Obama's First Betrayal?

Has President-elect Barack Obama committed his first betrayal? Has he turned away from his most exalted ideals in an act of such spiritual malfeasance that it will condemn his administration?

Some observers cite the fact that the stimulus package contains money for AmeriCorps but nothing for the Peace Corps as evidence that the president-elect has turned his back on his pledge to double the size of Kennedy's most noble child. There is buzz among former Volunteers and others associated with the Peace Corps that the expanded future of the organization is in immediate and dramatic peril.

The Peace Corps $330 million budget is insufficient even to maintain the current level of 7,876 volunteers. In recent months some potential volunteers have been asked to defer their enlistments for up to a year. To expand dramatically another $80 to $100 million is needed, a pittance in terms of the impact such an escalation would have on America and the world.

I was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Nepal in 1964-66, an early supporter of Obama, a volunteer and a member of the steering committee in Palm Beach County, and I don't believe for a minute that he will back away from his historic pledge. He can't or he will be denying his essence. Obama will be the first president whose most formative adult life experience was service, working as a community organizer, and service/volunteering will be one of the essential themes of his presidency.

Obama will be our president, the leader we thought one of us might be, a leader going back to those ideals and taking them to new dramatic place in American life. "To restore America's standing, I will call on our greatest resource - our people," Obama says in the winter issue of Worldview Magazine. "We will double the size of the Peace Corps by its 50th anniversary in 2011. And, we'll reach out to other nations to engage their young people in similar programs, so that we work side by side to take on the common challenges that confront all humanity. This will not be a call issued in one speech or on program. This will be an important and enduring commitment of my presidency."

As Harvard University political philosopher Michael Sandel told Thomas Friedman in his column the day after the historic election: "The biggest applause line in his stump speech was the one that said every American will have a chance to go to college provided he or she performs a period of national service -- in the military, in the Peace Corps or in the community. Obama's campaign tapped a dormant civic idealism, a hunger among Americans to serve a cause greater than themselves, a yearning to be citizens again."

It is that "dormant civic idealism" resonating among millions of Americans that can change our country. In the Obama years service/volunteering may well become the crucial mark of social legitimacy without which we are not full citizens. I understand the profound linkage between the Peace Corps/volunteer experience and the Obama campaign.

Let me tell you the story of two women, one who was in my Peace Crops group, and one who volunteered with me in South Florida. Suzanne Cluett was a feisty, determined blonde from Seattle who in the Sixties trekked to remote areas of Nepal bringing medical advice to women. She worked in that same field after leaving the Peace Corps. She became the first employee of the nascent Gates Foundation. Suzanne worked with Bill Gates' father in her basement developing what has become the greatest foundation in the history of the world. Thanks to Suzanne, the Gates Foundation is imbued with the spirit of the Peace Corps.

Suzanne died of cancer in 2006. A group of us from Nepal IV built a school in the mountains of Nepal in her honor. Bill Gates donated a million dollars part of which went to build a maternity hospital high up in the Himalayas so for the first time Sherpa women can give birth in a hospital. But Suzanne's real immortality rests in the Gates Foundation. Every time you read about or see its accomplishment, think that you are seeing the Peace Corps at work.

Maria Cole is a beautiful, fortyish African-American dentist. She had a practice in reconstructive dentistry in South Florida. She sold it because she wanted to do something different and that something different was volunteering for Obama. She flew up to New Hampshire and worked organizing Enfield. Then she went on to South Carolina. She wanted to go to Texas but got no response from the Obama staff in Chicago. So she and a friend took off on their own and set up shop in Eagle Lake where Obama won both the primary and the caucus. In South Florida during the general campaign Maria managed the northern part of Palm Beach County. The largely black Rivera Beach generally had about a twenty percent turn out; this time it was over eighty per cent, almost all for Obama.

Suzanne and Maria never met but they are sisters of the blood and spirit, partners in helping to build a great and noble movement. I am witness to the fact that as brilliant and historic a figure as Obama is, he is in some measure the vehicle for a movement far larger even than the presidency. The millions of people who volunteered discovered a spiritual affinity with each other and a cause and they has a momentum and energy that nothing can stop.

I volunteer once a week for the Lord's Place in West Palm Beach working with the homeless. It's a sacrament with me. I've talked about it to Jorge Quezeda, the Latino maintenance chief in my Palm Beach condominium. Jorge's a big Obama supporter too, and he got excited hearing me talk about the Lord's Place, and he's going to start volunteering too.

Something is happening everywhere in America. The dormant idealism is awakening. The size of the Peace Corps will double. Young Americans will go to Asia and Africa and Latin America not as soldiers but as missionary of a new faith, emissaries of the best in America. They'll go into the slums, and so will middle-aged folks and retired people, and we will change this country and this world.

We are ready, Mr. President, ready for you to lead us.

Comments

[Futisaba]

As a current Peace Corps employee serving overseas I feel what the agency needs now is not an expansion, rather it needs a strengthening. Not two times the PCVs, but more Volunteer support resources, training money and facilities maintenance, resource support, qualified staff who are developed professionally. Keeping the promise means making sure a stretched agency has the capacity to absorb new PCVs who hunger for service; expansion must be built upon a solid foundation. Otherwise, the PCVs will sour on the experience and fail, and as a result so will Peace Corps. Too much is at stake for that kind of failure.

Expand later, strengthen now.

[slipnslurry]

No, I think Dean is going to be tapped to head up USAID. You gotta think of who's left out there high up in the dem party who doesn't have a job and what jobs are left. I doubt Shays gets the PC job. It'll be someone else...

[Cairene]

I, like many who have commented here, was a Peace Corps volunteer who loved and enjoyed my service and that which I took away from the experience. However, I disagree with the premise that the Peace Corps is a vital and invaluable tool in US foreign policy/public diplomacy. In fact, the Peace Corps isn't even a particularly effective development tool in its current form. If further funding and expansion is to be granted to the program, and especially if such service will count as a type of national service for Americans, Peace Corps needs to be overhauled.

First and foremost, its mission must be reviewed. What does the Peace Corps aim to achieve, what is its purpose? Kennedy realized the power of the Peace Corps as a public relations tool to be sure and to that end I think it does a good job, albeit on a very small scale. Yet, as an aid program Peace Corps is far from effective. Most volunteers lack experience for the field to which they are assigned to and Peace Corps fails to provide adequate training. In order to change these deficiencies the programs must be better organized, the selection process for volunteers more rigorous, and the integration of the agency's work into that of USAID's essential. As it is now volunteers, not the countries or communities in which they serve, get the most out of the arrangement.

[UncorneredMarket]

Like many of the people commenting, I was also a Peace Corps volunteer (Estonia, 1998-2000). The last couple of years I've been traveling around the world and have encountered the positive effects of Peace Corps in host countries. Peace Corps goes beyond the development work volunteers perform in their countries of service. It's one of the best - if not the best - public diplomacy tools the American government has right now. In the dozen or more countries we've visited where Peace Corps has a presence, we have yet to hear a negative thing about Peace Corps volunteers.

I sincerely hope that funding for expanding Peace Corps succeeds in this new administration. With a renewed value on public diplomacy and international understanding, Peace Corps is probably the best investment the US government can make right now.

[caelycate]

i appreciate this article's point that community/social service is all connected. it made me picture a web - the peace corps seems to be an integral part of that web, giving hope and progress a foundation to grow across the world.

[ronji]

Excellent article. Here are two possible plans for future action:

1. Organize a letter writing/lobbying campaign to members of congress for additional funding for the Peace Corps.

2. Lobby Obama to include stops at Peace Corps sites on all of his overseas visits.

RR
San Diego, CA
PC Nepal

[tlesoing]

Regardless of how you stand on the issue of Universal Service, most people agree that our society could benefit greatly from an increasing number of alternative options for young adults to persue. I chose the Peace Corps 36 years ago, and spent two years working in Healthcare Administration in communities in central and south-eastern Brazil (Minas Gerais and Espirito Santo states.)

Looking back, this time exploring and learning how other peoples live was probably the most important time of my life. I persued a career in Health Care Administration here in the US, I married a Brazilian lady who actually dropped out of medical school to come to the US. I am currently a Gallup Pollster (interviewer actually) and really love my work.

My time in Brazil and my 31 years in a multi-ethnic / multi-lingual family has taught me that our world is indeed small and interdependent. Our youth must have opportunities to learn the value and appreciate the beauty of all the worlds peoples. The Peace Corps in it's unique way provides an education and an eye-opening unlike any other.

I understand that the current thinking is to provide additional funding for Americorps but not for the Peace Corps. This position needs to be rethougth and reconsidered. The Peace Corps is the most cost effective educational and developmental program ever envisioned and it must be expanded. As a viable alternative to other service, Peace Corps needs to grow and flourish!

[laschoon]

The Peace Corps is important because we are the only group of aid workers who lives with the people of a country and learn about their needs on the most basic level. I worked with volunteers and paid aid workers from other countries. None of them had the same basic grasp of the culture that my fellow PCVs and I had. Most of this was rooted in the fact that they had cars and more money than we did. You learn a lot about a country when you have to walk and take its public transport where ever you go. And PCV's have access to grants that couldn't be used better by anyone than us because of what we learn from living the way we did.
If you pay attention during training and work very hard at your site, you will find ways to help people. You have to have a good attitude and an ambition to do everything you can to help the people in your village, but if you do that, as a Peace Corps Volunteer, you will do so much more than any professional.
Peace Corps works very hard to never put a volunteer in a position that displaces a local worker. I know that at schools, teaching volunteers feel like they are superfluous. Where I was placed, the government had just opened public primary schools. There were so few local professional teachers, the PCV's were necessary to make class sizes bearable. .

[ldougherty]

You are right Peace Corps needs to be included in the stimulus package. There are countless effects of the Peace Corps ripple effect. We need more Americans with foreign policy experience, with the ability to speak multiple languages, and to help those in need. Peace Corps is a great school and gave people like me and many of my Peace Corps friends the skills to start a career in international work.

[Thomas Hartman]

Dear President Obama,

I have heard you do not plan to fund the U.S. Peace Corps to meet its demand by the world. The Peace Corps is one of the lasting legacies of JFK's dream and has made friends around the world. Millions are dreaming of a better world during your presidency in part because of their experiences with unselfish, caring PCVs. Do not extinguish that dream by allowing the Peace Corps to wither and die.

Please give adequate funding. Thank you.

Tom Hartman
Malawi 1965-66

[tbone99]

Peace Corps volunteers displace professionals and activists that exist in the host country , who deserve the jobs and know the terrain.

In addition the amount of money training them could probably hire several such professionals or send them to college , fostering an educated class that in many cases could begin long term changes within the host country. Its onlyy American arrogance that assumes that a two year placement of an American is going to create transforma­tion.Maybe for the American .

I mean a two year stint barely gets you to the starting line in grasping the realites of the local situation .
After all, they do not assign the volunteers by their expertise in the geopolotical knowledgeof the area.

[AddisAbaba]

For over twenty years, Congress has been voting to double the size of the Peace Corps. They vote yes, then they don't vote (on a separate bill) to fund the increase.

What is important is not that the Peace Corps is bigger, but that more Americans have the opportunity to serve, and that host countries learn what Americans are really like.

Peace Corps Volunteers are a different breed of Americans. They come into a village or community and live at the level of the people. They learn the language and they learn the host culture. They unpack their bags and they stay for two years. They become part of a village, a community, a host family. They learn more than they teach or give. And then they return home to America and teach Americans about the village where they lived, the people that they knew as neighbors and as students and family. They are ambassadors from America with a small 'a' and a a big heart.

They are not missionaries selling a religion, or foreign service officers sellng a political philosophy. They are young people and old people and women and men not trying to prove anything; they are just being themselves. And the more Americans we can send into the world, the more the world will know that 'Americans' are just like them. It is such a simple idea. Why is it so difficult to understand and put into practice? John Coyne (Ethiopia 1962-64).

[tbone99]

... I reported for duty at an agricultural research entity
The two men in the office stared at me as if I had been dropped by a flying saucer. I explained that I was sent by the Cuerpo de Paz. They had no idea that I was coming. .

I called my Program Manager to tell him that there was no job. He told me to volunteer in the school or something

So I did. I volunteered to do a community garden. The wet season drew into dry, and all my efforts turned to dust.Could not my orientation have mentioned that there are wet and dry seasons ?
Why we were sent so far to do so little.? I met a Señor Orteaga.who asked me: who am I? What do I think I am doing?that his community needed a tractor, not a gringa.

One day Sr. Orteaga gave me a lift, then started in. "What is the Peace Corps? What are you doing here?Exchange Program! Do you mean to tell me that I can go to the US and go to any town I want? Can Ecuadorians go to the US and teach Spanish? Can we do whatever it is you are doing? What kind of exchange is this? Are there visas for us in exchange? Where are they? How do I get my Peace Corps Exchange visa? Can I make a garden in your town?"

Nancy Wallace
Confessions of an Economic Hit Man

[Terry Campbell]

The first thing President Obama needs to do is to appoint a new Peace Corps Director. Many of us had hoped that Caroline Kennedy would take the position, but that doesn't seem to be a likely scenario. Someone needs to step up, to be that new voice, to reach out the way JFK did when he ran for President in 1960, or the way former Director Loret Ruppe reached out in the mid eighties at the height of the African Drought when she wanted to put 10,000 volunteers in the field. I wonder how much President Obama really knows about us. I think if he did he would realize that an expanded Peace Corps is our best foreign policy. What is the American character? Who are we as Americans? People around the world want to know.
Terry Campbell
Tanzania 1985-87 Dominican Republic 1989-92
Crisis Corps El Salvador 2001-02 Hurrican Rita 2005

[Irene Brammertz]

I volunteered in Zaire (now DRC) from 1988-1990. If Obama is serious about raising our standing in the world, then Peace Corps is the way to go as it is much more cost effective than any other diplomacy! We need to get the budget for Peace corps increased in order to double the number of volunteers in the field.

[jenesaisquoi09]

As a volunteer scheduled to leave in the very near future, I can only hope that Obama doesn't turn his back on an organization like Peace Corps. I don't think he will and I have hope that he will make the right decision.

[tbone99]

First betrayal? - i believe that would be to Howard Dean .

[rpcvnj]

How about Howard Dean for Peace Corps Director! In addition to the appropriations needed to double the size of the Peace Corps is the whole question of whom will be the next leader of the Peace Corps. I am very concerned that Chris Shays seems to be receiving Congressional support from the current Connecticut delegation (all Democratric?) and others. Why? He is a former Volunteer and now FORMER Congressman looking for a job. He has been a staunch supporter of Bush's war in Iraq as well as the use of torture in interrogating our war time prisioners! His appointment would be a disaster at this critical time in reversing the international damage perpetrated by the Bush presidency over the last eight years. Let's move on!