Tag Archives: law

David Addington, Dick Cheney, and Desperate Deeds in the Dark

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My husband hates politics, but when I have a nightmare, he listens kindly to my ranting. Here’s my bad dream: President Bush suddenly dies of some inscrutable injury secretly inflicted by the next President Dick Cheney, who appoints a worthless investigative commission, goes scot-free, and uses his brief presidency to orchestrate the succession of his fave cohort-in-conspiracies-against-the-Constitution, David S. Addington.

The few times I have inflicted my politics upon my husband, he’s listened with resigned patience. But this time he gently suggested that I might consider dreaming about something more likely to happen than Vice-President Cheney overthrowing the government. I told him that of course I hoped he was right. “But in my dream, it wasn’t a violent overthrow, you know, some kind of revolution…. All Cheney had to do was stage a mysterious assassination, and bingo, he was the government.”

“That’s what I mean by highly unlikely. Can’t you find something else to fret about…?”

 

But I’m still worrying. Will I wake up tomorrow morning to hear the unthinkable, as I did when the Kennedys and King were assassinated, as I did when the twin towers went down? Will I wake up to the death of another American president? Not that I’m that crazy about President Bush, but I want him to be better informed, not dead.

 

Is it legal to dream that our nation’s VP might be a traitor, a murderer? Is it treasonous? Libelous?  I do hope it’s OK to wonder, because I do….

 

It was Eugene Robinson of the Washington Post who got me started on all this, by reminding me (in his column) of the three little words that kept him (and me) from calling for President Bush’s impeachment: PRESIDENT DICK CHENEY.

 

Right after I read Mr. Robinson’s column, I happened to flip over to the New York Times Book Review, to read the following question from the diary of murdered Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya: “Were we seeing a crisis in Russian parliamentary democracy in the Putin era? No, we were witnessing its death.” (My emphasis)

 

Quite suddenly, I quit denying the very real possibility that America’s brief and beautiful moment in the sun as a sincere attempt at a truly representative government could actually come to a shuddering halt, right here, right now, during our era, undermined by a Cheney/Addington presidency following the inexplicable death of George W. Bush….

 

Because Richard Cheney and David Addington, lifelong public servants, family men, talented hard workers, and clever strategists, are also feeling a bit cornered and desperate these days because their secretive machinations have finally irretrievably tangled them in their own web…..

 

Because no one would benefit more from an assassination than Cheney and Addington….

 

Because no one has done more to undermine the Constitution than Cheney and Addington, however pure their intentions in amassing great power to “save America” (their way)….

 

Because no one has so much to answer for, or so many wolves at their door, than Cheney and Addington….

 

I doubt not that Cheney and Addington are deeply unsatisfied with their measly vast powers. I’m confident that they feel increasingly marginalized by their own party, and threatened by mounting opposition from Congress, the State Department, the CIA, not a few top military brass, and even by President Bush, who recently reversed several of Cheney’s war-on-terrorism policies, who apparently is drawing back from Cheney’s influence, and who may even now be feeling the first tingles of fear in Cheney’s presence….

 

Am I crazy even to wonder whether Cheney and Addington would actually consider using their old military or CIA contacts to quietly engineer an insider-job presidential assassination? Apparently, neither of these men has had a single qualm about wasting hundreds of thousands of lives in the Middle East to further their purposes; what difference would one more life make, when you've spent your whole life pursuing executive power and only one man stands in your way? I admit I haven't had any real experience with power politics…but I've read Shakespeare….

 

Cheney has deflected negative attention in the past by creating diversions. If Congress calls Cheney’s bluff regarding non-compliance with the NARA executive order (and just why is it that Bush hasn’t stepped forward to interfere with this, hmmmm…?) or if the Justice Department crowds Cheney with BAE slush fund allegations, a presidential assassination might prove as effective and timely a diversion as a war with Iran (Cheney's other all-purpose fall-back diversion.)

 

Here’s a great comment recently posted by “razzi” in response to an internet article about Cheney:

 

“Let's have no game-playing with a man this dangerous who's just a heartbeat away from the presidency. Hearings on his abuse of authority and war crimes need to begin immediately and need to persist for the remainder of his term so that in the event Bush is incapacitated, the case for instant impeachment will already have been built. The evidence needed for an eventual war crimes trial after his term is over also needs to be built. This is a…man who needs to be investigated, prosecuted, and punished for what he is doing to the republic.”

 

After my dream, I googled “David Addington” to find a quantity of expensive, high-end investigative reporting (see especially Chitra Ragavan's 5/21/06 article in U.S. News & World Report) about how directly Cheney and Addington have been involved on every unconstitutional effort the Bush administration has pushed forward in its drive to amass executive power

 

I still hope that I’m delusional and conspiracy-theory-crazed, that my nightmare about all this assassination skullduggery is the sheerest nonsense and that I need to be taken off to the funny farm.  I have my fingers crossed that Bush and Cheney and Addington will soon be politely deposed by Fred Thompson, or defanged to mere bumbler and bungler status by our blessed checks and balances, which will keep them from further running amuck and taking our beloved-if-benighted country down with them.

 

I’m writing, in fact, primarily in hopes that so many other people will begin openly discussing the idea of an assassination-plot-possibility, that anything of the kind will hastily and blessedly be abandoned.

 

Then, at least, if and when Cheney or Addington or Bush are brought low for doing desperate dark deeds, it will not be after another assassination, or after the death of American democracy.

 

 

 

 

Please send comments to njcpace@gmail.com.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Shall We Quibble Over Competing Ideologies? Or Choose Love Over Fear?

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President Bush stumbles over the nuances of that thorny word “ideology,” just as he struggles to understand the concept of “democracy.” Together with Humpty Dumpty, he wishes words could mean just what he chooses them to mean, neither more nor less….

 

Unfortunately, the word “ideology,” a “bad” word he once thought applicable only to evil, foreigner-type “isms” such as Communism, terrorism, extremism, Islamism, and facism, turns out to be nothing more than: “an organized collection of ideas…a comprehensive vision…a way of looking at things” (Wikipedia)— a definition far friendlier than Mr. Bush first envisioned, equally applicable to the many isms he rather approves of, such as Americanism, free market capitalism, Methodism, and certainly the organized collections of ideas constituting “democracy” or “freedom.”

 

Since all political thinking seems to fall under various ideologies, it would seem unwise to let ourselves become so caught up within our own peculiar favorite ideological flavor/s that we withdraw our support for human life anywhere in the world in the name of that ideology—whether it be democracy, freedom, liberty, utopianism, capitalism, nationalism, Islamism, fundamentalism, Zionism, Protestantism, patriotism, conservatism, liberalism…. After all, that's how all the bad guys in history justified their scummy actions, by insisting that their chosen ideologies were “righter” than others.

 

The thing is, one can go so far wrong searching for moral consistency within an ism, because isms and other ideologies always shut out some of the people some of the time, making them less than fully human, less than deserving of humanitarian concern—certainly all those who think differently than “we” do, who aren’t like “us” because “they” don’t think believe as “we” do, etc. Inevitably “we” come to oppose “them,” choosing “us” over “them.”

 

Ideologies can be a useful, interesting, creative way to organize one's thinking, but when taken too seriously–as “the truth”–they are very polarizing. 

 

It is neither possible to decide how rightly to treat other human beings by looking to ideologies and isms for one’s standards, nor safe, nor ethical, to decide on an ideological basis whether to support or reject that highest and most sacred value, the sanctity of human life.

 

“Treat all others as you would wish they would treat you” remains the most widely-accepted, time-honored, one-and-only gold-standard rule of ethical conduct ever conceived; it is found in every world religion and every moral, ethical, and justice code everywhere in the world, superseding all ideologies and isms, and consistently useful in every ethical or moral decision.

 

Ideologues of every stripe, every day, everywhere in the world, try to manipulate people into voting, killing, and even dying for whatever admirable-sounding preferred ideology their audience is familiar with, justifying their most horrific recommendations—invasions, occupations, terror, bombing, napalming, maiming, stealing, starvation, murder, neglect, torture, indoctrination, abuse, imprisonment, exploitation, coercion, manipulation—always in the name of some heart-stirring and noble-sounding aspect of a popular ideology.

 

Whenever demagogues (“those who gain political power by appealing to popular prejudices, fears, and expectations, typically via impassioned rhetoric and propaganda”—Wikipedia) anywhere in the world attempt to persuade fellow-citizens to act unsupportively toward others, they always cover their dark deeds with a soft, cozy, comfortable cloak of locally-popular ideologies. (H. L. Mencken called a demagogue “one who preaches doctrines he knows to be untrue to men he knows to be idiots.”)

 

Whenever anyone in any country has done something injurious to any other, or left undone what could have helped another, no matter who we were, no matter in the name of what ideology we acted, no matter how noble we thought our actions, we were wrong. And whenever we chose to support human life, we were acting aright.

 

Politics is as simple—and as complicated—as that.

 

We either contribute to another’s fear, or we offer them loving support. We either perceive their anger and wrong-headedness as an anguished cry for help, or we attack and punish them. We reject them, or we contribute to their acceptance and well-being. We light a candle or leave them in darkness. We offer them war or contribute to their peace. We lift them up or we abandon them. We share their dreams or take them away. We help them or we hurt them.

 

We choose love over fear, or we quibble amongst ideologies to gain power, and end up losing shared life itself on our tiny blue planet.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Please send questions and comments to njcpace@gmail.com

I Really Like This Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Quote

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To think incisively and to think for one's self is very difficult. We are prone to let our mental life become invaded by legions of half truths, prejudices, and propaganda…. To save man from the morass of propaganda, in my opinion, is one of the chief aims of education. Education must enable one to sift and weigh evidence, to discern the true from the false, the real from the unreal, and the facts from the fiction….The function of education, therefore, is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. But education which stops with efficiency may prove the greatest menace to society. The most dangerous criminal may be the man gifted with reason, but with no morals…. We must remember that intelligence is not enough. Intelligence plus character–that is the goal of true education. The complete education gives one not only power of concentration, but worthy objectives upon which to concentrate. The broad education will, therefore, transmit to one not only the accumulated knowledge of the race but also the accumulated experience of social living. —  Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., writing in college, 1947

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Soldiers: Partners for Peace

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The following thought-provoking letter-to-the-editor denouncing war protesters recently appeared in our local paper. (My response, as well as the fantastic response of my friend and neighbor, Nancy Arnold, are printed below that letter.)

 

 

LOCAL PROTESTERS DESERVE RIDDANCE, by John P. Snyder

 

 On behalf of the followers of al-Qaida and militant Islamic jihadists everywhere, I would like to extend our admiration and gratitude to those extraordinary citizens who turned out downtown to show support for our efforts and to register disgust with their country’s war on terror.

 

We share a strong common bond. We each despise George Bush, the American military and Western-style democracies. It is imperative that American resolve to fight our cause be diminished. Your assistance in that regard is greatly appreciated.

 

It is, after all, the highest form of patriotism to give aid and comfort to your country’s enemies—especially when our sons and daughters are sacrificing their lives for your freedom. 

 

 

(My letter-to-the-editor, written in response to the above letter, is as follows:)

 

 

SOLDIERS: PARTNERS FOR PEACE, by Nancy Pace

 

Re Local protesters deserve riddance, May 8th:  Some patriots fight, suffer, and die in the cause of peace, while other patriots work to limit the damage incurred by the catastrophically cruel, stupid, wasteful policies of tragically misguided “expert” leaders. Soldiers and peace protesters are not opponents, but courageous, conscientious, selfless partners working together to further the same universal goal of peace. No pacifist ever desired peace more than a soldier enduring war.

 

Citizens throw away the freedom our sons and daughters sacrifice their lives for, when they sit back and trust elections alone to insure good leadership. Unfortunately, as the democratically-elected Hitler demonstrated, it doesn’t always work out that way. Eternal (def.: unending, ceaseless, unstopping, uninterrupted) vigilance (def.: alertness, wakefulness, watchfulness, awareness) is the price of liberty (def.: immunity from arbitrary exercise of authority; political independence.)

 

Wise leaders of western democracies everywhere listen attentively to their loyal oppositions, and continually change in response. We cannot avoid all injustices, but we can avoid adding to their sum, by seeking more effective ways to address terrorism, militant Islam, and al-Qaida. The real enemies of peace, the enemies we should never aid or comfort, are fear, and violence itself.

 

 

PROTEST OF IRAQ WAR IS PATRIOTIC EXERCISE, by Nancy Arnold

 

The writer of “Local protesters deserve riddance” appears to suffer from the same malady that plagues the Bush administration. This disease begins as a tiny seed of greed. It reproduces and grows by creating an image of fear and by fueling the need for revenge. Symptoms of this disease include the need to point out all of the un-American Americans who do not succumb to the furor and frenzy of the disease.

 

This tragic disease, where individuals almost instantaneously lose their ability to think rationally about the facts, numbs minds and sharpens paranoia and aggression. Those who succumb to the disease shout buzz words of fear–“traitor!” and “terrorist!”–and show great loyalty to homegrown war criminals.

 

Yes, the lives of our sons and daughters are being sacrificed because the Bush administration manipulated data and dragged us into a war planned before 9/11. Bush and company simply reshaped 9/11, fanned the sparks of fear and spread the disease. The disease now rages and destroys life around the globe. It has consumed our national integrity and made a mockery of America's good will.

 

The writer sarcastically states that, “It is, after all, the highest form of patriotism to give aid and comfort to your country's enemies.” There is tragic and costly irony in that logic: We ARE giving aid and comfort to the enemy, and we let him live in the White HOuse and let him sacrifice lives every day.

 

Americans have the right to protest. When our nation occupies another country and murders the innocent, the patriotic thing to do is protest. To shut down the voices of reason, to shut down an American's right to protest and raise concern would accomplish more than any terrorist could have ever hoped to accomplish on 9/11.

 

 

 

 

Please send comments to njcpace@gmail.com. Thank you!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Guns in the Bible?

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I am so proud to say that a friend of mine wrote the following wonderful letter-to-the-editor (May 7, 2007 Frederick News-Post); in it, she said at least five things that so needed saying. She and the letter are both amazing!

Guns in the Bible – by Nancy Arnold, Union Bridge

In an April 26 letter, Citizens' defensive use of firearms is God-given right, the writer claims, “Anyone who wishes to deny citizens their God-given right to self-defense through the most effective means, firearms, is guilty of aiding and abetting these tragedies.”

I find that philosophy very disconcerting. In Genesis, the first book of the Bible, God spends his time creating life. As far as I have been able to determine, there are no references to guns in the Garden of Eden. Adam and Eve were not created with semi-automatic weapons in hand. No gun stores were tucked in under the flowering trees in the garden. True enough, Cain, one of Adam and Eve's sons, does murder his brother, but the murder weapon is not mentioned.

I do know that the God-given Sixth Commandment stands against murder, and that Jesus said we are to love our neighbors as ourselves. Maybe if we spent more time loving the angry, unlovable people, we would not find it so necessary to pick up a gun. Maybe, just maybe, we could stop a tragedy before resorting to violence ourselves.

Jesus grieves for Cho and his family as much as he grieves for the victims. To dispute that is to deny what Jesus spent three years teaching, and to deny the sacrifice he made for all of us.

Some Sane Policy Strategies, Both Foreign and Domestic, for a Dazed-and-Confused America

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The best strategy for insuring a reasonable share of post-war oil is for the U.S. to follow China’s admirable (and successful) approach to foreign relations: make friends with every country; don’t try to control events; don’t take sides with factions by using bribes and threats and offering weapons (all of which strategies make more enemies, while making conflicts harder to resolve); offer apologies as necessary; and spread goodwill by generously supporting, in every country, only open, popular, peaceful initiatives of selected proven-peaceful leaders with broad-based, loyal coalitions.

 

We should withdraw our troops from Iraq immediately, leaving U.N. peacekeepers to support the transition, and giving thoughtful consideration to all those we leave behind, financially supporting common goals and peaceful compromises, as well as aiding refugees, rebuilding, and easing resettlement (to the U.S.) of all those U.S.-supporters who might be at post-war risk.

 

We should abandon our war on terror, and support instead an efficient international crime-fighting network, and a peaceful international campaign to resolve future conflicts before they turn deadly. To accomplish these goals, we need to work to end economic injustice/violence, political and state violence (i.e., all forms of war and lawless incarcerations), and the spread of weapons, fully support world disarmament and other cooperative global peace and environmental initiatives, curb violence in entertainment, and aggressively prosecute hate crimes. We should also build a national and global culture of peace through the stated domestic and global initiatives of the proposed cabinet-level Department of Peace (www.dopcampaign.org) .

 

We clumsily attempted to avenge the loss of three thousand innocents murdered on 9/11 by killing and maiming many thousands more innocents (both ours and theirs) on foreign soil, and are now threatening to waste even more lives (both theirs and ours) by sword-rattling in Iran’s direction. We must find a way to forgive others and ourselves, make no more enemies, and recognize and address the grievances of the many who are presently turning from desperation and despair to violence (i.e., “terrorists”).

 

We need to attend to the real “illegals” in American life—not the immigrants who daily seek respite and freedom from the world’s violence and injustice on our shores, but the thousands of prisoners rotting forgotten in illegal dungeons throughout Iraq, Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Cuba, and elsewhere. We must find a way to bring due process of law to these imprisoned and abandoned “illegals” who have been deprived of their most basic human rights, and also end our inhumane criminalization of the inevitable south-to-north global migrants whose only crime is fleeing poverty and terror–by finding hospitable ways to assimilate them into American life.

 

We must resist the partisan temptations offered by Monica Goodling’s immunity to attack the very culpable Alberto Gonzales, Condaleeza Rice, Karl Rove, Dick Cheney, and other Bush administrative and military bunglers, leave vengeance and blame to God and his horde of very willing historians, and focus instead on uncovering truth, taking right action, and reconciling a nation.

 

Lee Iacocca recently urged the need for courageous leadership during this difficult time. We indeed need true leaders who can move us past our collective darkness toward solving the real problems we must now face: the ravages of disease, injustice, hopelessness, hunger, greed, environmental degradation, corporate accountability, natural disasters, ignorance, addiction, prejudice, nuclear proliferation, global warming, crime, migration, poverty, war, immorality, cruelty, indifference, terrorism, and yes, violence itself.

 

All the strategies described above depend upon our growing awareness that nothing we may fear is more dangerous than fear itself, and no weapon more effective than love in all its forms—kindness, patience, understanding, acceptance….  It is not hate, but fear which builds up armies and stockpiles nuclear weapons; not hate, but fear which looses destruction upon hapless presumed enemies, and thus upon ourselves. The Golden Rule–treat others as you would be treated–works just as well in international relations as it does with individuals. Just as families and businesses must learn to accept, respect, and support others (just as they are) in order to be successful, so must all political leaders, their party members, and their followers—indeed, all citizens everywhere—learn and teach acceptance, respect, and support for all our brothers everywhere, all God’s beloved children, every one—if we are to survive and thrive together on our tiny blue planet.

 

 

 

 

Please send your comments to njcpace@gmail.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If We Don’t Welcome Immigrants Like Cho Sun-Kyung, Randa Samaha, Reema Samaha, Omar Samaha, and Cho Seung-Hui…??!!

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Once upon a time, two admirable immigrant families, the Chos and the Samahas, came to live in the same Virginia town. Their different versions of the American Dream story both ended tragically on the same day, when they each lost a child to fear, in the massacre at Virginia Tech.

 

Both families were truly remarkable. The Chos came to America with little money, managing through hard work and long hours to start their own successful business and buy a comfortable townhome; they sent their two children through college—one even went to Princeton.

 

Like the Chos, the Samahas also made the most of their opportunities, raising three remarkable children all of America now hastens to proudly claim as their own.

 

Both families made the difficult choice to leave their familiar traditions and lifestyles and the comfortable, similar faces of family and friends, for the chance to improve their children’s opportunities in a new country where they hoped to overcome suspicion and prejudice, to make friends, and somehow to find a way to feel at home.

 

When the Cho and Samaha children began attending public schools in Centreville, they doubtless met with two very different kinds of reactions. A small number of new classmates no doubt greeted them warmly and innocently, delighted to have a new playmate. The majority, however—especially as they grew older—greeted them with strained politeness at best, and too often, with suspicion, prejudice, fear, and cruelty, having learned from their parents and peers to avoid or outright reject the poor or “different.”

 

Some immigrant children (like Sun, Randa, Reema, and Omar) are able somehow to find the courage and resilience to take in stride others’ ignorance and fear, enduring such narrow-mindedness without taking it personally, persevering, smiling, reaching out. Some lucky immigrant children are born beautiful, or have pleasant, outgoing personalities. Some have understanding parents who give them time and support. Eventually, many immigrant children win over at least a few of their classmates, no doubt gaining confidence and character in the process, yet paying an enormous psychic price for their pioneering role in the slow and painful peer-to-peer lesson: “I am not your enemy.”

 

Unusually shy and insecure children, on the other hand, particularly those with “different” skin color, features, or speech, or children who are small, awkward, or unattractive, find adjustment doubly difficult, and quickly become targets of teasing and bullying. With unfriendly treatment too difficult to bear, they retreat inside themselves behind high defensive walls which guarantee permanence to their newfound pariah status, becoming impenetrable self-fulfilling little prophets of their own alienation.

 

Sadly, the parents of such quiet, introverted children don't always know how mean many American schoolchildren (themselves saddled with their own troubling sets of social and emotional vulnerabilities) can be to all but a select slice of privileged, popular students (with their own sets of pressures and fears) who nevertheless fit rather more tidily within America’s narrow, TV-driven, consumerist standards of youthful social acceptability. Many immigrant parents, like the rest of us, feel simply too overworked to be sympathetic listeners, too overwhelmed by their own challenges, too confused about their own difficult social adjustments, too sad about their own losses, too powerless to help even their own beloved children. Instead, they often tragically ratchet up the pressures on their most vulnerable and fastest-failing offspring.

 

Sometimes the friendliness and support of even a single individual makes all the difference to a sensitive immigrant. Too often, though, such support is simply not enough to compensate for the many rude, exclusive, indifferent reactions…and worse.

 

Evidently young Seung-Hui Cho was already insecure early in life because of a developmental speech problem. Undoubtedly, he received a number of friendly overtures which he soon learned to strongly reject.

 

With a chance for a do-over of Cho’s life, we’d stock his schools with structured programs especially intended for minorities, immigrants, the differently-abled, and other struggling children—strong programs every bit as financially well-supported as the many programs currently supporting our most-able students, such as sports, music, and drama programs, and other mostly-top-quartile clubs. Perhaps within such a supportive program, Cho would have found relevant and sufficient friendship. With at least one friend, maybe two, or even three, maybe a small group to hang out with when times were tough, maybe he would have come out all right. And maybe not. It’s hard to imagine not having a single friend, though.

 

We’ll never know, and neither will the thirty-two Virginia Tech classmates who will remain nameless and faceless at least to him, because he murdered them in the cold blood of a youth who had no friends, who came to believe that he was all alone, feared and hated, unlovable and incapable of loving, an unwanted “alien” in his family’s chosen promised land.

 

What we can know for sure is that we Americans–immigrants all, unless we’re Native Americans–along with the citizens of most other northern countries, will be happier and safer both as individuals and as nations when we finally come to accept the inevitability of today’s south-to-north global migrations (from starvation, terror, oppression, war…) as a fact of life–while supporting population control; and when we finally decide together how best to welcome and assimilate all the precious already-living human beings fortunate enough to arrive on our shores legally, as well as the many desperate, equally sanctified souls bravely arriving any way they can in hopes of finding the merest sustenance—or an American Dream—for their families.

 

Why do we comfortable Americans daydream about acquiring cultural breadth through travel, and yet overlook our many everyday opportunities to get to know our neighbors from afar, who always appreciate christian-spirited friendliness? Instead, we must learn to treat all others as we would wish to be treated, were we the sad wayfarers, wandering in a new land.

 

Every spiritual leader of every world religion and philosophic tradition has condemned those inhospitable to strangers, and has blessed those offering merciful welcomes. In Matthew 25: 31-46, Jesus says: “’Come, O blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.’ Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see thee hungry and feed thee, or thirsty and give thee drink? And when did we see thee a stranger and welcome thee, or naked and clothe thee? And when did we see thee sick or in prison and visit thee?’ And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me…. As you did it not to one of the least of these, you did it not to me.’ And they will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.’”

 

 

 

 

Please write your comments to nancy.pace@adelphia.net. Thank you 🙂 !

 

 

 

 

 

We Can Prevent More Tragic Shootings

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Establishment of a cabinet-level Department of Peace (www.dopcampaign.org) would give institutional heft to resolving our #1 preventable global and national public health and safety problem—violence—addressing its root causes, and building a national and global culture of peace.

 

Domestically, a Department of Peace would heal problems such as bullying, gangs, alienation, cruelty, racism, ethnic and homophobic intolerance, drug and alcohol problems, social injustices, crime, incarceration and recidivism, the spread of weapons, and child, elder, and spousal abuse, through proven programs teaching values, peer mediation, violence-prevention counseling, restorative justice, and other successful non-violent approaches.

 

Internationally, a Secretary of Peace would partner with defense and diplomatic leaders to insure that American soldiers never march into ill-planned or unnecessary wars; provide non-violent alternative conflict-resolution strategies in every possible conflict area of the world; prevent and de-escalate conflicts before they boil over into deadly violence; ask hard questions when war seems inevitable; and offer a strong counterweight to misuse of military might.

 

America cannot shoot its way out of a world full of angry, well-armed enemies, criminals, and crazies, and we cannot find solutions to tomorrow’s problems using the same approaches that got us into this trouble in the first place. In today’s tiny, interconnected world, how we treat others will always come back to help or harm us—however randomly—as we have chosen. We must demonstrate the best practices of humanity—or fear, fight, and express humanity at its worst.

 

We cannot avoid suffering some injustices, as Virginia Tech’s tragic victims attest, but we can avoid adding to their sum. We no longer have a choice of changing or not changing. Our only choice now is whether to change for the better or for the worse. As our forebears courageously risked war, it is time for us now to risk peace.

A Fair Trade

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I hereby offer a hypothetical “deal” to all the many deeply caring anti-abortion activists, such that we equally concerned anti-war activists will agree to give up all violence against the unborn, in exchange for their equivalent agreement to resist the use of violence upon those already born—whether through war, torture, abuse, poverty, neglect, anger, vengeance, retaliation, punishment, or any other form of violence. When we can all agree to respect and protect human life from all forms of violence, agreeing to use only non-violent means to resolve our conflicts, we will together build a culture of peace where respect and support for human life everywhere is the highest moral value. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Please send your comments to nancy.pace@adelphia.net 

 

A Department of Peace?

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“The people of the world genuinely want peace. Some day, the leaders of the world are going to have to give in and give it to them.”- Dwight D. Eisenhower

 

 

A cabinet-level Department of Peace is a fundamentally conservative idea.  Peace in America and throughout the world has become an urgently practical mainstream goal for generations of Americans wishing to conserve lives, resources, good will, money, health, our American ideals, principles, and values, our traditional way of life, our environment, and our talents, time, energy, and property.

There is no reason why the long-held American dream of “peace in our time” should not be the business of government. According to our Constitution, a good government supports domestic tranquility, a more perfect union, justice, the common defense, the general welfare, and the blessings of liberty. Without a citizenry and leadership skilled in non-violent resolution of conflict, all these goals are doomed to failure.

 

If we don’t stand for peace, what do we stand for?

 

What better way to show our heartfelt appreciation and support for our troops’ past and future selfless service, what better way to express our debt of gratitude, than to give them a Department of Peace charged with partnering with our military, diplomatic, and political leadership to insure that American soldiers never again march into ill-planned unnecessary wars?

 

Department of Peace legislation could be the unifying, groundbreaking, even visionary legacy needed by the Bush presidency.

 

Most importantly, a Department of Peace promises an effective new approach for solving our nation’s biggest and most costly problem—domestic and international violence.

 

Despite our many prisons, laws, and police forces, despite our huge nuclear and conventional arsenals, our vast military and seemingly limitless expenditures for espionage, we are less safe with every passing day.

 

America cannot shoot its way out of a world full of angry, well-armed enemies and criminals. Growing cycles of hatred, injustice, and violence increasingly threaten the very survival of mankind. Even with pre-emptive action, military solutions to global conflict are insufficient to keep even our own small part of the world safe and stable, unless we add to our military technologies the many equally sophisticated, powerful, and field-tested “technologies” of non-violent conflict resolution and pro-active peace-building.

 

Cooperative, harmonious relationships, rather than being a religious or utopian ideal, are a practical goal critical to our national security. The enormous costs of domestic and international violence—to our children, American society, and the world—are unsustainable. The World Health Organization estimates that the effects of domestic violence in the U.S. annually cost us over $300 billion. Annual defense expenditures in the U.S. top $600 billion. Roughly 100 million lives have been lost during the 20th century to war. We can sustain neither a desirable standard of living nor our beloved freedoms at our current levels of spending.

 

Yet the problems we face in a violent, unstable world relentlessly compound.

 

A cabinet-level Department of Peace, established with the equivalent of 2% of the annual budget for the Department of Defense, will analyze the root causes of violence including war, giving credibility and voice to non-violent, relationship-building conflict-resolution methods—resulting in less crime and war, fewer criminals and enemies, and thus, money to spend (or save!) for other urgent priorities like environmental protection, education, and health care.

 

To be sure, human conflict will always be a natural, even beneficial part of life, offering challenges necessary to growth and change. On the other hand, violent responses to conflict are nearly always inadequate and harmful in the long run. We can learn (and teach) different responses to conflict as readily as we have taught and learned destructive ones. War and violence are not inevitable. In fact, they are arguably the greatest threat to our nation and to mankind. The causes of violence, like the causes of disease, can be culturally eradicated one-by-one.

 

Our present approach to national defense is not working. We are very strong in conventional military operations, but weak in alliance-building (win-win negotiations and diplomacy) and very weak in the use of the many innovative non-violent peace-building technologies already available for addressing both domestic and international conflicts.

 

The common goal of all security departments—Defense, State, Homeland Security, and Peace—is to insure peace and stability. Their primary differences lie in their different strategies for achieving their common goal. A strong military force can be a deterrent, but without a cabinet-level Department of Peace, political leaders of all stripes too often allow war profiteers to rush them unwittingly into wars of aggression, greed, and domination, or turn too quickly to military forces to resolve political problems. A Department of Peace offers a strong counterweight to such commonplace misuse of our vast military might.

 

In this dangerous world, strong U.S. leadership can be invaluable in keeping the peace. Instead of arrogance which costs us allies, we can show the world through our support for a Department of Peace that our highest ideals and intentions lie in playing a peacekeeping role.

 

A Secretary of Peace can nurture a growing culture of peace both nationally and internationally, partnering with the President and his cabinet to provide cultural information and alternative strategies for every possible conflict area in the world, asking hard questions when war seems inevitable, and preventing, reducing, ameliorating, and de-escalating conflicts before they boil over into deadly violence. An Academy of Peace equivalent to our highly-respected military academies will research, evaluate, and teach alternative non-violent responses to conflict.

 

Domestically, a Department of Peace will support and disseminate best practices originating in neighborhood and faith-based programs, addressing drug and alcohol problems, crime, incarceration and recidivism, the spread of weapons, school bullying and violence, gangs, racism, ethnic and homophobic intolerance, child, elder, and spousal abuse, immigration pressures, and other domestic violence problems, through proven programs of peer mediation, violence-prevention counseling, restorative justice, and other successful non-violent approaches. Such grassroots efforts will, in turn, inform and inspire national policy.

 

Scattering leadership for peace-building and diplomatic efforts over various departments has not worked. Why not? Because peace-building technologies require the serious institutional heft, importance, and backing of a national platform.

 

Americans who hate war and who want to leave to future generations the same land of plenty, possibility, and freedom they have been privileged to enjoy have an opportunity to work with our many peace professionals—whether military, diplomatic, Republican, Democratic, or Independent—to institutionalize the pursuit of peace promised in our founding documents by urging the passage of H.R. #808 establishing a Department of Peace.

 

Peace-building through non-violent responses to conflict, like other historical grass-roots movements (e.g., civil rights, women’s suffrage, emancipation of slaves, etc.) may not have seemed obvious at first, but it is America’s best hope.  

 

“Through our scientific genius we have made of the world a neighborhood,” said Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. “Now through our moral and spiritual genius we must make it a brotherhood.”

 

In today’s small, interconnected world, that which we do to others will always come back to help us or to harm us, as we have chosen. We cannot avoid all injustices, but we can seek to avoid adding to their sum. We no longer have the choice of changing or not changing. Our choice now is whether to change for the better, or for the worse. We have risked war. It is time to risk peace.

 

 

 

 

 

Please send comments to nancy.pace@adelphia.net. Thank you!  🙂