com.
Amara can be reached at amara@liveyourlight.com
or 800-862-0157.
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