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Nonviolence Awareness Concert 9/11  Peaceful communication letters@TimesRecord.Com 08/17/2007 To the editor: The Maine Campaign for a U.S. Department of Peace and Nonviolence (www.mainedop.org) was one of the many peacemaking groups represented at the Greater Brunswick Peace Fair on Aug. 4. The Department of Peace campaign seeks to pass national legislation (HR 808) that would put conflict resolution and nonviolent intervention options at the center of our country's policymaking and program planning. A secretary of peace would sit on the president's Cabinet to inform discussions about domestic and international crises. See www.thepeacealliance.org for legislation details. While the actions and voices of the peace fair's participating groups differ, they share a vision of a more just world — one in which all people can meet their basic needs without fear. Yet we who work for peace and justice are not always able to listen and learn from each other. Our inability to hear and respond compassionately when we disagree sometimes confounds and defeats the urgent purpose of the work we do. Skill in nonviolent communication is central to effective participation and collaboration in personal, social, political and global change. The nonviolent communication training model developed by peacemaker/mediator Marshall Rosenberg (www.CNVC.org) suggests that violence begins in the language we use, that peace is rooted in the way we communicate. While conflict is inevitable, violence is not. In memory of the horrifying events of Sept. 11, 2001, and in support of September as a "culture of peace" month, the Maine Campaign for a Department of Peace has organized a Level I Nonviolent Communications training workshop in Brunswick on Sept. 7-9. This weekend workshop will introduce participants to the basic understanding and practice of nonviolent communication. The training is appropriate for all who wish to communicate in a way that inspires compassionate response and the possibility for peace — interpersonally and in the wider community. Registration details are available by e-mailing Peggy Smith, trainer, at peggy@mainenvcnetwork.org or by calling 789-5299. A portion of the workshop tuition ($100 suggested) will be donated to PeaceWorks and the Maine Campaign for a U.S .Department of Peace and Nonviolence. Cathey Cyrus, Woolwich bangordailynews.com Viewpoints Monday, July 16, 2007 - Bangor Daily News Department of Peace In his op-ed piece "Hone U.S. message of freedom" (BDN, July 3), Sen. John McCain described a Department of Peace and Nonviolence as a cabinet position. There is presently a bill before Congress, HR 808, to establish such a department. This historic measure will augment our current problem-solving techniques, providing practical, nonviolent solutions to the problems of domestic and international conflict. Domestically, the Department of Peace and Nonviolence will develop policies and allocate resources to effectively reduce the levels of domestic and gang violence and child and spousal abuse. Internationally, the department will advise the president and Congress on the most sophisticated ideas and techniques regarding peace-creation among nations. It would create a peace academy patterned after our military academies to educate a professional corps of public-diplomacy experts who speak the local language and whose careers would promote American values, ideas, culture and education. It would recruit the best and brightest not just from the ranks of Foreign Service but from business, academia and the media. The Peace Corps would be an important part of our foreign aide program. The academy would train a cadre of professionals capable of assisting a nation or area to reestablish its civil and or economic base resulting from whatever catastrophe befell it. This piece of legislation will pass from bill to law only when a wave of citizen interest rises up and makes itself heard in the halls of Congress. Visit the Web site to learn how you can help and to read the bill itself. Visit www.thepeacealliance.org. John C. Ferriday Sedgwick Time for nation to take on root causes of violence Morning Sentinel letter Annual HOPE Festival draws groups, entertainers from across state of Maine Lynn Ellis interviewed Teach-In at University of Maine/Farmington - 3/22 Lynn Ellis being interviewed bangordailynews.com Viewpoints Saturday, March 31, 2007 - Bangor Daily News Department of Peace Thousands of people recently expressed their desire for peace by braving the winter weather demanding an end to this illegal war. Their desire for peace is admirable but let us not forget that those who speak for peace and nonviolence do not have a seat at the president’s policy table. Only those that speak for power, violence, and war sit there. It is time for all peace and nonviolence loving people to bring pressure on our senators and representatives for the establishment of a Department of Peace and Nonviolence. The secretary of this department would be a member of the president’s Cabinet and therefore able to speak when policy decisions are being formulated. I ask my fellow citizens to write Reps. Allen and Michaud and Sens. Collins and Snowe requesting their support for House Bill HR 808, establishing a Department of Peace and Nonviolence. This bill would put peace and nonviolence, both foreign and domestic, as an important part of our national policy. It would change the emphasis of our relationship with our fellow man from threatening to cooperating. Go to www.thepeacealliance.org and read the bill. Then write our representatives and senators to support HR 808. As Walter Cronkite said, "What is quite clear is that you are trying not only a massive but a basic change in our culture, in our entire approach to our relationships with other human beings. It is not just a matter of simply getting another department. You are speaking of an entire philosophical revolution and I consider myself with you on this in every way." John C. Ferriday Sedgwick The Phoenix News — January 12, 2007 — Dems Owe Us Peace
The Phoenix News
— December 27, 2006 —
Peace wants a piece letters@TimesRecord.Com 05/10/2006 To the editor: I write to call the attention of Times Record readers to the Mother's Day Call for Peace on Friday. The Maine Campaign for a Department of Peace and Nonviolence is eager to raise public awareness of federal legislation that would establish nonviolence as an organizing principle of American society. Introduced to the Congress in September 2005, HR 3760 and S 1756 would create a cabinet-level U.S. Department of Peace and Nonviolence in the executive branch of the government. The department would work to research, articulate and facilitate nonviolent solutions to domestic and international conflict. It would be a visible manifestation to America and the world that the United States intends to use its great strength to find and keep the peace. It will take a wave of in-formed citizen interest and action to focus the attention of our congressional people on the Department of Peace and Nonviolence legislation, and we must present a compelling case. The Maine Campaign for a Department of Peace and Nonviolence is organizing this effort in our state. On Friday, call or fax your legislators' offices, both in Washington and locally. Ask them to co-sponsor and support these bills as part of an organized nationwide Peace Wants a Piece of the Pie Campaign. For more information, visit www.mainedop.org or call District 1 Team Leader Shelley Schweizer at 879-0278 or e-mail sschweizer@mainedop.org. Cathey Cyrus, Media coordinator Mainedop.org The Dept of Peace campaign has gone global! Through the Peace Alliance Foundation, we are part of a rapidly spreading movement for ministries and departments of peace in governments around the world — the International People's Initiative for Departments of Peace. Not only is the People's Initiative promoting ministries and departments of peace but we are also promoting the spirit behind such government agencies — a culture of peace in general and, in particular, a fresh approach to the nonviolent resolution of conflict within and between nations. Click here for the first statement from the People's Initiative in this effort, this one urgently calling for a fresh approach for the nonviolent resolution of the growing conflict involving China, France, Germany, Iran, Russia, the United Kingdom, the United Nations, and the United States of America. Please read it, follow the link in the document to the People's Initiative website for immediate action steps you can take regarding this situation, and distribute widely. Senate candidate seeks new Department of Peace from Maine News - December 26, 2005 BANGOR, Maine - Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Jean Hay Bright Wednesday called for the establishment of a cabinet-level Department of Peace. In remarks prepared for a meeting on the Iraq war, hosted by 2nd District Congressman Mike Michaud at the Bangor Theological Seminary, Hay Bright also said it was time for our troops to come home. "A political change in focus from military to police activity would allow our troops to leave Iraq and be replaced by supplemental police forces from the U.N. or its member nations," she said. Hay Bright said that a growing number of people are starting to key into the reality that waging war does not work, "that war itself is bad, is obsolete, is not the answer." "We need a new national focus, one based on international diplomacy, mutual respect, human decency," she said. "For our survival as a nation, and as a species on this planet, we must make peace on earth and good will toward men more than a casual holiday greeting." Lincoln County Weekly — September 28, 2005 — Department of Peace Legislation Sought The Lincoln County News
— September 27, 2005 —
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