I thought this sounded cool, and looks like something I’d like to read about in the pages of the Guilfordian so I wanted to bring it to your attentionHope Bastian

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

January 14, 2004

SANTA CRUZ, CA – DES MOINES, IOWA – CLEVELAND, OH – MANCHESTER, NH, et al. – WESTERN MASSACHUSETTS — January 8 – 27, 2004

Twenty young supporters of Dennis Kucinich for President are touring the country in bus they have converted for the purpose, reaching out to young voters in Iowa, Ohio, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire. Their bus, colorfully painted by California youth artist Jason Bird, proclaims “Dennis Kucinich for President” and “Let’s Get the Country Moving!”

The tour is sponsored by the Democreation Project, a youth-founded effort to unite young artists and political progressives behind candidates that represent their values. The Democreation Project has chosen to endorse Dennis Kucinich in the 2004 Democratic Primary because they believe that his policies will begin to correct the serious problems inherited by young people today, especially pre-emptive wars, accruing national debt and the shrinking dollar, disappearing jobs, environmental neglect, limited healthcare and education, and a failed drug and prison policy.

The Youth Team was with Kucinich in Des Moines on January 11, and will join him in New Hampshire on January 14th and 15th and 21st through 27th. The Democreation Project bus will be stopping at selected locations to project high-tech videos about Kucinich and the youth project onto buildings at campuses and youth gatherings. The team members carry with them a sound system capable of broadcasting these programs to 400 people outdoors. The gatherings will also be infused with performance art led by two members of the Trance Love Airways Band who create “positive, funky grooves within cosmic, worldly jams for the well being of all”. Information/education kits will be distributed, teaching young people how to form their own youth teams to educate, activate and register young voters between now and the November election.

“As a former mayor of Cleveland, a three-term congressman, and the current Co-Chair of the Progressive Caucus (the largest Democratic Caucus in Congress), Kucinich has proven himself to be a visionary legislator with integrity and a heart for the people,” said Dan Nelson, Co-Founder of the Democreation Project. “Furthermore, his combination of solid progressive values with a refined, even mystical, ethicality makes him unique among politicians. We believe that Kucinich’s values would be supported by an enormous percentage of American voters–if only his ideas were made more available to the electorate.”

The Democreation Project is traveling in a bio-diesel bus. Biodiesel is a clean-burning alternative fuel produced from domestic, renewable resources. Simple to use, produced from any fat or oil such as soybean oil, it is biodegradable, non-toxic and essentially free of sulfur. Driving across the country, these young people present a living example of the sustainable, alternative energy solutions that Kucinich espouses. Young artists have transformed this 1976 Crown School Bus into a mobile work of art and education. The bus is vibrantly painted with an image of the United States and a superimposed light bulb. The light bulb has long been an image associated with Dennis Kucinich, calling back the time when as Mayor of Cleveland, Ohio, Kucinich blocked the privatization of the city’s public utility company. This move was made at much personal cost to Kucinich, who lost his seat as Mayor in the following election. However, years later it became clear, to journalists and voters alike, that his resistance of the banks in their desire to privatize Muni Light spared the people of Cleveland the exorbitant power costs endured by so many other cities whose leaders chose to privatize local utilities. Kucinich was elected to Congress in 1996 where he currently co-chairs the Progressive Caucus. The Democreation Project tour bus is further inscribed with slogans representative of Mr. Kucinich’s policy positions. Kucinich will protect Roe v. Wade, roll back NAFTA and create jobs, renew the environment, make healthcare and education available to all, and create a Cabinet level Department of Peace. His policies shift federal tax money from growing a new military industrial complex to meeting the needs of the American people.

While some of the young artist/activists who are riding the Democreation bus to New Hampshire are seasoned campaigners, most have never been involved in a political campaign before. The Democreation Project crew represents a variety of today’s progressive youth constituencies: travelers range from independent artists, drummers, spoken word poets and filmmakers, to Harvard and Berkeley students. The tour is a mobile integration of art and electoral politics, of underground and mainstream youth activism, of vision and action; and is intended to infuse youth energy into the Kucinich Campaign. Dominican University student, Henze Marvin, challenges those who claim that Kucinich is unelectable. “Certain spokespersons have balked at [Kucinich’s] candidacy. They have declared Kucinich far too ‘radical’ to be elected U.S. President. The Democreation Project challenges the accuracy of that declaration because the needs of the majority of the people in this country are met by Kucinich’s policies.”

“With 75 million people in our generation, politicians ought to court us for our votes like corporations court us for our pocketbooks,” said Jennifer Wilkie, 23. “Our generation, the children of the Baby Boomers, is inherently progressive. Each year more of us are reaching voting age and our generation’s voice is not only getting louder, it is getting clearer.”

In November 2003, the Democreation Project held a sold-out, all-day event at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Approximately 800 young people observed a one-hour dialogue between Candidate Kucinich and a mediated panel of 10 student leaders. The Democreation Project panelists were drawn from universities all over Northern California, and they represented groups ranging from the Berkeley Disabled Students Union to the Davis College Republicans. Kucinich received multiple standing ovations in a packed auditorium as sound was piped outside the building to over a hundred people who stood in the rain to hear him. Music from five bands and spoken word poetry followed. Brazilian percussion, Hip-Hop, and reggae were among the represented genres.