DEFROSTING THE PRIMARIES
[Item Sent to me by Jessica ... another terrific NYC Kucinich volunteer]

It is shameful that the Editorial page of the New York Times is trying to pre-select who can be a candidate in the Primary process, by suggesting that Kucinich and Sharpton be eliminated from the debates. You are ignoring the petition filing facts in NYS. Dennis Kucinch running a complete volunteer campaign in NYS with no professional organizers and no personnel experienced in presidential campaigns, managed to be the fourth highest filer in number of signatures, beating out Kerry, Lieberman, Gebhardt, Mosley-Braun, and Sharpton.

Kucinich gets no coverage other than his "spots" in the debates which is making it difficult for him to been seen as a viable candidate. Yet his is the real Democratic platform and should be treated as such. He is the "Wellstone" Democrat in this race, calling for Universal Health Care (taking the insurance industry out of the picture and transferring the $209 billion now spent in insurance 'premiums" to pay for it...it's more than enough!), canceling NAFTA (he's for true fair trade... he's not anti-trade, but NAFTA has been worded such that it cannot be "modified"), and for trimming the "cold war waste" out of the Pentagon budget so we can improve public education and have the funds to ensure good pre-k through college for all students. He is also the only Democrat to have stood up in Congress against the lies told to Americans to justify the war on Iraq and the nefarious Patriot Act. His platform is what New Yorkers should be voting for. The National Convention will give us a chance to "select" the nominee, but if we don't vote for this platform now, we loose our opportunity to influence the Democratic Party, and worse we send the message that business as usual is OK... which it clearly isn't. NAFTA was ill conceived.

It costs us jobs and allows polluters to operate with impunity. Americans deserve Universal Heath Care. We more than pay for it now, yet 44 million have no coverage at all. I don't know anyone who thinks our current Health system "works". We need to rejoin the international community, promote the Rule of Law, join the International Criminal Court, sign the Land Mine Treaty, the Kyoto Protocol, and The Rights of Women and Children Resolution. We were wrong to go into Iraq. Bush "justified" it by lying to Congress and to the American people. Our soldiers' continued presence there fuels anti-American sentiment and further hardens the hearts of those who harbor anti-Western views. Kucinich is the only candidate who speaks out clearly in opposition to Bush on all of these issues. Without his platform no Democrat offers the American people a clear choice. NYS has a chance to drive that message home on March 2.

By voting for Kucinich we ensure that the "Wellstone" legacy carried on by Kucinich, lives in the Democratic Party's platform. The NY Times should serve Democracy and help deliver the American people clear choices on the issues. We are living at a critical time in human history, and the future of the world may well rest with the next general election. The future of Democracy and who we are as a people is what we are voicing in this Primary. Please don't trivialize this. A brokered National Convention will strengthen the Democratic platform so that it truly represents what Americans really need and want. That's the best we can hope for to beat Bush...not a "tabloid" treatment.