A Letter to Rep. Lowey on the Importance of the Peace Corps Vote

Dearest Rep. Nita Lowey,

This is a personal message to you from your buddy, your long time supporter and your friend, Puff's "real" daddy.

In the vote coming up next week on Peace Corps funding, we have a seriously important opportunity to send a message to our nation, and nations beyond, that could greatly help to rejuvenate the spirit of humanity, morality and generosity in America, so absent from our policies, our funding and our actions, during the Bush years.

We cannot lose this special opportunity, and I'm relying on you, as one of my favorite and most respected members of the House, to "hang in there" for doing the right thing, as you have in the past. Though I fully expect that you'll be voting for doubling the funding for the Peace Corps when the vote comes up next week, if you are having any doubts, let me tell you why, in my opinion, this particular vote is both crucial and precedential.

I believe that, perhaps more than anything else we do as a nation, the Peace Corps, as a person-to-person expression of America's decency and basic humanity, sends our most powerful message to its citizenry and to other countries around the world. Whatever programs lose their priority due to the current fiscal downturn/crisis, the Peace Corps and related service programs, as well as the education of our children and the providing of crucial services for our special needs population must, simply must, be prioritized and fully funded.

We need to celebrate and support the Peace Corps to demonstrate to ourselves and others that we are, once again, without question, a caring nation with decent, caring priorities and policies. We need to win this vote to heal our hearts, so injured and so wearied during the Bush years when we saw respect for our country eroding terribly, internally and world-wide. We need this vote for doubling the Peace Corps funding in order to demonstrate that our legislature is are willing to walk-the-walk and stand up for what's right, for hope, and for a return to the spirit of our nation as articulated in the brilliance of the Peace Corps founders Sarge Shriver, President John F. Kennedy, Senator Harris Wofford, and others.

My prediction: If we win this vote, we will establish a crucial precedent for our nation to "do the right thing". Lose this vote, and we will show ourselves, our elected leaders, to be less than courageous, less that doggedly moral, and we will thereby lose precious momentum for restoring equity, humanity and social justice to our land.

Please, if you have any doubt, prioritize this vote to fully double the funding for the Peace Corps next week, knowing that victory on this one vote will affect all forthcoming votes on where the heart of America now stands. The bell tolls for you, me, for us all.

Please be courageous. We, so many of us, are with you.

With greatest respect and huge thanks to you for your moral leadership now, in the past, and in the bright, though challenging future, we face.

Comments

[JimShanor]

My years in Peace Corps Somalia were the best education I could ever have. The long term effects on the Somalis by the PC Groups are remembered by Somalis as "the best Americans" they ever met, not me, but the whole group, year after year, living with the same difficult world around us. I have returned to Somalia in numerous capacities over the past 40 years, and the simple volunteers who were living a simple life there are still having positive effect. Hard to believe if you haven't been there, but it's true. I, too, call on the expanded funding for the Peace Corps.

If recent returnees are reporting a broken system, then it may have something to do with the recent Top Down Bush approach even to the Peace Corps. I saw similar deterioration in the Nixon years. The problem was Peace Corps Washington, not the Volunteers in the bush. Carter and Clinton supported the Peace Corps and it rebounded. Second, review your thoughts about the Peace Corps after you have been back in the US rat race for a couple of years. It gets sweeter with age.

[TN60]

I couldn't agree more, Mr. Yarrow.

Did I mention that Peter, Paul and Mary's music was wonderful and I have a sneaky suspicion that your music of protest in the 60's opened up my liberal leanings even while being too young to realize the magnitude of the symbolism of the written song' s words

Now the younger generation needs to spread those seeds of democracy around the world just as your group spread the seeds of protest to this government's Vietnam War and injustice in the South's civil rights movement.

Thank you for those songs and thank you for backing the Peace Corp.

[TN60]

Forgot to mention that "Blowing In The Wind" blows me away even today. Someone should put those lyrics on this site. They are potent.

[VinceTeeter]

Billions for bombs and bullets but only a bake sale for peace. Where are our priorities???

[TN60]

Hold that thought, while a good one ....and compare the trillion spent in Iraq to "we can't possibly find an odd trillion to finance a health care system to keep the millions here from dying."

[Linda Bergthold - Huffpost Blogger]

Peter, I couldn't agree with you more! We are a true "Peace Corps" family -- we were the first volunteers to go to Ethiopia and our son was the first to go to the newly independent Eritrea some years ago. We have been worried that with all the bad economic news, funding for the Peace Corps would not be increased as Obama promised. So this letter is very timely.

And to the guy who wants to stop funding the PC even though he just returned from service, I'm sorry you feel the system is broken.. Remember there are THREE goals to the Peace Corps - it's not just about providing service abroad. It's about teaching Americans about the rest of the world and helping others to learn about America as well. Now that you have returned, if you really want to fulfill Kennedy's mandate on the Peace Corps, you will work on the goal of teaching your friends and family about what you learned about the rest of the world. No need to tear down the organization. What did you learn about yourself and the country you served in that you can share in a positive way?

[francinehardaway]

Blast from the past: I attended your Romp and Stomp classes at Cornell; you were two years ahead of me and I looked up to you. I still look up to you. I could not agree with you more about the need to heavily fund the Peace Corps in this era. It seems so in tune with what President Obama is trying to do, and what we MUST do as a nation if we want to avoid destroying ourselves.

Oh, and I bought all your albums, too. Are they still called albums? I think they were record albums when we started.

[andyboy]

Hi Peter,

Love your music. This is a lovely sentiment. The aging hippie pleads for morality and kindness and peace....Alas in today's America we no longer value such things at all. We are now reaping what we sowed all these years since the summer of love. The Peace Corps even sounds like some crazy idea some nutty congressamn thought up like Dennis Kucinich.

We need to focus on raiding the Federal Treasury and emptying it out. Giving all of our money to the corrupt corporate monsters we have spawned. Our government is a mere puppet on so many strings for them Peter. Whatever isn't stolen is to be used for one purpose only. War. Oh and a lot of spying too.

You made me misty with your idealism and goodness. Thanks.

[bonofide]

Even though I value very much diplomacy over violent reactions from the leaders of our
country, the real diplomacy comes from the little things we do. When Afghanistan had an
earthquake a few years back, the people of that country appreciated the doctors and
other medical personel that helped in the crisis more so than anything else. Politics
keeps food, medicine, and other humanitarian needs away from too many who need
it. If the Peace Corps is to be our true diplomat by doing the little things, then we must give
them the resources they need, and if they need reorganizing by getting rid of the
bureaucracy then by all means let the Obama Administration know your feelings on
this. It is the kindness and respect we give to others in countries we are not popular
with that is remembered most, not the money we throw out to solve the problem.

By the way, love the "Puff`s 'real' daddy" line!! I`ve been a fan of PP&M for a long time.

[oncethere]

"The bell tolls for me, you, for us all." Is that the "bell of freedom" (and hammer of justice)? In any event, I agree that we need to restore the ideal of service to others as one of our nation's "timeless" values. Republicans frequently use this phrase, "timeless," to refer to their version of our values---no govt., free for all economy, winner takes all, loser suck it up. There is a little bit of "Puff" in this liberal, idealistic vision of helping others.

Republicans have taken to ridiculing "empathy," mostly because they lack it, though it is probably the most important trait to have in a relationship.

[gallimaufry03]

We need to keep the peace corps if only to act as a retirement plan for some of us boomers.

[an0nym0us]

And why, exactly, do we need to support another failing bureaucracy? The Peace Corps is a broken system that is desperate need of a complete overhaul. We can't run organizations on goodwill alone.

So we can throw money at Peace Corps and watch it make the same mistakes, supporting the same failing programs, in countries where we are of only marginal help, OR we can recreate the system first, demanding certain standards be met before the money is offered. Put the carrot in front of the rabbit, don't let him eat it if he merely promises to run faster.

This is high school economics, folks. The idealistic dream of what Peace Corps "IS" is long dead. These days, it's an organization that finances people for a 2 year experience abroad. They're your taxes - don't buy into the hype.

By the way, I had a wonderful Peace Corps experience (just finished). The things I learned will never be forgotten, and some people are probably better off because I was here. But the system is still broken.

[chrisincalif]

So are you saying that you had a wonderful 2-year Peace Corps experience, where you ripped off our tax dollars? You don't say what you did, why it was wonderful, why the Peace Corps is "broken", what exactly are "the same mistakes", how it would look if 'fixed', or ~ what should be done to fix it.

[goodforme]

mr. yarrow,

if you sincerely believe that the attrocities committed by the US in our name only go back to Y2001,

your vision is severely limited and your whole notion of "the decency and humanity of america" is a still-born idea.

for practical purposes, a dagger hidden under the cloak of friendship hasn't really fooled anyone long enough to achieve much, either.

[jayburd]

Hear hear!