Kucinich in Maine visit urges resistance to war
Originally published in the Kennebec Journal
Sunday, May 8, 2005
Kucinich in Maine visit urges resistance to war
By BETTY ADAMS
Staff Writer
Ohio Democratic Congressman Dennis Kucinich said he likes Mainers because they're feisty.
He told a group of about 75 Mainers Saturday that they can use that trait to affect national policy.
Kucinich, speaking to about 75 people Saturday at the Maine Progressive Caucus at Augusta City Center, urged them to raise their voices to stop the war in Iraq, to bring the troops home quickly and to stop the Republican administration from raiding the Social Security fund.
He said Vice President Dick Cheney and other top government officials lied to get America into war in Iraq by saying that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.
"Many of us know now that the administration wasn't telling the truth," Kucinich said. "It was not a failure of intelligence. It was a failure of integrity, which affects this country."
He said things are upside down when the United States proposed to close military bases in Maine while building bases in Iraq.
"We are not going to be able to sustain this war and the losses that are going to keep coming," he said. "We're taking part-time National Guard members and putting them on full-time duty."
He said he wanted to be clear about his position:
"The young men and men and women who serve are serving honorably. We owe them a debt of gratitude, but the people who sent them have not acted honorably."
Now Kucinich is taking on Bush's plan to reform Social Security and permit Americans to put a small portion of their Social Security taxes into private investment accounts. At retirement, according to the proposal, they would get a portion of their regular Social Security benefits in guaranteed monthly payments and a portion from their private accounts.
"Social Security was never meant to be an investment," he said. "It's an insurance policy."
He said the attempt to tap into Social Security is also an attempt to divide young and old. "Young people will have Social Security as long as this plan doesn't go through," said Kucinich.
Kucinich has made a DVD analyzing Bush's Social Security proposal,
"We need to recommit to the spirit of community to help to rescue the nation from a dark moment in its history," Kucinich said.
"This is the moment we need to rally each other and go out across the state and hold meetings telling people our democracy is on the line." He said the Bush administration claims "there is no trust fund." In contrast, Kucinich said, the Social Security Administration reports having $1.68 trillion in a trust fund that is projected by its own accountants to grow to $6 trillion by 2028. "It can pay 100 percent of benefits through 2041," he said.
The animated Kucinich walked up the stairs into the audience at the Lecture Hall, calling for "time out" when questions ran too long, and at one point holding up his Dexter shoe to show that he supports Maine workers.
"All of these factories we've seen close you can trace back to these trade agreements and cheap labor," he said.
Kucinich, a former Cleveland mayor who campaigned for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2004, won six delegates from Maine before throwing his support to U.S. Sen. John Kerry shortly before the national convention.
Rebekah Younger, vice chairwoman of the steering committee of the Maine Progressive Caucus, said Kucinich's following in Maine has remained strong.
"He's drawing more people than he has in the campaign," she said. "People who might have been supporters of Kerry or (former Vermont Gov. Howard) Dean are here to hear what he has to say."
Ian Engdahl, a sophomore at Winthrop High School, had worked on Kucinich's campaign and came to hear him speak again.
"I love politics," Engdahl said.
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