Peace: the missing word

Last night, I unexpectedly heard one of our local candidates on national television, it was Keith Ellison on Tavis Smiley. The first statement from Keith was about peace. I was in shock and I could not figure out why for awhile. Then I realized why: no one ever talks about peace on national TV. It is always war on terror, the Iraq war, the Afganistan war, the war on drugs, war for this and war for that. When did we become such a war embracing culture?

We Democrats hear every day how we don't have a plan. We do have a plan, it is called peace. We Democrats are working to build the peace. The Republicans declared victory in the war, years ago and now are on "stay the course". Guns and armored vehicles do not build the peace. Guns and armored vehicles do not provide safe running water, nor electricity, nor open markets, nor courts of law. That is what the Republicans do not get ( the favorite saying of Republicans is "get it"), is that the next step is building the peace.

People, focussed on peace, have come to realize that even the stories of peace working have gone missing from our culture. Building the peace does not make a high adventure action movie theme. So peace groups like Peace-in-the-precincts are setting up events to talk about stories of peace.

Words have power. Lets put the word, peace, back into the everyday language of Democrats everywhere. Every time someone talks about war, lets respond with peace. Some say, "We must stay the course in the war on terror", we say "We must build peace everywhere, then we will all be safe". Some say, "We must have an all out war on drugs to eliminate this threat" and we say, "We must build prospect of peaceful fulfillment for all, with drug rehabilitation and drug education as well as ensuring that the police have resources to enforce the law." Lets build peaceful ways to build lives not create wars to destroy lives. Peace has law, police, civil rights and justice. War has
lack of law, torture, villifying cultures, fear, vengence, and destruction. When I went to school I learned that war was the failure of politics. That war only happened when politicans royally screwed up. What happened to that idea?

So I have a simple request:

Could you use the word "peace" at least once each day?

Could we ask every Democratic politican to use the word "peace" at least once in every long speech?

Perhaps if we bring the word and the concept of peace back into our lives, then maybe we can also build the peace.