Anything built on fear will have a shaky foundation for the rest of its life.
On September 10, 2001, there were two notable bills in Congress that addressed homeland security from very different points of view:
One was HR 1158, the National Homeland Security Agency Act, that had been introduced on March 21, 2001 by Rep. Mac Thornberry (R-TX). The bill followed recommendations of the Hart-Rudman Commission (AKA U.S. Commission on National Security in the 21st Century), and called for creation of a National Homeland Security Agency that would combine several agencies and infrastructure offices under one agency that would be responsible for activities related to homeland security.
The other was HR 2459, a bill introduced by Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), with 37 co-sponsors, on July 11, 2001, that would establish a Department of Peace. This bill also had its precedents. It's an idea that is about as old as the War Department itself, and was put forward by Benjamin Rush in his 1793 essay, A Plan of a Peace-Office for the United States, first published by African-American scientist, Benjamin Banneker, in one of his Almanacs. Between 1935 and 1969, more than 90 pieces of legislation calling for a department of peace (or something related) were introduced in Congress.
I love reading "preambles" or "findings" sections of bills because they usually encode what I would call an integrated energy reading of the collective body-mind-heart-spirit that put the bill together. It seemed to me, reading them side by side, that the "findings of Congress" in HR 1158 and HR 2459 suggest very different ways of thinking about ourselves as people of one nation, and evoke the possibility for very different futures.
Just so you get the idea, I'll quote the first two findings from each bill (but I invite the explorers among you to check out each of the documents in full).
HR 1158:
(1) The security of the United States homeland from nontraditional and emerging threats must be a primary national security mission of the United States Government. Attacks against United States citizens on United States soil, possibly causing heavy casualties, are likely during the next quarter century, as both the technical means for carrying out such attacks, and the array of actors who might use such means, are proliferating despite the best efforts of United States diplomacy.
(2) Attacks on United States soil may involve weapons of mass destruction and weapons of mass disruption. As porous as United States physical borders are in an age of burgeoning trade and travel, its cyber borders are even more vulnerable, and the critical infrastructure upon which so much of the United States economy depends can now be targeted by governments as well as individuals. The preeminence of the United States makes it more appealing as a target, while its openness and freedoms make it more vulnerable.
HR 2459:
(1) On July 4, 1776, the Second Continental Congress unanimously declared the independence of the 13 colonies, and the achievement of peace was recognized as one of the highest duties of the new organization of free and independent States.
(2) In declaring, `We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness', the drafters of the Declaration of Independence, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the World, derived the creative cause of nationhood from `the Laws of Nature' and the entitlements of `Nature's God', such literal referrals in the Declaration of Independence thereby serving to celebrate the unity of human thought, natural law, and spiritual causation.
Essentially, in the early morning hours of September 11, both bills were still alive and making their way through legislative process. I had heard of the Kucinich bill and was following its progress, but I can't say that it was on my mind when I woke up that morning. I was still feeling a bit edgy from a disturbing dream I'd had a couple of days earlier. In the dream, I was in a city that was being bombed:
I was huddled in a building with some other folks -- mostly women, children and old people, some of whom were wearing burqas. We adults were doing our best to shield the children with our own bodies, and all of us were all praying that our shelter would be spared. After the bombing stopped, I looked out through a shattered wall of the building to see piles of rubble. Amazingly, the air was clear of dust, the sun was up, and the sky was a brilliant blue.
Still, I didn't really connect to this dream as a possible premonition until I saw some images of Ground Zero many days later, after the smoke and dust were gone. It was like deja vu: one or two of those images were so familiar that they might as well have been taken inside my dream before the events of 9/11 ever unfolded.
On October 7, 2001, the United States began the bombing of Afghanistan and on October 11th, Sen. Lieberman introduced S 1534, a bill that followed the language of Thornberry's HR 1158, and called for the establishment of a Cabinet-level Department of National Homeland Security. By this time I remember having some concerns that, in the fog of national trauma, the United States might take actions that would someday be regrettable, and my sense of this crescendo-ed right on through Bush's "axis of evil" SOTU speech in January 2002.
Still, I don't think I specifically began to reflect on the missed opportunity to establish a Department of Peace until June 2002 when President Bush proposed legislation to create a permanent Cabinet-level Department of Homeland Security. Here's how that document begins:
Our Nation faces a new and changing threat unlike any we have faced before—the global threat of terrorism. No nation is immune, and all nations must act decisively to protect against this constantly evolving threat.
We must recognize that the threat of terrorism is a permanent condition, and we must take action to protect America against the terrorists that seek to kill the innocent.
From there, Congress took us to HR 5005 and PL 107-296, the Homeland Security Act of 2002, that officially created the new Department of Homeland Security.
I find it interesting to follow the changes in language of these documents -- and the more subtle energy messages that attach to the words -- as the United States moved into a post-9/11 era. The patterns of violence and hate in the United States continues to be documented through media of all kinds, from professional journalists to citizen bloggers and video-makers.
We need a Department of Peace. The peace envisioned here is one that includes a more workable encounter with fearsome and loathesome aspects of our personal and collective being -- the shadow qualities that we too often pitch out onto the world and then feel obliged to pick a fight with. It's a meaning of peace that invites exploration and respectful dialogue rather than disconnection, isolation, hate speech. It's about peace in the world, peace in the family, peace within ourselves.
In recent national outbreaks of bigotry, homophobia, bullying, and Islamophobia is the evidence that we desperately need a department of peace and nonviolence. Whether it manifests as an agency of government or develops through the powerful, peaceful infrastructure of the collective human heart, a path of peace is our ultimate homeland security.
Please check out the website of The Peace Alliance Campaign for a Department of Peace and the Youth PROMISE Act to see how you can help.
