A ray of light from plains of Ohio

[Ivo Skoric]

Dennis Kucinich, a Democrat, the leader of the Progressive 
Caucus, U.S. Congressman from Ohio, delivered the following 
speech at the University of Southern California, defending peace 
and the U.S. Constitution from the full scale onslaught suffered 
from the present Administration. To the watchers of the former 
Yugoslavia developments, it is interesting to note, that Kucinich is 
of Croatian ancestry. Someone whose ancestors hail from a region 
mirred in wars and totalitarian regimes through the history, shall, of 
course, struggle to prevent that fate for the U.S.
ivo

------- Forwarded Message Follows -------

>[Editor's Note: The following is a speech that Dennis Kucinich, 
>U.S.Congressman from Cleveland, Ohio, gave recently at the 
University of >Southern California. Rep. Kucinich is the leader of 
the Progressive Caucus and a longtime defender of free speech, 
civil liberties and international peace. This speech makes him the 
first member of the United States Congress to openly repudiate 
President Bush's war rationale.] > >> 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 stil! 
ls it. With the belief that a free people t! ruth 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 interconnected 
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 Fir! st Amendment and the right of free speech, the 
right to pea , ! 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 peop 
ro! m 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 of s ! 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 
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 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 i on! 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, ! anywhe w! ar 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 
o! f 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 prin cr! aft, 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 peopl he! ! 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.  

> >> Dennis Kucinich is a Democratic U.S. Congressman from
> Cleveland, Ohio. > >Email the congressman at
> dkucinich at aol.com<mailto:dkucinich at aol.com>  . > >