Yesterday must have been Dennis Kuchnich's radio day: he was on the local Pacifica station in the morning and
Talk of the Nation (NPR) in the afternoon.
He is getting much better at articulating his position on Iraq, (
Jeanne at
Body and Soul had a good post on DK's position on Iraq and the UN a while back), which if it spoke more directly about US obligations to the Iraqi people, I could probably support. One caller caught my ear when he observed that DK's positions were, in fact, the most reasonable of all the candidates, but those were the ones labeled "crazy" by the mainstream media. He asked why that is. The answer offered him was not unexpected: look to media ownership and its position in the matrix of institutional-economic power that holds up Washington, DC.
This is another one of those answers that's too easy. It is not incorrect, but it also doesn't say very much. Its the political analysis version of a Chinese take-out meal: you need more two hours after eating.
In a comment thread in my diaries diaries ten nights wrote about the need for a shared political vocabulary. Political vocabulary, he/she's right; it is a good term to steal, so I shall.
In a sense, Kuchnich is providing the campaign and the electorate with a new political vocabulary. This is why his campaign is important and everyone who supports at least some of the things he stands for should pay attention to it, even if they support another candidate. The media, of course, trade in the established political vocabularies of power and interest. That's why things that are seemingly reasonable (Why shouldn't we have institutions that build security from non-militarized means?) appear crazy.