My beliefs could not have been stated more clearly, and Dennis Kucinich is not a Trump supporter (nor am I), nor a Republican (nor am I), but rather a REAL liberal, a REAL progressive, a real hero.
No problem with Christian messianism then. Christian evangelicals all just poor powerless pawns in the shadow of their evil Jewish overlords. Got it; thanks.
Wow. That's the most powerful speech from a politician, especially from the left, I've seen in ages. I did not expect to see anyone historically affiliated with the Democratic party calling out the government on the flagrant information warfare it has been waging against the American people. I hope you see also that this is full spectrum information warfare, encompassing so much more than "just" our belligerent and reckless foreign policy.
"Such a government is neither deserving of the trust of the American people, nor worthy of our tacit consent to make decisions in our interests." Spoken like a true libertarian ; )
Excellent speech. I just want to comment on characterizing Russia's incursion into Ukraine as "illegal." Scott Ritter says that it was entirely legal in that it conformed to the UN Charter's right to wage defensive war. The US and NATO had been waging war against the Donbass since they overthrew the elected government of Ukraine in a violent coup in 2014. This was also clearly a proxy war against Russia even then, including Zelensky's stated intention to acquire nuclear weapons which was supported by Kamala Harris at the 2022 Munich Security Conference. Also relevant was the failure by Germany and France to enforce the Minsk Accords which they now say they signed only to give Ukraine time to rearm.
What about the war perpetrated on the American people in relation to the fraudulent pandemic scare? Dennis, I used to think of you as an anti-establishment politician, and it seems that you choose to portray yourself in this way.
Yet you still stand in lockstep with the global(ist) leadership and refuse to speak out against the imposition of medical tyranny on the citizenry of the US and the entire world. We needed strong leaders to stand up and say the emperor wears no clothes and there is no pandemic, but you failed all of your supporters when you failed to do so.
The counting of so-called deaths from COVID has now been admitted to be fraudulent, based on a test known to be fraudulent, subjective assessments motivated by financial gain, and outright lies. Media coverage used manipulative techniques such as using old stock footage and footage from training exercises to convince a trusting populace that a disease with a fatality rate of less than 1% (not accounting for health status and co-morbidities) was some kind of deadly scourge chopping down healthy people in their prime. During the Black Death you could wake up to find half of your village had died the previous night. Dogs ripped limbs out of the hastily dug graves that couldn't meet the demand. Where were the bodies piled up in the street? How did we get through January and February 2020 as normal before we were told we should be afraid? Why is it that the fear didn't creep in until the liars and manipulators began to tell us there was a pandemic?
The experimental injections foisted on the populace were rushed through the approval process and lack any long term studies. There is no demonstrable benefit to outweigh their risks and it has even been admitted that they protect no one. Like the useless paper masks (whose boxes proclaim for all to see that they don't stop the spread of respiratory viruses), the use of these harmful injections is symbolic and tribal and serves no tangible benefit in the real world we inhabit.
Yet, submission to these harmful and useless injections is still a condition for employment throughout this country, and a requirement for participation in society in others. There have been societies in the past which have forced injections on their citizens - you and I wouldn't want to live in any of them. We're headed down a dangerous road which history shows us has only one possible end.
Where were you to steer us off of this destructive path? If you want to be taken seriously as an anti-establishment politician in this era you need to speak the truth and call out the hypocrisy and tyranny under which we're oppressed with no end in sight. Barring that, a thinking person can view you as nothing more than a distracting manifestation of the multi-headed beast leading us to the slaughter.
Having significant health vulnerabilities, I'm very glad to have had three vaccinations. And, having grown up when polio engorged my 4th grade friend, Bobby, and spit him out dead, I'm eternally grateful for the Salk vaccine. Not to mention other what you term "useless" vaccinations which left me healthy while living in Africa. I've witnessed it before so no longer am I surprised, but will always, apparently, be dismayed by it. The "it" being the incapacity to hold the wholeness of the person. To take one small aspect of their behavior for which you have strong feelings, and damn that person in his wholeness for the one thing that hits the rage button in you. That saddens, too. Because you must apply also that judgmental perfectionism towards yourself. A real prison. That is.
Your comment has proved my point. Look closely at what I wrote - at what point did I say anything about any other vaccines? It's you who has chosen to occupy the prison you described. I myself, and most others who correctly identify the danger of the COVID injections ( which aren't vaccines according to the FDA's historic definition), have no problem with the concept of vaccination. I willingly received several actual vaccines with decades of safety information before traveling to South America. I'm not talking about the polio vaccine which I never said anything about and which you've used to deflect from the salient point in an argument entirely lacking in good faith.
The COVID vaccinations you received don't protect you or anyone. There's no possible way to prove that a case would have been more severe without it, the only claim of efficacy they now make. Note the use of the conditional tense - how can you know what "would have" happened? Have you looked into the question of on what basis they make these dubious claims which cannot be reproduced or proven in a proper scientific manner?
The fact that you're still alive doesn't prove that you owe your survival to the injection. Vaccines are symbolic to you. I respect your right to receive them, and if you want to get a fourth or fifth then by all means do so at your own peril. The difference is you have a choice.
Where is the compassion for those who conscientiously refuse to participate in the experiment? Where is the respect for their choice. Once we acknowledge the inarguable fact that they don't actually help anyone, by what argument can we compel someone to accept them? How we can support Chomsky when he says those refusing to be injected should be locked in their homes and the issue of how they'll get food is "their problem?" There are calls to imprison and execute those exercising their rights guaranteed by the Nuremberg code to which the US is a signatory. Can you truly support this position using human rights as a justification? Do you not think public health was used as a justification to send people to ghettos and camps in the past?
While it's true that I've chosen to focus on one issue, it is THE issue of our time. No one can claim to be a supporter of the people and an enemy of the establishment while supporting medical tyranny and the forcible violation of bodily integrity. What if someone said all the right things about every topic except for the support of slavery and human trafficking? Would you then make an appeal to consider the totality of the person? This is a dangerous tactic you can use to justify the benefits of many despots of the past. There are some issues that are non-negotiable if one is to claim to stand on the side of human rights and justice. This is one of them. The willingness to accept and justify the total control of the individual by the state which you exemplify is disturbing. Again - there is only one possible end to this road and this is why anyone with integrity and who truly stands for justice and human rights must work to steer us away from it at all costs. Anything less is unacceptable.
Don't be a single-issue messmaker. Yes, furthering dictatorship under the guise of fighting epidemics created by its own biological warfare is an important facet of the imperial onslaught but you can't get anywhere without joining all who try to end the Empire's war of aggression -- whatever each one's particular reasons for doing so.
I appreciate your take, but as you pointed out, it's all part of the same war on the people. How can you end the war by supporting one if its critical pillars? It's like it's saying it's OK to support aggression in Afghanistan but not Iraq. Anyone who encourages the virus regime stands for imperial global corporatism and I don't think the issues can be separated as neatly as you suggest.
I've been a big supporter of Kucinich for decades. If he can admit the error of his ways then I'd be happy to support him again. I just see a lack of courage, integrity, and consistency highlighted by his stance on this critical issue; whether it comes from a fear of being abandoned by his base or of ruffling the wrong feathers it comes from fear nonetheless, not a quality I'd associate with the Kucinich I've known and supported.
Look to the error of your own ways first -- mote and beam. To cite your own example, one must be prepared to ally with an opponent of the aggression in A who supports the same kind of aggression in B. What do you think a political or military alliance for one specific aim is, a marriage? That's just so typical of the liberals (and some other factions) who always end up working for the Empire.
As with several others on here, you've done disservice to yourself and your argument by inappropriately assigning a label. As I said before, I'm ideologically and politically independent. So far I've been accused of being a liberal, a Trump supporter, and a libertarian. I'm not any of those things and have strong distaste for more than one of them.
I see your point, but my convictions preclude the possibility of aligning with anyone who encouraged people to receive the experimental injections just as I could never align with anyone who supported the genocidal and criminal (re)invasion of Iraq in 2003.
Failing to speak out against it as a means of staying under the radar would be less than ideal but forgivable; actively advocating for the injections and in doing so operating within the terms of discourse set by the globalist corporate media under explicit instructions from the state is not, at least without any recanting or apologizing for this grave error in moral judgement. I will remain firm on this stance.
Read again, please: I couldn't care less about your political tribe, or lack of one. What I said, and is confirmed by the above, is that you behave exactly as is 100% typical for "liberals", Trotskyists and the like: raise a lot of noise and invariably end up helping the Empire due to a constitutional inability to join broad alliances focused on one, and only one, specific goal. Some things don't change. No need to continue repeating ourselves.
By the same token, there have been any number of ostensibly "protest" movements that were created and funded by the entity being protested against, designed to funnel the energy building up against it into distraction and hedonism. Others are well-intentioned but lack adequate leadership or vision. Others are seized upon by demagogues who see an opportunity to gain power and adulation and subvert the movement for their own selfish needs.
All this is to say that one must exercise discernment when choosing to align one's self with one of these entities instead of immediately glomming on to whatever seems to be representing your views using the justification that anyone claiming to oppose my enemy should be my friend regardless of their imperfections.
To address your original point, I've engaged in activism against the virus regime which has created some strange bedfellows to say the least. I've found common ground with people with whom I have nothing else in common when it comes to politics and overall worldview. I laugh at them when they invite me to their Republican meetings. But here we are nonetheless.
Based on my observations thus far, I don't see Kucinich as fitting into the mold of a legitimate source of opposition, flowery rhetoric notwithstanding.
HAHAH, you fucking libertarians are all the same. You bitch and wine about freedom and then when the corporate rule tell you to get a shot or stay home you bitch and cry. It’s your free market ideology that let corporations have the rights to do that to you, you fucks advocated for a government that is for sale. Now that they own it you want to talk about tyranny. Fuckin joke! All the fucking problems with our healthcare system and income inequality, and worst fucking thing for you to cry about is vaccination.
Like others, you've chosen to base an argument on an (incorrect) assumption. I have no interest in libertarianism - I'm politically and ideologically independent. Instead of addressing my arguments, you've resorted to an ad hominem attack, indicating you have no argument of substance to offer. Take away your assumption and what validity remains?
This issue is so fraught with contradictory opinions that to dramatically take one side or another, in a world where the media doesn’t give straight information, isn’t the way to go. What’s needed is for the media to give us real conversation among opposing parties to sort out what is what. You could very well be right but you also could be wrong and let’s not keep bashing one another but somehow get some honest “debate” going. How? That’s the question -- that my Substack attempts to deal with.
There’s an easy way to navigate these fraught issues with wide ranges of contradictory opinions- let people make their own decisions. It’s that simple.
Want to take part in medical experiments, cover your face, lock yourself in your home, pull your kids out of school, shut down your business? Have at it. You do you. But using the government to force these decisions on everyone else is precisely the type of tyranny the American project was designed to defend against.
The issue was the Covid response. Your response was basically “it’s complicated.” My comment was that while specific issues may be complicated, the core issues of mandates and lockdowns was not complicated at all. You provide people with information and let them make their own decisions. That’s it. While Kucinich’s stance on foreign policy is admirable, his failure to denounce mandates is disappointing.
You insist there aren't sides, but that isn't true. To a neutral observer each side sounds compelling. I'm a Phi Beta Kappa, summa cum laude graduate of NYU, and having read both "sides" I don't know what is true. So what more eminently sensible thing is there to do than getting the two sides together to argue for their convictions?
There is an incorrect assumption in your assertion - that "getting the two sides together to argue for their convictions" would lead to some resolution. It would not. Different people have different values and priorities, even if they could agree on basic facts. Often these values and priorities are irreconcilable. And that is fine, so long as all sides agree to basic principles of freedom - freedom of speech, freedom of association, freedom of movement, freedom of religion, bodily autonomy, etc. This is the basic wisdom of the American project.
The problem arises when one group says "we're right, they're wrong, so we must wield the overwhelming power of the State to impose our values and priorities on them." This is historically how the world has operated - one group seizes power and imposes its will on other groups. The American project was intended as a break from that. The purpose of America was to create a space where people could be free to live out their own values and priorities, without the government violating basic freedoms and imposing its own set of values, priorities, and religion.
While reasonable minds can disagree about things like vaccine safety and efficacy, mask efficacy, the costs and benefits of lockdowns, etc., the debate around mandating these things is of a fundamentally different character. The debate around mandates is a debate around freedom versus tyranny. It is a debate between American political ideals versus Chinese communist political ideals. It is a debate between those who value and respect individual autonomy and those who worship the State.
Prior to the Covid pandemic, the public health community understood this. They broadly understood mandates were unethical and ineffective. But in the heat of the moment they panicked, threw the pandemic response playbook and ethics out the window, and just decided to copy China. This was wrong. There is no "both sides" when it comes to these sorts of mandates.
If universally adopted, the viewpoint you espouse would take civilization to the brink of barbarism if not headlong over that brink. In complex ethical matters, it is preferable to have unrestricted debate as in most cases there is no clear right answer. However, when it comes to matters of objective fact, it is extremely dangerous to act as though the fact is negotiable or subject to debate. Doing so opens the door to the worst types of crimes that mankind is able to perpetrate.
The Trump administration was roundly and rightly criticized for moving us closer to a post-truth society in suggesting the existence of “alternative facts.” There are no alternative facts, and this example demonstrates the obvious dangers of denying the existence of actual facts in an objective reality and what that opens the door to.
If you look at what I wrote, you can see that I reported several facts which are not subject to debate or interpretation. It is a fact that the average age of deaths in cases where death was attributed to the virus is above the average lifespan. It is a fact that the CDC reported that over 90% of people whose deaths were attributed to the virus had 3 or more contributing conditions. It is a fact that research from Oxford determined that the PCR test is invalid. It is a fact that medical facilities had financial incentives to attribute deaths to the virus. It is fact that cases were exposed when deaths attributed to the virus had nothing to do with these deaths. It is a fact that the cause of death was often determined by subjective assessments.
So no, in the matters I have just listed, I could not be wrong. They are not matters of opinion; they are points of objective fact. Debate on these matters would not be constructive – debate of the real issues cannot be held until the objective facts are accepted and agreed upon. A wishy-washy appeal to listen to multiple sides is an incorrect approach to matters of truth and reality.
When it comes to public health, there is room for healthy debate. How far should we go to protect the vulnerable? What cost should others have to pay to protect them? None of this debate occurred or was even allowed. Instead, we saw an authoritarian quashing of any dissent, dissent that should have been spearheaded by figures like Dennis Kucinich. Having corporate media host a debate is also not the answer, as its purveyors cannot be trusted to set an honest debate in motion. Corporate media has an agenda in all of its reporting and should never be assigned the role of arbiter of information. It must be completely cut out if rational intellectual debate is expected to take place.
Your comment represents an overly simplistic and profoundly dangerous worldview scarcely more enlightened than moral relativism. If the level of discourse encouraged on your substack (which you felt the need to advertise in the middle of an intellectual discussion) is this degraded, I will not be visiting it.
When we originally asked a question about "mandatory vaccinations," Kucinich responded, "I'm not going to go there."
In a follow-up question asking if he was vaccinated, the candidate said, "I'm not going to go there because I'm not going to use what I have done or haven't done."
When the Kucinich team released the letter from his doctor today, it included a statement from the campaign’s spokesman saying Kucinich is tested regularly. The spokesman also said, "He encourages everyone who is medically eligible for a COVID-19 vaccination to be vaccinated, in accordance with their physician’s medical guidance and advice."
***
This is a weak and unprincipled non-committal stance. The only answer consistent with a progressive record of supporting human rights, peace, and justice, is to speak out unequivocally against the media-manufactured pandemic and the ensuing grave injustice of biological discrimination. His recognition of the value of the fraudulent PCR tests demonstrates a failure to seek out and understand the science (see the research from Oxford in 2020 (Jefferson et al.) showing that the test comes out as positive for dead and inactive fragments of any coronavirus along with the well-documented issue of cycle counts).
By adhering to the corporate media narrative, the opposite of what we'd expect from a true progressive, Dennis has failed the American people with his inability to take a courageous stance against the predominant narrative, an ability he used to have and for which I used to respect him deeply.
I agree “I’m not going to go there” is a weak and unprincipled stance. Some aspects of the Covid narratives were difficult to untangle. Vaccine mandates were not complicated. The only correct answer to that question was some version of “I unequivocally oppose the use of force or coercion to impose medical interventions on the American people, especially when the intervention is novel and experimental.” A statement from Kucinich admitting he got the Covid response wrong and condemning medical tyranny in all its forms would certainly garner some more support.
Medical tyranny and military aggression are two sides of the same authoritarian coin. Both use the same information warfare techniques. Both are dominated by corporate interests. Both must be condemned.
"During the fourth wave of the pandemic, death rates in the most pro-Trump counties were about four times what they were in the most pro-Biden counties. When the highly transmissible omicron variant began to spread in the U.S. in late 2021, these differences narrowed substantially. However, death rates in the most pro-Trump counties were still about 180% of what they were in the most pro-Biden counties throughout late 2021 and early 2022."(pewresearch.org)
This quotation and your usage thereof rely on multiple faulty assumptions. First of all, there is no such thing as a fourth wave because there isn't and wasn't ever any pandemic. The "death rates" are totally meaningless as these totals rely on tests proven to be fraudulent or subjective assessments (i.e. "flu-like symptoms" which are also experienced by sufferers of....the flu) not based on tests.
Medical facilities had huge financial incentives to report deaths as being from the virus which is why victims of motorcycle accidents among others were counted towards this total. The disappearance of the flu and pneumonia for several years followed by their mysterious resurgence beggars belief. Over 90% of so-called deaths attributed to the virus were in people with 3 or more contributing factors such as obesity, hypertension, and diabetes according to the CDC. The average age of people whose deaths were attributed to the virus is higher than the average lifespan in the US and the same pattern is observed throughout the Western world.
In using this particular quote, your implicit assumption is that I'm a Trump supporter which is laughable. I deplore all political representatives of the uni-party state and have for decades. "Both" parties are bought and sold by corporate lobbyist money, and no one with a true desire to improve the system can support "either" one.
All you have to fall back on is bigotry, labels, and false assumptions. Questioning the obviously phony narrative does not make one a Trump supporter or an "anti-vaxxer" (whatever that's supposed to mean). It makes one a thinking individual impervious to the psychological assaults of the corporate media which true progressives used to rail against instead of swallowing their assumptions without thought or question. 95% of media outlets are controlled by 5 companies, and you can be sure that Ted Turner and Rupert Murdoch don't have your interests in mind.
What happened to the ideals and values of the progressive movement?
In any case, whatever point you were trying to make is totally unclear as you present a disembodied quotation from an unreliable source with no citations provided and no analysis of your own.
Too many unfounded and speculative comments UNDO the true nature of our government. Until we quit pandering to both the liberal and conservative elements of this country, our future remains cloudy.
Are there enough of us that have the will to insist our leaders truly seek peace? There may just be a few people in Washington with the courage to call for an investigation of our role in sabotaging the pipeline. Sadly, there are far too many of our Washington leaders more interested in satisfying the bottom lines for the defense industry. The challenge before us is to persuade enough everyday Americans to care enough about what is happening to bring about real change.
Thank you for posting this excellent speech. Our military spending is out of control, yet many with families who serve face food insecurity. The war mongers just get richer. I dream of the America you describe. Where we truly are one nation. No hunger, no homelessness, no people dying for lack of proper medical care, an educational system that does not create a ruling class and a worker class. Educate them just enough as George Carlin said. And people around me call me a fool. Any literature scholar worth her salt knows it's the Fool who has the most wisdom. Glad we are all fools together.
Thank you for hanging in there and staying one of those truthful public leaders that I can be sure of when you speak. No empty words fronting self serving agendas.
Your emphasis on the ethic of love is particularly important. Our politics has become not only absurdly partisan but also increasingly amoral and purely "pragmatic," lacking a foundation in universal ethical principles. In my newsletter, Humanities in Revolt, and speaking, I emphasize the long history of change agents rooting their politics in love. An obvious yet overlooked example is Rev. King. More recently, the noted black feminist intellectual, bell hooks, built directly on King's example in consistently urged her audiences to recognize the political-social-ethical importance of love. https://jeffreynall.substack.com/p/bell-hooks-living-by-an-ethic-of
Dennis is spot on. Revival may be too weak a term. The Second American Revolution? We are facing systemic failures left and right in this broken culture. Hopefully Dennis's voice will make some noise!
My beliefs could not have been stated more clearly, and Dennis Kucinich is not a Trump supporter (nor am I), nor a Republican (nor am I), but rather a REAL liberal, a REAL progressive, a real hero.
Thank you! Your words of truth, as always, are a beacon of light amidst darkness.
@dennis are you gonna let this comment stand without challenge?
You didn’t rail against one US organization, you overtly blamed all Jews. If you want to back peddle then delete your fascist antisemitic comments.
No problem with Christian messianism then. Christian evangelicals all just poor powerless pawns in the shadow of their evil Jewish overlords. Got it; thanks.
Wow. That's the most powerful speech from a politician, especially from the left, I've seen in ages. I did not expect to see anyone historically affiliated with the Democratic party calling out the government on the flagrant information warfare it has been waging against the American people. I hope you see also that this is full spectrum information warfare, encompassing so much more than "just" our belligerent and reckless foreign policy.
"Such a government is neither deserving of the trust of the American people, nor worthy of our tacit consent to make decisions in our interests." Spoken like a true libertarian ; )
Clear seeing, wise , fearless and with heart. Yes!
Excellent speech. I just want to comment on characterizing Russia's incursion into Ukraine as "illegal." Scott Ritter says that it was entirely legal in that it conformed to the UN Charter's right to wage defensive war. The US and NATO had been waging war against the Donbass since they overthrew the elected government of Ukraine in a violent coup in 2014. This was also clearly a proxy war against Russia even then, including Zelensky's stated intention to acquire nuclear weapons which was supported by Kamala Harris at the 2022 Munich Security Conference. Also relevant was the failure by Germany and France to enforce the Minsk Accords which they now say they signed only to give Ukraine time to rearm.
Thank you for your willingness to step up again to lead this country and the people in a different direction. I supported your efforts before and now.
What about the war perpetrated on the American people in relation to the fraudulent pandemic scare? Dennis, I used to think of you as an anti-establishment politician, and it seems that you choose to portray yourself in this way.
Yet you still stand in lockstep with the global(ist) leadership and refuse to speak out against the imposition of medical tyranny on the citizenry of the US and the entire world. We needed strong leaders to stand up and say the emperor wears no clothes and there is no pandemic, but you failed all of your supporters when you failed to do so.
The counting of so-called deaths from COVID has now been admitted to be fraudulent, based on a test known to be fraudulent, subjective assessments motivated by financial gain, and outright lies. Media coverage used manipulative techniques such as using old stock footage and footage from training exercises to convince a trusting populace that a disease with a fatality rate of less than 1% (not accounting for health status and co-morbidities) was some kind of deadly scourge chopping down healthy people in their prime. During the Black Death you could wake up to find half of your village had died the previous night. Dogs ripped limbs out of the hastily dug graves that couldn't meet the demand. Where were the bodies piled up in the street? How did we get through January and February 2020 as normal before we were told we should be afraid? Why is it that the fear didn't creep in until the liars and manipulators began to tell us there was a pandemic?
The experimental injections foisted on the populace were rushed through the approval process and lack any long term studies. There is no demonstrable benefit to outweigh their risks and it has even been admitted that they protect no one. Like the useless paper masks (whose boxes proclaim for all to see that they don't stop the spread of respiratory viruses), the use of these harmful injections is symbolic and tribal and serves no tangible benefit in the real world we inhabit.
Yet, submission to these harmful and useless injections is still a condition for employment throughout this country, and a requirement for participation in society in others. There have been societies in the past which have forced injections on their citizens - you and I wouldn't want to live in any of them. We're headed down a dangerous road which history shows us has only one possible end.
Where were you to steer us off of this destructive path? If you want to be taken seriously as an anti-establishment politician in this era you need to speak the truth and call out the hypocrisy and tyranny under which we're oppressed with no end in sight. Barring that, a thinking person can view you as nothing more than a distracting manifestation of the multi-headed beast leading us to the slaughter.
Having significant health vulnerabilities, I'm very glad to have had three vaccinations. And, having grown up when polio engorged my 4th grade friend, Bobby, and spit him out dead, I'm eternally grateful for the Salk vaccine. Not to mention other what you term "useless" vaccinations which left me healthy while living in Africa. I've witnessed it before so no longer am I surprised, but will always, apparently, be dismayed by it. The "it" being the incapacity to hold the wholeness of the person. To take one small aspect of their behavior for which you have strong feelings, and damn that person in his wholeness for the one thing that hits the rage button in you. That saddens, too. Because you must apply also that judgmental perfectionism towards yourself. A real prison. That is.
Your comment has proved my point. Look closely at what I wrote - at what point did I say anything about any other vaccines? It's you who has chosen to occupy the prison you described. I myself, and most others who correctly identify the danger of the COVID injections ( which aren't vaccines according to the FDA's historic definition), have no problem with the concept of vaccination. I willingly received several actual vaccines with decades of safety information before traveling to South America. I'm not talking about the polio vaccine which I never said anything about and which you've used to deflect from the salient point in an argument entirely lacking in good faith.
The COVID vaccinations you received don't protect you or anyone. There's no possible way to prove that a case would have been more severe without it, the only claim of efficacy they now make. Note the use of the conditional tense - how can you know what "would have" happened? Have you looked into the question of on what basis they make these dubious claims which cannot be reproduced or proven in a proper scientific manner?
The fact that you're still alive doesn't prove that you owe your survival to the injection. Vaccines are symbolic to you. I respect your right to receive them, and if you want to get a fourth or fifth then by all means do so at your own peril. The difference is you have a choice.
Where is the compassion for those who conscientiously refuse to participate in the experiment? Where is the respect for their choice. Once we acknowledge the inarguable fact that they don't actually help anyone, by what argument can we compel someone to accept them? How we can support Chomsky when he says those refusing to be injected should be locked in their homes and the issue of how they'll get food is "their problem?" There are calls to imprison and execute those exercising their rights guaranteed by the Nuremberg code to which the US is a signatory. Can you truly support this position using human rights as a justification? Do you not think public health was used as a justification to send people to ghettos and camps in the past?
While it's true that I've chosen to focus on one issue, it is THE issue of our time. No one can claim to be a supporter of the people and an enemy of the establishment while supporting medical tyranny and the forcible violation of bodily integrity. What if someone said all the right things about every topic except for the support of slavery and human trafficking? Would you then make an appeal to consider the totality of the person? This is a dangerous tactic you can use to justify the benefits of many despots of the past. There are some issues that are non-negotiable if one is to claim to stand on the side of human rights and justice. This is one of them. The willingness to accept and justify the total control of the individual by the state which you exemplify is disturbing. Again - there is only one possible end to this road and this is why anyone with integrity and who truly stands for justice and human rights must work to steer us away from it at all costs. Anything less is unacceptable.
This is awful.
This is worse.
Don't be a single-issue messmaker. Yes, furthering dictatorship under the guise of fighting epidemics created by its own biological warfare is an important facet of the imperial onslaught but you can't get anywhere without joining all who try to end the Empire's war of aggression -- whatever each one's particular reasons for doing so.
I appreciate your take, but as you pointed out, it's all part of the same war on the people. How can you end the war by supporting one if its critical pillars? It's like it's saying it's OK to support aggression in Afghanistan but not Iraq. Anyone who encourages the virus regime stands for imperial global corporatism and I don't think the issues can be separated as neatly as you suggest.
I've been a big supporter of Kucinich for decades. If he can admit the error of his ways then I'd be happy to support him again. I just see a lack of courage, integrity, and consistency highlighted by his stance on this critical issue; whether it comes from a fear of being abandoned by his base or of ruffling the wrong feathers it comes from fear nonetheless, not a quality I'd associate with the Kucinich I've known and supported.
Look to the error of your own ways first -- mote and beam. To cite your own example, one must be prepared to ally with an opponent of the aggression in A who supports the same kind of aggression in B. What do you think a political or military alliance for one specific aim is, a marriage? That's just so typical of the liberals (and some other factions) who always end up working for the Empire.
As with several others on here, you've done disservice to yourself and your argument by inappropriately assigning a label. As I said before, I'm ideologically and politically independent. So far I've been accused of being a liberal, a Trump supporter, and a libertarian. I'm not any of those things and have strong distaste for more than one of them.
I see your point, but my convictions preclude the possibility of aligning with anyone who encouraged people to receive the experimental injections just as I could never align with anyone who supported the genocidal and criminal (re)invasion of Iraq in 2003.
Failing to speak out against it as a means of staying under the radar would be less than ideal but forgivable; actively advocating for the injections and in doing so operating within the terms of discourse set by the globalist corporate media under explicit instructions from the state is not, at least without any recanting or apologizing for this grave error in moral judgement. I will remain firm on this stance.
Read again, please: I couldn't care less about your political tribe, or lack of one. What I said, and is confirmed by the above, is that you behave exactly as is 100% typical for "liberals", Trotskyists and the like: raise a lot of noise and invariably end up helping the Empire due to a constitutional inability to join broad alliances focused on one, and only one, specific goal. Some things don't change. No need to continue repeating ourselves.
By the same token, there have been any number of ostensibly "protest" movements that were created and funded by the entity being protested against, designed to funnel the energy building up against it into distraction and hedonism. Others are well-intentioned but lack adequate leadership or vision. Others are seized upon by demagogues who see an opportunity to gain power and adulation and subvert the movement for their own selfish needs.
All this is to say that one must exercise discernment when choosing to align one's self with one of these entities instead of immediately glomming on to whatever seems to be representing your views using the justification that anyone claiming to oppose my enemy should be my friend regardless of their imperfections.
To address your original point, I've engaged in activism against the virus regime which has created some strange bedfellows to say the least. I've found common ground with people with whom I have nothing else in common when it comes to politics and overall worldview. I laugh at them when they invite me to their Republican meetings. But here we are nonetheless.
Based on my observations thus far, I don't see Kucinich as fitting into the mold of a legitimate source of opposition, flowery rhetoric notwithstanding.
HAHAH, you fucking libertarians are all the same. You bitch and wine about freedom and then when the corporate rule tell you to get a shot or stay home you bitch and cry. It’s your free market ideology that let corporations have the rights to do that to you, you fucks advocated for a government that is for sale. Now that they own it you want to talk about tyranny. Fuckin joke! All the fucking problems with our healthcare system and income inequality, and worst fucking thing for you to cry about is vaccination.
This is worse.
Like others, you've chosen to base an argument on an (incorrect) assumption. I have no interest in libertarianism - I'm politically and ideologically independent. Instead of addressing my arguments, you've resorted to an ad hominem attack, indicating you have no argument of substance to offer. Take away your assumption and what validity remains?
This issue is so fraught with contradictory opinions that to dramatically take one side or another, in a world where the media doesn’t give straight information, isn’t the way to go. What’s needed is for the media to give us real conversation among opposing parties to sort out what is what. You could very well be right but you also could be wrong and let’s not keep bashing one another but somehow get some honest “debate” going. How? That’s the question -- that my Substack attempts to deal with.
There’s an easy way to navigate these fraught issues with wide ranges of contradictory opinions- let people make their own decisions. It’s that simple.
Want to take part in medical experiments, cover your face, lock yourself in your home, pull your kids out of school, shut down your business? Have at it. You do you. But using the government to force these decisions on everyone else is precisely the type of tyranny the American project was designed to defend against.
What are you talking about? It is not responsive to what I said.
The issue was the Covid response. Your response was basically “it’s complicated.” My comment was that while specific issues may be complicated, the core issues of mandates and lockdowns was not complicated at all. You provide people with information and let them make their own decisions. That’s it. While Kucinich’s stance on foreign policy is admirable, his failure to denounce mandates is disappointing.
You insist there aren't sides, but that isn't true. To a neutral observer each side sounds compelling. I'm a Phi Beta Kappa, summa cum laude graduate of NYU, and having read both "sides" I don't know what is true. So what more eminently sensible thing is there to do than getting the two sides together to argue for their convictions?
There is an incorrect assumption in your assertion - that "getting the two sides together to argue for their convictions" would lead to some resolution. It would not. Different people have different values and priorities, even if they could agree on basic facts. Often these values and priorities are irreconcilable. And that is fine, so long as all sides agree to basic principles of freedom - freedom of speech, freedom of association, freedom of movement, freedom of religion, bodily autonomy, etc. This is the basic wisdom of the American project.
The problem arises when one group says "we're right, they're wrong, so we must wield the overwhelming power of the State to impose our values and priorities on them." This is historically how the world has operated - one group seizes power and imposes its will on other groups. The American project was intended as a break from that. The purpose of America was to create a space where people could be free to live out their own values and priorities, without the government violating basic freedoms and imposing its own set of values, priorities, and religion.
While reasonable minds can disagree about things like vaccine safety and efficacy, mask efficacy, the costs and benefits of lockdowns, etc., the debate around mandating these things is of a fundamentally different character. The debate around mandates is a debate around freedom versus tyranny. It is a debate between American political ideals versus Chinese communist political ideals. It is a debate between those who value and respect individual autonomy and those who worship the State.
Prior to the Covid pandemic, the public health community understood this. They broadly understood mandates were unethical and ineffective. But in the heat of the moment they panicked, threw the pandemic response playbook and ethics out the window, and just decided to copy China. This was wrong. There is no "both sides" when it comes to these sorts of mandates.
If universally adopted, the viewpoint you espouse would take civilization to the brink of barbarism if not headlong over that brink. In complex ethical matters, it is preferable to have unrestricted debate as in most cases there is no clear right answer. However, when it comes to matters of objective fact, it is extremely dangerous to act as though the fact is negotiable or subject to debate. Doing so opens the door to the worst types of crimes that mankind is able to perpetrate.
The Trump administration was roundly and rightly criticized for moving us closer to a post-truth society in suggesting the existence of “alternative facts.” There are no alternative facts, and this example demonstrates the obvious dangers of denying the existence of actual facts in an objective reality and what that opens the door to.
If you look at what I wrote, you can see that I reported several facts which are not subject to debate or interpretation. It is a fact that the average age of deaths in cases where death was attributed to the virus is above the average lifespan. It is a fact that the CDC reported that over 90% of people whose deaths were attributed to the virus had 3 or more contributing conditions. It is a fact that research from Oxford determined that the PCR test is invalid. It is a fact that medical facilities had financial incentives to attribute deaths to the virus. It is fact that cases were exposed when deaths attributed to the virus had nothing to do with these deaths. It is a fact that the cause of death was often determined by subjective assessments.
So no, in the matters I have just listed, I could not be wrong. They are not matters of opinion; they are points of objective fact. Debate on these matters would not be constructive – debate of the real issues cannot be held until the objective facts are accepted and agreed upon. A wishy-washy appeal to listen to multiple sides is an incorrect approach to matters of truth and reality.
When it comes to public health, there is room for healthy debate. How far should we go to protect the vulnerable? What cost should others have to pay to protect them? None of this debate occurred or was even allowed. Instead, we saw an authoritarian quashing of any dissent, dissent that should have been spearheaded by figures like Dennis Kucinich. Having corporate media host a debate is also not the answer, as its purveyors cannot be trusted to set an honest debate in motion. Corporate media has an agenda in all of its reporting and should never be assigned the role of arbiter of information. It must be completely cut out if rational intellectual debate is expected to take place.
Your comment represents an overly simplistic and profoundly dangerous worldview scarcely more enlightened than moral relativism. If the level of discourse encouraged on your substack (which you felt the need to advertise in the middle of an intellectual discussion) is this degraded, I will not be visiting it.
Are you replying to me?
Obviously I am
Did/does he support Covid mandates? Quick searches haven't turned anything up one way or another.
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When we originally asked a question about "mandatory vaccinations," Kucinich responded, "I'm not going to go there."
In a follow-up question asking if he was vaccinated, the candidate said, "I'm not going to go there because I'm not going to use what I have done or haven't done."
When the Kucinich team released the letter from his doctor today, it included a statement from the campaign’s spokesman saying Kucinich is tested regularly. The spokesman also said, "He encourages everyone who is medically eligible for a COVID-19 vaccination to be vaccinated, in accordance with their physician’s medical guidance and advice."
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This is a weak and unprincipled non-committal stance. The only answer consistent with a progressive record of supporting human rights, peace, and justice, is to speak out unequivocally against the media-manufactured pandemic and the ensuing grave injustice of biological discrimination. His recognition of the value of the fraudulent PCR tests demonstrates a failure to seek out and understand the science (see the research from Oxford in 2020 (Jefferson et al.) showing that the test comes out as positive for dead and inactive fragments of any coronavirus along with the well-documented issue of cycle counts).
By adhering to the corporate media narrative, the opposite of what we'd expect from a true progressive, Dennis has failed the American people with his inability to take a courageous stance against the predominant narrative, an ability he used to have and for which I used to respect him deeply.
I agree “I’m not going to go there” is a weak and unprincipled stance. Some aspects of the Covid narratives were difficult to untangle. Vaccine mandates were not complicated. The only correct answer to that question was some version of “I unequivocally oppose the use of force or coercion to impose medical interventions on the American people, especially when the intervention is novel and experimental.” A statement from Kucinich admitting he got the Covid response wrong and condemning medical tyranny in all its forms would certainly garner some more support.
Medical tyranny and military aggression are two sides of the same authoritarian coin. Both use the same information warfare techniques. Both are dominated by corporate interests. Both must be condemned.
"During the fourth wave of the pandemic, death rates in the most pro-Trump counties were about four times what they were in the most pro-Biden counties. When the highly transmissible omicron variant began to spread in the U.S. in late 2021, these differences narrowed substantially. However, death rates in the most pro-Trump counties were still about 180% of what they were in the most pro-Biden counties throughout late 2021 and early 2022."(pewresearch.org)
This quotation and your usage thereof rely on multiple faulty assumptions. First of all, there is no such thing as a fourth wave because there isn't and wasn't ever any pandemic. The "death rates" are totally meaningless as these totals rely on tests proven to be fraudulent or subjective assessments (i.e. "flu-like symptoms" which are also experienced by sufferers of....the flu) not based on tests.
Medical facilities had huge financial incentives to report deaths as being from the virus which is why victims of motorcycle accidents among others were counted towards this total. The disappearance of the flu and pneumonia for several years followed by their mysterious resurgence beggars belief. Over 90% of so-called deaths attributed to the virus were in people with 3 or more contributing factors such as obesity, hypertension, and diabetes according to the CDC. The average age of people whose deaths were attributed to the virus is higher than the average lifespan in the US and the same pattern is observed throughout the Western world.
In using this particular quote, your implicit assumption is that I'm a Trump supporter which is laughable. I deplore all political representatives of the uni-party state and have for decades. "Both" parties are bought and sold by corporate lobbyist money, and no one with a true desire to improve the system can support "either" one.
All you have to fall back on is bigotry, labels, and false assumptions. Questioning the obviously phony narrative does not make one a Trump supporter or an "anti-vaxxer" (whatever that's supposed to mean). It makes one a thinking individual impervious to the psychological assaults of the corporate media which true progressives used to rail against instead of swallowing their assumptions without thought or question. 95% of media outlets are controlled by 5 companies, and you can be sure that Ted Turner and Rupert Murdoch don't have your interests in mind.
What happened to the ideals and values of the progressive movement?
In any case, whatever point you were trying to make is totally unclear as you present a disembodied quotation from an unreliable source with no citations provided and no analysis of your own.
Too many unfounded and speculative comments UNDO the true nature of our government. Until we quit pandering to both the liberal and conservative elements of this country, our future remains cloudy.
Are there enough of us that have the will to insist our leaders truly seek peace? There may just be a few people in Washington with the courage to call for an investigation of our role in sabotaging the pipeline. Sadly, there are far too many of our Washington leaders more interested in satisfying the bottom lines for the defense industry. The challenge before us is to persuade enough everyday Americans to care enough about what is happening to bring about real change.
Thank you for posting this excellent speech. Our military spending is out of control, yet many with families who serve face food insecurity. The war mongers just get richer. I dream of the America you describe. Where we truly are one nation. No hunger, no homelessness, no people dying for lack of proper medical care, an educational system that does not create a ruling class and a worker class. Educate them just enough as George Carlin said. And people around me call me a fool. Any literature scholar worth her salt knows it's the Fool who has the most wisdom. Glad we are all fools together.
A breath of fresh air! I actually renounced and denounce the Democratic Party over this. I could no longer support it.
Thank you for hanging in there and staying one of those truthful public leaders that I can be sure of when you speak. No empty words fronting self serving agendas.
Your emphasis on the ethic of love is particularly important. Our politics has become not only absurdly partisan but also increasingly amoral and purely "pragmatic," lacking a foundation in universal ethical principles. In my newsletter, Humanities in Revolt, and speaking, I emphasize the long history of change agents rooting their politics in love. An obvious yet overlooked example is Rev. King. More recently, the noted black feminist intellectual, bell hooks, built directly on King's example in consistently urged her audiences to recognize the political-social-ethical importance of love. https://jeffreynall.substack.com/p/bell-hooks-living-by-an-ethic-of
PLEASE RUN FOR PRESIDENT!
You're still on fire Dennis! Can't wait to see where you go from here!
Dennis is spot on. Revival may be too weak a term. The Second American Revolution? We are facing systemic failures left and right in this broken culture. Hopefully Dennis's voice will make some noise!