While the Kucinich for Mayor campaign revs up, his new book -- titled "The Division of Light and Power" -- is drawing a lot of praise. It's a stunning page-turner and barnburner that combines the genres of political memoir and real-life narrative thriller -- a luminous book that goes to shadowy places with the resolve of Diogenes holding a lantern high. While offering the inside story of historic events, the book also implicitly takes us to the real time of the present.
The book's narrative travels through a potentially uplifting yet often debilitating political landscape. The achievements of the book mirror its subject and its author -- truth-telling and courage despite political taboos and illegitimate power -- showing how people from many walks of life can work together to overcome the forces of petty opportunism and corporate greed.
In 2021, Kucinich has returned to municipal politics in an era of mayoral mediocrity across the country. Try to think of the names of big-city mayors who've shown determination and ability to implement a truly progressive agenda rather than bend to corporate domination. There aren't many.
While progressive rhetoric and populist posturing are routine, so is acquiescence to the brutal economic and political forces symbolized by tall steel-and-glass office buildings. Rare bright spots can be found in a few mid-sized cities, such as Jackson, Mississippi (Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba) or Durham, North Carolina (Mayor Steve Schewel).
Such bright spots could widen and grow brighter. In St. Louis a promising new mayor, Tishaura Jones, took office two months ago. In Pittsburgh another progressive-leaning politician, Ed Gainey, won the Democratic primary and is almost certain to be elected mayor in November. Now, in Buffalo, early voting has begun in a race where a strongly progressive mayoral candidate, India Walton, is challenging the incumbent.
If Kucinich can emerge from the September primary and November runoff as Cleveland's next mayor, City Hall could become a beacon for progressive change in urban America.
I asked what he has concluded from his several decades of work as a city, state and federal elected official. "Government has become an exclusive, closed-loop system," he replied, "a secret society, which does not grant entry unless, as in my first successful election, you remove the doors. Access to government has become, then, ever more exclusive. Only an enlightened, active citizenry can remove the barriers."
He added: "Big money and corporate leverage have driven Cleveland politics for the past four decades. City Hall is a Potemkin village. Break through the facade and you see corporate interests which control local government, with no discernible benefit to people who live in the city."
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