DENNIS KUCINICH ON VIOLENCE

Mason County Progressive
Friends,

As we share the grief of the family and friends of the victims in Aurora, it is important to be mindful that each year over 30,000 Americans die from gun violence. This is one of those moments in our national experience when it would be important for all of us to slow down and absorb the impact of a small community of people at a theater, anticipating with excitement the premier of a movie before meeting tragedy. The act is horrific.

There is a level of violence in our society which continues to represent a major social, political and public health challenge. The accounts of violence are so ubiquitous and have become so commonplace, that even the most ghastly events recede in our awareness. We are riveted to aftermaths and consequences of violence, but we have yet to, as a nation, fully explore their origins and roots -- and how to stop these horrific acts from ever happening.

On July 11th, 2001, exactly two months before 9/11, I brought to Congress a broad plan which called forth a new approach to deal with gun violence, gang violence, racial violence, domestic violence, child abuse, spousal abuse, violence in the schools, and violence against gays. The legislation, embodied in HR 808, would create a coordinated, nationwide, systematic approach to dealing with the presence of violence in American society through non-violent conflict resolution, instilled and acted upon through the aegis of a cabinet-level Department of Peace and Non-Violence.

We cannot continue to grope in the dark, hoping to stem a rising tide of violence within our nation through hope or words of consolation alone. We must be resolute in creating a new America, free of the scourge of violence. We must act.

I ask that you contact your member of Congress and ask them to cosponsor HR 808, legislation to form a cabinet level Department of Peace to address violence in our society and create new structures to deal with it directly.

Let us grieve for those whose lives ended or have been irrevocably changed by the shootings in Aurora, Colorado. Then let us act to change our nation.

Go to Kucinich Action and get your Representative involved on this meaningful issue.

With respect,

Dennis Kucinich