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Part 1 - Kucinich on Nuclear Disarmament * Europe's Fury * China's Response
29 March 2002
The situation is getting so bad that there is hope for a miraculous turnaround. An opportunity now awaits us to spring back from the control of terror's influences to live in peace. The first item is a recent speech by Congressman Kucinich on peace and disarmament. The following two items show the negative influence of US unilateral militarism for the control of our world. Things are getting worse. The fighting in the Mid East is 100% asinine. How else could you describe the leadership of a nation like Israel, having the opportunity for peace, and yet, is seeking revenge, dominance, with the likely results of more people dying and chaos reigning.
Item 4 is about another courageous Representative in Congress, Cynthia Ann McKinney from Georgia, who is demanding that the Bush/Bin Laden connection and the full story behind 9/11 be fully investigated. Item 5 contains an update from Michael Moore during his upswing tour that contradicts President Bush's high approval ratings.
In the last issue, Flyby News forwarded a report received from network TV news that George W. Bush on his visit to Peru decided not to bring up the subject of Lori Berenson. Yet, Lori's father, Mark Berenson, in a recent press release, reported that Secretary of State Colin Powell told reporters that President Bush raised the issue and again, like last June, forcefully expressed his compassionate concerns. According to Powell, Lori Berenson's case remains an important issue for the Bush administration and for bilateral relations between the US and Peru. For more on this press release, and other information, visit: http://www.freelori.org .
And on the issue of what we can do, the coordinator of the Global Network, Bruce Gagnon, has requested that people respond to the Pentagon's request for public comments regarding their planned "missile defense" expansion program. They will hold public hearings in Kodiak and Anchorage, Alaska and Lompoc, California (dates, time locations not yet released). Please take the time to send comments by April 25. Contact information and general talking points are located near the bottom in Item 6.
1) Peace and Nuclear Disarmament -- a Call to Action
2) Europe's Fury
3) China Bars U.S. Ship From Hong Kong
4) Rep. McKinney - A hero in the demand for inquiry into 9-11
5) Michael Moore's ‘Stupid Tour' Update
6) Comments Requested by the Pentagon for a Star Wars Program
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1) Peace and Nuclear Disarmament -- a Call to Action
by U.S. Rep Dennis Kucinich
". . . Come my friends, 'tis not too late to seek a newer world,"
- Alfred Lord Tennyson
If you believe that humanity has a higher destiny, if you believe we can evolve, and become better than we are; if you believe we can overcome the scourge of war and someday fulfill the dream of harmony and peace earth, let us begin the conversation today. Let us exchange our ideas. Let us plan together, act together and create peace together. This is a call for common sense, for peaceful, non-violent citizen action to protect our precious world from widening war and from stumbling into a nuclear catastrophe.
The climate for conflict has intensified, with the struggle between Pakistan and India, the China-Taiwan tug of war, and the increased bloodshed between Israel and the Palestinians. United States' troop deployments in the Philippines, Yemen, Georgia, Columbia and Indonesia create new possibilities for expanded war. An invasion of Iraq is planned. The recent disclosure that Russia, China, Iraq, Iran, Syria, North Korea, and Libya are considered by the United States as possible targets for nuclear attack catalyzes potential conflicts everywhere.
These crucial political decisions promoting increased military actions, plus a new nuclear first-use policy, are occurring without the consent of the American people, without public debate, without public hearings, without public votes. The President is taking Congress's approval of responding to the Sept. 11 terrorists as a license to flirt with nuclear war.
"Politics ought to stay out of fighting a war," the President has been quoted as saying on March 13th 2002. Yet Article 1, Section 8 of the United States Constitution explicitly requires that Congress take responsibility when it comes to declaring war. This President is very popular, according to the polls. But polls are not a substitute for democratic process. Attributing a negative connotation here to politics or dismissing constitutionally mandated congressional oversight belies reality. Spending $400 billion a year for defense is a political decision. Committing troops abroad is a political decision. War is a political decision. When men and women die on the battlefield that is the result of a political decision. The use of nuclear weapons, which can end the lives of millions, is a profound political decision. In a monarchy there need be no political decisions. In a democracy, all decisions are political, in that the derive from the consent of the governed.
In a democracy, budgetary, military and national objectives must be subordinate to the political process. Before we celebrate an imperial presidency, let it be said that the lack of free and open political process, the lack of free and open political debate, and the lack of free and open political dissent can be fatal in a democracy.
We have reached a moment in our country's history where it is urgent that people everywhere speak out as president of his or her own life, to protect the peace of the nation and world within and without. We should speak out and caution leaders who generate fear through talk of the endless war or the final conflict. We should appeal to our leaders to consider that their own bellicose thoughts, words and deeds are reshaping consciousness and can have an adverse effect on our nation. Because when one person thinks fight! he or she finds a fight. One faction thinks war! and starts a war. One nation thinks nuclear! and approaches the abyss. And what of one nation which thinks peace, and seeks peace?
Neither individuals nor nations exist in a vacuum, which is why we have a serious responsibility for each other in this world. It is also urgent that we find those places of war in our own lives, and begin healing the world through healing ourselves. Each of us is a citizen of a common planet, bound to a common destiny. So connected are we, that each of us has the power to be the eyes of the world, the voice of the world, the conscience of the world, or the end of the world. And as each one of us chooses, so becomes the world.
Each of us is architect of this world. Our thoughts, the concepts. Our words, the designs. Our deeds, the bricks and mortar of our daily lives. Which is why we should always take care to regard the power of our thoughts and words, and the commands they send into action through time and space.
Some of our leaders have been thinking and talking about nuclear war. In the past week there has been much news about a planning document which describes how and when America might wage nuclear war. The Nuclear Posture Review recently released to the media by the government
1. Assumes that the United States has the right to launch a pre-emptive nuclear strike.
2. Equates nuclear weapons with conventional weapons.
3. Attempts to minimize the consequences of the use of nuclear weapons.
4. Promotes nuclear response to a chemical or biological attack.
Some dismiss this review as routine government planning. But it becomes ominous when taken in the context of a war on terrorism which keeps expanding its boundaries, rhetorically and literally. The President equates the "war on terrorism" with World War II. He expresses a desire to have the nuclear option "on the table." He unilaterally withdraws from the ABM treaty. He seeks $8.9 billion to fund deployment of a missile shield. He institutes, without congressional knowledge, a shadow government in a bunker outside our nation's Capitol. He tries to pass off as arms reduction, the storage of, instead of the elimination of, nuclear weapons.
Two generations ago we lived with nuclear nightmares. We feared and hated the Russians who feared and hated us. We feared and hated the "godless, atheistic" communists. In our schools, we dutifully put our head between our legs and practiced duck-and-cover drills. In our nightmares, we saw the long, slow arc of a Soviet missile flash into our very neighborhood. We got down on our knees and prayed for peace. We surveyed, wide eyed, pictures of the destruction of Nagasaki and Hiroshima. We supported the elimination of all nuclear weapons. We knew that if you "nuked" others you "nuked" yourself.
The splitting of the atom for destructive purposes admits a split consciousness, the compartmentalized thinking of Us vs. Them, the dichotomized thinking, which spawns polarity and leads to war. The proposed use of nuclear weapons, pollutes the psyche with the arrogance of infinite power. It creates delusions of domination of matter and space. It is dehumanizing through its calculations of mass casualties. We must overcome doom-thinkers and sayers who invite a world descending, disintegrating into a nuclear disaster. With a world at risk, we must find the bombs in our own lives and disarm them. We must listen to that quiet inner voice which counsels that the survival of all is achieved through the unity of all.
We must overcome our fear of each other, by seeking out the humanity within each of us. The human heart contains every possibility of race, creed, language, religion, and politics. We are one in our commonalities. Must we always fear our differences? We can overcome our fears by not feeding our fears with more war and nuclear confrontations. We must ask our leaders to unify us in courage.
We need to create a new, clear vision of a world as one. A new, clear vision of people working out their differences peacefully. A new, clear vision with the teaching of nonviolence, nonviolent intervention, and mediation. A new, clear vision where people can live in harmony within their families, their communities and within themselves. A new clear vision of peaceful coexistence in a world of tolerance.
At this moment peril we must move away from fear's paralysis. This is a call to action to replace expanded war with expanded peace. This is a call for action to place the very survival of this planet on the agenda of all people, everywhere. As citizens of a common planet, we have an obligation to ourselves and our posterity. We must demand that our nation and all nations put down the nuclear sword. We must demand that our nation and all nations
-- Abide by the principles of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
-- Stop the development of new nuclear weapons.
-- Take all nuclear weapons systems off alert.
-- Persist towards total, worldwide elimination of all nuclear weapons.
Our nation must
-- Revive the Anti Ballistic Missile treaty.
-- Sign and enforce the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.
-- Abandon plans to build a so-called missile shield.
-- Prohibit the introduction of weapons into outer space.
We are in a climate where people expect debate within our two party system to produce policy alternatives. However both major political parties have fallen short. People who ask "Where is the Democratic Party?" and expect to hear debate may be disappointed. When peace is not on the agenda of our political parties or our governments then it must be the work and the duty of each citizen of the world. This is the time to organize for peace. This is the time for new thinking. This is the time to conceive of peace as not simply being the absence of violence, but the active presence of the capacity for a higher evolution of human awareness. This is the time to conceive of peace as respect, trust, and integrity. This is the time to tap the infinite capabilities of humanity to transform consciousness which compels violence at a personal, group, national or international levels. This is the time to develop a new compassion for others and ourselves.
When terrorists threaten our security, we must enforce the law and bring terrorists to justice within our system of constitutional justice, without undermining the very civil liberties which permits our democracy to breathe. Our own instinct for life, which inspires our breath and informs our pulse, excites our capacity to reason. Which is why we must pay attention when we sense a threat to survival.
That is why we must speak out now to protect this nation, all nations, and the entire planet and
Challenge those who believe that war is inevitable.
Challenge those who believe in a nuclear right.
Challenge those who would build new nuclear weapons.
Challenge those who seek nuclear re-armament.
Challenge those who seek nuclear escalation.
Challenge those who would make of any nation a nuclear target.
Challenge those who would threaten to use nuclear weapons against civilian populations.
Challenge those who would break nuclear treaties.
Challenge those who think and think about nuclear weapons, to think about peace.
It is practical to work for peace. I speak of peace and diplomacy not just for the sake of peace itself. But, for practical reasons, we must work for peace as a means of achieving permanent security. It is similarly practical to work for total nuclear disarmament, particularly when nuclear arms do not even come close to addressing the real security problems which confront our nation, witness the events of September 11, 2001.
We can make war archaic. Skeptics may dismiss the possibility that a nation which spends $400 billion a year for military purposes can somehow convert swords into plowshares. Yet the very founding and the history of this country demonstrates the creative possibilities of America. We are a nation which is known for realizing impossible dreams. Ours is a nation which in its second century abolished slavery, which many at the time considered impossible. Ours is a nation where women won the right to vote, which many at the time considered impossible. Ours is a nation which institutionalized the civil rights movement, which many at the time considered impossible. If we have the courage to claim peace, with the passion, the emotion and the integrity with which we have claimed independence, freedom and, equality we can become that nation which makes non-violence an organizing principle in our society, and in doing so change the world.
That is the purpose of HR 2459. It is a bill to create a Department of Peace. It envisions new structures to help create peace in our homes, in our families, in our schools, in our neighborhoods, in our cities, and in our nation. It aspires to create conditions for peace within and to create conditions for peace worldwide. It considers the conditions which cause people to become the terrorists of the future, issues of poverty, scarcity and exploitation. It is practical to make outer space safe from weapons, so that humanity can continue to pursue a destiny among the stars. HR 3616 seeks to ban weapons in space, to keep the stars a place of dreams, of new
possibilities, of transcendence.
We can achieve this practical vision of peace, if we are ready to work for it. People worldwide need to be meet with like-minded people, about peace and nuclear disarmament, now. People worldwide need to gather in peace, now. People worldwide need to march and to pray for peace, now. People worldwide need to be connecting with each other on the web, for peace, now. We are in a new era of electronic democracy, where the world wide web, numerous web sites and bulletin boards enable new organizations, exercising freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, freedom of association, to spring into being instantly. Thespiritoffreedom.com is such a web site. It is dedicated to becoming an electronic forum for peace, for sustainability, for renewal and for revitalization. It is a forum which strives for the restoration of a sense of community through the empowerment of self, through commitment of self to the lives of others, to the life of the community, to the life of the nation, to the life of the world.
Where war making is profoundly uncreative in its destruction, peacemaking can be deeply creative. We need to communicate with each other the ways in which we work in our communities to make this a more peaceful world. I welcome your ideas at dkucinich@aol.com or at http://www.thespiritoffreedom.com .
We can share our thoughts and discuss ways in which we have brought or will bring them into action.
Now is the time to think, to take action and use our talents and abilities to create peace
in our families.
in our block clubs.
in our neighborhoods.
in our places of worship.
in our schools and universities.
in our labor halls.
in our parent-teacher organizations.
Now is the time to think, speak, write, organize and take action to create peace as a social imperative, as an economic imperative, and as a political imperative. Now is the time to think, speak, write, organize, march, rally, hold vigils and take other nonviolent action to create peace in our cities, in our nation and in the world. And as the hymn says, "Let there be peace on earth and let it begin with me."
This is the work of the human family, of people all over the world demanding that governments and non-governmental actors alike put down their nuclear weapons. This is the work of the human family, responding in this moment of crisis to protect our nation, this planet and all life within it. We can achieve both nuclear disarmament and peace. As we understand that all people of the world are interconnected, we can achieve both nuclear disarmament and peace. We can accomplish this through upholding an holistic vision where the claims of all living beings to the right of survival are recognized. We can achieve both nuclear disarmament and peace through being a living testament to a Human Rights Covenant where each person on this planet is entitled to a life where he or she may consciously evolve in mind, body and spirit.
Nuclear disarmament and peace are the signposts toward the uplifting path of an even brighter human condition wherein we can through our conscious efforts evolve and reestablish the context of our existence from peril to peace, from revolution to evolution. Think peace. Speak peace. Act peace. Peace.
Email responses to this speech are appreciated.
Send to info@thespiritoffreedom.com or Dkucinich@aol.com
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2) Europe's Fury
Article from the Washington Post
By David S. Broder
Wednesday, March 27, 2002
ROME -- The United States has been fighting a war in Afghanistan. It has troops in the field in the Philippines and in Colombia. It is trying to mediate the bloody Arab-Israeli conflict in the Middle East. The last thing it needs is a quarrel with Europe.
But that is exactly what has developed, as I was repeatedly reminded during a brief stay here for an international conference last week.
The immediate irritant is steel. The looming and larger point of conflict is Iraq. And the underlying complaint is that the Bush administration, whose leadership has gained significantly in standing since my last transatlantic visit 11 months ago, has reverted to an earlier and unsettling pattern of behavior. From the European perspective, Washington looks unpredictable, erratic and impulsive -- all the things that jar the allies' nerves.
It is easy to dismiss their mutterings as the nattering of nervous Nellies. But when the questioning comes not only from chronic critics such as the French but also from such friends as Germany and even Britain, it may behoove Washington to take heed.
The Europeans are not without power, as they demonstrated last week with their response to President Bush's surprise decision this month to impose tariffs as high as 30 percent on steel imports from Europe and Asia. Americans living here or visiting Rome for the conference I attended were hard-pressed to explain the glaring contradiction between Bush's professed support for free trade and his action to protect declining steelmakers in such political swing states as Pennsylvania and West Virginia. Many did not even try.
It does not matter, because the Europeans are not interested in excuses. They are furious. And they are ready to fight back. The Wall Street Journal reported last week that the European Union is planning to target Florida orange juice and Wisconsin-made motorcycles -- hitting two states that were virtual ties in the last presidential election. Their target list also includes steel exports from Pennsylvania and West Virginia and textiles from the Republican political strongholds of North and South Carolina.
By hitting electoral college battlegrounds and states with key Senate and House races in November, the Journal said, the EU will strike Bush "where it could hurt the worst at the ballot box."
The steel tariff decision -- denounced by Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill in candid private comments that quickly became public -- looks more and more like one of the worst of the Bush presidency. Another Wall Street Journal article last week reported that the Commerce Department has been inundated by more than 1,000 requests for tariff exemptions from U.S. manufacturers who claim they cannot get the specialty steel they need from domestic steelmakers. Government officials are struggling to determine the merits of each case -- exactly the kind of heavy-handed bureaucratic interference with the marketplace that Republicans and conservatives are supposed to find abhorrent.
But all this is minor compared to European angst about Iraq.
The "axis of evil" section of the State of the Union Address came as a shock to countries that had offered Washington strong support for the first phase of the post-Sept. 11 war on terrorism.
The linkage of Iraq, Iran and North Korea made no sense to them, and subsequent assurances that Bush had no immediate intention to take military action against the last two simply heightened fears that he planned to bomb or invade Iraq.
Americans are being asked: What has happened in the past few months that makes it so imperative to remove Saddam Hussein? Is there any evidence that Iraq was implicated in the 9-11 attacks? With whom do you plan to replace Saddam? And what will a war with Iraq mean for Israel, Egypt, Turkey and Saudi Arabia? If removing Saddam is vital to America's national interest, how are the interests of the neighboring countries to be protected?
There may be answers to all these questions, but the Europeans would like to hear them. And they would like to believe that Washington is interested in hearing from them. The lack of consultation is a chronic complaint, but rarely has it reached this level of anxiety.
Some Europeans believe Bush is on a mission of personal revenge against Saddam, determined to finish the work his father left incomplete at the end of the Gulf War. That trivializes his purpose. But the mere fact that such suspicions are being voiced is a warning that the slide in Euro-American relations needs to be addressed.
© 2002 The Washington Post Company
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Regina Hagen, from Germany and on the Board of Directors of the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space wrote to the Globenet list serve in relationship to the above article:
"Actually, there is more fighting going on.
The European Union has this week finally decided that GALILEO, the European satellite navigation system, will be built. And the US did all they could to try to prevent this - for economic and military reasons. I am personally not happy with GALILEO, most of all because it has the military dual-use capability. But I find it amazing that the US so openly tells the European Union that it would prefer them to remain dependent on the US.."
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3) China Bars U.S. Ship From Hong Kong
China Bars U.S. Ship From Hong Kong
By Helen Luk
Associated Press Writer
(washingtonpost.com)
Tuesday, March 26, 2002; 3:33 AM
HONG KONG –– Apparently angered over U.S. dealings with Taiwan, China has refused permission for a U.S. warship to make a routine port call in Hong Kong.
The U.S. Consulate said Tuesday that Beijing's rejection of the request by the USS Curtis Wilbur came March 18 – one day before the Chinese government accused Washington of committing a "series of erroneous acts" in the weeks since President Bush's visit in February to China.
Beijing was angered by a U.S. decision to let Taiwan's defense minister, Tang Yiau-ming, attend a private defense convention this month in St. Petersburg, Fla. The Chinese Foreign Ministry summoned U.S. Ambassador Clark T. Randt to express its displeasure.
Barbara Zigli, a U.S. Consulate spokeswoman, said "no reason was given for the disapproval." She declined to speculate on China's motives.
The Curtis Wilbur, a guided missile destroyer belonging to the U.S. Seventh Fleet based in Yokosuka, Japan, had sought clearance to visit here from April 5-9, Zigli said.
Port calls by foreign warships and aircraft are approved on a "case-by-case basis," Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Zhang Qiyue said Tuesday at a regular briefing for reporters. "We have taken into consideration a lot of issues," Zhang said.
Last week, Zhang warned of adverse effects on China-U.S. relations if Washington did not change its ways.
China and Taiwan split amid a civil war on the mainland in 1949. Beijing says it will attack Taiwan if the island declares formal independence or delays too long in talks over uniting with the mainland. It has sought to isolate Taiwan diplomatically.
America severed formal ties with Taiwan in 1979 when Washington recognized China. Since then, high-level exchanges and meetings between U.S. and Taiwanese officials have been rare.
Tang's attendance at the three-day conference in Florida – sponsored by the private U.S.-Taiwan Business Council – is the most recent result of Bush's push for closer relations with Taiwan.
Since this former British colony reverted to Chinese rule in 1997, Beijing has occasionally protested U.S. actions by barring U.S. warships from visiting Hong Kong, long a popular port of call.
© 2002 The Associated Press
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A17946-2002Mar26.html
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Part 2 is posted for items:
4) Rep. McKinney - A hero in the demand for inquiry into 9-11
5) Michael Moore's ‘Stupid Tour' Update
6) Comments Requested by the Pentagon for a Star Wars Program
is posted at
http://www.flybynews.com/cgi-local/newspro/viewnews.cgi?newsid1017416279,95072,
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