--
Doubt.
Doubt thyself.
Doubt even if thou doubtest thyself.
Doubt all.
Doubt even if thou doubtest all.
It seems sometimes as if beneath all conscious doubt
there lay some deepest certainty. O kill it! Slay the
snake!
The horn of the Doubt-Goat be exalted
Dive deeper, ever deeper, into the Abyss of Mind,
until thou unearth the fox THAT. On, hounds!
Yoicks! Tally-ho! Bring THAT to bay!
Then, wind the Mort!
Uncle Al. the kiddies pal
NEURONAUTIC INSTITUTE on-line: http://home.earthlink.net/~thew
[Editor's Note: The following is a speech that Dennis
Kucinich, U.S.
Congressman from Cleveland, Ohio, gave this past weekend 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 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 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 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.
Dennis Kucinich is a Democratic U.S. Congressman from
Cleveland, Ohio.
------ End of Forwarded Message
--- Begin Message ---Got this from a fellow lister and had to share it :) Serious stuffTwo or three very long, but informative and thought provoking articles! Please make some time to read them, think about them and please feel FREE to share them so that others may do the same. ****************************************************************************** *******************""They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759. ****************************************************************************** ******************* This is from Greg King, journalist and Executive Drector of the Smith River Project to save the last mostly wild and now endangered river in Northern California =============== msg from Greg followed by two articles >>>>>>>>>>>> Hi folks, When the Berlin Wall fell in 1989 researchers found that the East German secret police had created files on a full half of the country's population. That was before computers. Now more than ever it's important to circulate information on the U.S government's rapid and unprecedented destruction of human and rights, circulate it especially to the large U.S. "middle" who may feel that the current "war on terrorism" somehow doesn't affect them, or is somehow justified. It affects us all profoundly in many ways, and of course the violence and coercion, spying and harassment implicit in such a campaign are never justified. Below are a must-read ACLU analysis of the Draconian USA Patriot Act, which gives the CIA the legal right to search your home without even telling you, among other chilling provisions, and a plea from a U.S. Congressman. Enjoy. Greg King Executive Director Smith River Project P.O. Box 235 Graton, CA 95444 707-829-3698/fax: -4717 [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.smith-river.org http://www.aclu.org/congress/l110101a.html USA Patriot Act Boosts Government Powers While Cutting Back on Traditional Checks and Balances An ACLU Legislative Analysis When President Bush signed the USA Patriot Act into law last week, he significantly boosted the government's law enforcement powers while continuing a trend to cut back on the checks and balances that Americans have traditionally relied on to protect individual liberty. "This law is based on the faulty assumption that safety must come at the expense of civil liberties," said Laura W. Murphy, Director of the ACLU's Washington National Office. "The USA Patriot Act gives law enforcement agencies nationwide extraordinary new powers unchecked by meaningful judicial review." "For immigrants," added Gregory T. Nojeim, Associate Director of the ACLU Washington Office, "the law is a dramatic setback that gives the government the authority to detain - indefinitely in some cases - non-citizens who are not terrorists on the basis of vague allegations of a risk to national security." Among the USA Patriot Act's most troubling provisions, the ACLU said, are measures that: * Allow for indefinite detention of non-citizens who are not terrorists on minor visa violations if they cannot be deported because they are stateless, their country of origin refuses to accept them or because they would face torture in their country of origin. * Minimize judicial supervision of federal telephone and Internet surveillance by law enforcement authorities. * Expand the ability of the government to conduct secret searches. * Give the Attorney General and the Secretary of State the power to designate domestic groups as terrorist organizations and deport any non-citizen who belongs to them. * Grant the FBI broad access to sensitive business records about individuals without having to show evidence of a crime. * Lead to large-scale investigations of American citizens for "intelligence" purposes. Following are highlights of the civil liberties implications of the USA Patriot Act, which was signed into law on Friday, October 26, by President Bush. Wiretapping and Intelligence Surveillance The wiretapping and intelligence provisions in the USA Patriot Act sound two themes: they minimize the role of a judge in ensuring that law enforcement wiretapping is conducted legally and with proper justification, and they permit use of intelligence investigative authority to by-pass normal criminal procedures that protect privacy. Specifically: 1. The USA Patriot Act allows the government to use its intelligence gathering power to circumvent the standard that must be met for criminal wiretaps. Currently FISA surveillance, which does not contain many of the same checks and balances that govern wiretaps for criminal purposes, can be used only when foreign intelligence gathering is the primary purpose. The new law allows use of FISA surveillance authority even if the primary purpose were a criminal investigation. Intelligence surveillance merely needs to be only a "significant" purpose. This provision authorizes unconstitutional physical searches and wiretaps: though it is searching primarily for evidence of crime, law enforcement conducts a search without probable cause of crime. 2. The USA Patriot Act extends a very low threshold of proof for access to Internet communications that are far more revealing than numbers dialed on a phone. Under current law, a law enforcement agent can get a pen register or trap and trace order requiring the telephone company to reveal the numbers dialed to and from a particular phone. To get such an order, law enforcement must simply certify to a judge - who must grant the order -- that the information to be obtained is "relevant to an ongoing criminal investigation." This is a very low level of proof, far less than probable cause. This provision apparently applies to law enforcement efforts to determine what websites a person had visited, which is like giving law enforcement the power - based only on its own certification -- to require the librarian to report on the books you had perused while visiting the public library. This provision extends a low standard of proof - far less than probable cause -- to actual "content" information. 3. In allowing for "nationwide service" of pen register and trap and trace orders, the law further marginalizes the role of the judiciary. It authorizes what would be the equivalent of a blank warrant in the physical world: the court issues the order, and the law enforcement agent fills in the places to be searched. This is not consistent with the important Fourth Amendment privacy protection of requiring that warrants specify the place to be searched. Under this legislation, a judge is unable to meaningfully monitor the extent to which her order was being used to access information about Internet communications. 4. The Act also grants the FBI broad access in "intelligence" investigations to records about a person maintained by a business. The FBI need only certify to a court that it is conducting an intelligence investigation and that the records it seeks may be relevant. With this new power, the FBI can force a business to turn over a person's educational, medical, financial, mental health and travel records based on a very low standard of proof and without meaningful judicial oversight. The ACLU noted that the FBI already had broad authority to monitor telephone and Internet communications. Most of the changes apply not just to surveillance of terrorists, but instead to all surveillance in the United States. Law enforcement authorities -- even when they are required to obtain court orders - have great leeway under current law to investigate suspects in terrorist attacks. Current law already provided, for example, that wiretaps can be obtained for the crimes involved in terrorist attacks, including destruction of aircraft and aircraft piracy. The FBI also already had authority to intercept these communications without showing probable cause of crime for "intelligence" purposes under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. In fact, FISA wiretaps now exceed wiretapping for all domestic criminal investigations. The standards for obtaining a FISA wiretap are lower than the standards for obtaining a criminal wiretap. Immigration The USA Patriot Act confers new and unprecedented detention authority on the Attorney General based on vague and unspecified predictions of threats to the national security. Specifically, the new law permits the detention of non-citizens facing deportation based merely on the Attorney General's certification that he has "reasonable grounds to believe" the non-citizen endangers national security. While immigration or criminal charges must be filed within seven days, these charges need not have anything to do with terrorism, but can be minor visa violations of the kind that normally would not result in detention at all. Non-citizens ordered removed on visa violations could be indefinitely detained if they are stateless, their country of origin refuses to accept them, or they are granted relief from deportation because they would be tortured if they were returned to their country of origin. The ACLU noted that very few countries will agree to take back one of their citizens if the United States has labeled him a terrorist. Even though the Administration said it compromised on indefinite detention, in some circumstances the USA Patriot Act will fulfill the Administration's original goal of being able to imprison indefinitely someone who has never been convicted of a crime. The ACLU also noted that the bill's expanded definition of terrorism will inevitably ensnare many non-citizens who have done nothing wrong on the basis of their political beliefs and associations. For the first time, domestic groups can be labeled terrorist organizations, making membership or material support a deportable offense. Non-citizens could also be detained or deported for providing assistance to groups that are not designated as terrorist organizations at all, as long as activity of the group satisfies an extraordinarily broad definition of terrorism that covers virtually any violent activity. It would then fall on the non-citizen to prove that his or her assistance was not intended to further terrorism. Such groups as the World Trade Organization protesters, the Vieques protesters and even People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), would, on the basis of minor acts of violence or vandalism, meet this over broad definition. Non-citizens who provide assistance to such groups -- such as paying membership dues -- will run the risk of detention and deportation. Criminal Justice The law dramatically expands the use of secret searches. Normally, a person is notified when law enforcement conducts a search. In some cases regarding searches for electronic information, law enforcement authorities can get court permission to delay notification of a search. The USA Patriot Act extends the authority of the government to request "secret searches" to every criminal case. This vast expansion of power goes far beyond anything necessary to conduct terrorism investigations. The Act also allows for the broad sharing of sensitive information in criminal cases with intelligence agencies, including the CIA, the NSA, the INS and the Secret Service. It permits sharing of sensitive grand jury and wiretap information without judicial review or any safeguards regarding the future use or dissemination of such information. These information sharing authorizations and mandates effectively put the CIA back in the business of spying on Americans: Once the CIA makes clear the kind of information it seeks, law enforcement agencies can use tools like wiretaps and intelligence searches to provide data to the CIA. In fact, the law specifically gives the Director of Central Intelligence - who heads the CIA -- the power to identify domestic intelligence requirements. The law also creates a new crime of "domestic terrorism." The new offense threatens to transform protesters into terrorists if they engage in conduct that "involves acts dangerous to human life." Members of Operation Rescue, the Environmental Liberation Front and Greenpeace, for example, have all engaged in activities that could subject them to prosecution as terrorists. Then, under this law, the dominos begin to fall. Those who provide lodging or other assistance to these "domestic terrorists" could have their homes wiretapped and could be prosecuted. Financial Privacy The USA Patriot Act continues the unfortunate trend of expanding government access to personal financial information rather than safeguarding it against intrusion. While there is certainly a need to shut down the financial resources used to further acts of terrorism, the USA Patriot Act goes beyond its stated goal of combating international terrorism and instead reaches into innocent customers' personal financial transactions. Under the new law, financial institutions are required to monitor daily financial transactions even more closely and to share information with other federal agencies, including foreign intelligence services such as the CIA. The law also allows law enforcement and intelligence agencies to get easy access to individual credit reports in secret. The law provides for no judicial review and does not mandate that law enforcement give the person whose records are being reviewed any notice. Student Privacy The USA Patriot Act allows law enforcement officials to cast an even broader net for student information without any particularized suspicion of wrongdoing. When the changes in federal law dealing with student records privacy are combined with other information-sharing provisions contained in the new law, it becomes clear that highly personal student information will be transmitted to many federal agencies in ways likely to harm innocent students' privacy. Since September 11, law enforcement agencies from all levels of government have faced few barriers in accessing student information. According to the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers, about 200 colleges and universities have turned over student information to the FBI, INS and other law enforcement officials. But law enforcement agencies wanted even easier access to a broad range of student information and the USA Patriot Act gave it to them by allowing them to receive the student data collected for the purpose of statistical research under the National Education Statistics Act. The statistics act requires the government to collect a vast amount of identifiable student information and - until now - has required it to be held in the strictest confidence without exception. The USA Patriot Act, however, eliminates that protection and - while it requires a court order - allows law enforcement agencies to get access to private student information based on a mere certification that the records are relevant to an investigation. This certification, which a judge cannot challenge, is insufficient to protect the privacy of sensitive information contained in student records. ===================================== And here's a plea for resistance from U.S. Congressman Dennis Kucinich: http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=12477 Resisting Bush's War Rep. Dennis Kucinich, AlterNet February 25, 2002 ------------------------------------------------------------------- [Editor's Note: The following is a speech that Dennis Kucinich, U.S. Congressman from Cleveland, Ohio, gave this past weekend 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 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 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 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. Dennis Kucinich is a Democratic U.S. Congressman from Cleveland, Ohio. ------------------------------------------------------------------- Reproduction of material from any AlterNet.org pages without written permission is strictly prohibited. © 2001 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.--- End Message ---
