We need to change our direction
Kucinich posted the following on his website:
We need to change our direction
Kucinich calls for a new paradigm.
December 28, 2005
Congressman Kucinich brought it all together in the end - peace, energy dependence, the war in Iraq, the environment, economic power, and our moral obligations to all citizens of our country and the world. This synthesis came in a speech he made Sunday, December 18, as the House debated suspending the rules to speed up passage of a number of bills before close of the 109th's first session.
Referring to the use of House rules to get drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge added onto H.R. 2863, the 2006 Defense Appropriations Act, Kucinich said:
"As we stand here in this season of peace and goodwill towards all, we need to reflect on how rules create a climate that can either achieve peace or go in the opposite direction."
Kucinich continued, "There are some who say we are not in Iraq for oil. I would take issue with that. The drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge makes the connection between war and energy policies and exploitation."
Kucinich then brought out the moral dimension to the plan to drill in ANWR. "This plan will lead to the destruction of the humble, natural way of life, the religion, the culture and the health of the Gwich'in Tribe, which for more than 20,000 years has lived on their ancestral lands in harmony with the natural world." He said the Gwich'in call their land "the sacred place where all life begins."
"Drilling for oil in the coastal plain of the Arctic Refuge will disrupt the caribou calving grounds, and it will lead to long-term decline not only of the herd but of the Gwich'in Tribe, which depends on that porcupine caribou for its survival.
"We cannot minimize this. The Gwich'in have a basic human right to survive. We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men and women are created equal, endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights, the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
"We must take our stand now. Now we have to change the path we are on by changing who we are. When we perpetrate acts of violence unto others, we are damaging ourselves as humans. We cannot do this to the Gwich'in Tribe. We cannot do this to the Arctic Refuge because it will destroy the land, it will destroy their herd, it will destroy the Gwich'in Tribe, and another part of the true America will die."
Kucinich called for a move to a new paradigm, to achieve peace through alternative energies, through conservation.
"Mr. Speaker, we must not only be in the search for alternative energy, we must begin a search for an alternative way to live. We have to escape this cycle of destruction. It is time for us to reconcile nature.
"Here we are in a season of peace and goodwill towards all. We must begin today to find a new path to peace on Earth with our native brothers and sisters, with the Gwich'in and with ourselves."
"This is about getting off a treadmill, a treadmill of dependence on oil, which leads us inevitably to war, which leads us to the destruction of the global climate, which leads us to separation from each other.
"We are in a moment right now where we are going to determine the future of this country and we cannot maintain our economic power in the world if we continue to rely on oil, because it is a nonrenewable source of energy. That is why drilling in the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge is a false solution, in addition to being a violation of the human rights of the Gwich'in. There is no need to distort what this debate is about.
"You know, we are in Iraq because of oil. We are not signing the Kyoto Climate Change Treaty because of oil. We ought to realize this world is interconnected and interdependent, that we are one with the world. The sooner we understand that, the sooner we end this separation, which puts us in a position where we have our troops right now in the Middle East at war. We need to change our direction."
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