 ▲ 임마누엘 이 페스트라이쉬 교수가 미국 대선 출마 이유를 밝히고 있다. ©브레이크뉴스 |
브레이크뉴스 문흥수 기자= 임마누엘 이 페스트라이쉬(한국이름 이만열) 아시아인스티튜트 소장이 미국 대통령 선거에 무소속으로 출마하겠다고 지난 7일 공식 선언했다. 이만열 교수는 '악을 두려워 하지 않겠다(I shall fear no evil)'는 제목의 미국 대선 출마 선언문을 통해 며 "나라로부터 좋은 교육 혜택을 받은 저 같은 사람들이 가만 있는다면 그 나라는 더이상 희망이 없다"며 "진실에 기반한 정치를 하겠다. 평범한 사람들의 고통을 깊이 공감하고 나라가 올바른 방향으로 나가갈 수 있도록 비전을 제시하겠다"고 밝혔다.
그는 또한 “오늘날 정부와 언론, 교육 기관, 공동체 의식 등은 모두 붕괴 직전에 있다”며 “한국의 홍익인간의 이념과 같은 공동의 이익을 위해 자신의 능력을 사용하는 나라, 진실을 기반으로 한 정책과 미국이 나아가야 할 방향을 제안하기 위해 출마를 결심했다”고 밝혔다.
한편 다음은 이 교수의 영어 연설문 전문이다.
“I shall fear no evil”
There are turns in the river of history so dramatic, even overwhelming, that we must demand more than progressive adaptation, we must demand a fundamental restructuring of every aspect of our society.
This moment is such a moment and I declare my candidacy for president of the United States not because I desire the perks that accompany that position, perks that have grown gaudy as that institution has decayed, but because there will be no hope of stanching the flow of our nation’s lifeblood unless those who have benefited the most from our finest traditions are willing to throw themselves into the battle.
The time has come for a politics founded in truth, and not in an appeal to whim or to fleeting emotions. We cannot look away from the profound moral decay that has laid waste to our beloved United States. We must combine a deep empathy for the sufferings of ordinary people with an inspiring vision for what this country could be.
This campaign does not offer you glittering false promises. Until we restore a discourse in politics that is honest and we reestablish a government that holds up an ideal, and implements that ideal, promises made by politicians, whether they call themselves “conservative” or “progressive,” will not mean much.
Today, our government, our journalism, our educational institutions, our communities and our families all teeter on the brink of collapse. Lost in self-deception we cannot even bring ourselves to face the wasteland that lies before us.
All that I contend for is this: We must struggle together to build participatory institutions in every neighborhood that will permit our citizens to establish the ideals, to practice the habits, and to prepare the policies that will form the foundations on which we will rebuild this republic.
If we cannot form communities, if we cannot see each other as anything other than objects to be used, to be exploited for profit, no degree of policy reform at the highest levels can save us.
Citizens today are no longer citizens, but mere consumers who are force fed pre-packaged fantasies cranked out by public relations firms, firms hired by the same corporations that shower money on every politician.
We are taught by the corrupt media that we have only a role as observers and that we have no choice but to send money to politicians who will never meet with us, or represent us, or even answer our phone calls. The media, controlled by a handful of powerful corporations, works hard to convince us that we must seek out magicians to solve our problems for us, and that we must shun leaders who could inspire us to build a better society with our own hands. There is no road to good government until we start to build it, with our own hands.
As Frederick Douglass wrote, “Who would be free themselves must strike the blow.”
This campaign for the presidency is not about exposure. It would be better to create our own citizens’ journalism than to grovel before the fetid media swamp that demands of us that we be its slaves. That media is unanimous in their contempt for me — and I welcome their contempt.
I do not ask you merely to vote in November. I ask you to join us a struggle to transform the United States, and to work with us, every day. Your efforts will create the sinews that bind citizens to a government which is accountable. If our neighborhood organizations are not democratic and participatory, they cannot support a national democracy.
Whether it is the sprawling prisons filled with the innocent, the decaying infrastructure that condemns our children to misery, or the promulgation of a culture of consumption and indulgence that has destroyed the virtues of frugality, modesty and humility, truly, the hour is late.
This republic should function like a delicate clock, responding predictably to the needs of citizens. But what do we do if the clock’s fan fly is gummed up with muck, if its escape wheel is fractured, or its hammer rod is warped?
Do we leave the clock alone, knowing that it will slow down, eventually coming to an irreparable stop? Or do we pause the clock for a moment, and clean the entirety from head to toe, repairing and improving? The later approach runs the risk of tempting tyranny. But the former virtually guarantees it. Better to prepare for a dangerous, but critical, surgery than to watch in idle indulgence the collapse of the republic.
When it becomes painfully self-evident that a long train of abuses and usurpations are born of the pursuit of absolute despotism, it then becomes our right, and our duty, to provide new guards for the people’s future security.
Let me suggest two fundamental principles that will undergird all our future actions:
The scientific search for truth
Democracy is the process by which the needs and the wisdom of the people are converted into policy. But if the people are misled, sated with distorted and embellished journalism, if they are taught to be self-indulgent and thus lose interest in governance, then we a democracy without people. If the debate on policy is not grounded in truth, then we have a fantasy democracy. However, and this is the hard part, truth is never democratic. If we are voting to determine what is true, then we have already slipped into an orderly, and all too reasonable, psychosis.
We will seek out the truth about the poverty in our country and its causes, about the motivations behind the foreign wars that we fight, about the decline of education and of communities, and we will encourage you, and support you, as you go forward to investigate your neighborhood, and we will help you raise up in yourself the moral courage to formulate, and then to implement, solutions.
The establishment of a government that is, to quote President Abraham Lincoln, “of the people, by the people and for the people” is our purpose. This goal cannot be achieved through the election of a single person, or by the passage of a single bill. It will only come about as a result of a profound shift in our culture and in our habits.
We offer not fool’s gold to distract you from the massive transfer of wealth from the commons to the hands of the super-rich, bloody and deceitful men. We will speak the truth and fear no evil. Only then can we end those endless wars, only then will the ruthless exploitation of ordinary people in the United States be stopped.
A government for the people
The United States Constitution lays out a blueprint for a government that represents the people, and not the powerful. The process of building this republic has been imperfect, tainted by the crimes of slavery and marred by the slaughter of the natives. Nevertheless, we can still glimpse the flame of the Constitution shining from behind the shattered edifice that remains.
Now is the moment to reinvent government, not as a PR gimmick funded by corporations, or as a gateway for contractors in search of profits, but as something that protects the welfare of the people and that defends those who oppose the powerful.
The radical concentration of wealth, the catastrophic collapse of our environment, and the foolish drive for militarism as a road to riches, these crimes are not even considered as topics for discussion in polite company today. Those who are supposed to lead us, prefer rather to wrap themselves in a blanket woven of cowardice and hypocrisy, and to ape the honored practice of the three monkeys.
But there is a terrible hidden cost for that choice of silence. Nightmares wrap around our youth, in the stark mountain passes of Afghanistan or in the dank hallways of Walter Reed Medical Center, where they lie in their own urine trying to piece together a fragmented mind, or in the cells of private prisons where they stare all day at blank walls.
Let us bring a ray of hope to those who must work constantly at miserable jobs, day and night, to feed their children. Let them know that a government will be created that places their interests at the center of the national agenda. Let them know that we are not afraid to call slavery, slavery and that we are not afraid to call war, war!
The Truth goes marching on
With all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering and forbearing, let us go forward together. Our campaign must be confrontational at times, but it will always be rooted and grounded in love. We will demand that the wealthy who gather by vanity shall be diminished and that those who gather by labor shall increase. We will make it clear to all that the most valuable things are precisely those that are invisible: the core values that guide us, as individuals, as groups, and as a nation, to sacrifice ourselves readily, not only for the benefit of the whole, but also for the pursuit of truth.
The damage done to our environment by petroleum and plastic, the trillions of dollars squirreled away off-shore by the rich, the manner in which the internet is used to reduce us to base animals with no self-control, these facts, and more, will be made manifest for all to see as part of this great transformation. Verily, fellow citizens, the truth shall set you free.
Declaration of Candidacy for President of the United States Emanuel Pastreich Independent
April 7, 2020