Clark proposes creating new DEPARTMENT OF PEACE....no, seriously!

[RandomUser]

Yep, that's right, according to the Washington Post, Clark wants to create a new Department of International Assistance. All the foreign aid will be consolidated into a department that can create actual changes in the world with a concerted vision. The goal will be to use this department as an alternative to the DoD to change tyrannical regimes into democracies. So we can use the carrot instead of the stick. We won't need to resort to the military to stop rogue nations from developing nukes, or to stop ethnic cleansing. We can use the carrot as well as the stick now to change those regimes, not war as the first resort.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A14400-2003Sep28.html

[Jared]

1. Whoa...

Tally another point for clark on my board. :hippie:

[ThirdWheelLegend]

2. WOW WAY AHEAD OF THE PACK!!!

:eyes:

[Zorra]

4. lol

A novel idea. But I'm glad Clark is proposing it, I hope every candidate considers something similar.


:dem:Kucinich

[Pastiche423]

5. His copying

the Democratic candidates ideas is getting tiresome.

[RandomUser]

11. Part of the process

I remember a pundit saying this was his favorite part of the primaries, watching the candidates grow and learn from each other. For instance, candidates adopt planks from each other's platforms and customize them. A candidate might see another candidate do well in a debate and adopt his speech style. Or one of them might be hitting a theme and the others realize it and adopt it. Etc.

Just look at how everyone polished their healthcare proposals once Gephardt came out with universal healthcare. The end result is to have all the candidates learn from each other and grow, so that the eventual nominee has assimiliated all the strongpoints from the others to become the best opposition to the incumbent. Candidates learning from each other is a good thing. We want a final nom with the strength of all Ten of them and none of the weaknesses. The weak planks will be tossed, and the strong ones will be assimilated.

[ThirdWheelLegend]

12. Kucinich was also proposing this from the beginning.

He has been for single payer universal health care since the beginning if not before his campaign.

Alot of GREAT ideas have been proposed by Kucinich. Too bad the media knows he is a threat to the power structure in this country and therefore he gets a miniscule amount of coverage.

TWL

[RandomUser]

14. Then Kucinich is doing a great job

the more candidates he gets to adopt his planks, the more certain he can be that even if he loses, his programs will still go forward.

It's almost like Kucinich is playing the role of a third party candidate. Traditionally, the point of third parties hasn't really been to successfully win elections often, but rather to get their issues adopted by one of the two main parties. Kind of like how Clinton had to pick up and follow through with Perot's budget deficit issue in order to get Perot voters.

[ThirdWheelLegend]

16. but he is not third party.........

Last I checked he has been a democrat his entire life.

I just dont understand this aversion to voting for and supporting the DEMOCRATIC candidate with easily the best stances on almost 100% of the issues.

I know he looks funny and he is a wacky leftist who likes civil liberties, fair trade, worker's rights, nuclear disarmament, peace, good wages, universal health care, education. And a wacky leftist who dislikes corporate control, war, lies, tax cuts for the rich, cutting veterans'benefits.

Who wants all that crazy talk?!?!? Insanity I tell you...!

TWL


p.s. sorry for my harsh reply, but the sentiment that he is like a third party candidate is what Kucinich supporters have to fight all the time... Everyone else can adopt his ideas and then they are declared messiahs...

[RandomUser]

17. I agree

He's not. I was just pointing out that third party candidates typically have the same dynamic.

I actually like most of Kucinich's stuff, the more I learn of it. But I had a qualm over the NAFTA thing, so I went for Dean instead. If only Kucinich had said that he would not withdraw from NAFTA before negotiating a New NAFTA, I think I would have switch from Dean to Kucinich. But now that Clark's in, I've switched to Clark since I've had my eye on him since the draft but had written him off when he didn't run by the time of the first debates.

But I hope Clark picks up more of Kucinich's stuff. Heck, I hope all of them do. Kucinich has some nice ideas that deserve to be carried on even if he loses. And the best way to make sure Kucinich's ideas get fulfilled is to get as many candidates to pick them up as possible, since many Kucinich supporters don't think he'll win. Those ideas deserved to be considered by all the candidates.

[Yupster]

28. I had to eliminate Kucinich fairly early

because of his health care proposal.

I'm a small business owner, and I work with many other snall business owners. Where he thinks I've got the money for another 7.7 % tax is beyond me. So many restaurants and other small businesses are currently just barely holding on now, and he wants to stick us with another very large tax. What's he even thinking?

And why should business have anything to do with health insurance anyway?

Carol Mosley-Braun has the much better plan. She also wants universal coverage, but she wants to detach it from employment, and just pay for it out of general revenues so that we all share in the burden of paying for it.

Kucinich just wants to give us all something and make somebody else pay for it. Something for nothing.

[ThirdWheelLegend]

42. ????????

Please back up your claims that this crazy high tax is going to cost you ANY MORE than you pay for health 'insurance' now. Remember you may have to pay more tax.. but you don't have to pay for insurance...

Please back up your claim.


TWL

[LiberalVoice]

15. I hope whoever does become our final representative inherits..

Al Sharptons "shut your mouth cuz we know your full of shit" attitude. Our guys need to be more agressive once they get to debating bushit.

[RandomUser]

18. me too!

I hope they pick this up from Sharpton.

[Kahuna]

22. LOL! You think he may have "borrowed" a little?

:shrug:

[Le Taz Hot]

25. Huh???

Dennis Kucinich has been proposing this from the beginning.

[quinnox]

3. Kucinich should get a nod for this

I think it's a good idea, but Kucinich has been talking about this ever since he started his campaign. I'm glad Clark can see a good idea and run with it, but due credit should be given.

[ThirdWheelLegend]

6. Kucinich had proposed this even before he was a candidate.

I like that Clark thinks its a good idea. Maybe Clark should endorse Kucinich.

:)


TWL

[RandomUser]

8. A Clark/Kucinich ticket

sounds fun. :)

[Kahuna]

23. Kucinich HATES Clark... I hope that..

Clark will give a nod to Dennis. But I really don't think Dennis would accept a job with Clark.

[rucky]

35. Kucinich Hates Bush. Kucinich Hates Hate...

but what makes you say he hates Clark?

[RandomUser]

7. Just checked

And you're right. I hope all the candidates adopt this. I like the image of a General creating a Department of Peace.

[LWolf]

27. I agree.

It's fine with me, and good for our country for more candidates than Dennis to support some form of this idea.

But...while the media marginalizes/ignores Dennis, his platform, and his contributions, the "new kid on the campaign block" all of a sudden gets the press over it?

Due credit. How about some "fair and balanced" reporting?

[Tinoire]

9. I'm honestly trying to figure out

the similarities between the "Department of International Assistance" and the already proposed "Department of Peace". But I must say, I admire your enthusiasm and joy over this! Thanks for sharing it.

All the foreign aid will be consolidated into a department that can create actual changes in the world with a concerted vision. The goal will be to use this department as an alternative to the DoD to change tyrannical regimes into democracies.

I'm missing something here. There's already a proposal, sponsored in the House by Dennis Kucinich, for something called a Department of Peace and co-sponsored by the people at the end of this post. Its notion seems quite different from that of the "Department of International Assistance".

Check out Kucinich's Department of Peace and then let's nicely compare the two. I know you won't have as many details but a general idea would be great if you can get one.

-----
DiamondSoul put this together on Kucinich's Department of Peace:

The Department of Peace is not being proposed to deal strictly with foreign relations issues, which seems to be the impression most people have on hearing of it. Kucinich gets a little more in depth on the subject on his issues page covering it, but even that isn't quite detailed enough for the average citizen to comprehend the scope of the Department.

The Department of Peace would be charged with a number of things-
1. addressing nonviolent resolution of conflicts across the United States-
such as in our schools, as part of protest training seminars, in domestic relationships, parenting, etc. The people staffing it would be charged with developing teaching tools for educating the public that violence is rarely the correct response to conflict and showing how there are better ways to address those conflicts.

2. addressing nonviolent conflict resolution in international affairs-
such as diplomacy training, negotiation skills, reinforcing the notion that violence should not be threatened for any but the most extreme circumstances (i.e. direct threat to our nation or one of our allies), etc.

3. examining the United States' role in the arms race and deterining where and how it is wise to scale down our weapons development systems in the interests of promoting Peace across the globe. Hopefully gathering the information needed to convince our DoD to lead the race to nuclear disarmament.

4. examining human rights problems in other nations and how the US can influence those problems without resorting to violence or military force, IOW, instead of threatening Afghanistan, we offer humanitarian assistance in exchange for a change in Afghan National policy toward women, allowing women to be educated for example.

5. determining when peaceful efforts at conflict resolution have been exhausted and when military strength should be applied to a conflict. Generally speaking this would be in conjunction with the UN and other International organizations devoted to global peace.

Now having given you some of what I understand to be the purpose of the Department of Peace, let me explain why I believe it is a valid and even needed proposal-

First, I'm a strong proponent of nuclear disarmament. I don't believe nuclear weapons should EVER be used on anyone for any reason. They are the most heinous weapons ever developed and I'm appalled that the United States resorted to using them at any time given their lasting impact on innocent people. Charging the DoD with any sort of disarmament is like telling an oil mogul we have enough oil and not to drill anymore. It ain't gonna happen. The entire goal of the DoD is to see to it that the US has the biggest, baddest, scariest weapons in existance. They will not back down from that goal without some serious pressure from the Presidential administration. A Department of Peace working in unison with the DoD would exert that pressure.

Additionally, the DoD is not going to scale back weapons production of any sort, nor focus it's energies on the security of the United States. Why? Because there's too much money to be made in war. It IS a racket and our DoD is right in the midst of it. We need a Department determined to pull the United States back from the profiteering of war and war planning to counter the corporate pressure on the DoD. As a Federal Department under the control of the President and his cabinet, the Department of Peace would fulfill that role.

Once established, the Department of Peace could easily be turned loose from the President himself, and his cabinet, and allowed to function on its own with the prime directive being exhaust ALL means of peaceful resolution and determine when that has been done with no result. At that point it would answer to Federal auditors and the Ways and Means comittee like any other Federal Department.

On a domestic level, surely we've all watched the nightly news and been sickened at all the violence happening in our own neighborhoods. Our children are taking guns to school and killing each other. Teens are shooting each other over clothing, over drugs, over a simple hurled insult! People are shooting each other or attacking each other because somebody ran a red light for pity's sake!

The violence we see daily MUST be addressed at both the top and bottm of our society in order to be brought under control. We must deal with the propensity of our DoD to resort to violent force inconflict resolution, AND simultaneously train our citizens how to deal with conflict without resorting to violence. That begins with education, and in order to implement something like that, nationwide, we need a special department dedicated to the concept of Peace itself. The ducation can't just be in schools, it has to be in schools, workplaces, social services efforts, prisons, everywhere. Everyone has to be exposed to this at some point.

Now some people will say that's socialist or communist idealism. I disagree. I'm just an ordinary person who has seen enough violence that these days I can barely stand to watch the news or read the paper. I would much rather attend courses on peaceful resolution of conflict than to see another funeral because nobody cared enough to address the problem of violence within this country. People CAN improve, but only if we all decide to give each other the means to do so. That starts with education and example. Dennis Kucinich is offering the education and the example, and I am prepared to take him up on it. I can't weigh the cost in human lives as a result of violence against the cost of a new federal Department dedicated to ending it, sorry, but I can't put a price-tag on the death and destruction I've seen in my scant 35 years of life. It's worth the cost if it prevents just one person from dying needlessly.
---
And you can find tons more information here: http://www.dopcampaign.org/

---
Co-sponsors:
Abercrombie, Neil (D-HI, 1st)
Baldwin , Tammy (D-WI, 2nd)
Brown, Sherrod (D-OH, 13th)
Carson, Julia (D-IN, 7th)
Clay William (D-MO, 1st)
Conyers, John (D-MI, 14th)
Cummings, Elijah (D-MD, 7th)
Davis, Danny (D-IL, 7th)
DeFazio, Peter (D-OR, 4th)
Evans, Lane (D-IL, 17th)
Farr, Sam (D-CA, 17th)
Filner, Bob (D-CA, 51st)
Grijalva , Raol (D-AZ, 7th)
Gutierrez, Luis (D-IL, 4th)
Hinchey, Maurice (D-NY, 22nd)
Holt, Rush D. (D- NJ)
Honda, Michael (D-CA, 15th)
Jackson, Jesse (D-IL, 2nd)
Jackson-Lee (D-TX, 18th)
Johnson, Eddie Bernice (D-TX, 30th)
Kucinich, Dennis (D-OH, 10th)
Lee, Barbara (D-CA, 9th)
Lewis, John (D-GA, 5th)
Maloney, Carolyn (D-NY, 14th)
McDermott, Jim (D-WA, 7th)
McGovern, James (D-MA, 3rd)
Meeks, Gregory (D-NY, 6th)
Miller, George (D-CA, 7th)
Nadler, Jerrold (D-NY, 8th)
Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC)
Oberstar, James (D-MN, 8th)
Olver, John (D-MA, 1st)
Owens, Major (D-NY, 14th)
Payne, Donald (D-NJ,10th)
Rahall, Nick (D-WV, 3rd)
Rangel, Charles (D-NY,15th)
Ryan, Tim (D-OH, 17th)
Sanders, Bernard (I-VT, At Large)
Schakowsky, Janice (D-IL, 9th)
Scott, Bobby (D-VA, 3rd)
Serrano, Jose (D-NY, 16th)
Solis, Hilda (D-CA, 32nd)
Stark, Fortney (D-CA,13th)
Thompson, Bennie (D- MS 2nd)
Towns, Edolphus (D-NY, 10th)
Tubbs Jones, Stephanie (D-OH, 11th)
Udall, Mark (D-CO,2nd)
Velazquez, Nydia (D-NY,12th)
Waters, Maxine (D-CA,35th)
Watson, Diane (D-CA, 33rd)
Woolsey, Lynn (D-CA,6th)

[RandomUser]

13. No details yet

Hope he releases some soon.

[rhite5]

19. Thanks Tinoire

Dennis's proposal is far more than a campaign proposal since as you say, his Dept. of Peace was officially introduced in Congress and has a great many co-sponsors. It is important that he calls for a full cabinet position. It should be mentioned that his proposal was made two years ago, before 9/11, obviously before we invaded Afghanistan or Iraq.

Clark's proposal is quite different and should not be referred to as calling for a "Dept of PEACE." That is the Kucinich term and it leads to confusion.

The original poster's point is a good one though. It is healthy that the candidates learn from each other and adopt or modify their positions on the issues as they learn from each other. Regardless of whether or not Dennis Kucinich can win the nomination it is vitally important that we help keep him in the race as long as possible so that HIS ideas on the issues get exposed to more and more people and to the other candidates.

Just for instance, Dennis's healthcare solution is far and away the best one, delivering more coverage to more people at less cost to the overall economy than any of the others.

[Zuni]

38. Dennis does have many good points

and will give an important voice to many issues.
Healthcare, peaceful resolution, helping working families etc.

[Zuni]

37. Good idea

both are interesting, even revolutionary ideas. Clark's seems to be in promoting democracy worldwide, while Kucinich seems to be promoting non-violent solutions.
I think Kucinich should change the name though, to the Department of Conflict Resolution, so it does not sound so Hippy
They are both ideas to move issues away from the intrenched bueacracies at State and Defense and both ideas are hard to find fault with.

I think both departments could be made into one department--and humanitarian aid, conflict resolution, promoting democracy etc. can be taken away from the state department and the defense department.

[REP]

10. Paging Eric Blair ... Paging Eric Blair ....

It creeped me out when I read Kucinich's version; I doubt this one will be much different.




(Eric Blair is better known by his pen name)

[DemBones DemBones]

36. I know who Eric Blair was but I don't understand why you're

creeped out about Kucinich's proposed Department of Peace. Can you explain why you see it as Orwellian? What am I missing?

[WhoCountsTheVotes]

20. adopting Kucinich's platform

good move :) you people should just hire me as campaign manager!

[Bread and Circus]

21. I read the article....

can't wait to read the book.

I am not sure if Clark really borrowed ideas
from Kucinich or not. If he has, great. If he
has not, great. Either way, it's kind of nice
to see Wes Clark support multi-lateralism and
foreign support as a core principle in our
dealings abroad. These are the sorts of ideas
we need.

[opihimoimoi]

26. Doesn't matter who mentioned this first. I been advocating Dept of

Peace for years here on DU and the DNCs old board. And whats a DEPT to do without adequate funding? I always maintained the budget should have parity with DEPT of DEFENSE/WAR; after all, which would you prefer?

[AWD]

24. Good for him!

He must have been reading those books on "How to act like a Democrat"

Wonder if he bought those books 26 days ago, or did he have to ask a real Democrat to borrow theirs???

[imhotep]

29. I may be crazy

but I always thought the Dept of Defense and CIA were created and intended to be a Dept of Peace/International Assistance.
Why create a new bureaucracy or why spend more money?
We already got a new one in the Office of Homeland Security, so growing the size and spending of government isnt neccessary, Especially when all these so called threats are exaggerated in the first place.

[RandomUser]

30. Not quite

The CIA is for foreign intelligenceas opposed to the FBI for domestic intelligence (developed to combat the mafia decades ago). The dept of Defense is the military. The Office of Homeland Security was designed specifically to for domestic counterterrorism, to prevent car bombs/hijacked plans/etc within the nation's borders.

Each organization has a different mission and a different focus. Sometimes they overlap occassionally, but they focus on different things, and often they don't overlap.

This new Department of International Assistance is designed as a way to consolidate the foriegn aid (money) that we're already giving to other countries. But using a centralized department allows us to focus our efforts for results, instead of having the foreign aid spread out by dozens of organizations each with a different goal, and foreign aid grants dripping piecemeal here and there.

Each organization is different. It's like having a police department and a fire department. Sometimes they overlap, like when there's a major crisis and police and firefighters are both at the scene, but that doesn't mean having two depts is beauracratic waste and that you should just combine the police and fire depts.

[AmeriCanadian]

31. Oh bullshit, we don't need any more "Dept of Anything" besides

... "Carrot instead of the stick" doesn't work with countries like NK, and China.

... Sheese, who the hell to support now if this is true?

[RandomUser]

33. Well, the aid is already there

he's just consolidating it under one umbrella to keep better track of it and so that it can be manipulated for concrete results instead of haphazard results. And a carrot/stick approach always leaves the option of the stick if the carrot fails on China/n.korea. It's just that the stick will no longer be the first option. And having a carrot/stick is more versatile and effective than having a stick/stick approach, wouldn't you say?

[Zuni]

32. Similar to DK's ideas

a bit different, but a good idea is a good idea.

Having an agency to be like a state department promoting democracy is a very good idea.

[Demobrat]

34. I thought Dennis's idea had been dismissed long ago

as the ravings of a peacenik. Go figure.

[Blue_Chill]

41. Clark makes more sense.

He sets it as a goal for international affairs as opposed to DK who frames his dept. of Peace as a goverment agency that will review everything about society and change it to promote peace. Being that I typically don't agree with many leftists on what things "promote violence" in schools I don't like DK's idea. I don't want the same people who beleive in training boys to not behave as boys in grade school, banning competition, etc etc in the white house.

[Zuni]

39. This is a GREAT idea

the most important internaional interest we all have is promoting democracy--any thing else is short term and likely to backfire.

[vernon_nackulus]

40. Great Idea!

People that are well fed and educated don't strap dynamite around their waist. Foriegn aid is the best way to stop terrorism, IMO.

Also, consolidation, if done well, can make things much more efficient. Tell the conservatives to stick that in their pipe and smoke it!