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A Prayer for America <\/strong> \tThe following speech was given on February 17, 2002 in Los Angeles, California at an event sponsored by the Southern California Americans for Democratic Action.<\/p>\n \tI 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.<\/p>\n \tWith 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.<\/p>\n \tI offer this prayer for America.<\/p>\n \tLet 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?<\/p>\n \tHow can we justify in effect canceling the First Amendment and the right of free speech, the right to peaceably assemble?<\/p>\n \tHow can we justify in effect canceling the Fourth Amendment, probable cause, the prohibitions against unreasonable search and seizure?<\/p>\n \tHow can we justify in effect canceling the Fifth Amendment, nullifying due process, and allowing for indefinite incarceration without a trial?<\/p>\n \tHow can we justify in effect canceling the Sixth Amendment, the right to prompt and public trial?<\/p>\n \tHow can we justify in effect canceling the Eighth Amendment which protects against cruel and unusual punishment?<\/p>\n \tWe cannot justify widespread wiretaps and internet surveillance without judicial supervision, let alone with it.<\/p>\n \tWe cannot justify secret searches without a warrant.<\/p>\n \tWe cannot justify giving the Attorney General the ability to designate domestic terror groups.<\/p>\n \tWe 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.<\/p>\n \tWe cannot justify giving the CIA the ability to target people in this country for intelligence surveillance.<\/p>\n \tWe 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.<\/p>\n \tThe 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.<\/p>\n \tLet 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.<\/p>\n \tThe great fear began when we had to evacuate the Capitol on September 11.<\/p>\n \tIt continued when we had to leave the Capitol again when a bomb scare occurred as members were pressing the CIA during a secret briefing.<\/p>\n \tIt continued when we abandoned Washington when anthrax, possibly from a government lab, arrived in the mail.<\/p>\n \tIt 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.<\/p>\n \tIt continued in the release of the bin Laden tapes at the same time the President was announcing the withdrawal from the ABM treaty.<\/p>\n \tIt remains present in the cordoning off of the Capitol.<\/p>\n \tIt is present in the camouflaged armed national guardsmen who greet members of Congress each day we enter the Capitol campus.<\/p>\n \tIt is present in the labyrinth of concrete barriers through which we must pass each time we go to vote.<\/p>\n \tThe 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.<\/p>\n \tLet us pray that our country will stop this war. "To provide for the common defense" is one of the formational principles of America.<\/p>\n \tOur 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.<\/p>\n \tBecause we did not authorize the invasion of Iraq.<\/p>\n \tWe did not authorize the invasion of Iran.<\/p>\n \tWe did not authorize the invasion of North Korea.<\/p>\n \tWe did not authorize the bombing of civilians in Afghanistan.<\/p>\n \tWe did not authorize permanent detainees in Guantanamo Bay.<\/p>\n \tWe did not authorize the withdrawal from the Geneva Convention.<\/p>\n \tWe did not authorize military tribunals suspending due process and habeas corpus.<\/p>\n \tWe did not authorize assassination squads.<\/p>\n \tWe did not authorize the resurrection of COINTELPRO.<\/p>\n \tWe did not authorize the repeal of the Bill of Rights.<\/p>\n \tWe did not authorize the revocation of the Constitution.<\/p>\n \tWe did not authorize national identity cards.<\/p>\n \tWe did not authorize the eye of Big Brother to peer from cameras throughout our cities.<\/p>\n \tWe did not authorize an eye for an eye.<\/p>\n \tNor did we ask that the blood of innocent people, who perished on September 11, be avenged with the blood of innocent villagers in Afghanistan.<\/p>\n \tWe did not authorize the administration to wage war anytime, anywhere,anyhow it pleases.<\/p>\n \tWe did not authorize war without end.<\/p>\n \tWe did not authorize a permanent war economy.<\/p>\n \tYet 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.<\/p>\n \tConsider that the Department of Defense has never passed an independent audit.<\/p>\n \tConsider that the Inspector General has notified Congress that the Pentagon cannot properly account for $1.2 trillion in transactions.<\/p>\n \tConsider 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.<\/p>\n \tYet 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.<\/p>\n \tThis 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.<\/p>\n \tLet 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.<\/p>\n \tLet us declare our love for democracy. Let us declare our intent for peace.<\/p>\n \tLet us work to make nonviolence an organizing principle in our own society.<\/p>\n \tLet us recommit ourselves to the slow and painstaking work of statecraft, which sees peace, not war as being inevitable.<\/p>\n \tLet us work for a world where someday war becomes archaic.<\/p>\n \tThat is the vision which the proposal to create a Department of Peace envisions. Forty-three members of Congress are now cosponsoring the legislation.<\/p>\n \tLet 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.<\/p>\n \tLet 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.<\/p>\n \tLet 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.<\/p>\n \tThat is the America which has the ability to rally the support of the world.<\/p>\n \tThat 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.<\/p>\n \tNot 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.<\/p>\n \tCrown 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.<\/p>\n \tCrown 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.<\/p>\n \tThank you. FAIR USE NOTICE<\/a><\/p>\n < A Prayer for America by US Congressman Dennis J. Kucinich (Dem. from Ohio) The following speech was given on February 17, 2002 in Los Angeles, California at an event sponsored by the Southern California Americans for Democratic Action. I … Continue reading
\n\tby US Congressman Dennis J. Kucinich
\n\t(Dem. from Ohio)<\/p>\n
\n\t <\/p>\n
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