conflict resolution

Pass pending Senate Bill H.R. 808 to establish a cabinet level Department of Peace, to assemble our most experienced and greatest minds in peacebuilding, & to fund & implement ideas for solving conflict before it escalates into violence. The 2007 budget for our Dept. of War (aka Defense) was $439,533,000,000; imagine the positive impact of those same dollars under a Dept. of Peace. We must implement a national strategy to end the global problem of violence. Learn how at www.thepeacealliance.org

Create a Department of Peace with the goal of abolishing WMDs and reducing occupations and interventions to zero over the next decade. Since virtually the entire US government is supportive of militarism, the president should begin a tradition of having at least this one member of her cabinet who is a pacifist, i.e., a person passionately committed to the nonviolent resolution of conflicts. Dennis Kucinich, a champion of the Dept. of Peace, would make an excellent Secretary of Peace.

a national academy of peace, a complement to West Point, a live-in 4 year college designed to produce professional peace negotiators and trainers who commit to 6 years of service. They would be assigned to posts throughout the United States to provide teaching, training and direct negotiating services to local, state and federal agencies. Public schools, governing bodies, service agencies--wherever conflicts arise, these professionals provide the skills necessary to clarify and resolve issues.

This really is not my own idea. The Peace Alliance has been trying for years to start a Department of Peace in the US government. Peace is not just an absence of war, it's a way of dialoguing to resolve conflicts when they arise, from a whole different perspective. This is more all-encompassing than the role of Secretary of State (State Dept.); it includes domestic as well as international issues, and creates a climate of conflict resolution at all levels, from school-age children on up.