a vegan running for presidentof the us?

[Guest guest]

hi folks...

i usually don't send out political messages to food

lists unless it's diet related

and considering the present administration, this one

kinda is

 

so, check this guy out http://www.kucinich.us

 

norm )~

 

~~~

raw food... simply wonderful ~~~

 

 

 

 

Biography

of

Congressman Dennis J. Kucinich

Kucinich first came to national prominence in 1977 when he

was elected mayor of Cleveland at age 31; the youngest person ever elected to lead a major

American city. In 1978, Cleveland's banks demanded that he sell the city's 70

year-old municipally-owned electric system to its private competitor (in which

the banks had a financial interest) as a precondition of extending credit to

city government. Kucinich refused to see Muny Light. In an incident

unprecedented in modern American politics, the Cleveland banks plunged the city into default for a mere $15 million.

Kucinich lost his re-election bid in 1979. Fifteen years later, Kucinich made

his first step toward a political comeback, winning election to the Ohio Senate

on the strength of the expansion of the city's light system which provides

low-cost power to almost half the residents of Cleveland. In 1998 the Cleveland City Council for honored him,

" having the courage and foresight to refuse to sell the city's municipal

electric system. "

Kucinich was born in Cleveland,

Ohio on October 8, 1946. He is the eldest of 7 children of Frank and Virginia

Kucinich. He and he family lived in twenty-one places, including a couple of

cars, by the time Kucinich was 17 years old. " I live each day with a

grateful heart and a desire to be of service to humanity, " he says.

As chairman of the Congressional Progressive Caucus (which is

the largest congressional caucus). Kucinich has promoted a national health care

system, preservation of Social Security, increased Unemployment Insurance

benefits, and the establishment of wholesales cost-based rates for electricity,

natural gas and home heating oil. When the Supreme Court rules that mandatory

arbitration could be a condition of employment, Kucinich introduces a bill to

reverse the Court's decision.

In his Cleveland,

Ohio district, Kucinich has been recognized by the Greater

Cleveland AFL-CIO as a tireless advocate for the social and economic interests

of his community. He is currently leading a civic crusade to save Cleveland's

90 year-old steel industry and the thousands of jobs and retiree benefits it

provides. While hundreds of community hospitals have been closed throughout the

country, Kucinich led a powerful citizens' movement which reopened two Cleveland neighborhood hospitals. He was prepared to block a railroad

merger at the Surface Transportation Board until he gained an agreement from

the nation's largest railroads which improved rail safety while diverting a

heavy volume of train traffic away from heavily populated residential areas.

His promotion of rail safety improvements gained him the top award from the

Ohio PTA in 2000. His efforts on behalf of Cleveland's poor gained the recognition of the National Association of

Social Workers. He continues to be a local and national advocate for the

homeless.

Congressman Kucinich acts upon his belief that protection of

the global environment is fundamental to preserving the life of all species. He

has been honored by Public Citizen, the Sierra Club, Friends of the Earth and

the League of Conservation Voters as a champion of clean air, clean water and

an unspoiled earth. He was an early critic of nuclear power as being risky

economically, and environmentally, raising questions about nuclear wasted

byproducts. As a state senator he raised so many questions about a planned

siting of a nuclear waste dump in Ohio that the idea was eventually scrapped. Early in his first

term in Congress he thwarted an effort to repeal a provision of the Clean Air Act.

As a congressional representative to the global climate treaty talks,

Congressman Kucinich encouraged America to lead the way toward a sustainable, shared stewardship of

the planet through carbon reduction, and investment in alternative energy

technologies.

He not only

believes in sustainability, he practices it. Congressman Kucinich is one of the

few vegans in Congress, a dietary decision he credits not only with improving

his health, but in deepening his belief in the sacredness of all species. In

the 106th Congress, his call for labeling and safety testing of all genetically

engineered foods provoked a $50 million advertising campaign by the biotech

industry. Kucinich hosted an international parliamentary session, attended by

officials of 18 countries, on the social, economic, political and health impact

of genetic food technologies. More recently he was one of the principal

speakers at an international conference on water rights, where he called for

governments to reserve public ownership of water resources.

US Representative Dennis J. Kucinich, a Democrat of Ohio, is a

dynamic, visionary leader of the Progressive Caucus of the congressional

Democrats who combines a powerful activism with a spiritual sense of the

essential interconnectedness of all living things. His holistic worldview

carries with it a passionate commitment to public service, peace, human rights,

workers rights, and the environment. His advocacy of a Department of Peace

seeks not only to make nonviolence an organizing principle in our society, but

to make war archaic. His is a powerful, ethical voice for nuclear disarmament,

preservation of the ABM treaty, banning weapons in outer space, and a halt to

the development of a 'Star Wars' - type missile defense technology.

He has been recognized of his advocacy of human rights in Burma, Nigeria and East

Timor. Together with the

late Rep. Joe Moakley (D-Mass), he has led a concerted effort to close the

School of the Americas, which has been an incubator of human rights violations in Central America. On the eve of the World Trade Organization's Seattle conference, Rep. Kucinich organized 114 Democrats to help

convince President Clinton to seek human rights, workers rights and

environmental quality principles as preconditions in all US trade agreements. Kucinich marched with workers through the

streets of Seattle protesting the WTO's policies and with students through the

streets of Washington, DC, challenging the structural readjustment policies of the IMF.