How the war machine took over the Democrats w/ Dennis Kucinich | The Chris Hedges Report

now you talk about Terror what about for me [Music] I've been terrorized all my days how much all my days [Music] there was once a wing of the democratic party that stood up to the War Industry J William Fulbright George McGovern uh Gene McCarthy Mike Gravel William proxmeyer of course Dennis kucinich but that was largely decades ago the new Democrats especially with the presidency of Bill Clinton became shills not only for Corporate America but the arms industry no weapons system is too costly no war no matter how disastrous goes unfunded the massive military budget 858 billion dollars in military spending allocated for fiscal year 2023 is an increase of 45 billion over the Biden administration's budget request and nearly 80 billion dollars more than the amount appropriated by Congress for the current fiscal year it just keeps growing when 30 members of the party's Progressive caucus recently issued a call for Joe Biden to negotiate with Vladimir Putin they were forced by the party leadership in a war monger media to back down and rescind their letter what happened to the Democratic party why has it become impossible to question war in the massive expenditures on arms why is such questioning political suicide why can't a Democrat ask especially at a time of economic hardship and huge deficits how much we are going to divert to the war in Ukraine which has already consumed some 60 billion dollars as much as we spend on the state department and Aid with no end in sight joining me to discuss the extinction of the anti-war Democrat is Dennis kucinich a former presidential candidate who served eight terms in the House of Representatives before the Democratic party Jerry mandered his district to ensure his defeat um Dennis you were consistently one of the very few Democrats who hearkened back to that Great era of those I mentioned McGovern G McCarthy and others proxmeyer who stood up to the War Industry who paid a very heavy political price for that not only being pushed out of Congress but even when you were in Congress I believe you were not allowed to caucus with the Democrats if I have that correct courtesy of Pelosi but let's go back there was a moment in time when the Democratic party had a fierce peace candidates any War candidates of course 1972 McGovern becomes the nominee uh what happened well first of all uh thank you very much for the opportunity to be on your show and I I think uh you know this is the perfect show for me to do because it's not just a matter of uh having a conversation with the choir it's about taking the discussion to a higher level to try to describe for people what's actually happening what can happen uh with respect to democratic caucus though uh I found my way into the meetings [Laughter] shut me out as much as uh it was uh uh you know who who brought this guy in but but really you know I will say this about uh speaker uh Pelosi uh that we may have had a difference of opinion on some of these uh uh spending issues that help to feel Wars but the thing that I always did was I always let the leadership know ahead of time I don't agree with you I'm taking a different approach I'm going to go to the floor this is what I'm going to say you know whether you like it or not and they appreciated the warning didn't appreciate my uh uh speeches they I'm sure didn't appreciate my votes for the most part but um to me what's happened with the uh Democratic party I think as soon as the Democratic party uh many determination could have been 35 40 years ago that they were going to take corporate uh contributions that that wiped out any distinction between the two parties because in Washington uh he or she who pays the piper you know plays the tune and that's what's happened so there isn't that much of a difference in terms of the uh two parties when it comes to war except notably partisan reasons or not there were over 50 Republicans who voted against the last triage of money that went to fuel the war in Ukraine and I I felt that was notable and of course uh the uh potential speaker of the house should the Republicans win uh uh will be um Kevin McCarthy who has made it a point to say that he's going to look at that funding let's talk about the past so uh you had a significant opposition to the Pentagon budget weapon systems were questioned was it in essence corporate money uh that was uh the factor in essentially driving a wellstone driving these figures out of the house and the senate or were there other reasons certainly plays a part I mean let's face it right now the uh arms industry is making money hand over fists with the expansion of War that's how they make their money and of course they can put money into certain campaigns but that's not all it's about uh the uh the request to fund a war goes into the larger heavily mediated environment which supports a war and if you stand against the funding then your constituents who uh who may be great Americans uh look at that and they say well why aren't you supporting America and I think that members of Congress are always concerned about being caught between on what their constituents think as opposed to what they the doubts that they have and so uh with respect to the Democratic caucus uh this event a retraction of the letter uh by a significant caucus within the Democratic party uh is a new benchmark of uh kind of a slavish obesians to the um status quo within the party which then support war and had and a majority of Republicans at this point are supporting War so you have Congress uh supporting War and this is the way it's been Seymour Melman writes about the Distortion of the economy by the War Industry he points out that one of the crucial tactics that the War Industry uses is to diversify where weapons are made uh I believe f-35s are made in Vermont uh and this really ties the hands of House and Senate members because it it it becomes at a constituent level a debate about jobs well it is a factor can can ignore it so what happens is uh when the uh Pentagon budget comes up there are parade of of various uh businesses small and large who will make appointments with the Congress person or staff and lay out how many jobs are in the district and and uh and how important it is to a district business to have this budget passed I mean I mean I had that happen to me and it was uh you know I invariably have to inform my constituent that I didn't support uh the war that was going this was going to be fueling and so I wasn't going to vote for the budget I'll tell you this Chris that I may have once when I first started in Congress uh voted for a budget that went to the Pentagon but it didn't take me long to figure out what the what the racket was I had a hearing I went to as a member of the government oversight Committee in which An Inspector General uh testified that there are over a trillion dollars worth of accounts in the Pentagon that couldn't be reconciled that they had over 1100 different accounting systems deliberately I suppose I suppose constructed so as to make obfuscation a rule the day so from that moment on I just said wait a minute they're not keeping track of how this money spent why in the world should I vote for for for this budget so from that point on right through to the conclusion of a 16-year uh service in the United States Congress I didn't vote for a single budget of the of the Pentagon because or any of the supplemental Appropriations to keep Wars going because I knew it was a racket I knew there would be billions of dollars thrown away and you know I can cite chapter and first inspector General's reports once the money goes out of this country overseas on behalf you know whether it's Iraq or whatever Adventure we were in the money's blowing the thing that I was always concerned about even more than money was the fact that we were committing American servicemen and service women in the case of Iraq to uh Ally and and the constituency that I had in Congress Chris primarily working-class men and women many veterans Halls uh people really believe strongly in America uh serve the country themselves or their fathers and grandfathers served and and they they support the United States of America so I'm in Congress and I'm I'm seeing what actually is going on and I'm going wait a minute you know I'm not a sucker and I'm looking at this and I'm saying No this is wrong and then I have to go home and explain my vote and I had some people were in a happy because they thought I wasn't being patriotic enough and and that's what a congress person is supposed to do but the truth is the members of Congress are always under enormous pressure not you know locally from their constituents from uh contractors within their constituency uh from the the mediated environment and and the party and and so it's a rare individual and I'm not you know doing this to elevate myself but it's a rare individual who will go against that because you risk uh at times you may risk your political career well if if you won't take their money uh there's always someone else who will uh and they will throw a lot of that money at a candidate to take you down well that's true no matter if you're talking about the arms industry the oil companies the health care industry uh there was a Congressional candidate in 1972 who ran against a darling of the AMA and uh and he told the AMA when they came to him as uh look give the other guy the money because I'm not going to help you well they did and this uh young uh Congressional candidate lost a close race that was me by the way so I I understand the price that you might have to pay for not going with the crowd but my feeling is that public office comes and goes I mean if you you know who are we if we want to take a stand who who are any of us if we're not willing to put it all on the line in any given vote and say look this isn't only what I believe and this is who I am and I and I'm someone who I don't feel I know more than anybody else I do my homework Chris I make sure that I any vote that I take is informed and and as I did when I led the effort against uh the war in Iraq and that's not the way it goes in Congress a lot of people are flying by the seat of their pants or they look at the vote board to see how everyone else is voting because Congress is a place of tremendous peer pressure because and the votes go right up on this uh most people don't know us but but the votes aren't imagine a big gym and the votes go up on this big wall okay and people uh the lights go on green light for yes yellow light for I'm not sure and red light for now and everybody can see how everybody else is voting it helps enforce party discipline and it helps uh uh it it helps to feed the hurt Instinct in time inside the Congress it's a lot of pressure there uh let's talk about the effect of unchecked militarism on our civil society and our democracy well we live in a in a time where there's an acceleration of polarized thinking it's uh Us Versus Them whoever they are and uh the government helps to feed that the government generates uh perceptions and uh and people think well you know there must be there must be a reason for for this uh uh for the government's position on this war the truth of the matter is that we're in a heavily militarized Society driven by agreed uh lust for profit and Wars are being created just to keep fueling that and it it it it it it moves right into uh this idea of of of this old idea of a manifest destiny and then you kind of leap into the 21st century where there are still people believe who believe as in the project for a new you know a new American Century that it has to be that America must rule the world that it is our destiny I mean that is such old thinking but that's where we are and we um see we don't always consider that we're inheritors not only of a physical world but we're inheritors of a uh of a Consciousness where inheritors of thought structures and the thought structures that we've inherited no longer serve a practical purpose in this country we are are we move into a false consciousness of fear of of uh of separation from the rest of of the world see I I see the world as one I I think that human Unity is the is the is the truth that surrounds all of us and when we start separating ourselves and we engage in this polarized thinking polarized thinking is a precursor of war and so we need to try to go back to uh it's a really a spiritual principle that says that look uh we're all one we're interconnected we're in a dependent and the world is one uh you know we may have uh uh different races colors Creeds but there's a there's a Oneness and and if you look at the first model of the country e pluribus unum out of many one it it's the Paradox of a unity in multiplicity and many people can't handle that but but that's that's the truth so we're when we go to war we're living a lie we're separating ourselves from from part of humanity it's a belief that we don't have an ability to be able to solve things and somehow uh the power of our weapons is greater than the power of our of our reason or even deeper the power of our heart and so that's where you know I've gone away from the Orthodoxy which is now part of politics that says well keep that war going and for whatever reason we're going to die we're going to beat the Russian we're going to beat the Chinese what we're bidding ourselves to what extent are these conflicts and I would include the expansion of NATO driven by this lust for greed on the part of the War Industry and the arms manufacturers you know when I was in Congress I put in legislation to uh uh forbid the United States to uh to go into any war that NATO was operating because I felt that it was a subversion of the constitutional principle in Article 1 Section 8 which is a Congress of the United States has the power to to take our country from a condition of peace to war that that was in the Constitution NATO has evolved it wasn't it was first a defensive organization then after Clinton had turned into an offensive organization and it has become now a kind of a sock puppet for uh West Western Powers notably my own Deer Country in the United States and as a result uh NATO uh punches above its weight uh makes statements that are uh ridiculous and look I will make a prediction right here that as a result of of NATO and the eu's role in helping to fuel uh this this war in Ukraine give it a couple years but there won't be a NATO and there won't be an EU as a result why well first of all look at what's happened the U.S actually you know I think the way this unfolded uh in Ukraine you know we all know from 2000 um uh 14 how the U.S engineered a coup and and knocked out uh Ukrainian government and put in one that would serve the U.S interest which was to uh nullify the um the power of the constituency in in eastern Ukraine which was a Russian speaking and they they wanted to basically uh by any means necessary uh keep that uh uh out of influencing the policies of the region in which they did I mean 14 000 by some estimates uh russian-speaking ukrainians were killed from 2014 until 2021. uh most Americans have no idea about that but but anyhow once the once the U.S uh once the intelligence started to say hey we can knock Russia out like like that okay we'll Crush Russia economically these sanctions are going to put Russia away and the EU bought into it what's the result well the war goes on but in the meantime the uh the sanctions have created a dramatic uh increase in the cost of energy uh plus the look The Pipeline that another increase in the cost of energy so you've I've heard from people in Europe where they're seeing increases in in Basic Energy costs anywhere from six to nine times of what it used to be businesses can't survive that individuals are under hardship the pressure is going to go back on the government this is going to cause a lot of problems with the EU and NATO is there as you know a cat's paw for war and frankly people are going to say well who's NATO making decisions for me I would imagine that already you're starting to see protests in Europe where people are saying get out of the EU get out of NATO because they're they're paying an economic price right now for the misjudgment of the European officials who were coaxed into it by the U.S and this ends up being a nightmare a night and you know not only for Europe though but we're getting visited with it somewhat here uh you're seeing of increasing in food prices increases in gas prices uh the accelerant knock-on effect on inflation uh interest rates have gone up mortgage rates uh are gone up there's a there's a cycle of economic violence which is visited on the people of this country who really don't have a straight story about what happened in in Ukraine I represented ukrainians in the United States Congress and proudly so I want to Ukraine I met with people I stood in the square in Ukraine in defense of journalists who were who were under attack there one of whom was killed Gonzaga and so I just felt that you know ukrainians have a right to exist they have a right to their own country and uh what's happened is this is being twisted and suddenly Ukraine becomes a a blood bath of a chessboard where these innocent people are just being used as Pawns in a in a game of Nations and I resent that I mean I resent that on behalf of every every decent person who's trying to keep their family together in Ukraine and who doesn't want to be dominated by anybody U.S Russia anybody and they just want to live their lives but because there there's a game of Nations going on and the US was concerned about Russia's pivot to Asia well guess what this whole thing is blowing up in the face of the West Russia's not we we've forced Russia to Pivot to Asia and now you know Brazil uh Russia India uh China South Africa then Saudi Arabia there's a whole new world being formed and the Catalyst of it is the misjudgment that occurred about uh about Ukraine and the effort to try to control you Ukraine uh that began in 2014 that most people aren't aware of I would say let's talk about the Press because you spoke about going back to your constituents as an anti-war candidate and feeling blowback uh but isn't that because essentially we have a press that is locked out and he wore critics well I think it was a librarian of Congress Daniel borsten who wrote a book about the media being spear carriers for the government and that was true Generations ago and it's true today uh and and that's a problem when you don't have um a all when you don't have many Alternatives that present a different point of view you're locked into a a world view that might be based on on a falsity and I'll give you a great example go back to Iraq because I was really involved in that you know and challenging The Narrative right from the beginning and uh you know I did my homework I saw that back in and I gave congress a memo and on October 2nd 2002 that said look there's no proof that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction but moreover Iraq didn't have anything to do with 911 with okators were on 911 didn't have the intention or capability of attacking the United States so what is this about and I talked to hundreds of members of Commerce about it but the drum beat in the media war war from the White House war war no one bought you know and this is what so many people heard it was just drowned out and so you know I saw this I I've seen this Dynamic before and the media we have a heavily mediated Society even more so today than 20 years ago there there's uh there's and and we also know that the government can have Legions of people working computers sending out messages that phrase those who are for the war and attack those who aren't you know we're living in a in a hall of marriage here when it comes to trying to find out what is really going on and so how do you figure it out well you do your homework but you also have to trust your God your intuition too and and when I you know when I looked at what happened and and um in Iraq that led me to understand what was happening in Libya what was happening in Syria and you know and then I do some more homework I'm you know uh William Blom Chalmers Johnson and others who did the studies case after case after case of U.S interventions that were all about uh lies and our country I love this country and it is being uh uh it is being done a disservice by people who in power who have made book with interest groups who are going forward just to cash in on war and uh and I and I think it's horrific and and in this case Chris we're uh we're playing with the flash of world war three uh you know there are sometimes I think that people in the White House are like something out of uh The Sorcerer's Apprentice you know they're playing with their their they've taken this broom and they're moving out chemical forces around that are going beyond that can easily go beyond their control and and you know so I'm also concerned that things could spin out of control with even now with respect to uh to Russia with respect to China uh North Korea um and what a tragedy what an immense human tragedy when the truth of the matter is we we must find a way to live together as John Kennedy said you know we have to you know learn how to live together as brothers and sisters so we perished together as fools I I want to ask about these pimps of War these shills for War I covered the war in El Salvador I had to deal with Elliot Abrams Robert Kagan worked for him they're wrong about everything they were wrong about the interventions in Iraq Afghanistan Syria with a so-called moderate Rebels Libya and now they're beating the drums of course for endless war with Ukraine it doesn't matter how uh mistaken they were in the past they are perpetuated their think tanks are perpetuated they never lose their purchase on uh the cable talk shows you've dealt with these people I know some of them Abrams and others they are truly human mediocrities uh and I would include the generals like Petraeus and others and yet they're like this uh bacteria or anti-resistant bacteria that we can't uh Vanquish uh talk about them well you know Chris I see the way I looked at it is that even people with whom I I strongly disagree and you just named a number uh I I think we we have to continue to find ways of showing people you know they've they've gone um uh astray and that we have to make an effort to bring them back now how do you do that well um if there ever was a country that was in need of a process of Truth and Reconciliation it's America we really need to have people come forward and admit that they were wrong that you know whatever their motivation was so that we can heal this country because we're divided right now in this whole idea about about war and uh you know this misuse of power in some ways a misunderstanding of the material world itself that we think there's only so much and we have to control it uh if you look at physics the material world you know the the universe keeps expanding but you wouldn't know that talking to some people because their their physics is a very confined almost uh uh pre uh uh Galileo view of the world Dennis I just wanna just in the last two minutes I mean you talked about Truth and Reconciliation there was a certain amount of accountability after the Vietnam War I mean we did as a country ask questions about ourselves that we hadn't asked before and there was a brief period of time when I would argue we became a better country now there's no accountability uh I spent seven years in the Middle East I mean millions of people's lives were destroyed not to mention the tens of thousands of families in the United States who are caring for wounded and crippled veterans or lost loved ones but there's no accountability at all you know uh this is uh there we must find a path to accountability or it's it will be our undoing uh you know I I made an attempt to uh follow a procedure which is one way of achieving accountability through the legislative process and that is that I introduce articles with Patron uh of the president and the vice president I was with you at the Canon building when you did that you remember that and yes and uh you know there were at least 48 articles with respect to uh President Bush and a smaller number for uh vice president Cheney uh the Democratic Leadership however sent that to uh uh those those proposals to committee uh never to be discussed see we it's you know when I when I got on the floor of Congress and I did hundreds of speeches opposed to opposed to the war and and after the war started and proposals to get out of Iraq and other features to not go to war against Iran and and each time there was a a a a a kind of a uh Amnesia that took place with gorbid alcohols the United States of Amnesia it just takes place where people forget the the mistakes not mistakes the misdeeds of the past and and unless we have some measure of accountability uh we're always going to be uh wearing the stain of of uh of war waged against innocent people around the globe and there's a point Chris where we have to start asking ourselves what are we about as a nation are we about endless war about being King of the mountain about uh you know telling other nations how they should live or wouldn't it be nice to start focusing on the education of our people put the resources into education and health care and and job creation and and safe cities and a cleaner environment and all those things that we can do within this within the boundaries of what we know as the United States of America I I you know to me politically it never made sense to just go all over the world but with the media it's it's been and I that was the area of study I had University with the media it's always been pounding away at you know America has to be the the Vanguard of freedom for the world and we're losing it here at home yeah well we have to stop there we should also be clear we've lost almost all these wars going back to Vietnam including Afghanistan and Iraq that was Dennis kucinich former presidential candidate served eight terms in the House of Representatives before the Democratic party pushed him out I want to thank the real news network and its production team Cameron granadino Adam Coley and Kayla Rivera you can find me at chrisedges.substack.com [Music]

Channel: The Real News Network

Views: 565,294

Keywords: Dennis Kucinich, Democratic Party, Budget, Military-Industrial Complex, Chris Hedges Report, The Real News Network, TRNN

Id: b079rbpYIzU

Length: 33min 57sec (2037 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 16 2022