When I listened to President Obama's powerful address before Congress, I kept waiting for him to talk about his pledge to double the size of the Peace Corps. But he said nothing. The president is a brilliant man with an extraordinary sense of detail. His omission was clearly a willful choice. I say this in part because the continuing resolution for the 2009 fiscal year budgets $340 million for the Peace Corps, only $9 million more than for the current fiscal year. At best that will leave the organization standing in place.
The Save America Act cosponsored by Senators Kennedy and Hatch increases the domestic AmeriCorps from 75,000 to 250,000 volunteers, but there is nothing in that legislation for the Peace Corps. That is tragically wrong. We can't merely succor our kin and shut our concerns off to the rest of the world. It's insulting and isolationist to increase domestic volunteers so dramatically and to turn away from the world outside our borders.
Along side the needs of the foreclosed, the dispossessed, the unemployed and the uninsured sick, the Peace Corps may not seem a matter of much concern, but it is of transcendent importance. At this moment in America, we must reach out for what is good within our people and our values to the rest of the world. We can't hunker down avoiding the world in which we live.
I do not believe that this former community organizer has turned his back not only on the Peace Corps but on the best, the noblest part of himself. The reality Obama faces is that in a desperate time for our states and communities there is a built-in constituency for the tripling of domestic volunteers but few ready to stand up for those who carry American ideals to the rest of the world.
When Obama's aides approached the Peace Corps in Washington they faced a tired bureaucracy full of many careerists with the idealism and energy of clerks at the Department of Motor Vehicles. They have a hard enough time keeping up and many in the leadership did not even halfheartedly pursue expanding the Peace Corps. It was too difficult. That there are 17 new countries seeking volunteers adding to the 74 countries who already have them made no difference. That there is no room for thousands of eminently qualified applicants made no difference. The can-not-do attitude prevails. And thus for the new administration in the midst of crisis it was expedient to put the whole business on hold and to slide past the whole matter in the president's address before Congress.
In the early sixties, a Bolivian minister told Sargent Shriver, the first head of the Peace Corps, "The Peace Corps is your punta de lanza--the point of your lance." The Peace Corps is not only America's most vital symbol of its commitment to the rest of the world, but it is a hands-on witness of our concern. We can not build a truly progressive foreign policy without a revitalized, enlarged Peace Corps.
The point has grown dull and rusty. It must be sharpened and enlarged. The Peace Corps has to be radically revamped, and the Americans who head out to Asian, Africa, Europe, the Caribbean and Latin America must be trained in new, dynamic ways for a new world of challenge and change.
The first task is to find a new director worthy of a new Peace Corps who will passionately and energetically push for an expanded force of Volunteers. That means no out-of-work politician desperate for a sinecure, no shrewd Washington apparatchik looking for a seat in the administration. It means somebody who has worked in a volunteer-like setting and someone astute about the world of politics and social change. The perfect candidate is Barack Obama,but he is otherwise occupied.
Things like the Peace Corps, which already sounds lefty and Hippy-ish, will get made political hay out of by the Republicans echo chamber and be spun in the media as "earmarks", "entitlements" and "wasteful pet projects".
There are much more critical things that need attention and those that are less critical will have to take a back seat for a while.
That's not to say it's not valid, it's just not mission critical. It's urgent, but not important, relative to the crisis we're facing at the moment.
We've spent a couple trillion in Afghanistan and Iraq and it's time to spend some here.
I guess he is a little preoccupied bein the PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES and trying to get things going.........I have never seen such whining from so many different directions in my life......once he gets things going, he will surely get to other things....
Our Infrastructure may have not just suffered through a terrible war, but the aftermath of the Bush years certainly have left a heavy toll on this country.
Besides, I would much rather the government spend money sending volunteers out to help OUR POOR here in OUR country and rebuilding OUR infrastructure.
America First, then, when our wounds are healed we can help everyone else and go back to pretending not to be total hypocrites when we ignore our own poor.
The success rates of JICA are very impressive and the program is the practical approach we should be taking to assisting developing countries to help themselves. Japan is often criticized for not giving enough international aid, but I doubt JICA is taken into consideration. JICA is also a very well funded government program.
There are at least l50, thousand Returned Volunteers who have brought back much more than they gave. They have enriched our diplomatic service, our rural, urban and international developers, our teachers, our corporations, and numerous other areas. Their multicultural, development, and language abilities are invaluable to this country as we encounter globalization.
They also bring the values of service, commitment, empathy, openness to new ideas and peoples, and empowerment to those they encounter back home.
Extending the Peace Corps is one of the cheapest and most valuable investments we can make if we want to achieve the goals which the President set in his speech Tuesday night.
YES WE CANNABIS!
lol
And it's true, we Americans are being somewhat insular right now, and that IS too bad, but it's like the old adage: "You have to help yourself sometimes before you can help anyone else."
So yes, please, stop the whining.
Many, many people are turned away, and this is not due to lack of placement.
The Peace Corps is NOT the only agency that sends out foreign relief efforts. Many fath-based organizations overwhelm what is possible with just the one agency of the Peace Corps.
If we are going to look at what is progressive, then I think rather than ask for more government money, we need to look at how our government can partner with some of these valuable initiatives such as Habitat for Humanity, International.
Complex issues deserve complex approaches. Peace Corps by their nature are tied down in many respects as diplomatic agencies. If we want to get out and help people NOW only private social enterprise has that ability.
Having served in Americorps for three years, one year in post-Katrina New Orleans, having seen thousands and thousands of VISTA and other Ameicorps positions go unfullfilled, I can't help but think that perhaps a service exchange would be more beneficial than adding more money to one slice of what we do overseas.
The Peace Corps provides better benefits during and after service than our federal domestic programs.
I can't think of one Peace Corps member that has a single financial hardship during their service.
Let's push to get Americorps participants that level of reward for their service.
Let's push to bring in foreigners who want to travel and serve the impoverished of this country, too.
Multi-lateral foreign service requires a give AND a take.
And, how could it hurt to expand the Peace Corps? It's only one piece of the puzzle, but very important, especially for it's alums who have seen the impact of their service first-hand.
Service should guarantee citizenship. RIght now, it guarantees $9,500 maximum, which pays for about three semesters of tuition at a state college.
Only those who would serve anyway are serving.
We STILL haven't reached the tipping point where the benefits of service are on par with it's costs. In America or Abroad.
That said, I seriously doubt he will just let it slide and not come back to it at a later date.