A Kerry supporter's Earth Day talk w/ Kucinich (photos)

[rivertext]

Even in the rain you can't drive a car to Earth Day if you have a John Kerry button on and all the friends you'll be meeting are bicycle activists and/or anarchists. Besides it was the best day to ride a bike across town to Earth Day in the rain because Portland was dotted with MoveOn.org bake sales. I bought a cookie at all of the ones along my route -- except the ones that were already sold out. So just relax, in 2 or 3 cookies, a salmon and a tomato we'll get to Kucinich.






Just another photo saved by a dog's nose.





This Bake Sale for Democracy on the south side of Hawthorne Blvd. had the best PDX bake sale name on the MoveOn site: "Taking back the White House one lemon bar at a time." They also had the best price list.

On my way back at 6 PM they had wrapped up but I managed to buy the last two cookies from the equally large bake sale directly across the street. "Eat cookies, Elect Kerry" had raised $1400 by 2 PM. So right here at the two bake sales on the 3700 block of Hawthorne Blvd. I'd guess the MoveOn election war chest had to have raised at least $3000 and possibly closer to $5000.




When, seven cookies later, I arrived at Earth Day the sun came out and the clouds made a majestic departure. Here is the river of light parade -- "Celebrating the human spirit, and our connection with the river, and the salmon."




Now a close-up of the tomato. The funnel needs some explanation. Please read the next paragraph carefully or pretend that you're the President and get someone else to read it and then go on vacation before they can explain it to you:

Set about 30 yards apart from each other were four giant vegetables -- Tomato, Garlic, Cabbage and Carrot. Each vegetable had three funnels connected to garden hoses that snaked over to each of the other three giant veggies. Theoretically this girl in Tomato could shout into the funnel labeled Carrot and then move that funnel to her ear and listen to the response from Carrot. Of course, the kids had too much sense to use the funnels in this awkward a manner. They put one funnel to their mouth and another to their ear and so shouted at one Veggie but heard another veggie's response. And they still communicated better than the various Bush intelligence communities did pre-9-11



Thanks for your patience with the cookies, the salmon and the tomato. Here, on the Manta Ray stage at the Portland, Oregon Earth Day celebration is Congressman Dennis Kucinich. The Congressman gave a brief feisty speech in which he acknowledged that Senator Kerry had won the nomination, but promised that he was still committed to continuing the fight for the soul of the Democratic party. I was taking pictures, not notes, so I can't deliver any of his phrases. It was very effective because instead of disappearing after that 4 minute speech he leapt off the front of the stage and begin shaking hands and talking to people. It wasn't like the other Presidential candidates I've seen in that everyone that wanted to talk to him had their chance.




I asked Congressman Kucinich if he is going to be supporting the Democratic nominee. He said that Senator Kerry had to commit to getting our troops out of Iraq first. I replied: "I've read your ten-point plan for bringing the UN troops in to replace US troops, and it made sense, but it sounded a lot like Senator Kerry's position."

"No, he isn't committed to getting our troops out. He's not there, yet. But, (the way the way the war is going), he will be soon." --Quoted from memory -- should not be taken as Kucinich's exact words - the part in parenthesis is the part I feel that I may be filling in a little of what I understood him to mean rather than what I have a clear memory of him saying.

I was much more impressed by this encounter with Kucinich that I had been by seeing him in the debates. My first thought afterwards was that I might vote for him in the Oregon primary to send a message to Kerry. But then, I thought I couldn't do that unless I knew that he was going to back the nominee. And talking about getting out of Iraq is a lot harder if you're actually going to have to do it.

In regards to getting our troops out now, I've just finished a new easily downloadable 4 minute film called "3 Moms" In it 3 moms who are also veterans, or whose sons are fighting in Iraq, or whose sons have already died there speak in no uncertain terms about getting our troops out of Iraq and Bush out of the White House. I expect it will be available for free download later this week. It uses an interesting technique called the "Ken Burns effect" to make a film out of stills of the March 20th demonstration on the anniversary of the invasion of Iraq.

I will post an announcement and link to the film in Activism/Events" sometime soon. The film will also be linked to from my "stuff" page where you can find photo essays from over a year of Portland's Dissent.


http://rivertext.com/stuff.html