[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 34 (Thursday, March 21, 2002)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E415-E416]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          A PRAYER FOR AMERICA

                                 ______
                                 

                        HON. DENNIS J. KUCINICH

                                of ohio

                    in the house of representatives

                       Wednesday, March 20, 2002

  Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Speaker, I offer this prayer for America.

                (to be sung as an overture for America)

       My country 'tis of thee. Sweet land of liberty of thee I 
     sing. . . . From every mountain side, let freedom ring. . . . 
     Long may our land be bright. With freedom's holy light. . . .
       Oh say does that star spangled banner yet wave. O'er the 
     land of the free and the home of the brave?
       America, America, God shed grace on thee. And crown thy 
     good with brotherhood from sea to shining sea. . . .

  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 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.
  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 on 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 undetected 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 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.
  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 $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 intransit 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 
11th 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.

[[Page E416]]

  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 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 H.R. 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 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.
  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 America. Crown thy good.

                          ____________________