Today I read that congress decided not to fund the Department of Peace. Last Thanksgiving, when Ed and I were visiting Lyric in D.C., she pointed out the Department of Peace’s beautiful new facility. The building had just opened under a soaring, white, V-shaped roof and glass front. It instilled in me a sense of wonder that our nation had finally gotten its priorities together and was leaning toward a new, positive direction.

That was November. This is the end of February. Now Congress doesn’t want to fund peace, but will continue to push the expansion of the obscenely bloated defense budget. And over the past three weeks, the whole of the Middle East and Africa have fallen to the flames of instability.

Now is the time for a voice for peace and reason; it could make a difference. If our nation had focused time, attention, and money on educating people in negotiation processes and working toward peace, we could be the leader of restraint and cooperation in a world gone mad. My question is, are the corporations that are making money by funding the wars and products of war behind the move to cut the funding for peace? Maybe not. I admit, I fear the military industrial complex. Or I did, until Wall Street and the big banks took the taxpayers (read middle class) to the cleaners with derivatives. Greenspan, Paulson and Blankfein (Goldman Sachs CEO who made 54.4 million profit in 2007), commandeered the ship of state. Big money is pulling the strings of our "elected" leaders (read "those who can afford to run because they have the millions required for campaigns through corporate backing and who channel through K street"). I have lost faith in what was once our democracy. You get what you pay for, I guess.

And which programs are getting cut? Ed is a Workforce Investment Act case manager. Today he discovered that congress voted to end funding for his program which helps displaced workers go back to school for training. Our nation can afford to bail out banks, but not support the people losing their homes, jobs, or training. Makes sense, right? I guess in America it does, where our courts have ruled that corporations are "people" —very rich people—with the rights to fund whomever they wish.

I do wonder as I watch Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrain, Libya, Yemen, and the rest of the counties currently facing revolution in their streets: "What made them finally pass the tipping point?" Was it Wikileaks’ reports of corruption of those governments that caused the people to say, "Enough is enough?" Or did the internet and social networks encourage this major breakthrough?

What would it take to wake up America, and get us up from the easy chairs in front of our widescreens and into the streets?

Ed and I have protested our nation’s wars from Viet Nam to Iraq with tens of thousands of folks (or hundreds of thousands depending on which country you were in, as other countries seem to be more willing to go to bat for their beliefs) to no avail. War happens. Most people watch the news and shake their heads, but nothing ever changes.

The draft was the major reason Viet Nam ended. "Hell no. we won’t go!" When we stood behind that refusal, there was no fodder for the cannons. Currently, we have a "volunteer" military (often forced into extensions of duty under the previous administration) that is stretched so thin that PTSD now claims more lives through suicide than those lost in the actual war zone. Troops return home to reduced benefits and limited care because of the recession. We can no longer afford the costs of the war(s) that have caused this impasse. Our nation, our people are suffering.

Today I read a Facebook post wondering if the Mayans didn’t get it right? I don’t think we are building up to the end of the world, but perhaps we are on the brink of the end of the world as we know it.

I would rather believe that this is the darkness before the dawn. Maybe, worldwide, we will reach a tipping point, a verge of awakening. Perhaps we will get off the couch, take to the streets, and demand freedom, equality, compassion and peace for all. Maybe we will give peace a chance.

*For those too young to recognize this quote, it was the song of the 60’s to protest the war in Viet Nam. Along with the chant of "Hell no, we won’t go." A final question: What if all the old men who send the young ones off to fight had to duke it out, hand to hand? Would there be war? I don’t think so. War is an old man’s game of chess, where the children are the chess pieces.