On October 2, 2001, Dennis Kucinich introduced The Space Preservation Act of 2001 into the first session of the 107th Congress via House of Representatives (H.R.) bill HR 2977 IH.
“Mr. Kucinich introduced the following bill[;] which was referred to the Committee on Science[, and] in addition to the Committees on Armed Services[,] and International Relations[,] for a period to be subsequently determined by the Speaker[,] in each case for consideration of such provisions as fall within the jurisdiction of the committee concerned….[t]o preserve the cooperative, peaceful uses of space for the benefit of all humankind by permanently prohibiting the basing of weapons in space by the United States[,] and to require the President to take action to adopt and implement a world treaty banning space-based weapons.”
“Space Preservation Act of 2001 [- r]eaffirm[ed] U.S. policy that activities in space should be devoted to peaceful purposes [and d]irect[ed] the President to: (1) ban U.S. space-based weapons and remove from space any existing U.S. weapons; (2) terminate research and development, testing, manufacturing, production, and deployment of all such weapons; and (3) direct the U.S. representatives to the United Nations and other international organizations to work toward negotiating, adopting, and implementing a world agreement banning space-based weapons.”
However, this billed died in session that same day because the legislation was not passed by 2/22/2002 so Congress cleared it from the books. In the true spirit of persistence, Kucinich re-introduced this bill as H.R. 3657 two years later in the 108th Congress on 12/8/2003, but having died in the previous session, the bill did not receive a vote.
Here we are, exactly twenty-one years later in the 21st century on the anniversary of the day Mr. Kucinich first brought forth this prophetic bill. Russia and the United States are openly posturing nuclear solutions for the nuclear family. SPAWAR, renamed NAVWAR by the Navy, still utilizes satellites, missiles, ionization of the atmosphere and weather warfare to weaponize space and not for the benefit of humankind.
“Let not any one pacify his conscience by the delusion that he can do no harm if he takes no part, and forms no opinion. Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing. He is not a good man who, without a protest, allows wrong to be committed in his name, and with the means which he helps to supply, because he will not trouble himself to use his mind on the subject.” John Stuart Mill (1867)
“Either you are a citizen or you are not a citizen at all. If you are a citizen, you are free; if you are not a citizen, you are a slave” according to Malcolm X who was murdered in 1965.
Twenty-three years later, Jimmy Carter signed 50 USC 1801 into law turning citizens into enemies under the cape of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, the US Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Just ask Carter Page.
According to Merriam Webster, a citizen is: “a native or naturalized person who owes allegiance to a government and is entitled to protection from it, a member of a state, an inhabitant of a city or town entitled to the rights and privileges of a freeman and a civilian as distinguished from a specialized servant of the state. This according to the law of the land.”
Maritime law and Black’s Law Dictionary 4th Edition specifically define a citizen as “a member of a free city or jural society, (civitas,) possessing all the rights and privileges which can be enjoyed by any person under its constitution and government, and subject to the corresponding duties. ‘Citizens’ are members of community inspired to common goal, who, in associated relations, submit themselves to rules of conduct for the promotion of general welfare and conservation of individual as well as collective rights.”
But what of space? What collective rights protect citizens of the land and sea from the technologies being used to conduct war against humanity from space?
Here we are in 2022 and it’s as if the law stood still, but not time. Happy Anniversary. Still there is hope if you are willing to reject tyranny on the land, sea and confront the abuse of the final frontier as Dennis Kucinich did twenty years ago today.