[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 23 (Wednesday, February 7, 2007)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E282]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          DEPARTMENT OF PEACE

                                 ______
                                 

                            HON. JOHN LEWIS

                               of georgia

                    in the house of representatives

                      Wednesday, February 7, 2007

  Mr. LEWIS of Georgia. Madam Speaker, I rise today to support the 
establishment of a Department of Peace and Nonviolence as a cabinet-
level office of the executive branch of our government. I agree with 
Representative Kucinich that war and the threat of war have dominated 
international relationships for much too long. As a participant in the 
Civil Rights Movement, as a human being who has faced the barrel of a 
loaded gun armed only with the philosophy of peace, it has been my 
belief for many years that war is obsolete as a tool of our foreign 
policy. But I realize that position may be too progressive for many of 
my colleagues to accept.
  But maybe, just maybe at this moment in our nation's history, when we 
find ourselves struggling with the hopeless legacy of violence, maybe, 
just maybe we might be willing to consider the methods of peace as an 
intelligent, strategic alternative to war. At this very moment our sons 
and daughters are battling in the middle of an unnecessary war, a war 
we started, hoping that we could force democracy to grow.
  But Mahatma Gandhi once said that violence begets violence. And a 
recipient of the Nobel Prize for Peace, Martin Luther King, Jr., once 
said if we as a people want peaceful ends, we must use peaceful means. 
When will the warring factions in Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Iran, Iraq, 
Afghanistan and the United States be willing to say they have spilled 
enough innocent blood? When will they say it is time for us to lay down 
the tools and instruments of war? Today, can we hear the words of 
Gandhi, perhaps stronger now than ever before, ``We must choose non-
violence or non-existence''?
  Are we finally willing to hear the words of Martin Luther King, Jr., 
``We must learn to live as brothers and sisters or perish as fools''? 
Can we, the most powerful nation in the world, use our influence, to 
raise these questions and give peace a chance?
  Madam Speaker, as a nation and as a people we have researched, 
written about, studied, constructed, deployed and spent trillions of 
dollars on the best ways to destroy humanity. We have used the power of 
fear to dominate world affairs. What would happen if the most powerful 
nation on earth took the lead and through this Department of Peace 
decided to put even half of those resources toward developing ways to 
sustain humanity, ways to keep the peace in spite of competing 
international interests, and ways to gain influence using the power of 
diplomacy and negotiation?
  Without constructive, alternative policies, without viable tools that 
leaders of nations and leaders of human kind can reach for, peace will 
always be a vanishing ideal that holds no substance. If we truly 
believe that peace is our ultimate goal, then we must use the resources 
of this great nation to that end. We must use the brilliance of 
American intelligence to develop the methods and mechanisms of peace, 
even more actively than we develop the mechanisms of war. That's why we 
need a Peace Academy that will create a diplomatic corps armed with the 
tools of peaceful influence.
  We are all one people, Madam Speaker. We are one family, the human 
family, and we must find a way to understand each other, to make peace, 
and learn to live together.

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