American World Service Corps:

 Nonstop Thanksgiving & Christmas giving

via voluntary national service

 

It is:

·        Reported that Charley Rangel wants to revive the draft.

·        Obvious to most that our military isn’t large enough to attack all the evil-doers President Bush wants.

 

When asked specific questions, Rangel’s draft vision involves more than putting more troops in harms way.  His broader vision has young people serving in “hospitals, schools, guarding docks… and receiving tuition payments in return.”  Having served valiantly in Korea, Rangel believes all Americans owe some form of service to their nation.  Representing his largely low and middle class constituents, he believes service should be rewarded with educational benefits that helps move everyone up the economic ladder.

 

Specific questions are not often answered by President Bush, even those regarding his national service as a young man.  Publicly, his administration and most in Congress voice opposition to reviving a draft.  The President, however, has encouraged voluntary service, although he has not offered inducements to encourage increased service.

 

Peoples Lobby’s citizen-initiated American World Service Corps (AWSC) Congressional Proposals answers Rangel’s desire to have Americans serve nation and be rewarded with increased educational opportunities.  It does so by building a peaceful, productive army of can-do Americans to do domestic and international nation building.  It rewards those volunteers by investing in their education, retirement, and / or medical savings accounts.  It gives each hard working volunteer a life enhancing experience that reflects forever in their characters.

What is the World Service Corps?

If the citizen-initiated congressional American World Service Corps (AWSC) proposals were passed into law in this Congress, then seven years from now one million additional Americans would voluntarily serve their nation at home or abroad in their choice of the: Peace Corps, AmeriCorps, Habitat for Humanity, Head Start, Doctors Without Borders, Red Cross, International Rescue Committee, OxFam, Mercy Corps, State Conservation Corps, etc.

Upon completion of service, volunteers would receive:

·          Two years of community college plus two years of state college tuition (apx. $17,000 in 2004 dollars), or

·          An equivalent amount paid into a Medical Savings or IRA account, or

·          That amount donated to relatives or community scholarship foundations for educational costs or college or governmental loans.

When passed, the WSC legislation would be among the most significant legislation – and most inspiring programs -- passed in decades.  It will raise America and the world’s future policy making IQ.  It will build a peaceful, productive army, slightly smaller than our military, that the 21st century needs to nation build and erase ignorant stereotypes that lead to costly war and terrorism.

What the WSC would do

Implementing the WSC into law strengthens America at home and abroad by:

·        Raising America’s political IQ and thereby allowing us to implement better means of dealing with the world.

·        Winning international hearts and minds.

·        Reducing hatred fired at our soldiers.

·        Improving living conditions at home and abroad.

·        Giving those who serve a solid, real life education in the classroom of the world on how the world works.

·        Involving Americans in the front lines of dealing appropriately with global climate change.

·        Meshing opportunity and responsibility between the WSC volunteers and those with whom they work and serve.

·        Building an army of can-do Americans to handle hurricanes, earthquakes, refugee sufferings, and other disasters – natural or manmade.

·        Serving as a model for other nations to emulate and thereby have nations across the world develop and send their own World Service Corps into doing good in the world’s classroom of needs.

·        Strengthening national pride, cohesion and character, and it does this without

·        Creating a vast new bureaucracy but instead by strengthening existing governmental and non-governmental agencies with serving Americans.

 

Those on the Left adamantly oppose merely mentioning a “draft.”  The Neo Cons praise “volunteerism” as the answer to many of our nation’s needs, but do little to incentivize more robust and effective volunteerism.  Peoples Lobby’s American World Service Corps is not a draft and incentivizes serious volunteerism.

 

With just a sprinkling of charisma, enlightened leadership could lead Americans into expanding and energizing those peaceful, productive organizations that build worldwide stability. 

 

The American World Service Corps cost effectively strengthens those very organizations with which General Anthony Zinni says the military must build a working partnership in order to build  worldwide “stability.”

“The military may bring emergency capacities at scales and speeds that NGOs can’t begin to approach; the NGOs bring a depth of un­derstanding of the needs, requirements, and capacities for long-term recovery that we don’t have.”

And Zinni has enthusiastically given his support to such a concept.

 

The quicker we pass and implement Peoples Lobby’s citizen-initiated American World Service Corps Congressional Proposals, the quicker we address Congressman Rangel desires, increase volunteerism, reduce evil-doers without warfare, and make the world a safer, healthier place.

 

Details and the full bills are at the web site www.WorldServiceCorps.us