I just returned from the Student Peace Alliance conference in Austin, Texas. Andy Barker, Ben and Jerry’s Social Mission Coordinator and I presented on business and peace-building.  Ben and Jerry’s overtly supports peace-building efforts in their social mission statement. GlobalMojo supports peace-building by providing a branded charitable web-browser that generates ongoing revenue for organizations like the Student Peace Alliance. I met  Zoe Cooprider at the conference who works for the Institute for Economics and Peace; they publish the Global Peace Index now in its fourth year. Do you know that we can actually measure how peaceful a country is? New Zealand, Denmark & Norway are the most peaceful countries. The United States is number 83…

Personally and professionally, I’ve been feeling a compulsion to work on the “Peace Movement” for about five years. There are irrefutable signs that I am meant to devote my time and creatively think of ways for us to manifest a more peaceful world. I won’t go into the visions I receive while meditating, because that is part of what contributes to peace not being taken seriously, but when I follow “the signs,” they lead me to extraordinary places and people. For example, in 2006 I followed the signs to present at a conference in New Delhi on Volunteering for Peace in Multi-Cultural Societies. While in India, I had several chance encounters with His Holiness, the Dalai Lama. You don’t just “run into” the Dalai Lama in India, by the way. Exactly one year later I was recruited to be on the team to bring the Dalai Lama (the ultimate peacemaker, in my opinion) to Seattle for the largest event in Washington State’s history. This, in turn, has contributed to the largest compassion movement the world has ever seen, and thanks to Karen Armstrong’s Charter for Compassion, it’s only going to get larger.

Suffice it to say, with the signs I receive, working on peace and compassion is not optional for me. It is something I can’t NOT do. It would be like James Bond not accepting the mission, even if he wasn’t sure who sent the message or why. I’m sure the message would not self-destruct (that would not be peaceful), but I would probably self-destruct if I didn’t play this mission all the way out. This is one of the reasons I chose to work for GlobalMojo. Through our social enterprise, we can provide a sustainable funding stream to great organizations that are reducing violence in our country and in our world.

But all “signs” aside, I have to admit that the word “peace” itself really aggravates me.  Not because it’s inaccurate, but because of the reaction it evokes in people who think it’s weak.  In March of 2007 and again in March of 2009, I attended a conference for The Peace Alliance in Washington DC. Both times I had the opportunity to pitch a bill to our nation’s political elites trying to convince them to create a United States Department of Peace. I would state the case – the World Health Organization says we spend $300 billion a year  on our violence issues in the United States; add the cost to victims ($500 billion) and you come up with 10% of the United States’ Gross Domestic Product. Yes, this is why the U.S. is number 83 on the Global Peace Index.  Heads nod in agreement when you talk about the need to fund more programs that are reducing violence in our country, but try to invoke the concept of a new Department of Peace and the lips of  politicians pucker.

If peace is such a pansy word then we need a new solution.  Here are just two options:

1) We need to re-brand peace, which quite frankly, I don’t have the time or patience or pro-bono branding agency to do; or

2) We need to surround the word peace with something our politicians are comfortable supporting, something militaristic and action-oriented that can take the pucker out of peace, put the man back in manners and embrace the ass in compassion.

I’m going for door number 2.

I’m starting a Covert Peace Operation. I’m going to take a page out of Charlie Wilson’s War, and simply walk through the back door of the federal government, and re-arrange the budget with the informed insiders who are probably as interested as I am in giving money to the nonviolence programs in our country, which are already proven to be working. That’s the irony; we actually know how to “do peace.” We have programs in prisons that reduce recidivism rates and programs in schools that stop gang violence. By the way, somewhere close to 50% of our kids don’t go to school from time to time because they are scared of gangs and of the brutal bullying we’ve taught our children. Unfortunately, bullying is not limited to schools; we also find it in courtrooms and corporate boardrooms – ah yes, the playground has grown, but the players have not grown up!  Speaking of corporations, perhaps if we illustrate that peace is profitable, we’d have more corporations like Ben and Jerry’s and GlobalMojo willing to overtly fund it philanthropically. Here’s just one example of a return on a peaceful portfolio: The Violence Against Women Act cost $1.6 billion to implement, but provided a $14.8 billion return!

Yes, we in the United States actually know how to do peace.  We just can’t call it that. So, I’m starting a Covert Peace Operation. Nobody (except those on the inside) will know it’s happening, and nobody, except for everybody in our country will benefit!

Stay tuned for progress reports…

Peace out!