NPR aired a 10 minute program on the Department of Peace campaign -- with a particular focus on on Fairmont, MN. The program was broadcast Saturday March 24th on Weekend Edition with Scott Simon. It was produced by award-winning journalist Daniel Zwerdling.
You can listen to the program here.
Excerpt:
Weekend Edition Saturday, March 24, 2007 ·
To the members of a women's group in Fairmont, Minn., it seemed like a
simple idea: The United States has a Department of State, which
promotes America's interests overseas. And it also has a Department of
Defense, which fights for them. So why not create a Department of
Peace, to promote creative ways to avoid conflicts?
A
national coalition of human rights groups has been campaigning for the
idea, which has been around in some form since the days of America's
founding fathers. There's currently a bill before Congress that would
create such an agency. When the Fairmont Peace Club learned of the
campaign last year, they decided to help. Instead, they triggered fears
in their community about the very survival of America.
Fairmont,
surrounded by farm fields and red barns, is the government seat of
Martin County, population 10,000; it's among the top 10 pork-producing
counties in America. The area is 97 percent white, and a large majority
of residents usually vote Republican.
Fairmont has also been home, since the early 1960s, to the Peace Club.
Last
November, the club persuaded the five members of Fairmont's city
council that the Department of Peace was a good idea; the council
unanimously passed a resolution endorsing it, without any debate.
"I didn't think it was controversial," said club member Ruth Draut. "I thought everybody wanted peace."
The
backlash started the next morning. When Vietnam veteran Jerome Kortuem
read about the resolution in the newspaper, he was dumbfounded.
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