FREE SPEECH ZONE | The Independent Campaigns are off and Running!

My dear relatives everywhere,

The following remarks really concern the people of Minnesota
but the implications of the political endorsements you’re about to read
will eventually matter throughout the planet.

During my many years of activism here in Minnesota, & in my capacities as founder & director of Kalpulli, I have come to know, respect and have brotherly love for 2 individuals who have restored my faith in male humanity.
Let me begin with a candidate for governor who represents the last best hope for decency in public office, but even more importantly, he’s a manifestation of a paradigm shift to top all paradigm shifts.

In former times, brother Ken Pentel was an organizer for the MN Green Party. Like all political parties, the Green Party was bogged down with 1 of the cancers of our age: factionalism. It was plagued by individuals who suffered from the greatest asphyxiater of all: ego. Despite Ken’s organizing skills and his success in putting party in the black, the organization fell apart and Ken was thrown clear, like somebody thrown from a car in an accident. Happily, the brother landed on his feet & went on to found the Ecology Democracy Network. In a word, this emerging organization is dedicated to instant run-off voting proportional representation, and the abolition of 1 of the last defenses of the ruling classes — the electoral college. Infinitely more important, Ken is asking us to be in right relationship with all other life forms on this living planet. We are not the only kids on the block. As Chief Seattle reminds us, we are but a thread in the web. We must evolve & we must evolve quickly, beyond all discrimination, misogyny, and disrespect for what the native people in Bolivia call Pache Mama. Brother Ken Pentel is whom & what the doctor ordered, in the nick of time. As the ecological catastrophe unfolds in the gulf of Mexico, we need many Ken Pentels. Thus Kalpulli, unbound by nonprofit rules, takes unlimited delight in endorsing Mr. Ken Pentel for the office of governor of Minnesota.

This great and good man doesn’t have tons of money. He certainly is not beholden to the corporate world and the other usual suspects. Picture this brother on a bike, carrying his message of ecology and democracy over the length and breadth of this very troubled and wounded state. Ken has run for governor before, in ’98, ’02 & ’06. With help from all of us, let the 4th try be the charmer. We love you Ken– go out there & show them what you’re made of. We’ll see you in the state capitol in January. Let me now turn to an equally good & great gentleman.

In March 1959, a child was born in California. Did I say a child? It is better to say a process was begun. However the little guy was raised in occupied Northern Ireland. Before his 10th birthday, what the Irish has come to call the Troubles were already underway. Our candidate for a seat in the Us Congress was tempered informed & defined by the nastiness of British occupation and sectarian craziness. In Michael’s own words, he did the “100 yard stare” many times. What precisely is the 100 yard stare? You were demonstrating for basic rights for your people. There was a 100 yard no-man’s land with British soldiers on the other side, who were absolutely itching for an excuse to kill you.
No human being should have to endure military occupation & factional fighting under the guise of religious differences.

We could say despite, but I’ll say because of this experience, brother Michael Kaplan has turned out to be Ireland’s greatest gift to the US. Today, Michael is a nurse. He has administered to the sick and injured in and out of hospitals. He is deeply sensitive to all of the needs of working class children, women and men. He is in favor of a single-payer health care system which could actually work.

He is in favor of a revitalized and, dare I say, radicalized labor movement with chief mentality. He is an absolute antidote to what Eisenhower called the military-industrial complex, in his last speech as president on Monday, Jan 16, 1961. Like Ken Pentel, Michael is whom and what the doctor ordered. We need to send him to Congress in November and we need to back this great and good man as he breathes new life into a profoundly sick institution: the US House of Representatives.

Michael, speaking on behalf of Kalpulli, I take unlimited delight throwing the weight of this organization behind your candidacy.
Get out there & show them what you’re made of!
We love you and thank you. These are my words & I take full responsibility for them.
Gentlemen, take your stands!
-Brother Ray.