Department of Peace

roxy

This is an article in Resurgence magazine. It's basically about the plight of a US Congressman to establish a Department for Peace. Flick your eye over it anyhow. The rest of the magazine is always interesting.

http://resurgence.gn.apc.org

Roxy

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If you think peace, you create peace.

from Resurgence issue 215

Democratic us Congressman Dennis Kucinich has been overwhelmed by support following a major speech questioning the war on terrorism. He has already gained the support of forty-three fellow Congressmen for his bill proposing the creation of a us Department of Peace. He also wants a ban on weapons in space. This article is extracted from his recent ‘call to action’ made in the House of Representatives.

WE HAVE REACHED a moment in history where it is urgent that people everywhere speak out, each as president of his or her own life, to protect the peace of their nation and the world. We should speak out and caution leaders who generate fear through talk of endless war or the final conflict. We should appeal to our leaders to consider that their own bellicose thoughts, words and deeds are reshaping consciousness and can have an adverse effect. Because when one person thinks: fight! he or she finds a fight. One faction thinks: war! and starts a war. One nation thinks: nuclear! and approaches the abyss. What then, of one nation which thinks peace, and seeks peace?

Neither individuals nor nations exist in a vacuum, which is why we have a serious responsibility for each other in this world. Each of us is a citizen of a common planet, bound to a common destiny. So connected are we, that each of us has the power to be the eyes of the world, the voice of the world, the conscience of the world, or the end of the world. And as each one of us chooses, so becomes the world.

THE SPLITTING OF the atom for destructive purposes admits a split consciousness, the compartmentalised thinking of ‘us versus them’, the dichotomised thinking which spawns polarity and leads to war. The proposed use of nuclear weapons pollutes the psyche with the arrogance of infinite power. It creates delusions of domination of matter and space. It is dehumanising through its calculations of mass casualties. We must overcome doomthinkers and sayers who invite a world descending and disintegrating into a nuclear disaster. With a world at risk, we must find the bombs in our own lives and disarm them. We must listen to that quiet inner voice which counsels that the survival of all is achieved through the unity of all.

We must overcome our fear of each other, by seeking out the humanity within each of us. The human heart contains every possibility of race, creed, language, religion and politics. We are one in our commonalities. Must we always fear our differences? We can overcome our fears by not feeding them with more war and nuclear confrontations. We must ask our leaders to unify us in courage.

We need to create a new, clear vision of a world as one, of people working out their differences peacefully. A new, clear vision with the teaching of non-violence, non-violent intervention and mediation, where people can live in harmony within their families, within their communities, and within themselves. A new clear vision of peaceful coexistence in a world of tolerance.

At this moment of peril we must move away from fear’s paralysis. This is a call to action: to replace expanded war with expanded peace. This is a call for action to place the very survival of this planet on the agenda of all people, everywhere. As citizens of a common planet, we have an obligation to ourselves and our posterity. We must demand that all nations put down the nuclear sword.

When peace is not on the agenda of our political parties or our governments then it must be the work and the duty of each citizen of the world. This is the time to organise for peace. This is the time for new thinking. This is the time to conceive of peace as being not simply the absence of violence, but the active presence of the capacity for a higher evolution of human awareness. This is the time to conceive of peace as respect, trust and integrity. This is the time to take the infinite capabilities of humanity to transform consciousness which compels violence at a personal, group, national or international level. This is a time to develop new compassion for others and ourselves.

IT IS PRACTICAL to work for peace as a means of achieving permanent security. It is similarly practical to work for total nuclear disarmament, particularly when nuclear arms do not even come close to addressing the real security problems which confront our nations: witness the events of September 11, 2001.

The purpose of the new Bill HR2459 is to create a Department of Peace in the us. It envisions new structures to help create peace in our homes, in our families, in our schools, in our neighbourhoods, in our cities, and in our nation. It aspires to create conditions for peace within and to create conditions for peace worldwide. It considers the conditions which cause people to become the terrorists of the future: issues of poverty, scarcity and exploitation. It is practical to make outer space safe from weapons so that humanity can continue to pursue a destiny among the stars.

We can achieve this practical vision of peace, if we are ready to work for it. People worldwide need to meet with like-minded people, about peace and nuclear disarmament, now. People worldwide need to gather in peace, now. People worldwide need to march and to pray for peace, now. People worldwide need to connect with each other on the Web, for peace, now.

Where war-making is profoundly uncreative in its destruction, peace-making can be deeply creative. We need to communicate with each other the ways in which we work in our communities to make this a more peaceful world. Now is the time to think, speak, write, organise, march and take action to create peace as a social imperative, as an economic imperative, and as a political imperative. As the hymn says, "Let there be peace on Earth and let it begin with me."

This is the work of the human family, of people all over the world demanding that governments and non-governmental actors alike put down their weapons. This is the work of the human family, responding in this moment of crisis to protect the planet and all life within it. As we understand that all people of the world are interconnected, we can achieve both nuclear disarmament and peace. We can accomplish this through upholding a holistic vision where the claims of all living beings to the right of survival are recognised.

Nuclear disarmament and peace are the signposts toward the uplit path of an even brighter human condition wherein we can through our conscious efforts evolve and re-establish the context of our existence from peril to peace, from revolution to evolution. Think peace. Speak peace. Act peace. Peace. •

Responses to this article are welcomed. Write to: Charity 11808, Lorain Avenue, Cleveland, OH 44111, USA. Or email: Dkucinich@aol.com.
www.thespiritoffreedom.com

Dennis Kucinich is a US Congressman.

rien_du_tout

I liked the piece:) Although I think it shouldnt have a specific department I do think peace is important in relation to life in general aswell as world politics.

seán

DadaKopf

After 5000 years of civilization, all philosophers, priests and politicians have come up with is: "be nicer to people".

They should set up a Department of Being Nice. That'd work.