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Michelle Rosenthal

social worker, Dr Susan Smith McKinney Nursing and Rehabilitation Center

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Does the USA need a Department Of Peace and Non Violence and a Secretary of Peace? Should bill HR 808 be voted on and be passed?

There have been many efforts at getting a US Department of Peace and Nonviolence and Secretary of Peace established:

http://www.thecongressmansdinner.com/the-issues/dept-of-peace/

See: http://thomas.loc.gov then enter H.R.808 in the bill search.

Is this a good bill?

If so how can we gather the political will to get this pushed through the congress.

The bill HR.808.IH has been entered into the 112th congress 2011-2012.

The bill was introduced into congress every year since 2001.

The bills have been caught up in subcommittees.

Why? What is the problem here? We need to establish a dialogue.

If there are flaws in the bill please inform the bill founder Dennis Kucinich or your elected officials and possibly they could amend the bill to incorporate the suggestions. http://kucinich.house.gov/

Please suggest the correction in the language of the bill so it will be acceptable to make it through the house and senate. Why has it been held up for the past decade?

Please ask your elected officials to advocate for this bill to get to a vote and to be voted into law.

Does our nation want peace or not?

Do we need to find the path to peace nationally and internationally.

We are destroying the planet, the ecosystem, the world, humanity, life on Earth and ourselves with war. No one wins with war. We all lose. What is the sense of winning the war and losing the planet??

Lets go peaceful and lets go green it is our only option.

How can USA become the leader in the Global Peace Index within 5 years.

If we count the ecological footprint of all of humanity's bombing and 2000 atomic testing on Earth http://www.ctbto.org/nuclear-testing/ we will see the damage

Related Talks:
Topics: international cooperation justice peace war
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  • James Kindler 20+

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    Sep 9 2011: I think the USA should flood the media by promoting peace and not legislate it.

  • James Kindler 20+

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    Sep 7 2011: If you can't walk away, run!

    James
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      Michelle Rosenthal

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      Sep 8 2011: I'm not sure exactly what you mean in the context of this question/debate

  • Dema Karim

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    Sep 6 2011: I don't think getting the government involved will help towards peace significantly. change like that shouldn't come from government, it should come from individuals. It should come from people who have been or still are affected by violence, because they are less corruptible and more passionate and driven in contrast to government officials. It could maybe be and outside-of-government organization.
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      Michelle Rosenthal

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      Sep 6 2011: The bill was introduced for a vote by an individual who also is a congressman trying to steer our government on a road toward peace. In our country the government is made up of us. We can run for election and become part of the government. I believe our government must begin to adopt peaceful measures for the sake of life on Earth

    • Terry Mason

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      Sep 6 2011: The notion behind a cabinet level Department of Peace is that we need infrastructure within our government to support proactively building peace and reducing violence. Each Department -- State, Education, Justice -- has minor funds earmarked for these pursuits, but nowhere in our government is that the key focus.

      We need this. Whether a cabinet-level Department, or an Office of Peace in the White House (as the Department of Veterans Affairs began), the path we are on is unsustainable.

      Perhaps more compelling to some in today's political climate is the cost. The cost of preventing violence is far less than the cost of reacting to it after the fact. The World Health Organization estimates we spend $300 Billion dollars a year on the costs of interpersonal violence in this country, excluding the costs of war. Violence reduction should be a part of our economic recovery, and a Department of Peace would have the power to promote those ideas.

      Check out the Global Peace Index (http://www.visionofhumanity.org/), and The Peace Alliance (www.thepeacealliance.org). There is important information here about what we're doing, and what we're not doing, and how we can make things better. Join the movement, and let's make it happen. We can't afford not to.
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    Michelle Rosenthal

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    Sep 4 2011: I think we need a Department of Peace and Non Violence to focus on peace on national and international levels. It would be great if each country and the UN focuses and remains focused on these concepts rather than veering off course and going to war. We need a concrete plan with concrete steps and concrete actions to be taken to get us all to think, act and interact peacefully. Right now we do not have a department of peace and we are at war. Possibly we could have concentrated on different solutions to problems that we faced if we did have a Department of Peace and Non Violence.

  • Ed Schulte 50+

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    Sep 4 2011: Why segregate Peace??

    by putting it Into a box called a "Department of?"

    If there is ever going to be such an organization with the title of "Peace" then EVERY department within that organization, its culture, its people, its laws, it internal policy equaling its external "policy" would be peace based / peace driven.

    If this doesn't exist free of segrgation, never mind just in the USA, then its just another opportunity to say (preach) "do Peace", and do the opposite.
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