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An Interview with Dennis Kucinich
"Spirit merges with matter to sanctify the universe. Matter transcends to return to spirit. The interchangeability of matter and spirit means the starlit magic of the outermost life of our universe becomes the soul-light magic of the innermost life of our self." You might guess that those words were uttered by a spiritual leader. Perhaps they were, but this leader is also a Democratic Congressman from Ohio named Dennis Kucinich, who sounds at times as much like a visionary as a politician. He has high hopes for humanity, and is outspoken in a way that few others in Congress are. He takes a progressive stand on a number of issues like the environment, world peace, corporate responsibility, arms reduction, world hunger, food modification, and spirituality. Kucinich is notable for his proposal to create a Department of Peace, his bill seeking to ban space based weapons, his stance on the abolition of nuclear weapons, and his position as Chairman of the Progressive Caucus. Recently, Kucinich’s opposition to military action in Iraq has garnered substantial media attention. In February, he launched his campaign for the presidency, insuring that we’ll be hearing more from the outspoken Congressman in the weeks and months to come. I first heard Kucinich speak earlier this year in an intimate, living-room setting, along with Barbara Marx-Hubbard, Lindsey Wagner, Brian O’Leary and about 200 other eager listeners. His message, his spiritual force, and his charisma boosted my spirits at a time when there wasn’t much in the air to be upbeat about. The only issue on which this forward-thinking Congressman takes a less progressive stance is on a woman’s right to choose, perhaps because he was raised in a traditional Catholic setting and represents one of the most Catholic districts in the country. He maintains that, "I believe in the sanctity of life and that life begins at conception." Despite this personal belief, however, he has "never taken a position that Roe v. Wade should be overturned or that people should be prosecuted for abortion." Congressman, you’ve introduced a bill that calls for the formation of a Department of Peace at the cabinet level. Can you describe how you envision that being created? First of all we have to ask, do we have the ability as a people to evolve, to become more than we are, and better than we are? Do we have the ability to create a world where war is not omnipresent and where violence is not ubiquitous? And I think the answer to that has to be, yes. However when we look at the 20th Century, we understand that over a hundred million people perished in wars in the last century, most of them civilian non-combatants. They were citizens of nation-states that had assured people that they’d be relatively safe, and yet we saw wholesale slaughter, particularly in Europe. So there is a type of thought out there that sees violence as being inevitable, and it’s seldom challenged. The idea of a Department of Peace derives from a belief that we can make non-violence an organizing principal in our society. That we can create institutions in our society domestically, as well as internationally, which can help to make war archaic, and the way to do that is through human relations. Franklin Roosevelt said that we’re faced with the pre-eminent fact that if civilization is to survive, we must cultivate the science of human relationships, the ability of all peoples of all kinds to live and work together in the same world at peace. That was true 60 years ago, and it’s true now, and it will always be true. The Department of Peace is an attempt at a form of human interaction we can rely on as a means of settling differences, and put more faith in our ability to settle differences than we put in the instruments of violence. Why do we have more faith in a 400 million dollar arms budget than we do in ourselves? What is it that causes this addiction to war? I think there’s some faulty thinking that has occurred causing people to believe we just can’t solve these things other than through violence. Somehow people of different nation-states need to find a way to work together. There are moments when people stand across battlefields and ask, "What was that all about?" Why do people kill each other? We have to, in a sense, project our thinking into the future, and from that future position, create this new world. We really have to propel our consciousness, and with it propel a better future for the community. As we do that, we create the circumstances and the energy for peace, if our consciousness is peaceful. On the other hand if we envision a future that is threatening and malevolent, all we will have is war. Along those lines, it seems to me that this Administration is very much in favor of expanding the arms race into space. Are you sponsoring an initiative on space-based weapons? The bill that we are sponsoring (HR#3616, The Space Preservation Act) on spaced-based weapons would ban all weapons in space. It would continue the promise of generations ago in the National Aeronautics and Space Administration Act that said that space should be used for peaceful purposes. Space belongs to the world community. No one nation has the ability to declare space as its territory as opposed to the common property of people all over the world. So for any nation to declare that it’s going to put weapons in space as a means of achieving some type of global hegemony is really against every principle of human relations, and every thought of world peace that anyone’s ever had. It is an assault on the very basis of human unity, and it’s an assault on the cosmos because what we are saying is that we are going to move war into the heavens. All throughout humanity, we’ve been able to look into deep space as a place of inspiration, of expansion of consciousness, as a point for philosophical and spiritual elevation. All that is turned on its head with the very thought of positioning weapons in space, so suddenly space is transformed as a metaphor from something that is transcendent to something that is destructive. We need to challenge this type of thinking through saying, ‘There shall be no weapons in space,’ and create a treaty (the Space Preservation Treaty) to preserve space, which we will ask leaders from all over the world to sign. The ABM treaty has been in place for some time. What would be accomplished by doing away with it? The ABM treaty has been a linchpin of nuclear disarmament, and the only reason anyone would want to do away with the ABM treaty is to open the door to a new era of nuclear arms escalation, which will benefit a few industries but will jeopardize peace throughout the world. We need to redouble our efforts towards nuclear disarmament and nuclear abolition. That was the hope of the Non-Proliferation Treaty; that was the intention of the Strategic Arms Limitations Talks, of the ABM Treaty, of the test ban, and of all of the other arms control efforts that were made over the last 50 years. This administration seems dedicated to accelerating the level of fear in the world by restarting the nuclear arms race, developing new nuclear weapons, doing new nuclear testing, and creating conditions for the targeting of certain countries that can only result in making the world a more dangerous place, destabilizing hopes for peace between nations which have nuclear weapons, and encouraging the development of new nuclear weapons on the part of states which do not have such weapons. Many people believe that we humans share our universe with other intelligent life. Do you support the efforts for full disclosure by the government of information on UFOs and other anomalous space sightings? I’m in favor of expanding opportunities for people to have a deeper understanding of the universe, and I think we’re only at the beginning of our understanding. In my office, I have a photograph taken by the Hubble Telescope of the Eagle Nebula, that place in deep space where stars are born. I look at that every day, and I think about the vastness of this universe. And I think that we have a right as human beings not only to work on perfecting our government here, which is really the basis of our Constitution, to form a more perfect union; but to work at perfecting our globe and reaching out to the universe. I think the universe is a benign place. And I think that those energies of benign-ness may find a response if we send them out there. I don’t think we could ever discount the possibility of other intelligent life in the universe. As a matter of fact, it would be grim indeed, given the current condition, to believe that the only intelligent life that exists is here on this planet. Can you tell us about bill HR2977 which you sponsored regarding the so-called chemtrails that are part of a larger controversy? The bill that we have, a successor bill to that bill you just spoke of, which is HR3616 is broad enough that it would cover the concerns of people who are worried about any number of environmental assaults. I would say that there is a justifiable lack of trust on the part of the American people when it comes to the stewardship of the environment by this administration. Given what’s happening in the news, what are your thoughts about corporate responsibility? The challenge of corporate accountability is the challenge to cause corporations to understand that their actions impact American peoples’ lives in every way; that they don’t work in isolation, so every corruption in the corporate sector is a corruption that has a real effect on the lives of all the American people. That’s why it’s so important that we have effective regulation or re-regulation, anti-trust enforcement, and an arms-length relationship with corporate America. The single greatest challenge to liberty in our country exists with our current campaign finance system, which permits corporate America and its officers to buy elections, to buy policy, to buy rules and regulations or non-enforcement, or to buy conditions that create the concentration of wealth. We have a powerful need for public financing so that decisions can truly be made in the public interest. A system that is financed privately can only yield a system that operates for narrow private interests at the expense of the broad base of American people. Are you satisfied with the way the President is responding to corporate wrongdoing and other issues? We have to look at what’s happening in policy to determine whether or not the administration is responding appropriately. When you consider that the administration has: • cut environmental protection enforcement; • limited the clean up of toxic waste sites; • abandoned a promise to regulate carbon dioxide levels; • pulled out of the 1997 Kyoto Global Warming Agreement; • approved plans to auction oil and gas drilling operations; • taken steps to abolish the White House Council on Environmental Quality; • rescinded rules mandating energy efficiency regulations; • canceled the deadline for automakers to develop high mileage prototypes; • cut research into cleaner more efficient cars and trucks; • let corporate polluters off the hook consistently; • proposed reversing protections for national forests to increase nuclear construction; • [made] a wholesale assault on healthcare and public safety, where there have been rules suspended that would deny government contracts to companies that violate government regulations; • cut funding for doctors to get advanced pediatric training; • gutted the White House AIDS Program; we’re talking about also an assault on those who are most in need. This disturbingly widespread corporate crime and the weak response to it by the administration seem not only to be an assault on those in need, but also creating more of a problem. What’s likely to happen next? You know the President said during the campaign that he was going to tap into Social Security funds, and even with all this corruption in the corporate community, he refuses to take the option off the table. They still are looking at privatizing Social Security. Can you imagine how Wall Street would hunger at this point for an infusion of Social Security funds to paper over more restatements of earnings? The sharp increases in the defense budget, which have not been in any way justified ... I could go on and on. What we have here is a government under corporations, by the corporations, and for the corporations. That’s quite different from what Lincoln envisioned at Gettysburg when he spoke of a government of the people, by the people, and for the people. Lincoln’s prayer was that such a government would not perish from this earth. Today we’re in a moment of reflection, which would suggest that our government is in serious jeopardy of becoming totally beholden to corporate interests. Was it corporate greed that allowed genetically engineered (GE) foods on the market, potentially at the cost of the health of large numbers of people in this country? We should be very concerned that the decision of the Food and Drug Administration of almost 10 years ago was not in the public interest, but in the private interest. Specifically, the FDA ruled that genetically engineered foods were substantially equivalent to conventional foods. They made such a ruling without any research that would justify that ruling. Almost 10 years later, we find that a hundred million acres of genetically engineered crops had been planted in this country, without the knowledge of the American people. We have no idea whether or not we’re eating genetically engineered foods. There is no study of toxicity or allergenicity, or functional characteristics. We have a right to know how the food we eat is made; we have a right to know what effect the food may have on us. There was a whole body of law created to tell us the minute ingredients in food — anybody can look at a food package today and learn the vitamin content, the specifics, and the additives. The biotech industry has successfully lobbied to thwart any efforts to label genetically engineered food. They’ve spent tens of millions of dollars to discourage efforts in Congress to get a labeling bill through. Again, we have a crisis in confidence, where corporate America decided that they would move to a new market — an advanced food product market combining agriculture and Biotech — and did not care to really consider what adverse effect it might have on the public. The efforts that have been made to sell the American people on genetically modified food parallel the efforts that were made to promote tobacco years ago. We were told in ads that tobacco was good for you, and people are being told now that genetically engineered food represents the solution to world hunger, so the concern people should have is that we’re being denied the right to know whether the food is genetically engineered or not. [We also need to] create a fund that would really look at how to solve the questions of poverty in the world, which we know are due not to the food technologies but to the mal-distribution of wealth and of food, and war, and other political questions which serve to frustrate food distribution. Congresswoman Cynthia Anne McKinney speaks about what she considers a grievous intelligence failure surrounding the 9/11 incidents. Do you feel there was an intelligence failure? There’s going to be a lot of discussion about that so I’m going to keep an open mind to all possibilities. But it’s important for Americans to have an opportunity to look at the causal links to 9/11. Those links do not only relate to whether or not certain sentinels failed, but they also relate to the failure of foreign policy, stemming from a view of the world that American corporations have a right to rule the world. They stem from a view that certain energy and mining interests have the right to achieve dominance at the expense of Third World countries, and that resources can be exploited around the world in the name of the American people. These are things the American people wouldn’t approve of, but that routinely happen, so there needs to be an accounting of policy, not just focusing on 9/11, about how power is misused in the pursuit of money and resources. I think that in order for the American people to have a full story, we need to look at a broad spectrum of policy to see whether or not our policy choices in any way contributed to a climate that has caused America to be neither appreciated nor liked in certain places in the world. You are the Chairman of the Progressive Caucus, the largest caucus in the House. What is your role and what are your goals? My role is as a facilitator to help members gain support for their initiatives, and to provide alternatives within the Democratic caucus for policies that can improve the economic opportunities for the American people. Our caucus led the way in developing tax policies that [would] have been fair for the American people, even though they didn’t get adopted. We led the way for wholesale-cost based electric rates, and for making certain that on issues of welfare reform, mothers would have sufficient child-care. We’ve led the way for universal health care. We are working constantly to propose solutions to the urgent needs of the American people, including corporate accountability. My role as Chairman is to make sure that the options are out there at all times, and that we help the Democratic Party achieve a stronger position in providing some real choices for the American people [different from the Republicans]. What do you see as the relationship between spirituality, consciousness, and political activism? All action must be preceded by thought, and it’s our responsibility to have our actions come from a place of lofty thought, of higher consciousness, and that’s a place where spiritual principles exist. So that when we realize the interconnectedness of all life, of all peoples, we cannot help but create policies that would respect that. Therefore the Department of Peace, the Global Climate Treaty, a ban on nuclear weapons and all of the other areas where human cooperation become possible ... we can only do [those things] if we come from a place of non-judgment, harmony, unity, love, understanding, hope, and optimism, in which all the people of the world are one. Marianne Williamson has been part of the holistic community for a long time. I understand that you are going to be making a number of appearances together. What goals do you share? First of all, I have the deepest respect and admiration for her. She has a deep understanding of the American spirit and the possibilities of our country, and her spiritual vision understands that America has profound spiritual roots, and that those roots need nourishment. I share with her a belief that we need a government that celebrates its spiritual nature, with the awareness that our founders wanted a separation of church and state, but never intended that America would become separated from the spiritual principles that animated the founding of this country. So Marianne and I both believe that the celebration of our spiritual principles celebrates democracy itself. While church and state might be separate, we should never be separate from our spiritual values, or from our spiritual roots of this mighty American tree of liberty. What Marianne does is to continue to remind us of what’s possible in America. That goes back to the point that I made earlier, that we really have to strive to create a more perfect union. That more perfect form is out there in the future. It’s our responsibility to bring that into the present. Contact Congressman Kucinich at <www.thespiritoffreedom.com>, or email <Dkucinich@aol.com>. To order Kucinich videos, email <info@peaceinspace.com> or call (805) 641-1999. For more info about the Space Preservation Act and the Space Preservation Treaty, visit <www.peaceinspace.com>.
Sidebar: Prayer for America I offer these remarks 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. 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 that 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 that 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 that 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 11. We licensed a response to those who helped bring the terror of September 11. 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. 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 Department 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 that 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 that are committed to a world view that 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 11, 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. |
