Dennis Kucinich: 911 Truth and Reconciliation


Video message from Congressman Dennis J Kucinich: 911 Truth and Reconciliation September 10, 2010.

Ron Paul, "Dennis Kucinich won’t soon be forgotten"

May 17, 2012 - Kucinich announces retirement from Congress

“After careful consideration and discussions with Elizabeth and my closest friends, I have decided that, at this time, I can best serve from outside the Congress,” Kucinich wrote in an e-mail to supporters. “My commitments to peace, to workers' rights and to social and economic justice are constant and are not dependent upon holding an office.”

Kucinich had to make his decision this week; the filing deadline in Washington was this Friday.

The full statement: I would like to thank you for your support, and thank the tens of thousands of concerned Citizens for Kucinich who in the past few months have written, emailed and called to discuss my running for Congress in Washington State.

At the end of this term I will have served sixteen years in the House of Representatives, leading the way for peace, to bring an end to the wars, for workers' rights, for health care for all, for monetary policy reform and to end the corrupting influence which money has on our political decision-making process. My staff and I have worked to deliver a level of constituent service to the people of Cleveland, which most agree is unmatched for results. As testimony to our efforts in the Cleveland area I received about 75% of the vote from my present constituents who were included in the newly redistricted area in which I ran in March.

Because of my love of public service, I have given a great deal of time and much thought to the advice and encouragement I have received from so many people of good will in Washington State. I certainly want to continue to be of service to our country and to the working men and women who have built it.

After careful consideration and discussions with Elizabeth and my closest friends, I have decided that, at this time, I can best serve from outside the Congress. My commitments to peace, to workers' rights and to social and economic justice are constant and are not dependent upon holding an office. They are dependent upon my continuing to stand up, to speak out, to organize, to motivate and to inspire our nation as to its deeper potential. This I promise I will do with great energy and heart.

I will complete my service in the U.S. House on January 2, 2013, with the same passion and devotion to duty with which I began it on January 3, 1997. And when I do, I shall think of you and all those who have given me encouragement to continue to be of service, and I will smile, knowing that we shall meet again in our celebration of the potential of citizen activists to change the world.

Please continue to encourage your friends and family to sign up at www.Kucinich. we will need to continue to work together for change outside Congress, as we have worked for it from within. This is just the beginning!

More of the same

Re the video statement: Sorry, but I found it pretty lame. Not that I'm all that surprised (and it is from two years ago, after all). But here's what it comes down to: Bemoaning the invasion and occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan and how the government has used 9/11 to manipulate the public--while giving not the slightest hint of dissatisfaction with the official account of what happened on 9/11 itself. That, apparently, is all Kucinich means by 'truth and reconciliation.' This is the usual script from prominent so-called progressives. We've heard it recited many, many times by now, and its inadequacy has been apparent for a long time. Constantly lamenting how the US government has exploited the official account of 9/11 for ends other than those advertised, while saying not a single word about the serious defects in that account--has this approach diminished in the slightest the capacity of this official story for being thus expolited? Among its continuing uses is the power it affords the executive branch to ignore just about any demand that might be put before it--including those as comparatively mild as the one Kucinich is advancing here. The effect of appeals such as this has not been the realization of 'truth and reconcilation' of any kind, but rather to reinforce still further in the minds of the progressives and antiwar activists who look to Kucinich that there's nothing fundamentally wrong with the official version of 9/11, only with how the governemnt has subsequently exploited it. Way, way too late to have such limited awareness on this subject.

At this point, people will often chime in to say, 'Now, now--he can't just come out and challenge the official story. If he did, they'd eat him alive.' Well, of course they would! This is a system that has reached a stage where it cannot be reformed 'from within.' Adapt yourself (i.e., capitulate) to it and you can 'survive' politically--only to capitulate again. And again. And again....and so on. Yipee! And meanwhile, power remains with those who use it as they see fit, then cover up their true motives with the usual false justifications. The OCT = power over the minds of the people. And those benefiting from it have no intention of surrendering that power, no matter how some people might hope to coax some truth and accountability out of them while playing along with the official story. By contrast, exposing the implausibility of the OCT = weakening their power over the minds of the people.

Kucinich is someone that I've long looked to with cautious optimism in terms of how he might evolve. Now, his career looks to me like one whose significance may lie less in any change it succeeded in accomplishing, than in its role in sustaining false hopes that such changes might still be achievable within the existing political framework.

Capitulate

"......you can 'survive' politically--only to capitulate again." Made me think of the news media. "If we don't reprint the governments mimeographed handouts verbatim, we will lose our access and they won't give us anymore mimeographed handouts to print verbatim. Then where would we be?"

Truth and Reconciliation?

Truth and Reconciliation, where is he going with this? Does Truth and Reconciliation lead to a perp walk? Yes, it does; only in this case the perps walk. We are supposed to be a nation of laws but when the violation of those laws become so egregious that the offenders are automatically expiated because the truth is just to vulgar to prosecute then something is not working. We have models for this approach: one is South Africa and the other is Germany. South Africa is now a wreck. What was one of the most thriving economies in the world has now tanked. And to think the Black South Africans, newly freed, could have shared in that equity but it was given away to the banksters. I strongly suspect that Truth and Reconciliation played a big part in this catastrophe. In the case of Germany, the Nuremberg trials were halted and we then imported the "cream" of that crop effectively doing what Truth and Reconciliation accomplishes and that is to let the unregenerate functionaries loose to wreak further havoc and we have evidence of that in the Security State dictatorship which we live under.

Also, does Kucinich go far enough in this little chat? What am I to think; that with my limited resources that I know more than a congressman of 16 years (and holder of other political offices) who, besides gossip on the hill, has had access to state secrets, closed sessions, meetings in camera and other political expedients that aren't available to me? What he said, in essence, is that the gun runners are running the show and it is time to change that agenda and, tacitly, we have to do that from outside Congress, presumably because they are so corrupt. We have known this since Eisenhower. And if we didn't catch on then there was Kennedy (bang), King (bang) Kennedy again (bang). So to quote an old hack: "it doesn't take a Weatherman to tell which way the wind blows" but it does to tell whether that Weatherman is COINTELPRO or not. I just watched a movie last night called Cautiva about the desaparcidos in Argentina. The movie opens up with Kissinger at the '78 World Cup 'cause he was down there helping to disappear people and all. Well it turns out that the World Cup was rigged in Argentina's favor. So corrupt are our governments that even the distractions are rigged. So forgive me for thinking when I hear "Truth and Reconciliation" that some one, a perp, is making overtures to sue for some kind of private peace.

This was released in 2009 - Truth and Reconciliation proposed

Rethinking 9/11: Why Truth and Reconciliation Are Better Strategies Than War - Video released by Michael Andregg and Ground Zero Minnesota on 2/13/08 - analyzes the evidence leading to questions about the responsibility for the 9/11 attacks. Go to http://gzmn.org for more information and resources.

I love this video and the idea behind it.

It's the only idea that's been proposed so far that stands a chance at real justice. Anyone who believes Congress or the "Justice" Department, or the Hague will ever do a thorough investigation probably also believes a hooker when she says, "Man, you were great." I wonder sometimes whether truthers really want peace, or whether its revenge they really want. There are a lot of things post-9/11 that need to be reconciled and we don't need to put anyone behind bars to get started on the most important ones. There are shattered lives and shattered communities all over the Middle East and Central Asia that need our help regardless of whether the real "perps" are revealed and punished. Punishing wrongdoers is not justice, it's punishment. Justice is righting the wrong, however possible, to those who still suffer because of the crime. It's gotta start sometime. Andregg gets it and so does Kucinich.

well said! 911Peacenik

Thank you