American Dreams, Lost and Found (Page 4)

I was hoping I was doing the right thing in holding my ground. I had to tell 'em no. I felt they were trying to sell the city down the river. They were trying to blackmail me. If I went along with the deal, they made it clear, things would be easy. Mr. Weir said he'd put together $50 million of new credit for the city. The financial problems would be solved. My term as mayor would be comfortable and the stage set for future cooperation between myself and the business community.

The media picked up the tempo. Why the heck don't you get rid of MUNY Light? I was asked on a live TV show. I replied that MUNY Light was a false issue. It wasn't losing money. Its troubles could be traced to CEI's interference. I was in office a little over a year and had inherited a mess. The city had a plan to avoid default, to which five of the six banks agreed: an income-tax increase, as well as tighter control of the management of the city's money. That's one of the reasons I got elected. I knew I was risking my whole political career. But you gotta stand for something.

The referendum was to be on February 27. Both issues were on the ballot: the income-tax increase and the sale of MUNY Light. We organized volunteers. People went door to door, in the freezing rain and the bitter cold, subzero temperatures and big snow. We laid out the hard facts. We were facing the attempt of corporations to run the city. We gave the people a choice between a duly elected government and an un-duly elected shadow government.

We were outspent two and a half to one, but we created circumstances where people came to understand that every person can make a difference. We won both issues by about two to one. It was the first time in Cleveland's history that we succeeded in uniting whites and blacks, poor and middle class, on economic issues. Usually, they've been manipulated against each other. Not this time.

My concept of the American dream? It's not the America of IBM, ITT and Exxon. It's the America of Paine and Jefferson and Samuel Adams. There are increasingly two Americas: the America of multinationals dictating decisions in Washington, and the America of neighborhoods and rural areas, who feel left out. I see, in the future, a cataclysm: popular forces converging on an economic elite, which feels no commitments to the needs of the people. That clash is already shaping up.

The American Revolution never really ended. It's a continuing process. I think we're approaching the revolution of hope. We have the country that makes it possible for people, if they've lost control of the government, to regain it in a peaceful way. Through the ballot box. Before I got into politics, I didn't know whether what I was doing even mattered. Now I know. One person can make a difference. I think it's something every person can learn. The main thing is, you can't be afraid.

* * *

In November 1979, with just about all of Cleveland's newspapers and television and radio stations--as well as industry--united against him, Kucinich was defeated for re-election. Fifteen years later, he began his political comeback, elected to the Ohio Senate. His key issue: expanding Cleveland's municipal electrical system, which provided low-cost power to almost half the residents of Cleveland. In 1988, the Cleveland City Council honored him for "having the courage and foresight to refuse to sell the city's municipal electric system." It was the same political body that in years past outvoted him thirty-one to one.

Today, in his second term as a US Congressman from Ohio, he is chairman of the Progressive Caucus, and its spark plug. His website reads like a press release: "He combines a powerful political activism with a spiritual sense of the interconnectedness of all living things. His holistic worldview carries with it a passionate commitment to public service, peace, human rights, workers' rights and the environment. His advocacy of a Department of Peace seeks not only to make nonviolence an organizing principle in our society, but to make war archaic." This sounds naïve and loonily idealistic, except for one thing: He is a remarkably practical and astute politician. His Ohio track record tells you that.

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