what it reflects is a breakdown in trust in this country. The attempt is to give the government even more powers to spy, and that is really being translated into domestic, quote-unquote, “intelligence,” even though its called the foreign intelligence bill.
We have to ask questions. You know, why, for example, wasdid you have the Occupy Wall Street movement being spied upon? What is this? Whats going on in our country, where we dont have oversight of the activities of the government when it comes to domestic spying? And what are we doing in America, where the privacy concerns of Americans are swept aside?
Were entering into a brave new world, which involves not only the government apparatus being able to look in massive databases and extract information to try to profile people who might be considered threats to the prevailingto the status quo. But we also are looking at drones, which are increasingly miniaturized, that will give the governments, at every level, more of an ability to look into peoples private conduct. This is a nightmare. And the FISA bill is just one example of how America is going in a direction that undermines the expectations of not just the right to privacy, but the right to be free of unreasonable search and seizure, the demand that any action thats taken to get information about people should be subject to a warrant, that it not be subject to just any FBI agent determining that this is information they want on that person. This is bad news.
weve seen a bridge here created between Democrats and Republicans on the issue of liberty and being free from the all-seeing eye of Big Brother. Congressman Paul and I worked together on many of these issues relating to the government seeking increased powers to surveil the American people. its really no longer a Democrat or Republican issue. It goes much deeper than that. these debates that were having right now in Washington show the limitations of our two-party system, that the two-party system itself is failing the American people, that there really arent enough choices, of not just individuals, but of policies reflecting the direction America should go in.
When we find in a post-9/11 America that we are mired in a condition of fear; when we see the massive amounts of spending thats gone for war and increased military buildups and for expansion of spy agencies like the Domestic Intelligence Agency, which is just adding another 1,600 spies so that the Pentagon can have their own spy agency to compete with, what, the CIA abroad; when you see the interventions that have fallen flat and have been disastrous, such as Libya and Benghazi; when you see al-Qaeda growing in strength because of our own misapplication of force, you have to ask, if this is about Democrat and Republican, this system is failing. And were seeing an evidence of it on fiscally, but were seeing another evidence of it in foreign policy, and were seeing an evidence of it domestically, when you can see a surveillance state arising under the noses of both political parties.
the Democratic leadership in the House did not support an impeachment effort to challenge the Bush administration, and Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney, on the lies that took us into war in Iraq. That was a pivotal moment for this country. And instead of choosing the Constitution, our leaders chose politics. Bad choice. The fact is that today, after a decade of war, we are looking at an eventual bill for that Iraq war of $5 trillion. Were looking at perhaps as many as a million innocent civilians perishingfor war that was based on lies. People have to remember this. This isnt just because its, you know, forget about the past. No, you cannot forget about the past. We went to war based on lies.
I did my part, which was to alert the Congress back in October 2002: Look, were headed into a war, and theres no proof that Iraq has anything to do with 9/11 or had weapons of mass destruction; what are we doing here? But we were pulled into that by the Bush administration, driven by neocons and the Project for the New American Century. All of us who were following it know exactly what happened. And, that set the stage for where we are today. if there is such a thing as a fiscal cliff, were at the edge of it because of trillions of dollars that will be spent for wars based on lies. And there was never any accountability.
America needs a period of truth and reconciliation, if were ever going to getput the country back together again and achieve a level of national unity that were capable of. But right now were living on a lie. And the lie is thatthat this whole national security infrastructure is necessary and that its necessary for us to keep expanding war around the world, its necessary for us to have these big spy agencies, which also interact domestically. All of this stuff shouldnt have happened. And we made the wrong choices. And this is a problem for both political parties to resolve. You can always try to fix things, but you have to look at the severe impact that our inability to act, to challenge the lies that took us into waryou have to look at where its left us.
This ubiquitousness of violence in our society isnt just about guns. We have to look at the culture of violence that we have in America and deal with it in a way that isnt about beating ourselves up, but we have to look at the spectrum of violencedomestic violence, spousal abuse, child abuse, violence in the school, gang violence, gun violence, racial violence, violence against gays, and the police community challenges that come up. And in doing that, thats why I called for, years ago, a Department of Peace, not to simply create another federal department, but to have an organized approach nationally to deal with the violence in a society, to help families deal with the tensions that they have at home, to deal with some of the fundamental attitudes people have, boys might have about girls, and, you know, through education. We need to take a new approach.
we can get rid of all guns; were still going to have violence. Now, I have never supported the NRA. I probably have, you know, a zero rating with them. But the fact of the matter is that we have to take a much broader view. Again, the debate is too narrow here. Itswe need to look at the cultural issues, that are real. And when you talk about gun control here in America, and at the same time youre talking about gun expansion across the world, about not only the United States exporting arms to the world and engendering wars everywhere, but our own efforts proliferating wars, thats kind of a mixed message that inevitably is not easily reconciled.
So we need to build a culture of peace in America. Is it possible? Of course it is. You know, violence is a learned response. So is nonviolence. And so, through education and through creating a social health safety net, I think that we can meet the challenge. And thats one of the things Im certainly going to be involved in as I leave the Congress, to try to broaden the debate, to look at this in a way thats compassionate and at the same time not blaming ourselves, but recognizing that we have a culture that is very violent and that affects Americans at every level. And if we address that in a systematic way through an organized approach, using the resources and assets of government at all levels, I think that we could find a way to change from where we are today with this dismal record of one shooting after another and all the, you know, innocent people and public servants constantly being under attack.
– source democracynow.org
Rep. Dennis Kucinich, Democratic U.S. representative from Ohio, serving his last week as a member of Congress.