ZGram - 4/10/2002 - "A Congressman speaks out"

[irimland@zundelsite.org]

ZGram - Where Truth is Destiny

April 10, 2002

Good Morning from the Zundelsite:

Here speaks a Congressman of the United States with great courage in 
these perilous times.  Please read and pass it on:

[START]

I offer these brief remarks today as a prayer for our country, with 
love of democracy, as a celebration of our country. With love for our 
country.With hope for our country. With a belief that the light of 
freedom cannot be extinguished as long as it is inside of us. With a 
belief that freedom rings resoundingly in a democracy each time we 
speak freely. With the understanding that freedom stirs the human 
heart and fear stills it. With the belief that a free people cannot 
walk in fear and faith at the same time.

With the understanding that there is a deeper truth expressed in the 
unity of the United States. That implicate in the union of our 
country is the union of all people. That all people are essentially 
one. That the world is interconnected not only on the material level 
of economics, trade, communication, and transportation, but 
innerconnected through human consciousness, through the human heart, 
through the heart of the world, through the simply expressed impulse 
and yearning to be and to breathe free. I offer this prayer for 
America.

Let us pray that our nation will remember that the unfolding of the 
promise of democracy in our nation paralleled the striving for civil 
rights. That is why we must challenge the rationale of the Patriot 
Act. We must ask why should America put aside guarantees of 
constitutional justice?

How can we justify in effect canceling the First Amendment and the 
right of free speech, the right to peaceably assemble?

How can we justify in effect canceling the Fourth Amendment, probable 
cause, the prohibitions against unreasonable search and seizure?

How can we justify in effect canceling the Fifth Amendment, 
nullifying due process, and allowing for indefinite incarceration 
without a trial?

How can we justify in effect canceling the Sixth Amendment, the right 
to prompt and public trial?

How can we justify in effect canceling the Eighth Amendment which 
protects against cruel and unusual punishment?

We cannot justify widespread wiretaps and internet surveillance 
without judicial supervision, let alone with it. We cannot justify 
secret searches without a warrant. We cannot justify giving the 
Attorney General the ability to designate domestic terror groups. We 
cannot justify giving the FBI total access to any type of data which 
may exist in any system anywhere such as medical records and 
financial records.

We cannot justify giving the CIA the ability to target people in this 
country for intelligence surveillance. We cannot justify a government 
which takes from the people our right to privacy and then assumes for 
its own operations a right to total secrecy. The Attorney General 
recently covered up a statue of Lady Justice showing her bosom as if 
to underscore there is no danger of justice exposing herself at this 
time, before this administration.

Let us pray that our nation's leaders will not be overcome with fear. 
Because today there is great fear in our great Capitol. And this must 
be understood before we can ask about the shortcomings of Congress in 
the current environment. The great fear began when we had to evacuate 
the Capitol on September 11. It continued when we had to leave the 
Capitol again when a bomb scare occurred as members were pressing the 
CIA during a secret briefing. It continued when we abandoned 
Washington when anthrax, possibly from a government lab, arrived in 
the mail. It continued when the Attorney General declared a 
nationwide terror alert and then the Administration brought the 
destructive Patriot Bill to the floor of the House. It continued in 
the release of the Bin Laden tapes at the same time the President was 
announcing the withdrawal from the ABM treaty. It remains present in 
the
cordoning off of the Capitol. It is present in the camouflaged armed 
national guardsmen who greet members of Congress each day we enter 
the Capitol campus. It is present in the labyrinth of concrete 
barriers through which we must pass each time we go to vote. The 
trappings of a state of siege trap us in a state of fear, ill 
equipped to deal with the Patriot Games, the Mind Games, the War 
Games of an unelected President and his unelected Vice President.

Let us pray that our country will stop this war. "To promote the 
common defense" is one of the formational principles of America. Our 
Congress gave the President the ability to respond to the tragedy of 
September the Eleventh. We licensed a response to those who helped 
bring the terror of September the Eleventh. But we the people and our 
elected representatives must reserve the right to measure the 
response, to proportion the response, to challenge the response, and 
to correct the response.

Because we did not authorize the invasion of Iraq.

We did not authorize the invasion of Iran.

We did not authorize the invasion of North Korea.

We did not authorize the bombing of civilians in Afghanistan.

We did not authorize permanent detainees in Guantanamo Bay.

We did not authorize the withdrawal from the Geneva Convention.

We did not authorize military tribunals suspending due process and 
habeas corpus.

We did not authorize assassination squads.

We did not authorize the resurrection of COINTELPRO.

We did not authorize the repeal of the Bill of Rights.

We did not authorize the revocation of the Constitution.

We did not authorize national identity cards.

We did not authorize the eye of Big Brother to peer from cameras 
throughout our cities.

We did not authorize an eye for an eye.

Nor did we ask that the blood of innocent people, who perished on 
September 11, be avenged with the blood of innocent villagers in 
Afghanistan.

We did not authorize the administration to wage war anytime, 
anywhere, anyhow it pleases.

We did not authorize war without end.

We did not authorize a permanent war economy.

Yet we are upon the threshold of a permanent war economy. The 
President has requested a $45.6 billion increase in military 
spending. All defense-related programs will cost close to $400 
billion. Consider that the Department of
Defense has never passed an independent audit. Consider that the 
Inspector General has notified Congress that the Pentagon cannot 
properly account for $1.2 trillion in transactions. Consider that in 
recent years the Dept. of
Defense could not match $22 billion worth of expenditures to the 
items it purchased, wrote off, as lost, billions of dollars worth of 
in-transit inventory and stored nearly $30 billion worth of spare 
parts it did not need.

Yet the defense budget grows with more money for weapons systems to 
fight a cold war which ended, weapon systems in search of new enemies 
to create new wars. This has nothing to do with fighting terror. This 
has everything to do with fueling a military industrial machine with 
the treasure of our nation, risking the future of our nation, risking 
democracy itself with the militarization of thought which follows the 
militarization of the budget.

Let us pray for our children. Our children deserve a world without 
end. Not a war without end. Our children deserve a world free of the 
terror of hunger, free of the terror of poor health care, free of the 
terror of homelessness, free of the terror of ignorance, free of the 
terror of hopelessness, free of the terror of policies which are 
committed to a world view which is not appropriate for the survival 
of a free people, not appropriate for the survival of democratic 
values, not appropriate for the survival of our nation, and not 
appropriate for the survival of the world.

Let us pray that we have the courage and the will as a people and as 
a nation to shore ourselves up, to reclaim from the ruins of 
September the Eleventh our democratic traditions. Let us declare our 
love for democracy. Let us declare our intent for peace. Let us work 
to make nonviolence an organizing principle in our own society. Let 
us recommit ourselves to the slow and painstaking work of statecraft, 
which sees peace, not war as being inevitable. Let us work for a 
world where someday war becomes archaic.

To reach Congressman Dennis Kucinich contact:

info@thespiritoffreedom.com

[END]

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Thought for the Day:

"The applause of a single human being is of great consequence."

(Samuel Johnson)