America could sure use a Kucinich Presidency. Someone that won't bow down to corporations. Someone who will try to end the corruption. Someone who might actually put * in jail.
Now you are against Bush's request for an additional $87 billion to fund the occupation of Iraq. I'm advocating that we end the occupation. We need to stop any financing for the present or future deployment of U.S. troops in Iraq. We're in Iraq based on a lie, pure and simple.
You mean we just pull out and leave? Don't we have a responsibility to rebuild the country? The presence of our troops there makes it essentially antithetical to the stabilization of Iraq. Our troops are targets. My plan is this: Let the U.S. get out, but with these terms. First of all, the U.N. handles all the oil revenues. Those resources belong to the Iraqi people. Number two: The U.N. handles all the contracts. There can't be anymore Halliburton deals, can't be any more big contracts for administration contributors. It's time that we end war profiteering.
America almost pulled the world into supporting the invasion, and America may be able to pull the world community into an agreement that still permits the U.S. to have control over these aspects. But we're not going to reach a solution. It will keep breaking down until the U.N. gets in fully, with the members providing troops. Until we get the U.S. out, we're never going to have peace there. And the U.N. has to handle the cause of building a new government, which is not a puppet government of the United States. If we insist on the right to choose, then Iraq becomes our fifty-first state. Which it may well be on its way to becoming, based on the amount of money we're spending there.
I wonder, though: Look what a utility company in Ohio did when you stood up to it -- they destroyed your mayoralty. What's going to happen when huge, politically connected companies such as Halliburton and Bechtel decide they don't want to lose these billion-dollar contracts handed to them by the Bush administration? The power of a mayor is nothing compared to the executive power of the president. Let's just say that I would use the full executive power of the presidency to protect the interests of the American people. And that I would expect to have a very cooperative relationship with American businesses. Matter of fact, I think my presidency would be good for them, because I would help restore a sense of ethics in the economy. Now, those businesses that would try to use their influence to try to capsize a government might find that they'd be dealing with someone who has broader experience in government than they might imagine.
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I was at your rally this morning, and what struck me was how your ideas really hearkened back to New Deal politics, with your calls for massive public-works programs and heightened federal regulatory powers. Democrats don't really talk about Franklin Roosevelt anymore. They all compare themselves to Kennedy and Truman. Why is this? A succession of Democratic presidents have not celebrated the potency of New Deal economics but have celebrated instead a more measured, corporate approach.
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