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Wednesday, Sept. 03, 2003Dennis Kucinich's Acceptance Speech for the 2003 Gandhi Peace Award
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I'm glad to have this moment to be with you and to express first of all my gratitude for being the recipient of the 2003 Gandhi Peace Award. It's very humbling to have my name associated with the name of a true visionary, of someone whose life was a gift to the world, and whose life many of us in public careers try to emulate. And I want to thank all of you who work to keep this fine organization going. When I first arrived, I had the opportunity to speak to many of you about your own commitments, about your work. And it's especially humbling to have the opportunity to share this evening with you, because this is your life's work too. Your life's work is dedicated to the active work on behalf of peace. There are some who think that peace is somehow a static activity. Far from it. It's a dynamic expression of the possibilities of human aspiration. For those of you who came in from New York today, who participated in the march, thank you. Please join me in thanking [much applause].
"Out on the edge of darkness there lies the peace train. [laughter] Peace train, take this country, come take me home again." 30 years ago that song was written by Cat Stevens. And it's interesting how you can almost hear the rhythms come back at this moment: "Out on the edge of darkness." We look at the edge of darkness out across this water-I'm looking at the beautiful illumined gazebo, and I think of what we can do to send light to the Persian Gulf this evening.
The psalms have a phrase in Latin: "Emitte lucem tuam." Send forth your light. And we so need to do that at this moment, so that we can describe the entire Persian Gulf in light this evening, and to send the light of peace in that region. To take the light of peace which is in our hearts, and extend that light, and that love and that compassion. From my studies of the Scriptures and the Gospel of St. John, it begins, in the early verses, it speaks of the light shining in the darkness. "And the darkness grasp it not." Light always shines in the darkness. And [what with] darkness has dropped upon our country, upon our Constitution, upon our highest aspirations for America, upon our historic traditions-the light of truth will shine in that darkness, and the darkness will neither comprehend nor overwhelm it. So we are called upon at this moment, to be witnesses for peace, for truth, for light, for love, for compassion, and for the potential of humanity to evolve from a condition where some believe that war is inevitable, to a condition where our knowledge that peace is inevitable becomes the defining paradigm of a new century and a new world.
How do we get to that point? Today we're being offered a competing vision. One vision holds America as a nation involved in a Manichean struggle at war with the forces of evil. Gandhi of course said the only evil that exists in the world is that which is rattling around in our own hearts. Yet there are those who have described these images of evil, and have projected those images, as though on a large screen; and have tried to vivify them; have created enemies. That philosopher created by Walt Kelly named Pogo: "We have met the enemy and he is us!" And so this vision which is emerging from smoke and fire, digitized visions projected on our television screens today, phantasmagoria, garish phosphorescence projected into our psyches, into our hearts, creating despair, creating a vision of the world disintegrating. Not the first time this has happened in human experience, but the first time we've seen in coming from our nation waging an aggressive war. Almost a hundred years ago, William Butler Yeats described the Second Coming: "Turning and turning, in the widening gyre, the falcon cannot hear the falconer. All things fall apart. The center cannot hold." He wrote about an era that presaged disintegration, that presaged war, not only in Ireland but later on a world war. And today we're looking at a world where the center is not holding. Where this world view of America at war is becoming a doctrine, or reflects and derives from a doctrine, that paradoxically would be what we expect to secure our country. A national security strategy which calls for America to be the first to attack. To work preemptively. To work alone and apart from the world. To proceed unilaterally. Such a doctrine is the product of a world view, which is compartmentalized, the product of dichotomous thinking, of us versus them. And carries with it the ultimate consequence of war. Because then, "this town's not big enough for both of us." And so when might makes right, what of international law? When might makes right, what of morality? When might makes right, then the sword shall be the only measure of justice. The nuclear [posture] review is a continuation of a national security strategy which calls for first strike use of nuclear weapons. Reversing 60 years of painstaking efforts toward nuclear disarmament-nearly 60 years. The doctrine of "Shock and Awe," which we're hearing so much about these days, was taken off the shelf of the National Defense University's war studies program, and represents a selection of military strategies, all under the title of "Shock and Awe," which celebrate the various glories and desirability of Hiroshima, Nagasaki, the Tokyo firebombing, the B-2 bombing of Vietnam, the idea being that-and I've read the doctrine and I would urge you all to read it-the idea being that if you can create so much damage to a civilian population, as the dropping of the atomic bomb did in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, that people are just shocked-psychologically, physically shocked. And they're in awe. What kind of a world view or vision would want to create a doctrine which would bring fear to people all over the world. Which would raise fear to an almost biblical proportion. Which would make fear on the level of a deity.
Now we know from our studies of the Hindu religion, that the forces of destruction and the forces of creation exist simultaneously. Shiva and Vishnu exist simultaneously. We also know that we have the opportunity to be able to determine which of those forces [work through us]: the forces of destruction or the forces of creation. Granted, at any point in our lives, they may be working their way simultaneously. However, as a nation, America at this very moment has become an agency of destruction in the world. As a member of Congress, I've found it daunting and even heartbreaking to see this process that pulls people in as though it were some kind of a magnetic pulsation, and causes people to support war, either through their active participation or through their silence. We search for historical antecedents, and we sometimes find them in chilling ways. Lately I've been talking to many historians who draw comparisons to the 1930s. A world view is being offered, where will trumps love. Where what the philosopher Eric Fromm called the anatomy of human destructiveness is working its way through official government policy. Where all of the work to celebrate the human condition is being trashed in favor of a doctrine of control.
We know what the darkness looks like. And now lets talk about what the light that we wish to describe looks like.
The light of peace can be brought into this world and exist in this world through compassion, acceptance, tolerance that's shared. And it's shared through affirming international structures of cooperation and governance. The importance of a United Nations is so much more evident at this moment. We realize that we're all connected, that we're all one! My politics arises from an holistic world view: we're interconnected, we're interdependent. What affects me affects you. It goes beyond the I-thou of Martin Buber and goes to the connectivity of "we are all one" that informed Gandhi's essential philosophy. Because when you wage war under those circumstances, it is not an act merely of homicide-it is an act of suicide. Because we're attacking ourselves. Because our brothers and sisters in Iraq are receiving the bombs. The world [view of vision] of peace can be affirmed through going back to the work that so many of us have pursued over a lifetime for nuclear disarmament. David [Cortwright] and others have made it a life's work to implement the nonproliferation treaty. The United States can once again take a leading role in the world, in working not only for nuclear nonproliferation, but in taking a leading role in getting rid of all nuclear weapons. We have an obligation to do that. We have an obligation to future generations to do that. We have an obligation to reimplement the antiballistic missle treaty which Vladimir Putin himself took office ready to support. We have an obligation to recommit to a test ban. To begin to build down and eliminate the production of nuclear weapons. We're going in an opposite direction at this very moment, but we can once again gain that moral authority in the world. The weapons of mass destruction begin in our consciousness. And [they're our/there are] projections and physical form. The splitting of the atom was a split in consciousness in this society. And we need to heal our nation and the world, through creating a vision of a world as one. And a vision of the world as one has no room for nuclear weapons. There are 12 nations which either possess or are trying to acquire nuclear weapons. 20 nations either possessing or trying to acquire biological weapons. 26 nations either possessing or trying to acquire chemical weapons. 20 nations either possessing or trying to acquire missile technologies to deliver those weapons. Pandora's box has been opened.
But there is a power greater than all of those weapons. And it's the power of love through which the human heart expresses itself. [applause] The advancing tide is toward human unity! We saw it reflected at the beginning of the new millennium which so many of us celebrated in the year 2000. Where despite the dire predictions, people gathered peacefully all around the world, without incidents! Celebrating our humanity! Proving that we can get together around the world peacefully!
The advancing tide is toward human unity, and the technology of our society has reflected that through the connectivity of the internet, through communications, through transportation, and through trade. Every one of us has had the opportunity to connect, in our lifetimes, with people so we realize that we truly are a global village. This thinking that separates us from other nations and other people is archaic! And so as we offer a competing vision for the world, that competing vision can seek to make war itself archaic. [applause] And that, my friends, is what has animated the idea of a Department of Peace. To take the work of Gandhi, and the work of Dr. King, and the work of other great religious leaders, and to work to make nonviolence an organizing principle in our society.
This competing vision, this alternative vision, this light-filled vision which we offer, looks at our own society with love and with the understanding that we can be more than we are and better than we are. We look at the pathologies in our society of domestic violence, of spousal abuse, of child abuse. Of violence in our schools, of gangs, of police-community relations challenges, of violence against gays and violence against all types of minorities. And we begin to develop structures within our society to teach children mutuality, reciprocity, sharing, peace-giving. Some communities are already doing that. To use the very power of government itself to institutionalize that type of an approach in a society. Think for a moment how a 400 billion dollar defense budget informs the consciousness of our nation. Think for a moment, how spending anywhere from 99 billion to 1.9 trillion dollars on a war in Iraq, plus occupation, plus reconstruction, how that would inform the consciousness of our nation. Think for a moment how the agenda of America has been set. Through spending hundreds of billions in a cold war. Through spending hundreds of billions in hot wars. Through being prepared to spend up to one and a half trillion dollars on a missile defense system, which doesn't work, and even if it did, we wouldn't want it to. Think of, instead, offering the possibility of a structure within our government that would begin to offer another way, another path. That's what the Department of Peace seeks to do. On an international level, it looks at mediation, intervention nonviolently, it looks at issues of human scarcity, of poverty, and those conditions which give rise to the kind of despair which produces war. War is not inevitable! Peace is inevitable, but we have to insist on the power of our humanity to bring forth this new possibility. "Come, my friends! Tis not too late to seek a newer world!" said the poet Tennyson. "Come, my friends! Tis not too late to seek a newer world!" So while the lights twinkle across this beautiful point, while the bombs drop, and missiles are launched into the city of our brothers and sisters, we realize that we have this moment in time and space where we can change the outcome! Where we are not stuck! Where we can use this power which is inside of us, this light inside of our hearts! And let that light shine, let it shine in this darkness! Let it shine in the chaos! Let it shine-and let that shine so that this alternative vision of peace, which is the vision of which our lives are made, that this alternative vision of peace, which can be the vision of which our country expresses itself, that this alternative vision of peace, that reflects the lives' work of so many who have come before us, that this shall be a vision through which the creativity, and through which the transformational energy that will bring us this new world, can be achieved.
Come my friends, tis not too late to seek a newer world.
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~~~~~~~~~~~peace, love and smooches~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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