Dennis Kucinich, the former Democratic United States House of Representatives member from Ohio and two-time presidential candidate, pins blame for Democrats’ 2014 midterm elections “debacle” on Democrat politicians in the last eight years advancing war and the national security state. Kucinich’s analysis is presented Thursday in a Common Dreams article by Deidre Fulton.
Kucinich explains in the article how Democrats in Washington, DC participating in building the national security state and putting “a nation on the war path” helped cause the poor electoral performance of the party in the 2014 midterm elections:
“The debacle of 2014 had its roots in 2006,” he explained, referencing the Democratic takeover of both the U.S. House and Senate during the final midterm election of the Bush presidency. “Here we are, 8 years later: more war, government which has turned into a national security state, an economy that has decoupled itself from Main Street, and America’s position in the world—again, a nation on the war path. I don’t care where you go and talk to people, individually or in small groups—as I’ve been doing—you find apprehension about where we’re at, and you find a sharp contrast between the security which is defined across the land as human security, and security that is defined as guns and exotic weapons inside the Beltway.”
Kucinich, in the article, encourages people to move across partisan barriers and to recognize the prosperity that comes with peace in contrast with the debt, death, and destruction that war brings:
“When you go across the country and talk to people, there’s reason to be hopeful,” Kucinich told Common Dreams this week. “But the hope is not in a partisan solution. That’s a demonstrated fallacy of our national experience in the last few decades.” …
The longtime peace activist, whose presidential campaign platform included creating a cabinet-level Department of Peace, is now promoting a paradigm shift: “First of all, we have to get the connection between peace and prosperity,” he said. “War brings increased debt, death, and destruction. The only ones who prosper are the arms industries and war profiteers.”
Read the complete article here.
Kucinich’s entreaty for people to recognize the relationship between peace and prosperity is reminiscent of a sentiment shared by many people in the early years of the United States. President George Washington expressed the sentiment in his farewell address, warning Americans not to “entangle our peace and prosperity in the toils of European Ambition, Rivalship, Interest, Humour or Caprice.”
The plea for peace, prosperity, and moving across partisan barriers is also at the heart of the mission of the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity, for which Kucinich is an Advisory Board member.
Then-Rep. Kucinich and RPI Chairman and Founder Ron Paul, then a Republican House member from Texas, were interviewed a few years back on Fox Business by Andrew Napolitano, now also an RPI Advisory Board member, regarding Kucinich and Paul’s joint efforts regarding war and the Federal Reserve. Watch the complete interview here:
