by U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich


"A SACRED MISSION" – Keynote Speech by Dennis Kucinich in Canada Calls for Space Preservation Treaty Conference to Ban Space-based Weapons

TORONTO, CANADA - U.S. Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio), Co-Chair of the U.S. House of Representatives Aviation and Space Caucus, on November 30, 2002 spoke before approximately 1000 people at CUSP: Canadian Conference on Unity, Sovereignty, and Prosperity in the Metro Toronto Convention Centre, invited by the former Canadian Minister of Defense. In a keynote speech, released on New Year's Eve 2002, Kucinich, who is also Chair of the U.S. House of Representative's Progressive Caucus, calls on Canada's leaders to convene an international Space Preservation Treaty Conference where world leaders will gather to sign into law the Space Preservation Treaty, companion to his Space Preservation Act, to ban all space-based weapons.

Kucinich will reintroduce the Space Preservation Act into the U.S. Congress in early 2003. This Act "implement(s) a ban on space-based weapons of the United States and the use of weapons of the United States to destroy or damage objects in space that are in orbit." The Act also directs the U.S. President to negotiate an international Treaty: "The President shall direct the United States representatives to the United Nations and other international organizations to immediately work toward negotiating , adopting, and implementing an international treaty banning space-based weapons and the use of weapons to destroy or damage objects in space that are in orbit."






Keynote address by U.S. Congressman Dennis Kucinich in Toronto, Canada:
What I try to do in my work in the Congress is to focus on people's practical aspirations, which is why today I'll be talking about the practical aspirations we all have for peace.

My Canadian brothers and sisters, what a great honor it is to join you on this day to reclaim those noble sentiments which couple us as continental twins in prayer if not in daily practice. Let this be the moment when a common endeavor asserts a common humanity and sets forth radiant aspirations which spiral out towards the expanding cosmos which returns the felicity. This is the moment when destiny calls us to elevate allegiance to our beloved native lands and to cause love of country to evolve to an even higher form. Unconditional, universal love which is mutually reinforcing and soul building. I join you in unity for peace to make peace sovereign, to harmonize peace and prosperity.

Those goals are implicit in the work of nearly four dozen members of the United States Congress who have proposed a Department of Peace to unite America in striving to make non-violence an organizing principle in our society. To commit our nation to the high purpose of international cooperation to create a world where war is no more. To translate prosperity to posterity by dedicated disarmament. We must insist on the grace of our dreams. We must proceed courageously, expectantly, that the new world which we seek will arise from a loving dialogue between the United States and Canada.

Just as the poet Shelley envisioned humanity's transcendence through a knowing conversation between earth and the moon in Prometheus Unbound, we take you there for a moment where the earth celebrates the rapture of reaching towards that spirit of space embodied in the moon. The earth speaks of the moon. Shelley writes,

The joy, the triumph, the delight, the madness!
The boundless, overflowing, bursting gladness,
The vaporous exultation not to be confined!
Ha! ha! the animation of delight
Which wraps me, like an atmosphere of light,
And bears me as a cloud is borne by its own wind.


The pearl of the heavens responds to its celestial kin…the moon speaks of the earth, Shelley writes:

Brother mine, calm wanderer,
Happy globe of land and air,
Some Spirit is darted like a beam from thee,
Which penetrates my frozen frame,
And passes with the warmth of flame,
With love, and odor, and deep melody
Through me, through me!

Let us, for this moment, contemplate the frozen frame of the moon receiving the love of the earth. Let us hearken to all loving thoughts ever borne upwards in imagination and hope. Let us imagine that survival of our universe depends upon earth and sky reconciling in God's eyes.

Does not the human heart sense the danger of the hour when weapons are aimed at the sky? Does not the heart of the world anguish over the thought of brimstone hailing from Paradise? Do we really have a choice as to whether or not we shall challenge the very concept of weapons in outer space? Whether they are placed there by our brother or some sworn foe.

Ours, in banning weapons in space, in seeking to ban weapons in space, is a sacred mission to reclaim heaven. For every instinct towards creation, for every dream flung towards forever, for every prayer with wings, for all love that is and will be, I've dedicated the SPACE PRESERVATION ACT in the House of Representatives, a bill which will ban all space-based weapons!

And I join you on this day for the purpose of and in dedication of efforts to create a SPACE PRESERVATION TREATY which would ban all space-based weapons and rescue outer space for the restless souls of timeless explorers of the universe.

There are concrete steps which are required towards banning weapons in space. And it might seem curious to some that an American congressman would appear before citizens of Canada to appeal to you. But I do so that Canada convene a worldwide conference for the purpose of gathering leaders from across the globe to discuss and deliberate a treaty which would ban weapons in space.

The SPACE PRESERVATION TREATY CONFERENCE would seek to gain recognition for the URGENCY of such ACTION through encouraging executives of governments from around the world to begin the process towards national approval of such a weapons ban and through encouraging the participation of legislative leaders who would broaden the debate within their respective nations.

IT IS TIME TO BEGIN WORK TOWARDS A BAN OF WEAPONS IN SPACE.
The stage has been set for space weaponization for some time. Since 1983, our Pentagon has spent over one hundred billion dollars on Ballistic Missile Defense and over sixty billion dollars on National Missile Defense. It is expected to spend nearly fifty billion dollars more over the next dozen years.

It is axiomatic that you cannot have guns and butter and it will become axiomatic that you cannot have weapons in space put there by any nation and have decent health care, housing, educational systems or any of those fundamentally important social considerations and economic considerations which made life bearable and worthwhile.

Yet, at the very moment that our country is contemplating spending billions and billions more to put weapons in space, this very day our administration announced that it's cutting back on cost of living increases for Federal employees. This very day many Americans face expiration of their unemployment benefits at a time when our unemployment rate is the highest it's been in years. This very moment many of my constituents in Cleveland, Ohio do not have health insurance or are reduced, in the case of our senior citizens, to splitting their pills to make their prescriptions extend.

This is not a digression. An arms race in space will be the black hole in every budget of every technologically advanced nation. Let me mention two: Russia, having been scorned through cancellation of the ABM Treaty, will be compelled to proceed with protecting its nuclear arsenal and to enhance its launch on warning capabilities, which means a nuclear accident will be waiting to happen! China, looming as an economic power while the U.S. toys with providing Taiwan with short range Theater Missile Defense and in our policy doctrines chooses to beard the Chinese Tiger with threats of a nuclear first strike in the Nuclear Posture Review … embracing China over Taiwan in our National Security Strategy. We will force China to divert billions to Ballistic Missile Defense, research and development, and to build weapons to send into space!

One cannot correctly estimate the urgency of this moment without considering that to speak of weapons in space, one must first look at the arms race which has occurred in this world over nuclear weapons: That there are currently 16 states either possessing, in development of, or attempting to acquire nuclear technology, that there are 20 states either possessing or attempting to acquire or in the process of readying a system to be able to have biological weapons of mass destruction, and there are 26 states in a similar condition with respect to chemical weapons of mass destruction.

This next frontier, weapons in space, will inevitably set off a similar chain reaction among nations, causing nations to try to outdo each other moving towards this destructive technology.

Now we know there are those who indulge in apocalyptic fantasies. And I say that there must also be realists who accurately assess the challenge facing the world…with this idea of putting weapons in space, who understand that THIS MOMENT MUST BE SEIZED, not for our comfort or even for the cause of our own survival but for all humanity. For all humanity.

I would say that Canada has a rare opportunity to lead the world in this singular effort to keep space weapons-free. You have the chance to convene an international conference to shift the consciousness of the planet itself, to advance the reconciliation of all nations which is so needed. Let your arms open wide and embrace a SPACE PRESERVATION TREATY CONFERENCE as you brought 122 nations together towards banning land mines, so Canada can move from earth to space with the same courage and care for Spiritus Mundi.

The United States Space Command has set forth this proposition in its founding document entitled "VISION FOR 2020" and I quote,

"The increasing reliance of US military forces upon space power combined with the explosive proliferation of global space capabilities makes a space vision essential. As stewards for military space, we must be prepared to exploit the advantages of the space medium. This Vision serves as a bridge in the evolution of military space into the 21st century and is the standard by which United States Space Command and its Components will measure progress into the future. US Space Command--dominating the space dimension of military operations to protect US interests and investment. Integrating space forces into war-fighting capabilities across the full spectrum of conflict."

Canada's intrinsic potential, as you did in banning land mines, is to stand for high principle. Now, as we your brothers and sisters to the south, are vexed and slowed by doctrines of unipolar, unilateral, and preemptive domination which cast a fearful shade across our land like a total lunar eclipse, be you the brother mine, the calm wanderer, whose love moves our hearts and whose treaties and entreaties move our souls.

There is debate in America about matters of state. Nearly two thirds of the Democrats in the House of Representatives voted against a resolution authorizing the waging of war against Iraq. Numerous members joined the challenge in federal court to the administration's cancellation of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. Dozens of us have asked for investigations into possible fraud in the National Missile Defense program. There are Americans in the government who have sent out a call. There is a pulsation for peace in America.

As Canadians demonstrate in your Conference on Unity, Sovereignty, and Prosperity, there is an awareness, worldwide, that we are at the CUSP of a new order. A new awareness exists of the interdependence of all, the interconnection of all, the irreducible oneness of all. In this new world, there is no room for weapons of mass destruction. There is no place for war. There is a new quest for peace and prosperity which derives from meaningful work at a decent wage and proper public health care and retirement security and good housing and solid education and a clean, sustainable environment. These are not the claims of any one nation, in a just world these claims transcend nationhood.

On earth as it is in heaven, peaceful economic activity will be enhanced through denying nations access to outer space for the purpose of weaponizing space.

Think about the peaceful purposes which remain for economic progress through peaceful space research and development: the ability to monitor weather, the ability to secure communications, the ability to conduct disaster relief, to be able to monitor arms control agreements, to maintain adequate satellite constellations to establish communication links in disaster areas, for exploration to preserve space for peaceful purposes for all humanity, for scientific development for the unfolding of human knowledge and the extension of human potential.

Far above us, spread out across the western sky at this very moment, Pegasus wings across the skies to dance above the fireworks of Perseus. Creative sparks of nebulae play beyond the clusters of gathering stars. Ursa Minor collects our small dreams, while Ursa Major harvests the stars we wish upon and stars we do not see at the twilight's first gleaming. Near the Winter Hexagon, Gemini's twins, Castor and Pollux, are in constant conversation.

Through it all, the Creative Architect, that intelligence which drew forth this universe, wraps itself in sublime silence. Can we rediscover our connection with such divinity? Can we rescue creation and save life on this planet?

Only WE can speak the answer.



For more information, please contact the Institute for Cooperation in Space (ICIS) or Rep Kucinich at dkucinich@aol.com

CONTACT: USA – 805-641-1999 / Canada – 604-733-8134 Email: info@peaceinspace.com