Kucinich: I will close the School of the Americas(SoA enforces FTAA/NAFTA)

[WhoCountsTheVotes]

While Miami police are beating Americans who protest the new Nafta, FTAA, the School of the Americas is training the military officers who will beat, kill and massacre Central and South Americans who dare to protest against the corporations behind FTAA.

As usual, there is ONE candidate who leads, while others ignore the problem or actively support it.


Kucinich: I Will Close School of Americas
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
November 21, 2003


Over the next three days, thousands are expected to protest the School of the Americas in Fort Benning, Ga. (The school has been renamed Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation.)

Presidential Candidate Dennis Kucinich today released the following statement:

"I stand against terror and violence and in solidarity with the victims of the School of the Americas graduates. I support nonviolent demonstration against the SOA. The United States' ability to persuade other nations to investigate terrorism will be strengthened by the closing of a US school that has trained over 60,000 Latin American soldiers to wage war against their own people, against union organizers, religious workers, teachers, and student leaders. As president I will close the School of the Americas."

Rev. Roy Bourgeois, MM, Founder of SOA WATCH and Dennis Kucinich endorser, said:

"Today our world is filled with violence and people are looking for hope. I am supporting Dennis Kucinich for President because he is the person who can bring more peace and justice in our country and in our world. These are challenging times and Dennis Kucinich has the wisdom, integrity, vision and courage to give us the hope our country is seeking today."

http://www.kucinich.us/pressreleases/pr_112103c.php


US Representative Dennis J. Kucinich, a Democrat of Ohio, is a dynamic, visionary leader of the Progressive Caucus of the congressional Democrats who combines a powerful activism with a spiritual sense of the essential interconnectedness of all living things. His holistic worldview carries with it a passionate commitment to public service, peace, human rights, workers rights, and the environment. His advocacy of a Department of Peace seeks not only to make nonviolence an organizing principle in our society, but to make war archaic. His is a powerful, ethical voice for nuclear disarmament, preservation of the ABM treaty, banning weapons in outer space, and a halt to the development of a 'Star Wars' - type missile defense technology.

He has been recognized of his advocacy of human rights in Burma, Nigeria and East Timor. Together with the late Rep. Joe Moakley (D-Mass), he has led a concerted effort to close the School of the Americas, which has been an incubator of human rights violations in Central America. On the eve of the World Trade Organization's Seattle conference, Rep. Kucinich organized 114 Democrats to help convince President Clinton to seek human rights, workers rights and environmental quality principles as preconditions in all US trade agreements. Kucinich marched with workers through the streets of Seattle protesting the WTO's policies and with students through the streets of Washington, DC, challenging the structural readjustment policies of the IMF.
http://www.house.gov/kucinich/info/bio.htm

(Thanks Tinoire for posting this on the other SoA thread)

[Rainbowreflect]

1. Thank you for posting this.

Kucinich is the only one who is really standing up for what is important. He won't back down on what he believes. He is the first candidate in a long time I can trust.
As we teeter on the edge of disaster knowing bush would gladly push us over the edge. I believe any of the democratic candidates can build a bridge to climb across, but Dennis Kucinich would give us wings to fly across.

[WhoCountsTheVotes]

15. It's amazing that we get to vote for someone as amazing as Dennis

really, think about it - I don't think in my lifetime there has ever been a candidate quite like him.

[redqueen]

16. That's a really powerful statement.

And I agree completely.

This will be the only time I have cast a vote and felt 100% GOOD about it. :D

[spindoctor]

2. You know, I totally agree

...as usual, I might add.

But he is unelectable.

[WhoCountsTheVotes]

3. If Dean can be elected, so can Kucinich

If Clark can be nominated, so can Kucinich.

[redqueen]

7. My sentiments exactly. (n/t)

[morgan2]

8. only one unelectable..

is someone who wont take a stand. Thats the problem peoeple have with the Democratic party, they dont know where they stand. Kucinich is a man of principle. Every issue that has come up, I've been able to predict what Kucinich's take on it would be and I haven't been wrong yet.

[Nadienne]

4. Why is he unelectable?

I don't personally know of anyone who would support bu** sh**

I know of many who are ABB

I know of a quite a few who are all about Kucinich

People believe in him. I believe in him. Why can't he win?

[Malva Zebrina]

11. Too honest?

.

[el_gato]

6. why unelectable spindocter? just because you say so?

i hate these types of hit and run posts just to perpetuate the meme

[spindoctor]

9. Isn't that what everybody says?

Then it must be true, right?

[WhoCountsTheVotes]

14. everyone does say Dean is unelectable

but I don't believe it!

[IrateCitizen]

5. Connecting the all-important dots, as usual

It was USMC Maj. Gen. (Ret.) Smedley Darlington Butler who said, "I was a gangster for capitalism," in describing his service in the Marine Corps (during which he was awarded TWO Medals of Honor). Before the PNAC crowd came in, the US military was no longer expected to carry out campaigns of "making the world safe for high capital returns." That was all done through the efforts of proxy warriors, trained and funded through the Pentagon.

Is it any wonder that Colombia continues to experience the murder of labor organizers at a rate of about one per day, at the same time that the US is giving the Colombian government somewhere around $1.4 billion in military aid through Plan Colombia? Those dollars are a pittance to the billions that will eventually result from the maintenance of the "openness" of the Colombian economy coupled with the repression of its populace.

The story is the same all over. These agreements like NAFTA, FTAA, etc. wouldn't be able to exist without the presence of the military muscle required to keep them open. Like Thomas Friedman admitted openly, "The invisible hand of the free market will not work without the invisible fist of McDonnell Douglas." Ignoring the connections between these phenomena is just remaining blissfully ignorant in the face of all evidence to the contrary, IMHO.

[WhoCountsTheVotes]

10. love that quote

about the invisible hand. I hope more people can make it clear that NAFTA is GATT is the WTO is FTAA - and that when Americans (either in the US or south) try to protest NAFTA/GATT/WTO/FTAA - we get beaten in the streets.

[Ficus]

12. kick it old school

The only speech that Dennis will give there will be to close it down.

[G_j]

13. DK is right on! n/t

[tinanator]

17. YES!!!!!! He's the MAN!

why am I even surprised. Wake up America, THIS is your big chance.