But the same study also shows a better path. If the $3.1 billion had been taken away from the military and spent instead on clean energy, we would have seen a net gain of 17,050 jobs. If instead the investment had gone to healthcare, the net gain would have been 24,000 jobs. And if the choice had been to fund education, the gain in jobs would have been 54,250. Could Ohio's Ninth District use 54,250 jobs? Not many people would choose to chase those jobs away in order to support wars based on lies, wars that endanger us, wars that devastate the natural environment, wars that erode our civil liberties, wars that carry a heavy human cost -- not just an economic one. Not many people, but one of them is Marcy Kaptur.
If you visit Kaptur's campaign website at MarcyKaptur.com, only one specific issue is immediately visible, front and center: celebration of a World War II memorial. At Kucinich.us there is also only a single issue immediately visible: a petition urging the Congressman's colleagues to stop funding the war in Afghanistan. In the "Agenda" section of Kaptur's site there is no acknowledgement that war or peace is an issue to be considered at all. In the "Issues" section of Kucinich's site, there is a section on war and peace that addresses a number of specific wars.
There is also, on the Kucinich site, a lot more detail than on Kaptur's about numerous other issues. The example of wars and war funding is fairly typical. In rough terms, Kucinich tends to back peace, justice, and the will of the public, while Kaptur tends to back the very same things when and if the leadership of the Democratic Party happens to do so. Back on February 25, 2010, she voted to extend the PATRIOT Act without reforms of its abusive procedures. Kucinich voted No. Back on October 23, 2007, Kucinich had also voted No on the Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act, while Kaptur voted Yes. On December 8, 2010, she voted against the DREAM Act, while Kucinich and a majority of the House and of the Democrats voted for it. Any elected official will let us down sometimes, but Kaptur is just no Kucinich.
Many organizations agree. VoteSmart.org lists the rankings of various groups. Planned Parenthood gives Kucinich a score of 100%, Kaptur 71%. The ACLU scores Kucinich 94%, Kaptur 75%. Also favoring Kucinich in their rankings are the Arab American Institute, the Human Rights Campaign, the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, the League of Conservation Voters, Peace Action, the AFL-CIO, the Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law, etc. I'm not being selective here. There don't seem to be any progressive analysts scoring Kaptur over Kucinich on anything. Progressives like Alan Grayson and Barney Frank are urging us to support Kucinich over Kaptur.
How independent and principled a member of Congress is has a direct, and sometimes devastating, impact on their district and the nation and the world. Kaptur believes a nuclear power plant at the edge of Lake Erie with a bad history of safety violations should be allowed to continue to operate, while Kucinich has asked for it to be repaired or decommissioned. Only one of these two representatives is putting the safety of the public first.
I believe people who care about the future of the United States, from Ohio's new Ninth District or anywhere else, should be following and supporting Kucinich's campaign. If he loses, we lose. We may not always agree with him. He may not always be able to win over a majority of his colleagues. He may sometimes let us down. But were he not there, votes that helped end the Iraq war would have never been held. Debates that have helped curtail further war making would simply not have happened. Articles of impeachment for Bush and Cheney would never have been introduced. Countless witnesses before House committees would have gotten off without ever facing the important questions. Many people pushing for single-payer healthcare in their states would have never heard of it. Our televisions would be better able than they are now to pretend that majority positions on major issues do not exist, because there would not be that one man in the government willing to raise the issue and publicly lobby his colleagues to join him.
We're such defeatists these days, that we either condemn Kucinich's compromises, forgetting that Kaptur outdoes him in that regard 100-fold, or we imagine that because he's so much better he must be doomed to lose. On the contrary, Kucinich has a long history of winning congressional elections, both primaries and general. While the redesigned district includes a larger population from Kaptur's former district than from Kucinich's, it includes more Democrats from Kucinich's than from Kaptur's. Kucinich inspires his supporters, and in primaries it is the relative turnout of tiny percentages of people that decides.
Who is in Congress or the White House is going to be of far less importance than who is in the streets and what kind of people's movement is developed to nonviolently resist injustice and war. But without a single voice inside Congress willing to speak up in the ways Kucinich has, the people's movement will suffer. There's no lesser-evilism required here. Kucinich is actually a good representative. There's no partisanship required here. Love a party or hate them all; regardless, we should reward those who have listened to our demands. Or why would anyone listen again?
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The table below shows enacted appropriations, adapted from "The Cost of Iraq, Afghanistan, and Other Global War on Terror Operations Since 9/11" by Amy Belasco, Congressional Research Service, March 29, 2011, (PDF). Votes are on final passage of the conference report unless there was no recorded vote. In that case, the indicated vote is on initial House passage.
Name of Law
Public Law No.
Date Enacted
DOD Funds ($bln)
Kucinich Voted
Kaptur Voted
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