The Left’s “Department Of Peace”: Call It A “Department Of Political Purity”

[Soldier4Christ]

The Left’s “Department Of Peace”: Call It A “Department Of Political Purity”

For those who have followed the shrieking leftist crowings of Illinois Representative Dennis Kucinich (needless to mention he’s a Democrat), you will be familiar with his idea of creating a cabinet-level “Department of Peace and Nonviolence”. I must admit that when I first heard of the idea, I had to exercise the utmost level of self-control not to break in a fit of incredulous laughter. That was before I read text of the bill (officially HR 808).

Brothers and Sisters, we’d be sorely mistaken if we saw this as merely another PC squeak from the Left. It’s much more dangerous than that. It’s a monstrous political cross-breed between a UN styled bureaucratic blob with teeth and a overlapping, wide ranging tool that would emasculate the very elements that make this country what it is, warts and all.

It appears the proposal would establish a cabinet level position with broad new powers and responsibilities, and the details of this proposal describe Utopia through the progressive lens. I began looking for choice bits to post as highlights, but it was so hard to choose I had to reproduce in total.

For those looking for a distillation, imagine a governmental agency responsible for advising on non-confrontational foreign policy options, establishing and enforcing new gun control measures, designing school curriculum, establishing and enforcing new legislation governing "hate crimes" and violence against animals, and my favorite, establishing a "Peace Academy," a four-year institution of higher learning modeled on our service academies.


SEC. 101. ESTABLISHMENT OF DEPARTMENT OF PEACE AND NONVIOLENCE.
SEC. 102. RESPONSIBILITIES AND POWERS.
(a) In General- The Secretary
shall--
(1) work proactively and interactively with each branch of the
Federal Government on all policy matters relating to conditions of
peace;
(2) serve as a delegate to the National Security Council;
(3) call on the intellectual and spiritual wealth of the people of the United States and
seek participation in its administration and in its development of policy from
private, public, and nongovernmental organizations; and
(4) monitor and analyze causative principles of conflict and make policy recommendations for developing and maintaining peaceful conduct.

    (b) Domestic Responsibilities-
    The Secretary shall--
    (1) develop policies that address domestic violence, including spousal abuse, child abuse, and mistreatment of the elderly;
    (2) create new policies and incorporate existing programs that reduce drug and alcohol abuse;
    (3)
    develop new policies and incorporate existing policies regarding crime,
    punishment, and rehabilitation;
    (4) develop policies to address violence against animals;
    (5) analyze existing policies, employ successful, field-tested programs, and develop new approaches for dealing with the implements of violence, including gun-related violence and the overwhelming presence of handguns;
    (6) develop new programs that relate to the societal challenges of school violence, gangs, racial or ethnic violence, violence against gays and lesbians, and police-community relations disputes;
    (7) make policy recommendations to the Attorney General regarding civil rights and labor law;
    ( assist in the establishment and funding of community-based violence
    prevention programs, including violence prevention counseling and peer mediation in schools;
    (9) counsel and advocate on behalf of women victimized by
    violence;
    (10) provide for public education programs and counseling strategies concerning hate crimes;
    (11) promote racial, religious, and ethnic tolerance;
    (12) finance local community initiatives that can draw on neighborhood resources to create peace projects that facilitate the development
    of conflict resolution at a national level and thereby inform and inspire
    national policy; and
    (13) provide ethical-based and value-based analyses to
    the Department of Defense.

    (c) International Responsibilities- The Secretary
    shall--
    (1) advise the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of State on all
    matters relating to national security, including the protection of human rights and the prevention of, amelioration of, and de-escalation of unarmed and armed international conflict;
    (2) provide for the training of all United States personnel who administer postconflict reconstruction and demobilization in war-torn societies;
    (3) sponsor country and regional conflict prevention and
    dispute resolution initiatives, create special task forces, and draw on local, regional, and national expertise to develop plans and programs for addressing the root sources of conflict in troubled areas;
    (4) provide for exchanges between the United States and other nations of individuals who endeavor to develop domestic and international peace-based initiatives;
    (5) encourage the development of international sister city programs, pairing United States cities with cities around the globe for artistic, cultural, economic, educational, and faith-based exchanges;
    (6) administer the training of civilian peacekeepers who participate in multinational nonviolent police forces and support civilian police who participate in peacekeeping;
    (7) jointly with the Secretary of the Treasury, strengthen peace enforcement through hiring and training monitors and investigators to help with the enforcement of international arms embargoes;
    ( facilitate the development of peace summits at which parties to a conflict may gather under carefully prepared conditions to promote nonviolent communication and mutually beneficial solutions;
    (9) submit to the President recommendations for reductions in weapons of mass destruction, and make annual reports to the President on the sale of arms from the United States to other nations, with analysis of the impact of such sales on the defense of the United States and how such sales affect peace;
    (10) in consultation with the Secretary of State, develop strategies for sustainability and management of the distribution of international funds; and
    (11) advise the United States Ambassador to the United Nations on matters pertaining to the United Nations Security Council.


    (d) Human Security Responsibilities- The Secretary shall address and
    offer nonviolent conflict resolution strategies to all relevant parties on
    issues of human security if such security is threatened by conflict, whether such conflict is geographic, religious, ethnic, racial, or class-based in its origin, derives from economic concerns (including trade or maldistribution of wealth), or is initiated through disputes concerning scarcity of natural resources (such as water and energy resources), food, trade, or environmental concerns.


cont'd

[Soldier4Christ]

    (e) Media-Related Responsibilities- Respecting the first amendment of the Constitution of the United States and the requirement for free and independent media, the Secretary shall--
    (1) seek assistance in the design and implementation of nonviolent policies from media professionals;
    (2) study the role of the media in the escalation and de-escalation of conflict at domestic and international levels and make findings public; and
    (3) make recommendations to professional media organizations in order to provide opportunities to increase media awareness of peace-building initiatives.

    (f) Educational Responsibilities- The Secretary shall--
    (1)
    develop a peace education curriculum, which shall include studies of--
    (A)
    the civil rights movement in the United States and throughout the world, with special emphasis on how individual endeavor and involvement have contributed to advancements in peace and justice; and
    (B) peace agreements and circumstances in which peaceful intervention has worked to stop conflict;
    (2) in cooperation with the Secretary of Education--
    (A) commission the development of such curricula and make such curricula available to local school districts to enable the utilization of peace education objectives at all elementary and secondary schools in the United States; and
    (B) offer incentives in the form of grants and training to encourage the development of State peace curricula and assist schools in applying for such curricula;
    (3)
    work with educators to equip students to become skilled in achieving peace through reflection, and facilitate instruction in the ways of peaceful conflict resolution;
    (4) maintain a site on the Internet for the purposes of soliciting and receiving ideas for the development of peace from the wealth of political, social and cultural diversity;
    (5) proactively engage the critical thinking capabilities of grade school, high school, and college students and teachers through the Internet and other media and issue periodic reports concerning submissions;

    (6) create and establish a Peace Academy, which shall--
    (A)
    be modeled after the military service academies;
    (B) provide a 4-year course of instruction in peace education, after which graduates will be required to serve 5 years in public service in programs dedicated to domestic or international nonviolent conflict resolution; and
    (7) provide grants for peace studies departments in colleges and universities throughout the United States.

____________________

Now take the time to go through the domestic and international responsibilities of this possible Big Brother, errr, I mean Secretary Of Peace. 99.99% (and I’m conservative here, no pun intended) of his purported duties fall into 2 categories: advice and oversight of duties that are already enshrined in other cabinet posts. None of those “responsibilities” are new: we already have a government agency that falls under the appropriate cabinet member for all the issues enumerated, from domestic violence to foreign policy.

It’s Joseph Goebbels-like propaganda meets a hippie version of Orwell’s 1984. 1984 talks about Ingsoc (a totalitarian government), and now, Kucinich and his cronies are about to attempt to serve us a mind numbing ration of Amsoc, if we let it slither into existence.

And if you don’t believe the (barely) make-believe world of 1984 is not enough of a warning, let me introduce you to the Soviet era concept of the “zampolit” (a.k.a. “political commissar“):

The political commissars were appointed by the Communist Party to military units for the purpose of direct political propaganda, and to ensure that Party decisions were implemented. In this system, each unit had a political officer who was not responsible to the normal military chain of command, but instead answered to a separate chain of command within the Communist Party. The purpose of such a system is to ensure the loyalty of army commanders, and to prevent a possible coup d’etat. The political commissar had the authority to override any decision of the military officers, and to remove them from command if necessary. Therefore, sometimes the commissar usurped the functions of a regular military commander, but that was almost never necessary — the mere presence of a commissar usually meant that military commanders would follow their directives, and the day-to-day duties of the political commissar generally involved only propaganda work and boosting the morale of the troops.

Folks, we’re all being enlisted. Personally, this one ideological army I don’t want to serve in.

The entire bill can be seen:

http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=h110-808

[Brother Jerry]

chills run up my spine.  Another position in which they want to create to have redundancy so that some Congressperson can get some extra money and more importantly some power.