CONGRESSMAN DENNIS KUCINICH SPEECH
http://www.thespiritoffreedom.com/
I offer these brief remarks today as a prayer for our country, with love of
democracy, as a celebration of our country. With love for our country. With
hope for our country. With a belief that the light of freedom cannot be
extinguished as long as it is inside of us. With a belief that freedom rings
resoundingly in a democracy each time we speak freely. With the
understanding that freedom stirs the human heart and fear stills it. With
the belief that a free people cannot walk in fear and faith at the same time.
With the understanding that there is a deeper truth expressed in the unity
of the United States. That implicate in the union of our country is the
union of all people. That all people are essentially one. That the world is
interconnected not only on the material level of economics, trade,
communication, and transportation, but innerconnected through human
consciousness, through the human heart, through the heart of the world,
through the simply expressed impulse and yearning to be and to breathe free.
I offer this prayer for America.
Let us pray that our nation will remember that the unfolding of the promise
of democracy in our nation paralleled the striving for civil rights. That is
why we must challenge the rationale of the Patriot Act. We must ask why
should America put aside guarantees of constitutional justice?
How can we justify in effect canceling the First Amendment and the right of
free speech, the right to peaceably assemble? How can we justify in effect
canceling the Fourth Amendment, probable cause, the prohibitions against
unreasonable search and seizure? How can we justify in effect canceling the
Fifth Amendment, nullifying due process, and allowing for indefinite
incarceration without a trial? How can we justify in effect canceling the
Sixth Amendment, the right to prompt and public trial? How can we justify in
effect canceling the Eighth Amendment which protects against cruel and
unusual punishment?
We cannot justify widespread wiretaps and internet surveillance without
judicial supervision, let alone with it. We cannot justify secret searches
without a warrant. We cannot justify giving the Attorney General the ability
to designate domestic terror groups. We cannot justify giving the FBI total
access to any type of data which may exist in any system anywhere such as
medical records and financial records.
We cannot justify giving the CIA the ability to target people in this
country for intelligence surveillance. We cannot justify a government which
takes from the people our right to privacy and then assumes for its own
operations a right to total secrecy. The Attorney General recently covered
up a statue of Lady Justice showing her bosom as if to underscore there is
no danger of justice exposing herself at this time, before this administration.
Let us pray that our nation's leaders will not be overcome with fear.
Because today there is great fear in our great Capitol. And this must be
understood before we can ask about the shortcomings of Congress in the
current environment. The great fear began when we had to evacuate the
Capitol on September 11. It continued when we had to leave the Capitol again
when a bomb scare occurred as members were pressing the CIA during a secret
briefing. It continued when we abandoned Washington when anthrax, possibly
from a government lab, arrived in the mail.
It continued when the Attorney General declared a nationwide terror alert
and then the Administration brought the destructive Patriot Bill to the
floor of the House. It continued in the release of the Bin Laden tapes at
the same time the President was announcing the withdrawal from the ABM
treaty. It remains present in the cordoning off of the Capitol. It is
present in the camouflaged armed national guardsmen who greet members of
Congress each day we enter the Capitol campus. It is present in the
labyrinth of concrete barriers through which we must pass each time we go to
vote. The trappings of a state of siege trap us in a state of fear, ill
equipped to deal with the Patriot Games, the Mind Games, the War Games of an
unelected President and his unelected Vice President.
Let us pray that our country will stop this war. "To promote the common
defense" is one of the formational principles of America. Our Congress gave
the President the ability to respond to the tragedy of September the
Eleventh. We licensed a response to those who helped bring the terror of
September the Eleventh. But we the people and our elected representatives
must reserve the right to measure the response, to proportion the response,
to challenge the response, and to correct the response.
Because we did not authorize the invasion of Iraq.
We did not authorize the invasion of Iran.
We did not authorize the invasion of North Korea.
We did not authorize the bombing of civilians in Afghanistan.
We did not authorize permanent detainees in Guantanamo Bay.
We did not authorize the withdrawal from the Geneva Convention.
We did not authorize military tribunals suspending due process and habeas
corpus.
We did not authorize assassination squads.
We did not authorize the resurrection of COINTELPRO.
We did not authorize the repeal of the Bill of Rights.
We did not authorize the revocation of the Constitution.
We did not authorize national identity cards.
We did not authorize the eye of Big Brother to peer from cameras throughout
our cities.
We did not authorize an eye for an eye.
Nor did we ask that the blood of innocent people, who perished on September
11, be avenged with the blood of innocent villagers in Afghanistan.
We did not authorize the administration to wage war anytime, anywhere,
anyhow it pleases.
We did not authorize war without end.
We did not authorize a permanent war economy.
Yet we are upon the threshold of a permanent war economy. The President has
requested a $45.6 billion increase in military spending. All defense-related
programs will cost close to $400 billion. Consider that the Department of
Defense has never passed an independent audit. Consider that the Inspector
General has notified Congress that the Pentagon cannot properly account for
$1.2 trillion in transactions. Consider that in recent years the Dept. of
Defense could not match $22 billion worth of expenditures to the items it
purchased, wrote off, as lost, billions of dollars worth of in-transit
inventory and stored nearly $30 billion worth of spare parts it did not need.
Yet the defense budget grows with more money for weapons systems to fight a
cold war which ended, weapon systems in search of new enemies to create new
wars. This has nothing to do with fighting terror. This has everything to do
with fueling a military industrial machine with the treasure of our nation,
risking the future of our nation, risking democracy itself with the
militarization of thought which follows the militarization of the budget.
Let us pray for our children. Our children deserve a world without end. Not
a war without end. Our children deserve a world free of the terror of
hunger, free of the terror of poor health care, free of the terror of
homelessness, free of the terror of ignorance, free of the terror of
hopelessness, free of the terror of policies which are committed to a world
view which is not appropriate for the survival of a free people, not
appropriate for the survival of democratic values, not appropriate for the
survival of our nation, and not appropriate for the survival of the world.
Let us pray that we have the courage and the will as a people and as a
nation to shore ourselves up, to reclaim from the ruins of September the
Eleventh our democratic traditions. Let us declare our love for democracy.
Let us declare our intent for peace. Let us work to make nonviolence an
organizing principle in our own society. Let us recommit ourselves to the
slow and painstaking work of statecraft, which sees peace, not war as being
inevitable. Let us work for a world where someday war becomes archaic.
That is the vision which the proposal to create a Department of Peace
envisions. Forty-three members of congress are now cosponsoring the
legislation. Let us work for a world where nuclear disarmament is an
imperative. That is why we must begin by insisting on the commitments of the
ABM treaty. That is why we must be steadfast for nonproliferation.
Let us work for a world where America can lead the way in banning weapons of
mass destruction not only from our land and sea and sky but from outer space
itself. That is the vision of HR 3616: A universe free of fear. Where we can
look up at God's creation in the stars and imagine infinite wisdom, infinite
peace, infinite possibilities, not infinite war, because we are taught that
the kingdom will come on earth as it is in heaven.
Let us pray that we have the courage to replace the images of death which
haunt us, the layers of images of September the Eleventh, faded into images
of patriotism, spliced into images of military mobilization, jump cut into
images of our secular celebrations of the World Series, New Year's Eve, the
Superbowl, the Olympics, the strobic flashes which touch our deepest fears,
let us replace those images with the work of human relations, reaching out
to people, helping our own citizens here at home, lifting the plight of the
poor everywhere. That is the America which has the ability to rally the
support of the world. That is the America which stands not in pursuit of an
axis of evil, but which is itself at the axis of hope and faith and peace
and freedom.
America, America. God shed grace on thee. Crown thy good, America. Not with
weapons of mass destruction. Not with invocations of an axis of evil. Not
through breaking international treaties. Not through establishing America as
king of a unipolar world. Crown thy good America.
America, America. Let us pray for our country. Let us love our country. Let
us defend our country not only from the threats without but from the threats
within. Crown thy good, America. Crown thy good with brotherhood, and
sisterhood. And crown thy good with compassion and restraint and forbearance
and a commitment to peace, to democracy, to economic justice here at home
and throughout the world. Crown thy good, America. Crown thy good America.
Crown thy good.
Thank you.
To reach Congressman Dennis Kucinich contact: info@thespiritoffreedom.com
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