Dennis Kucinich Quotes

If you want to rock the Vote, You have to Rock the Boat.

If you drill, there's going to be a spill. It's axiomatic.

We have weapons of mass destruction we have to address here at home. Poverty is a weapon of mass destruction. Homelessness is a weapon of mass destruction. Unemployment is a weapon of mass destruction.

I take issue with many people's description of people being "Illegal" Immigrants. There aren't any illegal Human Beings as far as I'm concerned.

I believe health care is a civil right.

We cannot avert our eyes without staining our souls.

The fact of the matter is we went after Iraq for oil. And the fact of the matter is that the United States has degraded our role as a great nation by attacking this nation that had no capacity to attack the United States and no intention of doing so, that didn't have anything to do with 9/11, didn't have weapons of mass destruction.

Peace is not just the absence of war, it is the active presence of a capacity for love and compassion, and reciprocity. It is an awareness that our lives are not to be lived simply for ourselves through expressing our individuality, but we confirm the purpose of our lives through the work of expressing our shared sense of community in a purposeful and practical way; to sustain our own lives we sustain the lives of others - in family, in a community of neighborhoods called a city, and in a community of nations called the world.

I believe sincerely that we should bring in U.N. peacekeepers and bring our troops home.

I live in the same house I purchased in 1971 for $22,500. I think we need to increase the minimum wage and so all my neighbors can get an increase in their wages.

Everyone should have health insurance? I say everyone should have health care. I'm not selling insurance.

I think there are people in this Congress who actually believe that government does not have a benign role in the lives of the people, except as an engine to redistribute the wealth of the Nation upwards.

America stands strongest in challenging terrorism when we do not give up an inch of our civil liberties.

We have a right to defend ourselves, but we don't have a right to
aggress.

Poverty is a weapon of mass destruction. Joblessness is a weapon of mass destruction, homelessness, a weapon of mass destruction ... racism, a weapon of mass destruction, fear, a weapon of mass destruction. We must disarm these weapons and renew our commitment to quality public schools and dedicated teachers and good housing and quality health care and decent jobs and stronger neighborhoods.

Dominating all earth from outer space will have an out-of-this-world price tag, perhaps more than $1 trillion. A question: Why reach for the stars with guns in our hands? Are there weapons of mass destruction on Mars?

We must work to repeal trade agreements that impede access to affordable generic drugs. We must work to cause the IMF and the World Bank to reduce and eventually eliminate the debt that takes poor nations' resources away from crises like AIDS. We must focus America's leadership on addressing and ending this epidemic.

We are on the path toward becoming the Sparta of the 21st century, armed to the teeth and without the capacity to care for our own people.

Peace is a condition of the heart. It's a state of mind, of tranquility, of calmness, and of centeredness. It's an understanding of the reciprocal nature of love, a presence, a journey. It's all of our aspirations. Peace is not a luxury or merely the absence of war, it's a kind of grace - which we're all entitled to as people who are alive. Peace is an active presence of the capacity for a higher evolution of human awareness.

There is no reason why anyone in this country should be lacking health care when America has the resources right now. It would not cost much more than what we are paying right now. As a matter of fact, Americans are paying for a universal standard of care. They are just not getting it because it is all about corporations making a profit. It is not about people. Support Medicare for all.

It's time for us to review the circumstances under which corporations gain rights superior to that of individuals in our society. It's time for us to look at the practices of corporations and holding them accountable for violations of law which often go unnoticed because there is very little regulation.

Peace is a civil right which makes other human rights possible. Peace is a precondition for our existence. Peace permits our continued existence.

In the Cleveland area, I have been instrumental in helping to save or create thousands of jobs. People know me there as a person who gets involved.

I am for police function that protects citizens of this great Nation, not a police function that is used to terrorize them.

2,074 pages isn't nearly enough to cover health care for America.

There is a deeper truth expressed in the unity of the United States. Implicate in the union of our country is the union of all people. All people are essentially one. The world is interconnected not only on the material level of economics, trade, communication, and transportation, but innerconnected through human consciousness, through the human heart, through the heart of the world, through the simply expressed impulse and yearning to be and to breathe free.

Every year at this time, an important phrase marks the season: peace on earth and goodwill towards men. It's so common we sometimes forget about what it really means - that we strive for a world without war, a society where we respect and help our neighbors, a place where we protect and uplift our most in need. This isn't a phrase we should live by for one day or one month. It's a set of values that must bond and motivate us every day.

The FDA has received over a million comments from citizens demanding labeling of GMOs. 90 percent of Americans agree. So, why no labeling?

Iraq does not pose an imminent threat to the United States of any of its neighboring nations.

When any one of us is aligned with our purpose, there is an inexhaustible source of energy. Once you're aligned with your purpose, the energy is always there to do whatever you need. You never get tired, and you do everything with a sense of joy. It's actually effortless - it's a flow.

There are many people making a difference. I mean, Dr. King never held an office. Gandhi never held an office. There are people who are archetypes in our society who have never held office and made a difference.

When you're talking about Iraq and oil, you're talking about a mess, no matter who's in charge.

I don't want to bash Bill and Hillary, because they're friends of mine, but I do have a difference of opinion about how to take back the House and the Senate.

We're not locked in to these conditions that degrade the environment, and jeopardize the future of our children.

I think we need to look for any opening we can to avoid a war and we shouldn't pass up any opportunity for resolution.

I said in October of 2008 that there was no proof that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction or had the intention or capability of attacking the United States. Here we are. Almost 4,700 troops died, tens of thousands injured, over a million Iraqis dead. It will cost $5 trillion in the end for the war.

Our vision of interconnectedness resonates with new networks of world citizens in nongovernmental organizations linking from numberless centers of energy, expressing the emergence of a new organic whole, seeking unity within and across national lines ... If governments and their leaders, bound by hierarchy and patriarchy, wedded to military might for legitimacy, fail to grasp the implications of an emerging world consciousness for cooperation, for peace and for sustainability, they may become irrelevant.

You know, I started my career in politics in 1967. I'm not new to this. I did not just fall off the Christmas tree. I understand the world is complex. I know that there are people out there who want to hurt other people.

The energy of the stars becomes us. We become the energy of the stars. Stardust and spirit unite and we begin: one with the universe, whole and holy. From one source, endless creative energy, bursting forth, kinetic, elemental; we, the earth, air, water and fire-source of nearly fifteen billion years of cosmic spiraling.

What I said was that in a democratic society, people must be permitted to make their choices and that the choices of women should not be subordinate to the choices of men, otherwise women are less than equal, are second-class citizens.

War can be so impersonal yet when we put a name, a face, a place and match it to families, then war is not impersonal.

Let's help people in this country with the resources we have.

Today we're faced with over 500 casualties, a cost of over $200 billion. And it could rise - the casualties could go into thousands and the cost could go over half a trillion - if we stay there for years.

Public control of the political process requires public financing. The restoration of our American Democracy depends upon public financing.

Wake up America!
The insurance companies took over health care!
Wake up America!
The pharmaceutical companies took over drug pricing!
Wake up America!
The speculators took over Wall Street!
Wake up America!
They want your Social Security!
Wake up America!
Multinational corporations took over our trade policies!
Wake up America!
We went into Iraq for oil!
WAKE UP AMERICA!

Lies are weapons of mass destruction.

Anyone who really studies Catholicism deeply is aware of the mystical nature of our faith. Even references to Christ's mystical body has connections to that principle.

So actually war is politically profitable, financially profitable, morally depraved.

I could hear your heart and soul come through your voice!

People are fed up with the politics where candidates just rip each other apart and then the voters lose in the end because no one really knows what anybody stands for.

There's an ethical dimension to my life and all of our lives, from the time we get up in the morning to the time we sleep, including what we sleep on. So I don't separate my choices from ethical choices at any time.

Because of my life experience and because of my public life experience, I have the ability to lead this nation and to bring all people together and to lift up the cause of this nation so that we once again become a nation that comes from the heart and reconnect with our optimism to really create a nation that we can all be proud of.

The belief in the inevitability of war is a self-fulfilling prophecy ... We need an alternative vision, to see the world as one, as interconnected.

Republican leaders have made clear they have no plans to use the power of government to stimulate the economy, invest in job creation and spur job growth. The Fed's plan is to give banks more money to finance the private sector job creation. But banks have ample cash now; they aren't lending, and the private sector is not creating the jobs. That is why we have 15 million people unemployed.

We're not going to have Medicare for all.if we at least we can take a step in that direction by giving people 50 - age 55 to 64 a chance to buy in, then we're reconnecting with some of those ideals that go back to the great days of FDR.

Life should not be a funeral march to the grave. We should have the capacity for being able to lift up not just public dialogue, but lift up each other in a greater cause of nationhood.

Corporations are reneging on pension obligations. Social Security is under attack.

The only way to meet pressing social needs and be fiscally responsible is to cut the runaway Pentagon budget, which now almost equals the military spending of all other countries in the world combined.

The PATRIOT Act allows Federal agents to look at public and university library patron circulation records, books checked out, magazines consulted, all subject to government scrutiny. There used to be a time in this country when we were worried whether our young people knew how to read. Now some in our government are more worried that government agents be able to find out what people are reading.

That is the America which stands not in pursuit of an axis of evil, but which is itself at the axis of hope and faith and peace and freedom.

We are spending millions, if not billions of dollars every year on programs to fight the childhood obesity epidemic while giving almost $2 billion of taxpayer money to the junk food and fast food industries to make the epidemic worse.

When you have real power you don't threaten. People know what your capabilities are.

Oh, my family lived in 21 places before I was 17.

If we can change ourselves, we can change the world. We're not the victims of the world we see, we're the victims of the way we see the world. This is the essence of Compassionate Listening: seeing the person next to you as a part of yourself.

Challege the underlying concepts of corporate personhood ...

Genetic engineering is having a serious impact on the food we eat, on the environment, and on farmers. To ensure we can maximize benefits and minimize hazards, Congress must provide a comprehensive regulatory framework for all genetically engineered products.

We must work toward the elimination of all nuclear weapons, and an end to policies which cause this country to move toward the weaponization of space.

This country was taken into war based on lies about weapons of mass destruction and Al Qaeda's role with respect to Iraq, which there wasn't one at the time we went in. I want to state that Mr. Cheney must be held accountable. He is already ginning up a cause for war against Iran. Now, we have to stand for this Constitution, we have to protect and defend this Constitution.

It is fear which leads us to war, ... It is fear which leads us to believe that we must kill or be killed. Fear which leads us to attack those who have not attacked us. Fear which leads us to ring our nation in the very heavens with weapons of mass destruction.

America as a nation cannot walk in faith and fear at the same time.

Bush is going in the wrong way. And I dare say, that is what the strategy of his administration is, is just to wipe out government's purpose for any social and economic justice at all. And I'm going to take the country in an opposite direction than he's taking it.

This is a struggle for the soul of the Democratic Party, which in too many cases has become so corporate and identified with corporate interests that you can't tell the difference between Democrats and Republicans.

We cannot take the president off the hook for an illegal war that was based on lies

When you consider that a steelworker who's making $40,000 a year has virtually the same tax burden as someone who's making $400,000 a year, you see that there are inequities. This administration has used the tax code to accelerate wealth to the top. Most of the tax breaks have gone to people in the top bracket.

He (George W. Bush) is going in the wrong way. And I dare say, that is what the strategy of his administration is, is just to wipe out government's purpose for any social and economic justice at all.

In the past week it has become clear that the vote on the final healthcare bill will be very close. I take this vote with the utmost seriousness. I am quite aware of the historic fight that has lasted the better part of the last century to bring America in line with other modern democracies in providing single payer health care.

Utilities used deregulation to effect a series of mergers limiting competition. In order to accelerate profits, cost cutting ensued, involving the layoff of thousands of utility company employees, including some who were responsible for maintenance of generation, transmission, and distribution systems. A number of investor-owned utilities stopped investing in the maintenance and repair of their own equipment, and, instead, cut costs to enhance the value of their stock rather than spending money to enhance the value of their service.

We have to make education a priority, but all this debate about education and testing is almost beside the point. We only spend a fraction of the money on education that we spend on arms buildups. Under a Kucinich administration, education becomes one of the top domestic priorities. We put money into it. We cause the government to be vitally involved in it. And we make sure our children have the love of knowledge.

It is time for a sustainable energy policy which puts consumers, the environment, human health, and peace first.

What I'd do is not have USAID and the National Endowment for Democracy working with U.S. taxpayers' money to knock off an elected government in Ukraine, which is what they did. I wouldn't try to force the people of Ukraine into a deal with NATO against their interest or into a deal with the European Union, which is against their economic interest.

Journalist:
Congressman Kucinich, I believe you're the only one here who voted against the PATRIOT act right away after 9/11. Why is that?
His Reply:
Because I read it.

We tried war, we tried aggression, we tried intervention. None of it works. Why don't we try peace, as a science of human relations, not as some vague notion - as everyday work.

The Democratic Party headquarters house elf,