Advocating for Alternatives

In 2002, when the United States government began presenting its case for war in Iraq, it framed the public debate as a choice between war and “doing nothing.” The latter course was deemed appeasement, which, the administration said, would lead to the use of weapons of mass destruction against the United States. This either-or framework prevailed, and the momentum for military action accelerated.

Public policies are periodically framed in terms of two options in solving specific problems or crises: 1) violence (threatened or actual) or 2) passivity. (While this dichotomy applies most frequently to military action, it also is used to justify capital punishment, sentencing guidelines, aspects of the Patriot Act, etc.)

In response, Pace e Bene is creating the Nonviolent Options Project. This project is designed to mobilize broad, grassroots support for nonviolent alternatives to proposed or enacted national policies that are framed in either-or terms.

Here’s how it will work:

• Pace e Bene will form a Policy Analysis Committee composed of specialists who will analyze proposed or enacted national public policies that have been presented in an “either violence”/”or passivity” frame.
• Periodically, this committee will craft a realistic and documented Nonviolent Policy Option.
• This Nonviolent Policy Option will be circulated by email to those who have joined Pace e Bene’s Nonviolent Options Response Network.
• Participants will be invited to send email, make phone calls, or send letters in support of the Nonviolent Policy Option to the White House, members of Congress, and the media.
• The goals of the project are:
  • To create momentum for this third way to be considered and debated in the court of public opinion;
  • To help create moral and political support for this option; and
  • To help enact a more nonviolent policy than one that is “violent” or “doing nothing.”

We invite you to join the Nonviolent Options Response Network. When the network is activated beginning in Fall, 2006, you will receive information on this nonviolent option and ways you can communicate it to policy-makers and the press.

We will open registration shortly. Please contact us and we will let you know when this registration begins.