Conscious Choice: In The Funhouse Mirror

January 2004

In The Funhouse Mirror

Presidential Candidate Dennis Kucinich Talks with Best-Selling Authors

by Corinne McLaughlin

I first met Congressman Dennis Kucinich four years ago when I was looking for a Democrat in Congress who was willing to speak about spirituality at our conference on Re-Igniting the Spirit of America. I was very inspired by his courage, vision, and integrity. He told me he loved the book I’d co-authored, Spiritual Politics: Changing the World from the Inside Out. After living in Washington, D.C. for 12 years, and working for the Clinton Administration, etc., I found it quite refreshing to find a politician who appreciated this approach. He asked me to be his press secretary, and though I couldn’t at the time, I later helped him write and promote the Department of Peace legislation.

When Kucinich introduced his Peace bill, and several of his speeches (with titles like "Prayer for America" and "Spirit and Stardust") spread around the Internet like wildfire, thousands of Americans woke up and felt a new sense that a politician with a solid progressive record, and most significantly a new consciousness was finally running for President! Winner of the Gandhi Peace Award, he fearlessly voted against sending troops to Iraq when it wasn’t popular to do so, and he introduced legislation to repeal the Homeland Security Act, ban weapons in space, ban genetic engineering, protect the environment, and prevent the manipulation of voting machines.

Kucinich has spiritual depth, which is remarkable in politics today, and he talks openly about spirituality (rare for a Democrat). His presidential campaign is unusual, in that it reflects the thinking of many internationally respected authors who’ve sold millions of books on spiritual themes, and who’ve supported his campaign — Ram Dass, John Robbins, Jack Kornfield, Hazel Henderson, Barbara Marx Hubbard, Marianne Williamson, Sam Keen, Riane Eisler, and Vicki Robin.

Here are some highlights from two of the Advisory Circles I organized this Fall in California with many well-known authors, which Kucinich either attended or called into from the campaign trail.

Dennis Kucinich: When I walked into this room and sat down, I immediately felt a unified field. The only other time I experienced something with this power was in a meeting with a group that came into my office in Washington. I felt a tangible, physical field that’s created by you all here. In a sense we didn’t even need to have this discussion! I walked in and within two seconds I’m thinking, "I got it..."

I’m very grateful for your help and your guidance and for the truth you’ve communicated, as it makes it possible for the themes of this campaign to have the kind of depth that it does. My work in many ways is an extension of the work of so many of you.

Corinne McLaughlin: What surprised you most in running for President?

DK: That there are 26 hours in a day.

Avon Mattison (author, We the Peoples’ Initiative and founder, Pathways to Peace): If you could start your campaign over again, knowing what you know now, what would you do differently?

DK: I’d buy a newspaper, and maybe a television network.

Paul Ray (co-author, The Cultural Creatives): I have some research for you on The New Political Compass. There is a new political constituency emerging which I call New Progressives, which is 45 percent of likely voters. The easiest way to describe them is that they are at right angles to the dimension of Liberal Left and Social Conservative Right, and they are directly opposed to Big Business Conservatism. These New Progressives are at the intersection of all the movement constituencies, and the marginal cost of mobilizing them should be small. If they are mobilized under a single banner, as a big political tent, they could wind up replacing one of the political parties.

What we should be doing is building in networks that can persist over time because that’s the way people power actually works — it’s very dense networks.

DK: One thing I can tell you (as someone who, for several Congresses sat in at all the leadership meetings) the leadership of the Democratic Party is totally poll driven. No principle, no direction, just the moment, so it’s a very limited, egocentric, unthoughtful approach to governance and public policy...some Democrats voted for the war because the polls told them it would be the thing to do. It’s sick...they use the polls to raise money. There are no viable policies because there are no core beliefs.

Carolyn Shaffer (co-author, Creating Community Anywhere): I want to help you with long-term, community building that can inform politics through the movement I’m connected with — creating village councils and other formats that can be put into practice to get more media coverage.

DK: But as the poet said 30 years ago, "The revolution will not be televised."

Duane Elgin (Voluntary Simplicity, The Promise Ahead) As a non-partisan media activist, I’ve seen that power in a democracy is the power to communicate, and we don’t have the power to communicate our vision and values to the public at large. The vehicle of that communication is essentially broadcast television that uses the public airwaves that we, the public, own. No one running in the primary is holding the media accountable in the court of public opinion, and you could powerfully distinguish yourself if you say that the unspoken elephant in this room is the mass media and what they’re not telling us about climate change, species extinction, the roots of terrorism in poverty, etc.

DK: The FCC Act of 1934 says that the electronic media must be responsible to the people, or it can’t operate. Now the media monopolies have created a situation where there is less of a democratic discussion than ever before. I experience this as a candidate because the themes I raise challenge the status quo. I don’t get the coverage the other candidates do.

The other day I talked about the media role in taking us into Iraq, and about their accountability. But the problem is, we can’t put a face on the media, personify it. It’s amorphous. So for that reason, it’s more vulnerable, but it’s also more difficult to pin it down. It’s a paradox. But your point is well taken, about demanding accountability.

The media is responsible in large part for the situation in Iraq. If the media had done their homework, Bush wouldn’t have had the confidence to proceed. The media helped to build the Cold War. The media was a spear-carrier for the government during the Cold War. Eisenhower talked about the military-industrial complex, but now its military-industrial-media complex, and their airwaves become marketing tools for war.

Anodea Judith (author, Wheels of Life): From a systems perspective, a system has four basic parts: input, transformation, output, and feedback. Feedback is responsible for the evolution of the system. And in our culture, the media is actually the feedback mechanism. But the feedback we’re getting is actually a distorted funhouse mirror. We’re not getting accurate information, and it’s preventing evolution. People make the right decisions if they get the right information. Fortunately, we have the Internet or we’d be in worse shape.

DK: That’s very perceptive. When you go into a funhouse, you see your distorted image. If you didn’t know what you really look like, you’d look at that image and think it is you.

Randy Hayes (co-author, Alternatives to Economic Globalization; Founder of Rainforest Action Network): If you look systematically at the social and ecological crisis in this country and world-wide, big business is shredding the fabric of nature itself, usurping public governance, and replacing what we used to call the free press with mass media. As a society we know the functionality of the separation of church and state, but what would be the functionality of the separation of business and state? Can we talk about that in a way that is pro-commerce and unifying and can win elections?

DK: The way we do it is to talk about a question of scale. As business grows and becomes larger, it inevitably crushes the aspiration of smaller businesses. Laissez-faire capitalism is not analogous to a democratic society, as a democratic society has checks and balances. A laissez-faire economics says they can pursue economic freedom at any price. In a democracy there’s a certain regulation of freedom. The challenge that we face is the importance of protecting small business, of looking at issues of concentration of wealth that make it much more difficult to uphold the principle of democracy. I think we have to create connections between democracy and commerce on a smaller scale that is more sustainable and creates more jobs.

Gordon Davidson (co-author, Spiritual Politics; co-founder, The Center for Visionary Leadership): The problem of takeover of government by big business is now deeply rooted in the legal system by giving corporations all the rights and few of the responsibilities of individuals. This is a fundamental distortion of our democracy, as originally all the rights resided only in the individual. And because corporations are immortal and can amass immense wealth, their power quickly surpasses any individual or group of individuals. There are movements now to require regular renewal of corporate charters by studying their corporate performance to see if they satisfy social goals. If not, they should not have their charter renewed.

DK: I favor that. We have to insist that the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Federal Trade Commission do their job.

Joe Kresse (Foundation for Global Community): We need to move from managers’ capitalism to owners’ capitalism. People who own corporate America have abdicated their responsibility, their boards have abdicated their responsibility. Even as Adam Smith said, watch out, if corporations are left to their own devices, people will rob, break and steal.

DK: That’s very useful. I have talked about this, but I’d like to explore this more as a theme in this campaign. It’s also a way to connect with the constituency of people who’ve been cheated out of their investments.

Shakti Gawain (author, Creative Visualization: The Path of Transformation): What’s happening in the world is a reflection of what’s going on individually within each of us. One way to do the healing externally is to do the healing internally, within us.

DK: I read your book, Creative Visualization, 30 years ago, it was great...In the visualization you lead last night, I saw a horse race, and at the last minute, I saw a horse break through across the finish line. I saw it clearly!

Sam Keen (author, Faces of the Enemy, Fire in the Belly): You’re the only Democratic candidate for President who seems to understand the radical changes we need to make to preserve the environment and move us away from a militarized future that will cost all of us our social and political security.

DK: We’re at a point in the campaign, without mass media coverage of any kind, where we’ve grown the campaign to a 50 state campaign, we’ve built an organization around the country. We’re at a critical point where we have to keep sustaining it. If you have networks that you can tap, put in a favorable word about what we’re doing. Let people know, to go to our Web site and make a contribution. It’s critical to sustain the organization.

People need to be aware that this is a real campaign, it’s not just a message trip that I’m on. I believe this election and this campaign is wide open and gives us a shot at structural change...I chose a life in public life and I’ve been doing this my whole life. This is about whether we have the confidence in the authenticity of our own dreams and our own worldview — or whether we’ll settle for half measures and wishful thinking.

For more information or to order Kucinich’s new book, A Prayer for America, contact the Campaign toll free at 866-413-3664; www.kucinich.us; Corinne McLaughlin can be reached at corinnemc@visionarylead.org.

Kucinich receives 2003 Gandhi Peace Award

Democratic presidential candidate Dennis J. Kucinich was honored for his dedication and work for peace with the prestigious Gandhi Peace Award. Each year, the award is given to an individual recognized as a "distinguished peacemaker" and for contributions made in the promotion of international peace and good will. Past recipients include Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt, Dr. Linus Pauling, Dr. Helen Caldicott, Cesar Chavez, Sen. George McGovern, and former Attorney Gen. Ramsey Clark.

The Gandhi Peace Award was conceived in the late 1940s by Dr. Jerome Davis, founder of the organization Promoting Enduring Peace. In 1959 the yearly award was established to honor persons outstanding in the work for world peace. For more details, visit the Web site.

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