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<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=3>He is one of the very few, and I mean VERY few,
elected officials in this country at the present time who is worth a damn
! </FONT></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial">----- Original Message -----
<DIV style="BACKGROUND: #e4e4e4; font-color: black"><B>From:</B> <A
title=reply@kucinich.us href="mailto:reply@kucinich.us">Kucinich for
Congress</A> </DIV>
<DIV><B>To:</B> <A title=unionyes@ameritech.net
href="mailto:unionyes@ameritech.net">unionyes@ameritech.net</A> </DIV>
<DIV><B>Sent:</B> Wednesday, February 17, 2010 5:15 PM</DIV>
<DIV><B>Subject:</B> Kucinich's Prophetic "Prayer for America" Speech 8 Years
Ago Today</DIV></DIV>
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<P><IMG height=169 alt="Dennis Kucinich - www.Kucinich.us"
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<P
style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold; FONT-SIZE: 18px; TEXT-ALIGN: center">Kucinich's
Prophetic "Prayer for America" Speech<BR>8 Years Ago Today</P>
<P>Many have called Dennis Kucinich's "Prayer for America" speech one of
the most eloquent and significant summaries of post 9/11 America. He
delivered it eight years ago today.<BR><BR>The Kucinich campaign staff
urges you to read and to distribute this prophetic message which even
after eight years maintains a fresh sense of urgency. <BR><BR>Thank
you<BR>The Re-Elect Congressman Kucinich Committee</P>
<HR>
<P style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold; FONT-SIZE: 18px; TEXT-ALIGN: center">A Prayer
for America</P>
<P>I offer these brief remarks today as a prayer for our country, as a
celebration of our country. With love of democracy. With love of 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 in the unity of the United States. That implicit in the union of our
country is the union of all people, everywhere. 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 to be
and to breathe free.<BR><BR>I offer this prayer for America.<BR><BR>Let us
pray that our nation will remember that the unfolding of the promise of
democracy in our nation paralleled the striving and accomplishment of
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?<BR><BR>How can we justify in effect canceling the First Amendment
and the right of free speech, and the right to peacefully
assemble?<BR><BR>How can we justify, in effect, the canceling the Fourth
Amendment, probable cause, the prohibitions against unreasonable search
and seizure?<BR><BR>How can we justify, in effect, canceling the Fifth
Amendment, nullifying due process, allowing for indefinite incarceration
without a trial?<BR><BR>How can we justify, in effect, canceling the Sixth
Amendment, the right to prompt and public trial?<BR><BR>How can we
justify, in effect, canceling the Eighth Amendment which protects against
cruel and unusual punishment?<BR><BR>We cannot justify widespread wiretaps
and internet surveillance without judicial supervision, let alone with
it.<BR><BR>We cannot justify secret searches without a warrant.<BR><BR>We
cannot justify giving the Attorney General the ability to designate
domestic terror groups.<BR><BR>We cannot justify giving the FBI total
access to any type of data which may exist in any system anywhere,
including medical and financial records.<BR><BR>We cannot justify giving
the CIA the ability to target people in this country for domestic
intelligence and intelligence surveillance.<BR><BR>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.<BR><BR>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
in this administration.<BR><BR>Let us pray, oremus, that our nation's
leaders will not be overcome by fear. Because today there is great fear in
the Capitol. And this must be understood before we can ask about the
shortcomings of Congress in this current environment.<BR><BR>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 during the anthrax scare, when
anthrax, possibly from a government lab, arrived in the mail. It continued
when the Attorney General declared a nationwide terror alert and then
brought the destructive Patriot Bill to the floor of the House of
Representatives. It continued in the release of the Bin Laden tapes at the
very same time the President was announcing our country would withdraw
from the ABM treaty.<BR><BR>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. <BR><BR>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 undisclosed Vice
President.<BR><BR>Let us pray. 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 create 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.<BR><BR>Because we did not authorize the invasion of Iraq.
<BR><BR>We did not authorize the invasion of Iran.<BR><BR>We did not
authorize the invasion of North Korea.<BR><BR>We did not authorize the
bombing of civilians in Afghanistan. <BR><BR>We did not authorize
permanent detainees in Guantanamo Bay.<BR><BR>We did not authorize the
withdrawal from the Geneva Convention.<BR><BR>We did not authorize
military tribunals suspending due process and habeas corpus.<BR><BR>We did
not authorize assassination squads.<BR><BR>We did not authorize the
resurrection of COINTELPRO.<BR><BR>We did not authorize the repeal of the
Bill of Rights.<BR><BR>We did not authorize the revocation of the
Constitution.<BR><BR>We did not authorize national identity
cards.<BR><BR>We did not authorize the eye of Big Brother to peer from
cameras throughout our cities.<BR><BR>We did not authorize an eye for an
eye.<BR><BR>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.<BR><BR>We did not authorize this administration to wage war
anytime, anywhere, anyhow it pleases.<BR><BR>We did not authorize war
without end.<BR><BR>We did not authorize a permanent war economy.
<BR><BR>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.<BR><BR>Consider
that the Department of Defense has never passed an independent
audit.<BR><BR>Consider that the Inspector General notified Congress,
recently, that the Pentagon cannot properly account for $1.2 trillion -
that's <I>trillion</I> - in expenditures. Correct, that it cannot 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. Consider that it has written off as lost billions
of dollars worth of in-transit inventory and stored nearly $30 billion
worth of spare parts it did not need.<BR><BR>Yet the Pentagon's 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.<BR><BR>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 democratic values,
not appropriate for the survival of a free people, not appropriate for the
survival of a nation, not appropriate for the survival of the
world.<BR><BR>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.<BR><BR>Let us declare. Let us
declare our love of democracy. And declare our intent for
peace.<BR><BR>Let us work to make nonviolence an organizing principle in
our own society.<BR><BR>Let us recommit ourselves to the slow and
painstaking work of statecraft, which sees peace, not war, as being
inevitable.<BR><BR>Let us work for a world where someday war becomes
archaic.<BR><BR>Let us work for a world where nuclear disarmament is an
imperative. This is the vision which the proposal to create a Department
of Peace envisions. Forty-three members of Congress are now cosponsoring
the legislation.<BR><BR>Let us work for a world where America can lead the
way in banning all nuclear weapons not only from our land and sea and sky
but from outer space itself. This 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.<BR><BR>Let us pray. 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 Super Bowl, the Olympics, the
strobic flashes which touch our deepest fears, let us replace those images
with the images of people working to rebuild their democratic
institutions. With images of the work of human relations. Of the work of
reaching out to people, helping our citizens here at home. Of lifting the
plight of people everywhere. <BR><BR>That is the America which has the
ability to rally the support of the world. <BR><BR>That is the America
which stands not in pursuit of an axis of evil, but which is itself the
axis of hope and faith and peace and freedom. <BR><BR>America, America.
God shed grace on thee. And crown thy good with brotherhood and
sisterhood. <BR><BR>America, America. Long may Thy land be bright with
Freedom's holy light<BR><BR>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. <BR><BR>America, America.
Crown thy good. 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 uni-polar world. But through
looking at America as a nation among nations and viewing the world as an
interconnected whole.<BR><BR>Crown thy good, America. Crown thy good with
sisterhood and brotherhood. And crown thy good with compassion and
restraint and forbearance and a commitment to peace and democracy here at
home and in the world. And a commitment to economic democracy here at home
and throughout the world.<BR><BR>Crown thy good, America. Crown thy good
America. Crown thy good.<BR><BR>Thank you.<BR></P>
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