Fitzgerald and other Utah members of the Peace Alliance plan to approach the Salt Lake City Council in March to encourage its endorsement of a Department of Peace. To date, 19 cities — including Chicago, Atlanta, Cleveland and Detroit — have endorsed the idea. The town of Fairmont, Minn., voted in favor of the department, then rescinded its vote after residents complained.

"There are a lot of misconceptions about the bill," says Anderson, who is youth coordinator for the Peace Alliance in Utah. The biggest misconception is that it's "wishy-washy," he says. "People don't think it's as organized and sane and sober as it really is."

The United States spends an "infinitessimal" amount of time and money on diplomacy and development compared to what it spends on defense, argues Peace Alliance executive director Dot Maver. Under Kucinich's bill, the Department of Peace would have a budget equal to 2 percent of the U.S. defense budget.

The Department of Peace would research, coordinate and fund programs that are already working but don't have "the focus or breadth or depth to make a difference" on a wide scale yet, she says. In Oakland, Calif., for example, where it costs $80,000 a year for each youth incarcerated, a "books not bars" program has brought the recidivism rate down to 20 percent, she says.

To those who argue that a Department of Peace duplicates the work of the State Department, the Peace Alliance counters that the new Cabinet-level post would work not just with other nation-states but with "various ethnic and religious subgroups within other countries." The new department, they say, would augment the work of the departments of State and Defense, going beyond intelligence-gathering to a "pro-active search for non-violent solutions."

To people who think that peace is weak and passive, Maver counters that "the truth is that to maintain peace is one of the most courageous, time-intensive and challenging things we can do."

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