L.A. CITY COUNCIL PASSES A RESOLUTION FOR A DEPT OF PEACE

This was a grass roots citizen's lobbying effort!
  
It's Unanimous!

Dec. 7, 2007, the second largest city in the United States, remembered Pearl Harbor Day with an emphatic vote for peace as the Los Angeles City Council unanimously voted to support HR 808, proposed legislation in the U.S. House of Representatives to create a cabinet-level U.S. Department of Peace.  If established, the Department will work proactively to reduce crime and violence here in the United States and abroad.  The resolution now goes to the Mayor for signature.   

“With Los Angeles on board, our nationwide city council campaign continues to gather momentum,” said Peace Alliance Board President Marianne Williamson.  “Every community in America will benefit when this legislation passes, as it increases support for violence prevention programs statistically proven to reduce crime and violence in our homes, schools, and communities. We need a Department of Peace, and it's gratifying to see local governments taking the lead.” 

According to the resolution, introduced by councilmember Bernard C. Parks, “we are now in a new millennium, and the time has come to review age-old challenges with new thinking wherein we can conceive of peace as not simply being the absence of violence, but the active presence of the capacity for a higher evolution of the human awareness, of respect, trust, and integrity.”

Terry Mason, State Co-coordinator for the Los Angeles, Valley and Santa Barbara areas said, “Los Angeles joins 30 other governing councils around the country, including Oakland, Cleveland, Atlanta, Chicago, West Hollywood and San Francisco in showing this strong measure of support for true leadership towards proactively building peace in our communities, country and the world. What better way to honor Pearl Harbor Day than to show support for legislation that will strategically create peace, both domestically in the streets of Los Angeles, and work to end the beginnings of all wars.”

Domestically, the Department will research, propose and facilitate practical, field-tested solutions to reduce and prevent violence. It will provide additional financial and institutional heft to strengthen and complement our current approach to violence, focusing on prevention through multi-layered strategies, including increased funding for local programs already proven effective at reducing and preventing violence. A Peace Academy, on par with the Military Service Academies, will train civilian peacekeepers and the military in the latest nonviolent conflict resolution techniques and approaches.

Internationally, the Department will research and analyze foreign policy and recommend to the President ways to address the root causes of war.  The Department will also provide expert advice to the President on nonviolent means of diffusing or dealing with international crises.

“This legislation to establish a Department of Peace will help to stop violence against women, getting to the root causes of domestic violence, sexual assault, and gang violence by supporting programs to prevent future violence of this nature. Teaching school children nonviolent communication skills to solve their conflicts before they escalate into violence will build a more peaceful and safer society,” said Jerilyn Stapleton, Congressional District Team Leader in California's 28^th district and Los Angeles City Council Resolution Team Leader.

The legislation is currently co-sponsored by 68 members of the U.S. House of Representatives. 

The Peace Alliance is a nonprofit, non-partisan organization leading a growing grassroots movement active in all 50 states to create a U.S. Department of Peace. For more information on this legislation and the campaign, please visit www.thepeacealliance.org

Re: L.A. CITY COUNCIL PASSES A RESOLUTION FOR A DEPT OF PEACE

Congratulations -this is a brilliant idea -
and I hope is a precedent for other Countries
to follow suit!