In this era of humanity, we are beginning to understand ourselves and the connections that bind us together in our world more than ever before. Beyond the boundaries of politics, language, culture and spirituality, we are one people. Each of us experiences love, feels pain and expresses concern about the future – not only for ourselves, but those in our hearts, whether they are family, impoverished children in a distant country or humankind as a whole.

As the nations of the world advance and become well established through educational, technological, economic and political sophistication, the need for violence and warfare significantly diminishes. The age we live in offers a profound opportunity to change the path we take in the future – an opportunity that will forever shift our initiatives and goals into alignment with being a leader of peace and social justice. The government of the United States of America should seize this opportunity and lead the world in the growth of a global culture and environment which facilitates and cherishes peace above all else.

This change can realistically be accomplished through appropriate budget reallocation, and the equation is simple: less taxes spent on war, more spent on peace and security. We strongly support the redistribution of funding from offices such as the Department of Defense in order to make this happen. With the consideration of our geographic location, exceptional defense systems and alliances, the threat of war reaching our shores from a foreign nation is logistically very small. We are confident a downsized defense budget will continue to provide sufficient protection for our nation while we work diligently to become a symbol of peace throughout the world.



The proposed Department of Peace could bring the following benefits through its mission and goals:

• Support for our military via complementary approaches to ending violence

• Build peace-making efforts among conflicting cultures, both domestically and internationally

• Establish a U.S. Peace Academy to train international peace-keepers

• Rehabilitate prison populations

• Participation by the secretary of peace as a member of the National Security Council

• Monitoring of all domestic arms production, including non-military arms, conventional military arms, and of weapons of mass destruction

• Development of an educational media program to promote nonviolence in the domestic media

• Monitoring of human rights domestically and internationally

• Making regular recommendations to the President for the maintenance and improvement of these human rights

• Provide violence prevention, conflict resolution skills and mediation to America's school children in classrooms as an elective or requirement, providing them with the communication tools they need to express themselves beginning in elementary school through high school

We, the undersigned, support the creation of a Department of Peace within the government of the United States of America. During such a transitional period for our country, we strongly believe there is no better time to begin taking the initiative in becoming a leader of world peace and a model nation to others whose people have the same wishes as we do. The desire for such an office has been echoing throughout the centuries since the very establishment of our country, and we fully support the use of available governmental resources to inaugurate such a department now – not just for the prosperity and lineage of our nation and people – but for the prosperity and lineage of all nations and peoples.