oh i'm tom hartman in washington d.c. and here is what's coming up tonight on the big picture it's friday and that means it's time for conversations with great minds and i we have ohio congressman dennis kucinich to talk about how he got into politics and his thoughts on the label protest in ohio wisconsin and are you ready to rumble will break down the top stories a little bit of the week in tonight's big picture rumble which side will blink first in wisconsin stalemate and should fat cat bankers be in jail then later

ideally take on the on equal protection but the supreme court. heard tonight's conversations with great minds of happy to be joined by a man who devoted his life to progressive politics he's been a mare is currently united states congressman has run for president as it's twice as a servant of the people he's spoken out for working families across our nation and spoken out against foreign wars and corporate partners like to welcome the eight term congressman from ohio and this percentage congressman welcome program and thank you john i'm really honored to be on the show thank you for your thoughtfulness in guarding me well thank you it's. we do the show in two pieces and

i'd like to get into your kind of early life or what gotcha politics in the first you know eight or ten minutes or so and then and then after the break get into your thoughts of contemporary sort of that's ok. you have an unusual story of growing up the oldest of seven children if your facts are right here your family moved twenty one times you were often responsible for fun your place to live can you tell us a little bit about that how that influenced your world well i know that for many people life can be very difficult now i am very grateful for the opportunities i had as a child because i i learned that as langston hughes once wrote for many people a life you know crystal stair and so when you understand that there are people out there who have trouble. having a roof over their heads people have trouble making ends meet for whom having an education is the biggest thing in life you you learn to relate to

a lot of people and i think about my growing up in cleveland with a sense of joy and at the same time i'm i'm i'm mindful that i had some breaks that others didn't get including people in my own family which have enabled me to be here today and to be talking to you. you were. you once lived in a car a couple times as i can only it was forged under under special circumstances we couldn't find a place to rent the family as a group of seven children it was tough to find a place to rent so sometimes we were going to cars you know it's interesting i grew up as the oldest of four boys. three bedroom households one bathroom which thinking about it now in the. context of it and my dad was a union guy it worked and i. wasn't rich in fact the first couple years i remember

he was selling encyclopedias door to door and we were living on. cheese from surplus place you know but so i'd seen both sides of it but i always felt like growing up i never felt poor i agree with that i kept to what degree i had it all in fact you know it seems i like that you said that because i too experienced it as an adventure yeah it wasn't that there was deprivation but when i look back at it i saw i can see that it actually helped to strengthen me and to develop a sense of compassion so that you realize that for some people you know what they go through and to also understand that no matter what conditions we find ourselves in that with a little bit of pluck can block we can leap over them. what were the biggest influences in your life well certainly early influence i'd say my spiritual training in catholicism and later and

a whole. range of religions that put me on a philosophical journey i see the world as one is being interconnected independent i think that what affects one of us affects all of us i understand where the various religious traditions emerge and that kind and understanding i see the material world. that our responsibility is to help the material world elevate itself with sand to say. by and and i get the connection between matter and spirit i think about it and so that that informs the way i look at the world informs my work for peace my my desire to show people how we can create wealth in ways that maybe people had thought about and i believe in the. essential humanity of all this and also from my own experience and i believe that one person can make a difference well i'm curious if there was one first made a difference in your life is there a role model or a person that was a particular to what you know wrote this book called courage to survive and i

dedicated it to three people two sister leona who really helped my family through some tough periods and made sure we had close and you know when we were going through this tough period to a doctor javier lopez who was a doctor who took care of people in the inner city and just retired recently is actually now a member of my staff and so my high school football coach pete poker when i was a four foot nine inch quarterback third string at think and can just in cleveland. i'm going i'm in my sophomore year and he really taught me a sense of discipline where we have to breathe and young people have to breathe and a sense of discipline it and it becomes who they are later in life and he had a real impact on my life first time i met you you and i were both speaking to here in d.c. that marianne williamson's which we call this was just about fourteen years ago yes years ago there abouts to she had barbara marx over kicking off this department of peace thing i'm not sure that our voice that was exactly right that's right and you

know we said we talked briefly but we were both speakers so it was more like kind of ships in the night but we both knew their very end quite well and i'm wondering . your thoughts on how that concept of a department of peace ties in with your spirituality and you or your life experience that that's because because all the politicians are gone oh oh come on the sinner cartmell that will that peace is inevitable war is not inevitable we're conditioned to believe that war is inevitable but peace is not simply the absence of war it's a capacity that we have to be able to relate to each other to be able to see one another person as an aspect of oneself and when we and to be able to tap the potential that each one of us has to evolve that's what barbara robert and mary and william talk women talk about so it's about being the best we can be and to be able to relate to each other not from a sense of power but

a sense of inner equality and so when we when we get to that point when we see that we are all truly connected that the human genome theory states what in the material world what we know is true the spiritual world that is we're all one and if we come from that understanding then you don't want war because you're waging war on yourself. it's it's that's that's the ultimate statement that's it really truly is what caused you to get into politics a desire to make a difference a belief that my life and for that matter all of our lives don't belong only to ourselves that we have an obligation to serve the community there are many different ways to serve i happen to choose a path of public involvement and i felt drawn to that i felt drawn to it by the presidency of john f. kennedy when he spoke in his inauguration over fifty years ago and said let the word go forth from this time and place that the torch had been passed to a new generation when i was sitting in sister sabina's home room at age of fourteen i heard that and i thought i was talking to me and then when he said ask not what

your country can do for you ask what you can do for your country i felt that call as i think the number of people in our generation you know absolutely from seventy seven seventy nine you are the fifty third mirror of cleveland. the mafia put a hit on you and you almost shot except for the fact that you were hospitalized this is you took out a big power utility. is that simple really wild stuff back then you know in the big city mer business from actually finally after thirty years putting the finishing touches on a book about that in a movie treatment about it because it was a classic struggle between the interest of community and corporate interests which really sought to steal a city's municipal electric system using the bank's power to finance the. to its finance the city's dac as as a weapon so i was told you either sell the municipal utility that provided power

third of the city in a savings to people over there under electric bill sell it to them at the price that was dictated by the private utility or the bank that was a business partner of the utility was going to refinance the city's credit i refused to under extraordinary conditions and for the first time in a modern history of the united states a city was put into a technical financial default because the mayor refused to accept the dictates of corporations out of this shakeout well i mean i lost the next election i was out of politics for a long time it took me a long time to make a comeback and i actually put myself back together again it was when you spend your life believing that if you do the right thing. it always work out and then you do the right thing and it doesn't work out right away that's a shake up tom and so i i had to go through that dark night of the soul we all do it one time or the other and i have to rework that experience to where i wasn't a victim where i played

a role and i made some decisions and so where i learned that all of the players in that were great teachers to me where they all taught me something and so i include that experience of who i am today and it's made me more aware and actually better able to serve you're one of the few politicians that i know that has gone from being pro-life or pro-choice can you speak to that or is that you know i think that i think all life is precious but i think we're not going to come as a political issue that we in america can make abortions less necessary through prenatal care postnatal care child care universal health care a living wage and create a climate where all life would truly be valued from you know not just during the time of conception but when one birth occurs and for a time you know my own catholic faith i felt very strongly that there was only one way to look at it but then the women in my life and people from other faiths

started to share their point of view i listened carefully and i decided that we need to we need to heal the nation on this issue we can you cannot heal by saying it has to be my way or no way at all there are many different ways to look at the world and i think we can steer a course where those who are concerned about abortion and i understand their concern where there will be satisfied by knowing that we'll have a country where we're abortions wouldn't be seen as a first option for some people and for those who are concerned about protecting a woman's right to choose which i think is something that we absolutely have to do and protect the privacy of women that we could we can. do that too so it's not this isn't one of those cases where we need to go for the player idiot and lock ourselves into a position of diametrically opposed views we have to look to harmonize the possibilities of holding life is sacred and at the same time making sure that

we make abortions less necessary in the society and we can do that i've often suggested or thought that if we're going to national referendum on the bench and not purchase of it when you we need men need to take a healing position on this we have to realize the effect of patriarchy but the mindset of patriarchy that we write that we inherit and that it causes us to act almost unconsciously i think it was. i think i'm trying to think of the author of. can't think of religious name but anyhow there was a book that i read that talked about the nature of patriarchy and really we have to think that you know we we cannot just ignore. the voices of women of course or on both sides of the issue but those who have concerns about a woman's woman sense of agency over her own life and this could take

a set of your foot confederacy of all kinds of different directions. this will be right back still ahead here with us on the big picture more with congressman dennis kucinich our conversations great sex. drives the world the fear mongering used by politicians who makes decisions it's time to break through a thread you could made who can you trust no one who is in view with a global mission that we see where we had a state controlled capitalism it's called sasha's when nobody dares to ask we do our t. question morning. rachel martin here broadcasting live from washington d.c. coming up today on the big picture.

actress lindsay low and even. the pretty chill that is in women nothing people are suggesting she's told her no she says she's a star. talk

about your conversations with great minds i'm speaking with a term congressman from ohio two time presidential candidate and profoundly influential progressive voices that was just such obvious when. he ran for president twice yes. that had to be an amazing experience and i'm i'm guessing that there were things before you went into it that you expected that didn't happen and things that you hadn't even anticipated did i'm curious what the experience was like and. you know what you might want to tell the average american about what it means not you know both from the viewpoint of being

a voter looking at people trying to run for president and also you know there might be somebody out there who someday will be president but you watch the first thing that i was surprised about as i went across the country in two thousand and three and two thousand and four was how much americans are alike we're told that you know we're with state by state the differences are so profound and and there's differences and when race color creed class there's an underlying unity in this country and it's the responsibility of anyone who would lead this country be able to find them and to be able to express and speak to it and and so that was my first discovery the the underlying unity that exists in america the reason why we we can we can cognize this idea of an america that does exist it does exist in communities across the country and what. what would you share with

somebody who is looking at presidential candidates and trying to make some sort of a sorting process out of it almost seems like there's a lot of posturing or a lot of areas where well we can't talk about that which should go there and it's almost predictable or maybe not you know what each one of us and you see you seem to be the most unpredictable i think it's always one of us has its voters have the responsibility to. look deeply into any one we want to support we think of supporting i mean it's it's it's probably more than ever. possible for us to find out information in some ways we're overloaded with information and then you have to make a decision from the heart. so i guess that's it you know you gain information but don't make your decision only based on that information people have to trust of inspiration to. and yet go beyond the i want to have a beer with this guy. as well you know i mean but it does most people have your approach well i mean if we if we i mean george bush is genius if you look back in

two thousand election was that he seemed more approachable than al gore and one on the other hand when you got to know al gore which i did every campaign would i'm. it was out you know he had an outrageous sense of humor but you never saw that so he didn't he came across as stiff and wooden whereas bush had this a bunker learn a chair that people it was kind of the appeal of the common man and that's you know it's images and but we have to be sensitive to how those images cause people to make decisions on candidates absolutely. i'm curious what you think is going to emerge out of what's going on right now in wisconsin in particular in your home state of ohio where there isn't so much of a battle because the republicans have such a large majority that democrats don't have much to fight back with. again in kind of the inaugural kennedy's inaugural talk about a long twilight struggle we're looking at a long twilight struggle between representatives of workers and labor

and those who have either government or corporate power in trying to knock down wages. take away benefits dictate working conditions this is a real struggle for the soul of a democracy whether or not workers will truly have anything to say about the conditions that they have that if you look at the history of the labor movement and here it's happened over over one hundred and forty years of struggle hundred fifty years of struggle that parallel the civil rights struggle itself and people were just given rights to safe work place they were given rights where there were prohibitions on child labor slave labor though there were laws that came to be the eight hour day was created by a law the the fact that people have to be paid a certain wage that is a law and so we have to realize that the growth of our democracy has paralleled the

the rise of a movement which gave workers a certain set of rights in a society the right to have a union the right to collective bargaining the right to strike the right to decent wages and benefits these are rights that are part and parcel of expressing who we are in a democratic society so if those rights are under attack that is a parameter of the quality of our democracy being undermined and in. and eroding so so the this is our political director so this is this is of this is a long battle we're looking at i'm curious about your thoughts on the health care bill you voted in favor of a health care bill that didn't have a public option and certainly was not a single payer bill right. you're the guy who in i think two thousand and four claimed it was i give you credit for it in a chapter in my book. quite the first medicare part d.

for everybody. what are your thoughts are right well john conyers i authored a bill. universal single payer not for profit health care sixty five and that we in the six hundred six and we introduced it in one congress after another and has a national constituency we have almost ninety members of congress who signed on to it at one time and there is a constituency for medicare for all it's out there but what's happened is the insurance companies have so much power they have caused american people to believe that it's not possible have any reform at all so alternately what the debate came down to with president obama was whether we were going to have reform within a context of a for profit system because if you can't even get reform within a context of before profit system how in the world can we hope to transcend some day from for profit to not for profit and so my vote which was very difficult for me to help president obama's bill go forward was really in the hopes that we keep

the idea of of transformation of health care alive while we make some change in a for profit system but i'm still dedicated to seeing not for profit system medicare for all it may be at the state level we'll have the chance to advance it in places like vermont and other places where single payer is finally getting some traction yeah it seems like this piece of legislation actually set the table for a lot of potentially good things and it's exact an obligation to me one out of every three dollars in the system right now goes for for profit for the corporations for corporate salaries. for a stock options advertising marketing cost the paperwork has nothing to do with health care if you took if we took that money and put it into care we would have enough for people to have all medically necessary costs covered plus vision care dental care mental health care prescription drug long term care we have the money to cover it off as just said we're not to do it now because we have a for profit system just like we we would end up being just like every other

developed country as a. novel idea you voted against the usa patriot act against the military commissions act you were one of the six who voted against that while radicalization and homegrown terror act and you've advocated for the purpose of peace. your thoughts on those votes and and just the idea you know james madison said no democracy no nation can survive but he says it of ocracy is that was the time when no nation can survive in a time or in perpetual war where we are living in an era of perpetual war the garbage dollar wrote the book perpetual war for print for perpetual peace well we we have to realize we've been sold a phony bill of goods on this global war on terror which gives the government our government the ability to go anywhere in search of dragons to slay which we were warned about from the inception of this country and so we have to look at the wars

we're in the war in iraq based on lies war in afghanistan based on a misreading of history the incursion into pakistan dangerous really dangerous the attempt to destabilize other governments in the region the failure to look at the plight of the palestinian state the concerns that about the american try and america's policy trying to encircle russia we have really done it wrong everywhere and so we have to move away from the rule of force we have to move towards a model of cooperation and diplomacy of equality of recognizing that all nations have a stake in equality we cannot try to grab world resources using our military power that may have been done in another area can't be done anymore and so i vote i voted against the patriot act because i saw it as a destructive undermining of our civil liberties here at home and also because i read the bill i voted against the military commissions act because i saw again a splitting a schism between that bill and the constitution of the united states which gives

people certain rights to a trial and to be presented with the evidence against them. our country has still gone from nine eleven we have not recovered and what we need to do is we have to try to reimagine. what capacity we had for connecting with each other prior to nine eleven almost a nine ten commission we need a period of reconciliation and truth telling in america so that we can move on we had the community doing here last week it's approach the international president greenpeace he fought in the south african movement as a fifteen year old starting out you know and his thoughts on the peace reconciliation commission were. very positive a little ambivalent at times you've actually introduced articles of impeachment against bush and cheney in the two minutes we have left your thoughts on the lessons we could learn from south africa or lessons that we might learn from

other adventures of africa brought everyone forward who was involved in apartheid and their cruelties that happened and they had to come forward with their story and then there would bear was a determination about what would be the right. sentence or condition that they'd have to adhere to in order to be forgiven. president bush and dick cheney and secretary rumsfeld and secretary rice and all of those who were involved at that time are a very difficult situation because we went to war in iraq based on lies and frankly there has to be an atonement and that one means so that we can transcend those lies and get back to the truth telling and. right now that's not happening so.

mr you know president bush and vice president cheney in particular and secretary rumsfeld have to be called an accounting. they should be made to stand trial and if they can't be not if not in this country which don't seem you know we're capable of a politically right now they should have to answer to a world tribunals under international law absolutely because otherwise who are we as a nation how can we say a million iraqi lives don't mean anything when we know that lies were told to drag us into war we how do we how do we get that stain off of our our our national conscience so i think that america can move beyond this we can create a new nation but we have to reclaim our honor by causing those who led us into a war based on lies to be held accountable. so it was you know that we have to wrap it up congressman dennis kucinich thanks so much for being as i'm sure still ahead here on the big picture are you ready to rumble break down the top stories of the week.

the world the fear mongering used by politicians who makes decisions it's time to break through it through the people who can you trust no one who is in view with the global mission receipt where we had a state controlled capitalism it's called sasha's when nobody dares to ask. we do our teen question more of. a charmer here broadcasting live from washington d.c. coming up today on the big picture.