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Welcome to our new website
Hi, everyone. Dennis here.
The response to our campaign has been very encouraging. People from all over the country want to know what they can do to get involved; and this website is going to be an essential organizing tool. And we're asking you to participate. So, it's important for you to be around; kind of hang around the site, check on it every day, see the kinds of things that we're doing, check on the media [News] section and see how the media is finally getting engaged in following our campaign.
It's really interesting to see people respond because, in the past, we organized the campaign and then I made an announcement. This time I made the announcement, and the campaign is beginning to gather around us quite quickly. So stay tuned! But more than that, stay involved, help us plan, help us organize, help us raise funds, help us set the stage for a new direction for America.
People know that my position on the war is the position that is going to bring our troops home. People know that when I say that we have the money to bring the troops home now, that I'm right. And people know that the Democrats ought to rally behind the will of the American people expressed in November to bring our troops home. It's just not right for leaders to be talking about giving the president another $160 billion that will keep our troops in Iraq until the end of the president's term.
So we have the power to create a new direction. And we're going to do it with your help. And I'm so grateful for that. I look forward to hearing from you. This is your campaign; it's not about me, it's about all of us. It's about our endeavor to create a world of peace and to create a world that we can relate to people all over the world. We know that this is the time for us to open up our hearts and to reveal the power that is within each of us to create a new world.
Thank you very much, and you'll be hearing from me often.
Announcement of Candidacy for President of the United States (e-mail)
Dear Friend,
We are living in a time of great tests of our humanity, which also present great opportunities for transformation. The war in Iraq is a veil that shrouds our creativity and our potential for prosperity. It cuts us off from the world at a time when it is imperative that we acknowledge our interdependence and interconnectedness.
This is a moment with a profound feeling of destiny. America has been an extraordinary international power to manifest that which we focus our energies upon. This power is true of individuals as well as nations.
In a way, when we focus on terror, we bring to ourselves that which we fear. We focused on terror in Iraq and paradoxically helped to create the circumstances, which have propelled Iraq into civil war and chaos.
The prestigious Lancet report on excess casualties in Iraq estimates that the war in Iraq has caused 655,000 Iraqi deaths, and that 20% of those deaths are a direct result of the actions of coalition forces.
This war sacrifices the lives of innocent Iraqis, the lives of our troops, and the physical resources and good will of our nation. We are sacrificing our financial future, borrowing money from Beijing to occupy Baghdad in a war that military generals and the Iraqi Study Group have concluded is impossible to win militarily.
We are focusing our resources on the power of destruction rather than the vision of a world in which we want to live: A world of prosperity and peace, equity, beauty and justice. It is time for us to stand together to bring the troops home and stand by the people of Iraq through implementing a real policy for the security, recovery, reconciliation and restoration of their nation.
We as a nation have the opportunity to embrace the challenges of our time and take a new direction, starting with ending the war in Iraq. The leaders of my party have said that they will not stop funding the war, and are openly supporting a supplementary appropriations bill for an additional one hundred and sixty billion dollars ($160,000,000,000), on top of the $70,000,000,000 that was appropriated to Iraq for financial year 2007, back in October of this year. This would bring war expenditure for 2007 to $230 billion, double the expenditure of 2006, and by far the largest appropriation of the war so far.
Today, I announced my candidacy for President of the United States in a quest to call my party to courage and integrity on this issue. This is a journey upon which I hope you will join together with me to ensure that our country calls forth our great potential with the same courage of our forefathers and mothers who birthed the vision for our great nation.
You can see a video of my Announcement speech on www.kucinich.us (Our site has undergone its own transformation!)
Our campaign will change the direction of the Democratic Party, the war in Iraq and our nation.
Please join me to help make this great turning possible.
Thank you
Dennis Kucinich
Announcement of Candidacy
Democratic Nomination for President of the United States
Tuesday, December 12, 2006
Cleveland City Hall
12:00 pm
On November 7th, the people voted for a new direction for our nation. They voted for the Democrats because they expected us to end the occupation and to bring the troops home from Iraq.
On October 1st Congress appropriated $70 billion for the war in Iraq. The money is in the pipeline right now to bring the troops home. Unfortunately our Democratic leaders have already announced they will support an additional appropriation for the war of up to $160 billion dollars. Not only are we not listening to the voters and taking steps to withdraw our forces quickly, we are actually planning to spend twice as much on the war as we did last year!
Somebody didn’t get the message. And unfortunately it is the leadership of the Democratic Party and the consequences may be disastrous for our party, our nation and the world.
My home is in Cleveland. Each day I see the effect of our misplaced national priorities on my city: The number of factories and businesses, large and small, closing. My constituents and people just like them across America are losing their jobs, losing their middle class status and being pushed into poverty. Blue and white collar workers in the city and suburbs are losing their homes. They are losing their hard-earned retirement. A total of one hundred million Americans have no health care or are underinsured. Budget deficits have crippled school districts. Many cities are in financial trouble, forced to lay off vital city workers, unable to finance repairs to bridges, roads, water systems and sewer systems. The price of natural gas is rising. Huge utility rate increases are in the offing. It is getting more and more difficult for people to make ends meet.
Meanwhile millions of entrepreneurs whose ingenuity will create new jobs by bringing forth advanced clean energy technologies
are being starved for capital.
I live in the same working class neighborhood in the same home I purchased thirty five years ago. My parents raised seven children and never owned a home. We lived in twenty-one different places by the time I was seventeen, including a couple of cars. I know what people go through. I have seen first hand the effects of poverty and social disorganization. I also know of the powerful strivings of the human heart. I know that with just a little help, a little encouragement, and a little money, people are capable of creating new wealth and new worlds. That creative power is part of the birthright of all Americans.
I also know what the destructive power of war does to families and to our nation.. I know what Vietnam did to this country and did to my family. I know how it divided our nation and set America apart from the world. The war in Iraq has already taken its toll on Cleveland and in communities like Cleveland across the United States. The war, tax cuts for the already privileged, and our trade policies have become a massive engine to redistribute upwards the wealth of our nation and to transfer our national wealth out of the country. Policies which divide people and fracture the social compact are inherently un-American. Our nation’s very name makes of striving for unity a sacred cause.
How can we unite America around the health care needs of our people if we instead spend trillions of dollars in Iraq? How can we meet the educational needs of the children of our nation if we have money for arms build-ups, but no money for education build -ups? For example, the $160 billion dollars which our leaders are ready to appropriate for more war is equal to three times the entire annual federal education budget.
In a period of two years the budget for the military, plus the war in Iraq, will exceed one trillion dollars. The billions we are spending in Baghdad we are borrowing from Bejing. We must end this reckless sacrifice of blood and treasure. We must stop sacrificing our dreams and the dreams of future generations of Americans to the nightmare of this war.
How can we have strong neighborhoods in our cities, with solid city services, adequate police and fire protection, if our cities are starving for tax resources because the federal government has money for war and not much else?
The National Priorities Project issued a report that says that in the year 2005, twenty-nine cents of every federal tax dollar went to the military, plus another nine cents went to pay interest on borrowing to finance the military. That’s 38% of federal tax income being spent for guns not butter. Contrast this with 0.3% on job training, 2% on housing, 4% on education.
Consider that our nation is now spending more money on arms then all the other countries in the world put together and you can understand why our leaders have trouble extricating ourselves from a war based on lies. As President Dwight David Eisenhower recognized, the dramatic shift of resources to grow a military industrial complex does not help protect democracy, it destroys it.
This is the moment to remember first principles, to remember why America was founded, to remember our strivings for
liberty, for truth, for justice, to remember the primacy of our Constitution. This is the moment to remember the deep historic
mission of the Democratic Party. We are the party of the people. We are the Party of FDR and the New Deal. We are
the party of JFK and the New Frontier. We are the Party of LBJ and the Great Society. We are the party of the courage of
Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks, the moral power of Cesar Chavez, the daring of Robert Kennedy, the compassion of
Jimmy Carter, the brilliance of Bill Clinton. We have a sacred responsibility to keep alive the spirit of our nation, to protect
people’s faith in not just our party, but in the political process itself.
At this moment, people’s trust in government is on the line. Trust in the Democratic Party is on the line. What does it say
if only one month after the voters gave us control of Congress on the issue of Iraq, that we turn around and say we will
keep funding the war?
What kind of credibility will our Party have if we say we are opposed to the war, but continue to fund it?
There is still time to change the outcome. There is still time to rescue the people’s confidence in the Democratic party and
their trust in government. But only if someone steps forward quickly to wake the nation and tell the people, to travel to
those dozens of cities like Cleveland, to go to the villages, the farms and the factories and say: “This is the moment to stop
the US occupation, this is the moment to end our war against Iraq, this is the moment to bring our troops home, because the
money is there to bring them home. And bring them home we must, to rebuild our cities, to invest in our children, to restore
our environment, to work with the world to create new opportunities through peace.
The constituents have called me to action. Their economic future calls me to action. My country calls me to action. My
conscience calls me to action. I am not going to stand by and watch thousands more of our brave young American men
and women killed in Iraq or permanently injured while our leaders are ready to take action to keep the war going.
We Democrats were put back in power to bring some sanity back to our nation. We are expected to take a stand. We are
expected to assert our constitutional power as a co-equal branch of government. We are expected to do what we said we
would do: Get out of Iraq and bring the troops home.
Clevelanders remember that twenty-eight years ago this week, I put my career on the line to protect the people’s right to
own a municipal electric system. They remember that I had the courage to stand up for the people, to stand against all odds
and to prevail. Years later I was proven right. I know what it is like to take a stand. I know what it is like to put my career
on the line. Today I am prepared to put my career on the line again to save my community and my nation from the devastating
effects of more war.
Therefore, I am announcing my candidacy for President of the United States, with the intention of rallying the American
people to the cause of the troops in the field, to the cause of stopping more American families from suffering, to the cause
of ending a deepening tragedy in Iraq, to the cause of repairing America’s reputation in the world,
to the cause of the dreams of people in my own neighborhood and my own city.
I fully expect to be win, because when the American people hear this clarion call for a new and true direction, this call to
confirm their intent, their power, I am confident that they will respond as powerfully, as they did just one month ago, to
demand that America quickly change course in Iraq and to demand a leader who will make it happen.
My campaign will be about the truth in action. It will be about the power of decisiveness, and the power of compassion
which comes from an understanding of the imperative of human unity, the imperative of human security, the imperative of
peace.
In 2002, I led the effort in the House of Representatives, challenging the Bush Administration’s march toward war in Iraq.
It was that effort which gives me hope. Because although the opposition to the authorization for war began with only a
handful of members of Congress, it soon grew to 125 Democrats. Everything I said then has been proven to be true: Iraq
had nothing to do with 911. Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction. Iraq had no intention or capability of attacking the
United States. But we attacked Iraq.
Consider these facts and consider that, according to the prestigious Lancet publication, over 650,000 excess deaths have
occurred in Iraq as a result of the war. What an injustice has been done to the Iraqi people. We must stop our betrayal of
our own heart and work immediately to rally the world community in the cause of relieving the suffering of Iraqis. But we
cannot do it as occupiers.
I ran for President in 2004, not just to challenge the war and Democratic Party policy, but to bring forth a message: Fear
ends. Hope begins. My candidacy will call forth the courage of the American people to meet the challenge of terrorism
without sacrificing our liberties and everything that is near and dear to us. My candidacy will inspire hope for a new
America, where social, economic and political progress is grounded in work for peace.
My stand for peace is not simply being against the Iraq war. It was against all war. We have the right to defend ourselves,
but our leaders have confused offense with defense. America has separated itself from the world, put itself beyond the
reach of international law, We must reunite with the world. We must rally the world in the cause of human unity, in the
cause of the survival of the planet facing challenges from global climate change, nuclear proliferation and from useless war.
I believe that as human beings we have evolved to the point where we can settle our differences without killing one another.
This is what President Franklin Roosevelt, who knew war, meant when he spoke of our responsibility to pursue “the science
of human relations.” It was this thinking that inspired legislation to create a Department of Peace which seeks to meet
the challenge of domestic violence, spousal abuse, child abuse, violence in the schools, racial violence, violence against
gays, and to resolve conflict between police and community groups. War is not inevitable. Peace is inevitable if we are
dedicated to creating new structures for peace.
Einstein once said “the significant problems we have cannot be solved at the same level of thinking with which we created
them.” Yet that is what we are in Washington with respect to Iraq. Even though we know that our presence in Iraq is totally
wrong, we seem unable to do anything about it, except keep spending more money for the war. We must end this march of
folly. Together we are going to change this and rescue our nation.
This is a moment that we need to call our Democratic leaders to courage. This is about leadership, clear vision and integrity.
The people were behind us in November. They are behind us now. We must stand by our word and bring the troops
home now.
I am the only member of the House and the Senate running for President who has consistently voted against funding for the
war, based on a principled opposition.
I was against the war then. I am against it now. A leader must have not just hindsight, but foresight. The prophet Isaiah
said “Without vision, a people perish.” I am stepping forth at this moment because I believe, as did Lincoln that “this
nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom and that government of the people, by the people and for the people
shall not perish from this earth.”. Thank you.
Source: Dennis Kucinich for President
Announcement of Candidacy
Democratic Nomination for President of the United States
Tuesday, December 12, 2006
Cleveland City Hall
12:00 pm
On November 7th, the people voted for a new direction for our nation. They voted for the Democrats because they expected us to end the occupation and to bring the troops home from Iraq.
On October 1st Congress appropriated $70 billion for the war in Iraq. The money is in the pipeline right now to bring the troops home. Unfortunately our Democratic leaders have already announced they will support an additional appropriation for the war of up to $160 billion dollars. Not only are we not listening to the voters and taking steps to withdraw our forces quickly, we are actually planning to spend twice as much on the war as we did last year!
Somebody didn’t get the message. And unfortunately it is the leadership of the Democratic Party and the consequences may be disastrous for our party, our nation and the world.
My home is in Cleveland. Each day I see the effect of our misplaced national priorities on my city: The number of factories and businesses, large and small, closing. My constituents and people just like them across America are losing their jobs, losing their middle class status and being pushed into poverty. Blue and white collar workers in the city and suburbs are losing their homes. They are losing their hard-earned retirement. A total of one hundred million Americans have no health care or are underinsured. Budget deficits have crippled school districts. Many cities are in financial trouble, forced to lay off vital city workers, unable to finance repairs to bridges, roads, water systems and sewer systems. The price of natural gas is rising. Huge utility rate increases are in the offing. It is getting more and more difficult for people to make ends meet.
Meanwhile millions of entrepreneurs whose ingenuity will create new jobs by bringing forth advanced clean energy technologies
are being starved for capital.
I live in the same working class neighborhood in the same home I purchased thirty five years ago. My parents raised seven children and never owned a home. We lived in twenty-one different places by the time I was seventeen, including a couple of cars. I know what people go through. I have seen first hand the effects of poverty and social disorganization. I also know of the powerful strivings of the human heart. I know that with just a little help, a little encouragement, and a little money, people are capable of creating new wealth and new worlds. That creative power is part of the birthright of all Americans.
I also know what the destructive power of war does to families and to our nation.. I know what Vietnam did to this country and did to my family. I know how it divided our nation and set America apart from the world. The war in Iraq has already taken its toll on Cleveland and in communities like Cleveland across the United States. The war, tax cuts for the already privileged, and our trade policies have become a massive engine to redistribute upwards the wealth of our nation and to transfer our national wealth out of the country. Policies which divide people and fracture the social compact are inherently un-American. Our nation’s very name makes of striving for unity a sacred cause.
How can we unite America around the health care needs of our people if we instead spend trillions of dollars in Iraq? How can we meet the educational needs of the children of our nation if we have money for arms build-ups, but no money for education build -ups? For example, the $160 billion dollars which our leaders are ready to appropriate for more war is equal to three times the entire annual federal education budget.
In a period of two years the budget for the military, plus the war in Iraq, will exceed one trillion dollars. The billions we are spending in Baghdad we are borrowing from Bejing. We must end this reckless sacrifice of blood and treasure. We must stop sacrificing our dreams and the dreams of future generations of Americans to the nightmare of this war.
How can we have strong neighborhoods in our cities, with solid city services, adequate police and fire protection, if our cities are starving for tax resources because the federal government has money for war and not much else?
The National Priorities Project issued a report that says that in the year 2005, twenty-nine cents of every federal tax dollar went to the military, plus another nine cents went to pay interest on borrowing to finance the military. That’s 38% of federal tax income being spent for guns not butter. Contrast this with 0.3% on job training, 2% on housing, 4% on education.
Consider that our nation is now spending more money on arms then all the other countries in the world put together and you can understand why our leaders have trouble extricating ourselves from a war based on lies. As President Dwight David Eisenhower recognized, the dramatic shift of resources to grow a military industrial complex does not help protect democracy, it destroys it.
This is the moment to remember first principles, to remember why America was founded, to remember our strivings for
liberty, for truth, for justice, to remember the primacy of our Constitution. This is the moment to remember the deep historic
mission of the Democratic Party. We are the party of the people. We are the Party of FDR and the New Deal. We are
the party of JFK and the New Frontier. We are the Party of LBJ and the Great Society. We are the party of the courage of
Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks, the moral power of Cesar Chavez, the daring of Robert Kennedy, the compassion of
Jimmy Carter, the brilliance of Bill Clinton. We have a sacred responsibility to keep alive the spirit of our nation, to protect
people’s faith in not just our party, but in the political process itself.
At this moment, people’s trust in government is on the line. Trust in the Democratic Party is on the line. What does it say
if only one month after the voters gave us control of Congress on the issue of Iraq, that we turn around and say we will
keep funding the war?
What kind of credibility will our Party have if we say we are opposed to the war, but continue to fund it?
There is still time to change the outcome. There is still time to rescue the people’s confidence in the Democratic party and
their trust in government. But only if someone steps forward quickly to wake the nation and tell the people, to travel to
those dozens of cities like Cleveland, to go to the villages, the farms and the factories and say: “This is the moment to stop
the US occupation, this is the moment to end our war against Iraq, this is the moment to bring our troops home, because the
money is there to bring them home. And bring them home we must, to rebuild our cities, to invest in our children, to restore
our environment, to work with the world to create new opportunities through peace.
The constituents have called me to action. Their economic future calls me to action. My country calls me to action. My
conscience calls me to action. I am not going to stand by and watch thousands more of our brave young American men
and women killed in Iraq or permanently injured while our leaders are ready to take action to keep the war going.
We Democrats were put back in power to bring some sanity back to our nation. We are expected to take a stand. We are
expected to assert our constitutional power as a co-equal branch of government. We are expected to do what we said we
would do: Get out of Iraq and bring the troops home.
Clevelanders remember that twenty-eight years ago this week, I put my career on the line to protect the people’s right to
own a municipal electric system. They remember that I had the courage to stand up for the people, to stand against all odds
and to prevail. Years later I was proven right. I know what it is like to take a stand. I know what it is like to put my career
on the line. Today I am prepared to put my career on the line again to save my community and my nation from the devastating
effects of more war.
Therefore, I am announcing my candidacy for President of the United States, with the intention of rallying the American
people to the cause of the troops in the field, to the cause of stopping more American families from suffering, to the cause
of ending a deepening tragedy in Iraq, to the cause of repairing America’s reputation in the world,
to the cause of the dreams of people in my own neighborhood and my own city.
I fully expect to be win, because when the American people hear this clarion call for a new and true direction, this call to
confirm their intent, their power, I am confident that they will respond as powerfully, as they did just one month ago, to
demand that America quickly change course in Iraq and to demand a leader who will make it happen.
My campaign will be about the truth in action. It will be about the power of decisiveness, and the power of compassion
which comes from an understanding of the imperative of human unity, the imperative of human security, the imperative of
peace.
In 2002, I led the effort in the House of Representatives, challenging the Bush Administration’s march toward war in Iraq.
It was that effort which gives me hope. Because although the opposition to the authorization for war began with only a
handful of members of Congress, it soon grew to 125 Democrats. Everything I said then has been proven to be true: Iraq
had nothing to do with 911. Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction. Iraq had no intention or capability of attacking the
United States. But we attacked Iraq.
Consider these facts and consider that, according to the prestigious Lancet publication, over 650,000 excess deaths have
occurred in Iraq as a result of the war. What an injustice has been done to the Iraqi people. We must stop our betrayal of
our own heart and work immediately to rally the world community in the cause of relieving the suffering of Iraqis. But we
cannot do it as occupiers.
I ran for President in 2004, not just to challenge the war and Democratic Party policy, but to bring forth a message: Fear
ends. Hope begins. My candidacy will call forth the courage of the American people to meet the challenge of terrorism
without sacrificing our liberties and everything that is near and dear to us. My candidacy will inspire hope for a new
America, where social, economic and political progress is grounded in work for peace.
My stand for peace is not simply being against the Iraq war. It was against all war. We have the right to defend ourselves,
but our leaders have confused offense with defense. America has separated itself from the world, put itself beyond the
reach of international law, We must reunite with the world. We must rally the world in the cause of human unity, in the
cause of the survival of the planet facing challenges from global climate change, nuclear proliferation and from useless war.
I believe that as human beings we have evolved to the point where we can settle our differences without killing one another.
This is what President Franklin Roosevelt, who knew war, meant when he spoke of our responsibility to pursue “the science
of human relations.” It was this thinking that inspired legislation to create a Department of Peace which seeks to meet
the challenge of domestic violence, spousal abuse, child abuse, violence in the schools, racial violence, violence against
gays, and to resolve conflict between police and community groups. War is not inevitable. Peace is inevitable if we are
dedicated to creating new structures for peace.
Einstein once said “the significant problems we have cannot be solved at the same level of thinking with which we created
them.” Yet that is what we are in Washington with respect to Iraq. Even though we know that our presence in Iraq is totally
wrong, we seem unable to do anything about it, except keep spending more money for the war. We must end this march of
folly. Together we are going to change this and rescue our nation.
This is a moment that we need to call our Democratic leaders to courage. This is about leadership, clear vision and integrity.
The people were behind us in November. They are behind us now. We must stand by our word and bring the troops
home now.
I am the only member of the House and the Senate running for President who has consistently voted against funding for the
war, based on a principled opposition.
I was against the war then. I am against it now. A leader must have not just hindsight, but foresight. The prophet Isaiah
said “Without vision, a people perish.” I am stepping forth at this moment because I believe, as did Lincoln that “this
nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom and that government of the people, by the people and for the people
shall not perish from this earth.”. Thank you.
Source: Dennis Kucinich for President
Welcome to our new website
Hi, everyone. Dennis here.
The response to our campaign has been very encouraging. People from all over the country want to know what they can do to get involved; and this website is going to be an essential organizing tool. And we're asking you to participate. So, it's important for you to be around; kind of hang around the site, check on it every day, see the kinds of things that we're doing, check on the media [News] section and see how the media is finally getting engaged in following our campaign.
It's really interesting to see people respond because, in the past, we organized the campaign and then I made an announcement. This time I made the announcement, and the campaign is beginning to gather around us quite quickly. So stay tuned! But more than that, stay involved, help us plan, help us organize, help us raise funds, help us set the stage for a new direction for America.
People know that my position on the war is the position that is going to bring our troops home. People know that when I say that we have the money to bring the troops home now, that I'm right. And people know that the Democrats ought to rally behind the will of the American people expressed in November to bring our troops home. It's just not right for leaders to be talking about giving the president another $160 billion that will keep our troops in Iraq until the end of the president's term.
So we have the power to create a new direction. And we're going to do it with your help. And I'm so grateful for that. I look forward to hearing from you. This is your campaign; it's not about me, it's about all of us. It's about our endeavor to create a world of peace and to create a world that we can relate to people all over the world. We know that this is the time for us to open up our hearts and to reveal the power that is within each of us to create a new world.
Thank you very much, and you'll be hearing from me often.
Announcement of Candidacy for President of the United States (e-mail)
Dear Friend,
We are living in a time of great tests of our humanity, which also present great opportunities for transformation. The war in Iraq is a veil that shrouds our creativity and our potential for prosperity. It cuts us off from the world at a time when it is imperative that we acknowledge our interdependence and interconnectedness.
This is a moment with a profound feeling of destiny. America has been an extraordinary international power to manifest that which we focus our energies upon. This power is true of individuals as well as nations.
In a way, when we focus on terror, we bring to ourselves that which we fear. We focused on terror in Iraq and paradoxically helped to create the circumstances, which have propelled Iraq into civil war and chaos.
The prestigious Lancet report on excess casualties in Iraq estimates that the war in Iraq has caused 655,000 Iraqi deaths, and that 20% of those deaths are a direct result of the actions of coalition forces.
This war sacrifices the lives of innocent Iraqis, the lives of our troops, and the physical resources and good will of our nation. We are sacrificing our financial future, borrowing money from Beijing to occupy Baghdad in a war that military generals and the Iraqi Study Group have concluded is impossible to win militarily.
We are focusing our resources on the power of destruction rather than the vision of a world in which we want to live: A world of prosperity and peace, equity, beauty and justice. It is time for us to stand together to bring the troops home and stand by the people of Iraq through implementing a real policy for the security, recovery, reconciliation and restoration of their nation.
We as a nation have the opportunity to embrace the challenges of our time and take a new direction, starting with ending the war in Iraq. The leaders of my party have said that they will not stop funding the war, and are openly supporting a supplementary appropriations bill for an additional one hundred and sixty billion dollars ($160,000,000,000), on top of the $70,000,000,000 that was appropriated to Iraq for financial year 2007, back in October of this year. This would bring war expenditure for 2007 to $230 billion, double the expenditure of 2006, and by far the largest appropriation of the war so far.
Today, I announced my candidacy for President of the United States in a quest to call my party to courage and integrity on this issue. This is a journey upon which I hope you will join together with me to ensure that our country calls forth our great potential with the same courage of our forefathers and mothers who birthed the vision for our great nation.
You can see a video of my Announcement speech on www.kucinich.us (Our site has undergone its own transformation!)
Our campaign will change the direction of the Democratic Party, the war in Iraq and our nation.
Please join me to help make this great turning possible.
Thank you
Dennis Kucinich
Announcement of Candidacy
Democratic Nomination for President of the United States
Tuesday, December 12, 2006
Cleveland City Hall
12:00 pm
On November 7th, the people voted for a new direction for our nation. They voted for the Democrats because they expected us to end the occupation and to bring the troops home from Iraq.
On October 1st Congress appropriated $70 billion for the war in Iraq. The money is in the pipeline right now to bring the troops home. Unfortunately our Democratic leaders have already announced they will support an additional appropriation for the war of up to $160 billion dollars. Not only are we not listening to the voters and taking steps to withdraw our forces quickly, we are actually planning to spend twice as much on the war as we did last year!
Somebody didn’t get the message. And unfortunately it is the leadership of the Democratic Party and the consequences may be disastrous for our party, our nation and the world.
My home is in Cleveland. Each day I see the effect of our misplaced national priorities on my city: The number of factories and businesses, large and small, closing. My constituents and people just like them across America are losing their jobs, losing their middle class status and being pushed into poverty. Blue and white collar workers in the city and suburbs are losing their homes. They are losing their hard-earned retirement. A total of one hundred million Americans have no health care or are underinsured. Budget deficits have crippled school districts. Many cities are in financial trouble, forced to lay off vital city workers, unable to finance repairs to bridges, roads, water systems and sewer systems. The price of natural gas is rising. Huge utility rate increases are in the offing. It is getting more and more difficult for people to make ends meet.
Meanwhile millions of entrepreneurs whose ingenuity will create new jobs by bringing forth advanced clean energy technologies
are being starved for capital.
I live in the same working class neighborhood in the same home I purchased thirty five years ago. My parents raised seven children and never owned a home. We lived in twenty-one different places by the time I was seventeen, including a couple of cars. I know what people go through. I have seen first hand the effects of poverty and social disorganization. I also know of the powerful strivings of the human heart. I know that with just a little help, a little encouragement, and a little money, people are capable of creating new wealth and new worlds. That creative power is part of the birthright of all Americans.
I also know what the destructive power of war does to families and to our nation.. I know what Vietnam did to this country and did to my family. I know how it divided our nation and set America apart from the world. The war in Iraq has already taken its toll on Cleveland and in communities like Cleveland across the United States. The war, tax cuts for the already privileged, and our trade policies have become a massive engine to redistribute upwards the wealth of our nation and to transfer our national wealth out of the country. Policies which divide people and fracture the social compact are inherently un-American. Our nation’s very name makes of striving for unity a sacred cause.
How can we unite America around the health care needs of our people if we instead spend trillions of dollars in Iraq? How can we meet the educational needs of the children of our nation if we have money for arms build-ups, but no money for education build -ups? For example, the $160 billion dollars which our leaders are ready to appropriate for more war is equal to three times the entire annual federal education budget.
In a period of two years the budget for the military, plus the war in Iraq, will exceed one trillion dollars. The billions we are spending in Baghdad we are borrowing from Bejing. We must end this reckless sacrifice of blood and treasure. We must stop sacrificing our dreams and the dreams of future generations of Americans to the nightmare of this war.
How can we have strong neighborhoods in our cities, with solid city services, adequate police and fire protection, if our cities are starving for tax resources because the federal government has money for war and not much else?
The National Priorities Project issued a report that says that in the year 2005, twenty-nine cents of every federal tax dollar went to the military, plus another nine cents went to pay interest on borrowing to finance the military. That’s 38% of federal tax income being spent for guns not butter. Contrast this with 0.3% on job training, 2% on housing, 4% on education.
Consider that our nation is now spending more money on arms then all the other countries in the world put together and you can understand why our leaders have trouble extricating ourselves from a war based on lies. As President Dwight David Eisenhower recognized, the dramatic shift of resources to grow a military industrial complex does not help protect democracy, it destroys it.
This is the moment to remember first principles, to remember why America was founded, to remember our strivings for
liberty, for truth, for justice, to remember the primacy of our Constitution. This is the moment to remember the deep historic
mission of the Democratic Party. We are the party of the people. We are the Party of FDR and the New Deal. We are
the party of JFK and the New Frontier. We are the Party of LBJ and the Great Society. We are the party of the courage of
Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks, the moral power of Cesar Chavez, the daring of Robert Kennedy, the compassion of
Jimmy Carter, the brilliance of Bill Clinton. We have a sacred responsibility to keep alive the spirit of our nation, to protect
people’s faith in not just our party, but in the political process itself.
At this moment, people’s trust in government is on the line. Trust in the Democratic Party is on the line. What does it say
if only one month after the voters gave us control of Congress on the issue of Iraq, that we turn around and say we will
keep funding the war?
What kind of credibility will our Party have if we say we are opposed to the war, but continue to fund it?
There is still time to change the outcome. There is still time to rescue the people’s confidence in the Democratic party and
their trust in government. But only if someone steps forward quickly to wake the nation and tell the people, to travel to
those dozens of cities like Cleveland, to go to the villages, the farms and the factories and say: “This is the moment to stop
the US occupation, this is the moment to end our war against Iraq, this is the moment to bring our troops home, because the
money is there to bring them home. And bring them home we must, to rebuild our cities, to invest in our children, to restore
our environment, to work with the world to create new opportunities through peace.
The constituents have called me to action. Their economic future calls me to action. My country calls me to action. My
conscience calls me to action. I am not going to stand by and watch thousands more of our brave young American men
and women killed in Iraq or permanently injured while our leaders are ready to take action to keep the war going.
We Democrats were put back in power to bring some sanity back to our nation. We are expected to take a stand. We are
expected to assert our constitutional power as a co-equal branch of government. We are expected to do what we said we
would do: Get out of Iraq and bring the troops home.
Clevelanders remember that twenty-eight years ago this week, I put my career on the line to protect the people’s right to
own a municipal electric system. They remember that I had the courage to stand up for the people, to stand against all odds
and to prevail. Years later I was proven right. I know what it is like to take a stand. I know what it is like to put my career
on the line. Today I am prepared to put my career on the line again to save my community and my nation from the devastating
effects of more war.
Therefore, I am announcing my candidacy for President of the United States, with the intention of rallying the American
people to the cause of the troops in the field, to the cause of stopping more American families from suffering, to the cause
of ending a deepening tragedy in Iraq, to the cause of repairing America’s reputation in the world,
to the cause of the dreams of people in my own neighborhood and my own city.
I fully expect to be win, because when the American people hear this clarion call for a new and true direction, this call to
confirm their intent, their power, I am confident that they will respond as powerfully, as they did just one month ago, to
demand that America quickly change course in Iraq and to demand a leader who will make it happen.
My campaign will be about the truth in action. It will be about the power of decisiveness, and the power of compassion
which comes from an understanding of the imperative of human unity, the imperative of human security, the imperative of
peace.
In 2002, I led the effort in the House of Representatives, challenging the Bush Administration’s march toward war in Iraq.
It was that effort which gives me hope. Because although the opposition to the authorization for war began with only a
handful of members of Congress, it soon grew to 125 Democrats. Everything I said then has been proven to be true: Iraq
had nothing to do with 911. Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction. Iraq had no intention or capability of attacking the
United States. But we attacked Iraq.
Consider these facts and consider that, according to the prestigious Lancet publication, over 650,000 excess deaths have
occurred in Iraq as a result of the war. What an injustice has been done to the Iraqi people. We must stop our betrayal of
our own heart and work immediately to rally the world community in the cause of relieving the suffering of Iraqis. But we
cannot do it as occupiers.
I ran for President in 2004, not just to challenge the war and Democratic Party policy, but to bring forth a message: Fear
ends. Hope begins. My candidacy will call forth the courage of the American people to meet the challenge of terrorism
without sacrificing our liberties and everything that is near and dear to us. My candidacy will inspire hope for a new
America, where social, economic and political progress is grounded in work for peace.
My stand for peace is not simply being against the Iraq war. It was against all war. We have the right to defend ourselves,
but our leaders have confused offense with defense. America has separated itself from the world, put itself beyond the
reach of international law, We must reunite with the world. We must rally the world in the cause of human unity, in the
cause of the survival of the planet facing challenges from global climate change, nuclear proliferation and from useless war.
I believe that as human beings we have evolved to the point where we can settle our differences without killing one another.
This is what President Franklin Roosevelt, who knew war, meant when he spoke of our responsibility to pursue “the science
of human relations.” It was this thinking that inspired legislation to create a Department of Peace which seeks to meet
the challenge of domestic violence, spousal abuse, child abuse, violence in the schools, racial violence, violence against
gays, and to resolve conflict between police and community groups. War is not inevitable. Peace is inevitable if we are
dedicated to creating new structures for peace.
Einstein once said “the significant problems we have cannot be solved at the same level of thinking with which we created
them.” Yet that is what we are in Washington with respect to Iraq. Even though we know that our presence in Iraq is totally
wrong, we seem unable to do anything about it, except keep spending more money for the war. We must end this march of
folly. Together we are going to change this and rescue our nation.
This is a moment that we need to call our Democratic leaders to courage. This is about leadership, clear vision and integrity.
The people were behind us in November. They are behind us now. We must stand by our word and bring the troops
home now.
I am the only member of the House and the Senate running for President who has consistently voted against funding for the
war, based on a principled opposition.
I was against the war then. I am against it now. A leader must have not just hindsight, but foresight. The prophet Isaiah
said “Without vision, a people perish.” I am stepping forth at this moment because I believe, as did Lincoln that “this
nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom and that government of the people, by the people and for the people
shall not perish from this earth.”. Thank you.
Source: Dennis Kucinich for President
Kucinich withdraws from Presidential race
In a speech delivered in his hometown of Cleveland, Ohio Congressman and Democratic Presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich delivered an impassioned speech that said, in part:
"I deeply and sincerely believe that we fought the good fight – in large part because of the support from all of you here and from hundreds of thousands of people just like you all across this country. I stood strong because you gave me strength. I spoke out because your voices needed and deserved to be heard. And I told the truth, no matter how unpopular or inconvenient, because, no matter how long it takes, the truth really will set us free."
"I won't be President, but I can continue to fight for these important issues as a Congressman..."
This campaign began more than a year ago when I saw that leaders in Washington, many in my own party, were intent on continuing a war, a war that has cost the lives of more than 4,000 of our brave young men and women and 1 million innocent Iraqis. A war that will cost this nation 2 trillion dollars and a war that has already cost our Cleveland community over a billion dollars.
At the same time, I saw that the American economy was headed for serious trouble. People were losing their jobs, their health care, their homes, their retirement security. Not just here in Cleveland, but all across the country. And the solutions to those problems don’t reside here in Cleveland. They were created and facilitated by people and policies in Washington D.C. – in the White House, in the U.S. Congress – and on Wall Street.
That’s why I ran for President in the first place: to give those issues the national attention they deserved and to do my best to win the nomination and bring a totally new perspective and a totally new direction to the Office of President of the United States of America.
I deeply and sincerely believe that we fought the good fight – in large part because of the support from all of you here and from hundreds of thousands of people just like you all across this country. I stood strong because you gave me strength. I spoke out because your voices needed and deserved to be heard. And I told the truth, no matter how unpopular or inconvenient, because, no matter how long it takes, the truth really will set us free.
I won't be President, but I can continue to fight for these important issues as a Congressman, representing the community that is first in my heart, Cleveland, Ohio: issues like the economic rights of people, jobs for all, health care for all, retirement security for all, and social justice for all.
I have put proposals before the Congress to create jobs. I have put proposals before the Congress to create health care for all. I have put proposals before the Congress to create universal pre-kindergarten -- all things which my district, and many districts like it across this country, need so desperately.
Instead, we asked for jobs, we get war. We asked for health care, we get war. We asked for funds for education, we get war. We ask for a clean environment, we get war. It is time to end this war. It is time to end war as an instrument of policy and have the government start taking care of things here at home. In Cleveland. And in places everywhere just like Cleveland.
The physical health of our nation is declining. Here in Cleveland you can see people suffering everywhere because they have no health care. Across Ohio there are 1 million people who have no health insurance. Either because they can’t afford it or because they lost their job, or because they have a pre-existing condition. It is time to have a single payer, not for profit health care system. I am the co-author of the bill, HR 676, and this single idea of a single-payer system would be the key economic stimulus that could both save and create millions of jobs while restoring the health of our nation.
We are losing our nation to a war based on lies, to destruction of our civil liberties and to massive debt. I tried to get these themes into the debates. But I was locked out of six debates. In each and every early primary state, in Iowa, in New Hampshire, Nevada, South Carolina and California, the American people were denied an opportunity to know that there is a way our of Iraq, there are plans to restore our economy, there is a practical health care plan which means the end of premiums, co-pays and deductibles. But there was no way to get the message out. Workers here know about lockouts. They stop you from being heard.
But workers also know that the fight for economic rights is not about a single day, or a single year, or a single campaign, or a single candidate. It is a lifelong endeavor.
So today, we are re-committing our energies to a government that works for all of us and is open to all of us. A government that stands for economic strength through peace. A government that stands for jobs, for health care, for education. A government that stands for truth, for civil liberties, and for our Constitution. And it starts again today in Cleveland, Ohio in the heart of America.
From our efforts in Cleveland and around this great country, we're creating a new force to be reckoned with, a force that will be made up of people, ideas, new technologies and the kind of patriotic verve that has no place for cowardice or compromise. I have been called the Conscience of the Democratic Party. Our efforts will involve a call to conscience. A call to integrity.
To those who supported this campaign with their energies and with their hearts, I want you to know that we are transitioning the Presidential campaign into a national movement based on integrity and based on practical ways in which we can affect policies at local and national levels. I am no longer running for President, but I am intent on saving our nation from the destruction of our economic hopes and from the destruction of our Constitution.
And all of the energies of all of the people who have been involved in this campaign will be transitioned into a new, national effort to regain control of our government, which seems more and more inaccessible. We are calling that effort “Integrity Now”, and there is a website – http://www.integritynow.org/-- where we can begin to channel all of that enthusiasm and that commitment from people just like you, and just like me, so we can take positive steps to do what we know is right and in the best interests of this nation.
So let us begin again, here, today, in Cleveland, Ohio, with a renewed effort to be of service to our community and to our nation. Let us re-focus on what we can do and what we must do, here at home, in Washington, and all across this country to end the war, rebuild this nation, restore truth and justice and integrity to our government. Let’s make the American dream more than a dream. Let’s make it a reality.
Thank you.
Source: Dennis Kucinich for President