We are Governed by Fear:
An Interview with Congressman Dennis Kucinich
By Scott Galindez
t r u t h o u t | March 14, 2002
TO.SG | Congressman Kucinich welcome to t r u t h o u t. I recently attended Americans For Democratic Action's "Our Democracy After 9-11: Can We Save It?" function in Los Angeles, and listened to you deliver your "Prayer for America..."
KUCINICH | You were there?
TO.SG | Yes, we posted the transcript on t r u t h o u t and received an enthusiastic response. It was one of the most widely read and re-distributed pieces we have ever published.
KUCINICH | Wow, that's interesting
TO.SG | In that speech in Los Angeles, you described the bunker mentality in Washington after September 11th. Could you elaborate a little on that?
KUCINICH | That was even before I knew there were bunkers. I found out a couple of weeks later that there actually were bunkers. Members of the Administration had retreated to bunkers outside Washington so that they could keep the government going. The bunker mentality I referred to in my speech represents the presence of security and police and national guards, the jersey barriers that are everywhere, where we have to literally negotiate a labyrinth of concrete barriers in order to go to vote. Aesthetically, it is unacceptable, but we're talking about politically, in terms of a democracy, that's definitely not the message that you get. This is architecture worthy of a different form of government, shall we say.
TO.SG | And that still exists?
KUCINICH | Oh yes. What it does is -- the level of security creates a mentality of caution, and an underlying sense of fear. And when that's there, it has a way of affecting consciousness, like a virus can adversely affect a healthy organism. So, when members vote, you know all of us make decisions that are affected by the conditions under which we live and work --and our political, the socio-political reality at Capital Hill has been reconstructed. It is a reality which is socially affirmed. We have circumstances that are not conducive to healthy decision-making in a democratic society. In addition to that, members are not told why. There is no discussion of these things. It just happens.
TO.SG | Okay. Also, within the last week, the reports surfaced concerning the contingency plan for using nuclear weapons against seven countries. Is that a major policy shift? Some people say it's not a shift, some say it is.
KUCINICH | Of course it is. It is a major policy shift because - there are a number of things in the nuclear posturing here which need reviewing. Number one is the equation of conventional to nuclear weapons, and loose talk of a prerogative for a first strike. There is incautiousness. The report is riddled with a fundamental incautiousness about the dangers of the use of nuclear weapons. And the release of the report - which I have no doubt came from the Administration itself - was still another attempt to heighten the level of fear in the country and make it impossible for people to be able to make rational decisions as to what their own interest might be.
TO.SG | The report also talked about developing new battlefield nuclear weapons ...
KUCINICH | That is what I'm saying: they're equating the nuclear weapons with conventional weapons, which flies in the face of all science, because any nuclear explosion underground will send out shock waves, and a nuclear explosion underground can affect the water table. All nuclear explosions release debris that goes out into the atmosphere and changes the ambient air quality. You know this is all grotesquery, masquerading as serious public policy, and it's not acceptable, period.
You see, it is one thing to say, "Well, this has existed in the past," this nuclear posture review -- but that it would be released in a climate of such turmoil in the world: of conflict in the Middle East, of the United States bombing Afghanistan and planning an invasion of Iraq, and of the U.S. sending troops to various countries all over the world -- to inject into that a miasma, a nuclear threat, a resumption of not just the Cold War mentality, but the resumption of the psychology of first strike ...
TO.SG | You proposed legislation for a Department of Peace.
KUCINICH | Oh yes.
TO.SG | What would the Department of Peace do?
KUCINICH | Well, the purpose of a Department of Peace and the motivating factors involve a desire to make nonviolence an organizing principle in our society for domestic as well as international policy, and on an international level to seek to make war archaic. On a domestic level, to deal with issues such as child abuse, spousal abuse, domestic violence in the home, community relations challenges, racial violence, anything that exemplifies a lack of ability to deal with human relations, would be dealt with by the Department of Peace. And it's a cabinet level position, which would raise the whole issue of non-violence and conflict resolution to serious level of discussion in society.
TO.SG | Okay, you also proposed legislation to ban weapons in space. What's its status and why is it so important?
KUCINICH | It is very important with an Administration that wants to use space as the next platform for its weapons, so that America can achieve hegemony in space. You know, it is almost some kind of a 21st century parody of the Spanish Armada, of yesteryear, seeking to rule the seas. Now it's the United States trying to seize the highest ground in the universe, space. It is not our business to do. There is no other nation that has the capacity to mount an attack against the United States from space. So, what's this about? Perhaps some crude attempt at -- using space as the next junkyard for military contractors.
TO.SG | What can readers do to help take the country back?
KUCINICH | That is exactly the right question. The response to my speech has been just electrifying. I have had over 15,000 emails in the last three weeks, and they are just pouring into my personal email. I mean, it's just like one of those personal emails like you get your friends to send things to, and all of sudden it starts to get flooded.
So, we are organizing a whole new approach to create a new political movement in this country. If you want to keep your eyes at our site,-- which is www.thespiritoffreedom.com -- we are going to be putting stuff on the website that talks about organizing. So we are going to help people get organized all around the country in a nonviolent way, in a creative way, in a way which is empowering to people, and which can help people assert their own basic rights as citizens of this country and as citizens of the world, because this is not just about America.
Peace is in our national interest. International cooperation is in our national interest. We need to have grand civic dialogue about what we might be able to do here to change the direction of the nation. It certainly needs change. We can spend an extra forty-five billion dollars this year for military when they can't even keep track of their own budget, and still we have forty-two million people without adequate health insurance, senior citizens splitting pills in order to try to meet their health requirements and still protect their budget. We have schools that are still falling apart with programs that don't work. We have so much to do. Yet, society is becoming militarized.
People want change. The fifteen thousand emails in the last three weeks told me that people want a different direction. I think they are representative of millions of Americans who want to take a different approach. They don't want to be trapped into a condition that the level of support for war is equated with patriotism.
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