Dennis Kucinich: Plundering of America is Underway

Rep. Dennis Kucinich gave an excellent interview to Truthdig on his views of Obama's escalation of the War in Afghanistan. We lightly paraphrase some of the extremely noteworthy and though-provoking points that he made.

The plundering of America is underway. While the nation can find $13 trillion dollars to bail out Wall Street and $1 trillion to fund the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, there has been precious little resources directed at helping out the average citizen who is suffering from massive unemployment, record home foreclosures, and small business failures. People are losing their jobs, their health care, their homes, their savings, their investments, and their retirement security.

The middle class is gravely threatened. Yet, Wall Street received over $13 trillion in bailouts, with untold millions for high salaries and bonuses, while Main Street loses its power through unemployment, reduced wages and benefits and little or no access to credit or investment capital. There is something fundamentally wrong with our economy which borrowing more money to spend on war cannot and will not cure. Perhaps nation building should begin at home.

America's culture of militarism will inevitably lead America away from democracy. The Obama administration has left in place the Patriot Act, implemented after 9/11, that has already usurped American civil liberties and reduced us to a surveillance society. In addition, our system breeds dichotomized thinking (right vs. left) and that dichotomized thinking is a precursor to war - "the us vs. them" ideology. Instead what we need is an expanded state for rational discussion which moves away from labels. As a society we are so label intensive - the whole cable talk network is build on polarization, but it does not solve our problems. If we continue to look at each other as enemies instead of potential allies, we will never be able to resolve the challenges that face us as a society, nation or world. If we are already separated into camps based on income, party or ideology we can never arrive at a consensus. What we need is to look at each other as human beings and put our labels away, so that we can put ourselves on a path of peace and prosperity.

His full interview can be accessed here.