Peace and War in the Heartland - Mission Statement

Peace and War in the Heartland believes that a broader and deeper public conversation about the moral landscape of war, peace and Resistance is crucial and overdue and that an informed citizenry is democracy’s best safeguard. PWH produces events that promote personal engagement with the complex intellectual issues & moral terrain of war & peace-making.

War is conducted by and waged against human beings, so the conversation needs to move beyond numbers of troops and calendar dates to engage with universal human values. Critical Constitutional questions abound, and the role of American participation in the world community is hotly debated.

As the nation debates the moral consequences of war, unheard in a generation, the timeliness of the project is unprecedented.

To address draft age youths, 18 to 25, and to present an opportunity for intergenerational discussion, PWH’s campus-based peace-and-war education project articulates the key, critical moral and constitutional issues facing all Americans but especially America’s draft age youth.

Using entertainment - the play, "Peace Crimes: the Minnesota 8 vs. the war" - and education, PWH is an original and highly imaginative approach to telling a complete and comprehensive story of how present moral, political and cultural conditions and challenges are rooted in the choices made by previous generations. Through a series of campus-based free public events that employ various communication modalities (lecture, small group discussions, panels, etc.) PWH addresses eight decision influence sources: history, politics, law, religion, science and the experience or fact of being young, a woman or a veteran.