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Who is Dennis Kucinich and why will he be in Berkeley?
He's a 'good' dem - chair of the progressive caucus and instrumental in the creation of the Office of Peace with Barbara Lee - and will be in Berkeley to talk and answer questions.
He needs the hard questions to be put to him, but what are they? Post them here. Then come and see him, and ask them yourself. He's 'spiritual,' and has given a speech called "A Prayer for America,' (ugh!) but it's actually pretty interesting to read . . . is at the WSSD in South Africa, called for Congressional debate on Iraq, etc.
He needs the hard questions to be put to him, but what are they? Post them here. Then come and see him, and ask them yourself. He's 'spiritual,' and has given a speech called "A Prayer for America,' (ugh!) but it's actually pretty interesting to read . . . is at the WSSD in South Africa, called for Congressional debate on Iraq, etc.
PRESS RELEASE
DATE: August 31, 2002
SUBJECT: Congressman Dennis Kucinch Appearance, September 14, 2002, at Wheeler Auditorium, U.C. Berkeley Campus.
FROM: Social Justice Committee, Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists, 1606 Bonita, Berkeley CA 94709
CONTACT: email: rscongress [at] bfuu.org
WEB: http://www.bfuu.org/rscongress
CONGRESSMAN KUCINICH KEYNOTING THE THIRD REDWOOD SEQUOIA CONGRESS
Congressman Dennis Kucinich, chair of the House Progressive Caucus and strong advocate for a Department of Peace and against weaponization of space, will deliver the keynote speech, "Democracy or Empire," at the Third Redwood Sequoia Congress. Also featured will be Supervisor Keith Carson, Country Joe McDonald and performance artist Shelly Glaser. This session will be held Saturday evening, September 14, 7pm, at Wheeler Auditorium on the University of California Berkeley Campus.
The subject, "Democracy or Empire?" will be further examined and debated during the two day session of the Third RS Congress, Saturday and Sunday, September 14th and 15th. Panels and speakers will analyze the nature and significance of the dramatic alterations in our political, economic, and landscape since September eleven. A special part of the program will present candidates standing for election in November and invite questions and dialogue. All the events of the Third RS Congress, other than the keynote address, will be held at the Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists, 1924 Cedar at Bonita, in Berkeley. The schedule of the RS Congress panels and events can be seen at http://www.bfuu.org/rscongress.
Tickets for the keynote address are available in the East Bay at Avenue Books, Black Oak, Bodacias, Cody’s, Walden Pond and in San Francisco at A Clean Well-Lighted Place for Books, City Lights & Modern Times. They are $10 in advance, $12 at the door, and will benefit the Berkeley Fellowship Building Restoration Fund. Donations are suggested for the other events. All events are wheelchair accessible.
Lots o'stuff on the guy . . .
The Honorable Dennis J. Kucinich
Serving Ohio's 10th District In The United States House of Representatives
A Speech Delivered on February 17th, 2002
Los Angeles, California
A PRAYER FOR AMERICA
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 implicit 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 undetected Vice President.
Let us pray that our country will stop this war. "To provide for 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 11. We licensed a response to those who helped bring the terror of September 11th. 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 11th 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 day 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 11th, 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.
http://www.swickey.com/
Statement of Congressman Kucinich in Advance of Traveling to The World Summit on Sustainable Development in South Africa, August 15, 2002
Statement of Congressman Dennis Kucinich
Water as a Human Right
Worldwide, there are 1 billion people that lack access to clean water. The immediate result is that over 2 million people die each year, mostly children, from water born diseases. Americans would never tolerate such a tragedy, because it could easily be averted with access to clean and affordable water.
The current effort to increase access to clean water, however, is driven by private motives, which do not guarantee access, and do not guarantee affordability. Seen as a business, the global market for water will soon be worth over one trillion dollars according to World Bank estimates. With the collapse of the technology sector, Fortune magazine identified the water industry as the most profitable for investors. In this global market, water is viewed as a commodity to be traded, as a market to be captured, as a substance to be priced at whatever price the market will bear. In this water market, corporations can, as privateers, sail the bounded main and own all the water they can see.
In this market, international trade agreements, as exemplified by NAFTA, GATT and the WTO, guarantee corporations access to water anywhere in the world, and seek to make government resources and, tax dollars, available to those who wish to privatize water systems and other public service facilities. American tax dollars support multilateral financial institutions, and these are the same tax dollars that are used to guarantee profits to private companies for water privatization programs. Loan packages often guarantee a set rate of profit, such as 35% profit for a Suez project in Chile. World Bank policies and International Monetary Fund policies are linked to increased cost recovery and water privatization. Last year, nearly 81% of World Bank Water and Sanitation loans contained cost recovery measures, and more than half contained privatization measures. In 2000, a review of IMF loans found increased cost recovery and water privatization conditions for 12 out of 40 countries.
Water privatization means that people who need water must pay more, often much more for accessing water. In Ghana, IMF and World Bank policies required a 95 percent increase in water fees in May 2001. For 45 percent of Ghana's families, three buckets of water would cost 20 percent of a day's wages. In India, some poor households pay as much as 25 of their income on water. IMF and World Bank policies force families to make impossible choices about trade-offs between food, water, clothing and health care.
Instead of getting clean water to the people who desperately need it, water privatization has failed to deliver. Privatized water projects are not accountable. In South Africa, increased water fees led to supply cuts, which resulted in an outbreak of a cholera epidemic in October 2000. US News and World Report recently reported on domestic water privatization failures. In Atlanta, a United Water contract promised great financial savings, with a goal of cutting the nearly $50 million costs in half. To date, barely $3 million has been saved, and citizens report brown tap water, debris floating in tap water, dry fire hydrants and months-long delays in meeting basic services.
These disastrous outcomes should not come as a surprise. By making water a commodity, profit becomes the overarching goal, not access. Profits must be sufficient to satisfy investors. Private water monopolies can demand the highest prices possible. Since water is essential to life, prices can be set as high as people can pay for their life.
At Johannesburg, we must work to ensure that water privatization does not continue. We must declare that water is a human right, and agree to an international framework that water be kept outside the purview of the WTO. IMF and World Bank loans should not impose conditions that mandate full cost recovery and water privatization, and the United States bears a responsibility to ensure that its tax dollars given to multilateral institutions do not fuel more water privatization failures. We must pursue the goal of ensuring clean, affordable and accessible water for all people.
75 Members of Congress Assert Constitutional Role in Declaring War
In a letter, 75 Members of Congress call on the President to gain congressional authorization before taking new military action in Iraq
Seventy-five Members of Congress, led by Congressman Dennis J. Kucinich (D-OH), sent a letter to the President asserting the Constitutional role of Congress to debate the question of deploying US troops to Iraq.
The letter sent to the White House today states:
"As you know, Under Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution, Congress has the authority to declare war, and ever since the beginning of the Republic, Presidents have repeatedly sought Congressional authorization for use of force against foreign enemies of the United States."
Kucinich was joined by the Ranking Member of the House International Relations Committee Rep. Tom Lantos (D-CA), and the Ranking Member of the House Armed Services Committee Rep. Ike Skelton (D-MO). Also signing the letter were Reps. Hoyer, Berman, Oberstar, Rahall, Conyers, Sandlin, George Miller, DeFazio, Lofgren, Doggett, Slaughter, Olver, Tom Udall, Waters, Cummings, Barney Frank, Mink, Holt, Kaptur, Watson, Woosley, Hastings, Sawyer, Sanders, Evans, Tierney, McDermott, John Lewis, Stark, Kilpatrick, E.B. Johnson, Moran, Abercrombie, Jackson-Lee, Payne, Pastor, Hilliard, Tubbs-Jones, Baldwin, Towns, Barrett, Farr, Berkley, Filner, Allen, Brad Carson, Sherrod Brown, Lee, Bobby Scott, Schakowsky, Coyne, Carolyn Maloney, Julia Carson, Meek, Danny Davis, Nadler, Hoeffel, Jackson Jr., Ford, DeGette, Owens, Honda McGovern, Serrano, Eshoo, Hinchey, McKinney, Capuano, Crowley, Meeks, Fattah, Faleomavaega.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Honorable George W. Bush
President of the United States
White House
1600 Pennsylvania Ave
Washington, D.C. 20500
Dear President Bush:
Over the last year, there has been much discussion in the press and by officials of your Administration of the necessity of regime change in Iraq and the possibility of new military action against that country. As you may be aware, no uniform opinion exists among members of Congress as to whether such military action is the right course to take. However, both proponents and opponents of new military action against Iraq stand united in the belief that it is in the national interest of the United States for you to seek and for Congress to debate and consider a declaration of war or a congressional authorization to use force against Iraq.
As you know, Under Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution, Congress has the authority to declare war, and ever since the beginning of the Republic, Presidents have repeatedly sought Congressional authorization for use of force against foreign enemies of the United States. We believe that in taking such a momentous decision as a new introduction of armed forces into hostilities against Iraq, a full and public debate on the merits of such actions would serve to unite the nation behind the right course of action in dealing with Saddam Hussein.
We believe that prior to such action against Iraq you should seek a declaration of war or a congressional authorization to use force against Iraq.
http://www.house.gov/kucinich/press/pr-020806-declaringwar.htm
Biography of
Congressman Dennis J. Kucinich
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.
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.
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.
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.
http://www.house.gov/kucinich/press/~list.html
http://www.house.gov/kucinich/
DATE: August 31, 2002
SUBJECT: Congressman Dennis Kucinch Appearance, September 14, 2002, at Wheeler Auditorium, U.C. Berkeley Campus.
FROM: Social Justice Committee, Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists, 1606 Bonita, Berkeley CA 94709
CONTACT: email: rscongress [at] bfuu.org
WEB: http://www.bfuu.org/rscongress
CONGRESSMAN KUCINICH KEYNOTING THE THIRD REDWOOD SEQUOIA CONGRESS
Congressman Dennis Kucinich, chair of the House Progressive Caucus and strong advocate for a Department of Peace and against weaponization of space, will deliver the keynote speech, "Democracy or Empire," at the Third Redwood Sequoia Congress. Also featured will be Supervisor Keith Carson, Country Joe McDonald and performance artist Shelly Glaser. This session will be held Saturday evening, September 14, 7pm, at Wheeler Auditorium on the University of California Berkeley Campus.
The subject, "Democracy or Empire?" will be further examined and debated during the two day session of the Third RS Congress, Saturday and Sunday, September 14th and 15th. Panels and speakers will analyze the nature and significance of the dramatic alterations in our political, economic, and landscape since September eleven. A special part of the program will present candidates standing for election in November and invite questions and dialogue. All the events of the Third RS Congress, other than the keynote address, will be held at the Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists, 1924 Cedar at Bonita, in Berkeley. The schedule of the RS Congress panels and events can be seen at http://www.bfuu.org/rscongress.
Tickets for the keynote address are available in the East Bay at Avenue Books, Black Oak, Bodacias, Cody’s, Walden Pond and in San Francisco at A Clean Well-Lighted Place for Books, City Lights & Modern Times. They are $10 in advance, $12 at the door, and will benefit the Berkeley Fellowship Building Restoration Fund. Donations are suggested for the other events. All events are wheelchair accessible.
Lots o'stuff on the guy . . .
The Honorable Dennis J. Kucinich
Serving Ohio's 10th District In The United States House of Representatives
A Speech Delivered on February 17th, 2002
Los Angeles, California
A PRAYER FOR AMERICA
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 implicit 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 undetected Vice President.
Let us pray that our country will stop this war. "To provide for 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 11. We licensed a response to those who helped bring the terror of September 11th. 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 11th 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 day 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 11th, 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.
http://www.swickey.com/
Statement of Congressman Kucinich in Advance of Traveling to The World Summit on Sustainable Development in South Africa, August 15, 2002
Statement of Congressman Dennis Kucinich
Water as a Human Right
Worldwide, there are 1 billion people that lack access to clean water. The immediate result is that over 2 million people die each year, mostly children, from water born diseases. Americans would never tolerate such a tragedy, because it could easily be averted with access to clean and affordable water.
The current effort to increase access to clean water, however, is driven by private motives, which do not guarantee access, and do not guarantee affordability. Seen as a business, the global market for water will soon be worth over one trillion dollars according to World Bank estimates. With the collapse of the technology sector, Fortune magazine identified the water industry as the most profitable for investors. In this global market, water is viewed as a commodity to be traded, as a market to be captured, as a substance to be priced at whatever price the market will bear. In this water market, corporations can, as privateers, sail the bounded main and own all the water they can see.
In this market, international trade agreements, as exemplified by NAFTA, GATT and the WTO, guarantee corporations access to water anywhere in the world, and seek to make government resources and, tax dollars, available to those who wish to privatize water systems and other public service facilities. American tax dollars support multilateral financial institutions, and these are the same tax dollars that are used to guarantee profits to private companies for water privatization programs. Loan packages often guarantee a set rate of profit, such as 35% profit for a Suez project in Chile. World Bank policies and International Monetary Fund policies are linked to increased cost recovery and water privatization. Last year, nearly 81% of World Bank Water and Sanitation loans contained cost recovery measures, and more than half contained privatization measures. In 2000, a review of IMF loans found increased cost recovery and water privatization conditions for 12 out of 40 countries.
Water privatization means that people who need water must pay more, often much more for accessing water. In Ghana, IMF and World Bank policies required a 95 percent increase in water fees in May 2001. For 45 percent of Ghana's families, three buckets of water would cost 20 percent of a day's wages. In India, some poor households pay as much as 25 of their income on water. IMF and World Bank policies force families to make impossible choices about trade-offs between food, water, clothing and health care.
Instead of getting clean water to the people who desperately need it, water privatization has failed to deliver. Privatized water projects are not accountable. In South Africa, increased water fees led to supply cuts, which resulted in an outbreak of a cholera epidemic in October 2000. US News and World Report recently reported on domestic water privatization failures. In Atlanta, a United Water contract promised great financial savings, with a goal of cutting the nearly $50 million costs in half. To date, barely $3 million has been saved, and citizens report brown tap water, debris floating in tap water, dry fire hydrants and months-long delays in meeting basic services.
These disastrous outcomes should not come as a surprise. By making water a commodity, profit becomes the overarching goal, not access. Profits must be sufficient to satisfy investors. Private water monopolies can demand the highest prices possible. Since water is essential to life, prices can be set as high as people can pay for their life.
At Johannesburg, we must work to ensure that water privatization does not continue. We must declare that water is a human right, and agree to an international framework that water be kept outside the purview of the WTO. IMF and World Bank loans should not impose conditions that mandate full cost recovery and water privatization, and the United States bears a responsibility to ensure that its tax dollars given to multilateral institutions do not fuel more water privatization failures. We must pursue the goal of ensuring clean, affordable and accessible water for all people.
75 Members of Congress Assert Constitutional Role in Declaring War
In a letter, 75 Members of Congress call on the President to gain congressional authorization before taking new military action in Iraq
Seventy-five Members of Congress, led by Congressman Dennis J. Kucinich (D-OH), sent a letter to the President asserting the Constitutional role of Congress to debate the question of deploying US troops to Iraq.
The letter sent to the White House today states:
"As you know, Under Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution, Congress has the authority to declare war, and ever since the beginning of the Republic, Presidents have repeatedly sought Congressional authorization for use of force against foreign enemies of the United States."
Kucinich was joined by the Ranking Member of the House International Relations Committee Rep. Tom Lantos (D-CA), and the Ranking Member of the House Armed Services Committee Rep. Ike Skelton (D-MO). Also signing the letter were Reps. Hoyer, Berman, Oberstar, Rahall, Conyers, Sandlin, George Miller, DeFazio, Lofgren, Doggett, Slaughter, Olver, Tom Udall, Waters, Cummings, Barney Frank, Mink, Holt, Kaptur, Watson, Woosley, Hastings, Sawyer, Sanders, Evans, Tierney, McDermott, John Lewis, Stark, Kilpatrick, E.B. Johnson, Moran, Abercrombie, Jackson-Lee, Payne, Pastor, Hilliard, Tubbs-Jones, Baldwin, Towns, Barrett, Farr, Berkley, Filner, Allen, Brad Carson, Sherrod Brown, Lee, Bobby Scott, Schakowsky, Coyne, Carolyn Maloney, Julia Carson, Meek, Danny Davis, Nadler, Hoeffel, Jackson Jr., Ford, DeGette, Owens, Honda McGovern, Serrano, Eshoo, Hinchey, McKinney, Capuano, Crowley, Meeks, Fattah, Faleomavaega.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Honorable George W. Bush
President of the United States
White House
1600 Pennsylvania Ave
Washington, D.C. 20500
Dear President Bush:
Over the last year, there has been much discussion in the press and by officials of your Administration of the necessity of regime change in Iraq and the possibility of new military action against that country. As you may be aware, no uniform opinion exists among members of Congress as to whether such military action is the right course to take. However, both proponents and opponents of new military action against Iraq stand united in the belief that it is in the national interest of the United States for you to seek and for Congress to debate and consider a declaration of war or a congressional authorization to use force against Iraq.
As you know, Under Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution, Congress has the authority to declare war, and ever since the beginning of the Republic, Presidents have repeatedly sought Congressional authorization for use of force against foreign enemies of the United States. We believe that in taking such a momentous decision as a new introduction of armed forces into hostilities against Iraq, a full and public debate on the merits of such actions would serve to unite the nation behind the right course of action in dealing with Saddam Hussein.
We believe that prior to such action against Iraq you should seek a declaration of war or a congressional authorization to use force against Iraq.
http://www.house.gov/kucinich/press/pr-020806-declaringwar.htm
Biography of
Congressman Dennis J. Kucinich
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.
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.
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.
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.
http://www.house.gov/kucinich/press/~list.html
http://www.house.gov/kucinich/
For more information:
http://www.house.gov/kucinich/
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