DLC on National Service

Enough Rhetoric: Time for Presidential Action on National Service

For nearly two years in the war against terrorism, the Bush
administration has told us why we should not feel safe at home,
but it has done nothing to let Americans contribute to the cause
of making their country safer, short of enlisting in the military.

The one glimmer of hope was the president's call in his 2002
State of the Union address to open national service through
AmeriCorps, rebranded as the USA Freedom Corps, to tens of
thousands more young Americans. But having promised with great
fanfare to expand AmeriCorps by 50 percent, the Bush
administration proceeded to mismanage its recruiting process so
badly that it had to declare a five-month "recruiting freeze." It
sat silently on the sidelines in the summer of 2002 as the
Republican leadership in the House killed off the AmeriCorps
reauthorization bill, and then sent Congress a budget for 2003
that cut AmeriCorps' funding by 30 percent. As a result, the
national service program is on track to decline from 67,000 to
28,000 members in the coming year.

Surprise, surprise. At the end of the day, yet another of the
administration's major domestic initiatives is found to be little
more than a Potemkin village, a facade of rhetorical flourish
with no there there because the money required to make it happen
was spent to give tax relief to those who don't need it.

While the announcement late last Friday that the White House is
reshuffling AmeriCorps' leadership holds promise, what is really
needed is direct intervention from the commander in chief.

There are several openings at hand for such intervention:

snip..............

Fourth, he could seize the dramatic challenge posed by PPI's
Magee in a recent policy proposal (see link below) to transform
the Selective Service System into a more comprehensive,
recruitment-oriented National Service System. By shifting the
focus from registration for the military draft to recruitment,
broadening the service options to include both military and
civilian programs targeted at our key security needs, and
extending the requirements to include women as well as men, Magee
provides a blueprint for meeting the new security challenges in
this new century in a way that helps restore service to our
country as "a civic rite of passage for America's youth."

more.............

http://www.ndol.org

Good luck with that one. If things keep going the way they are, I can see the repukes wanting to reinstate the draft. That probably won't happen, but the chances are more likely that it will than they are in ending selective service, imo.

that's mandatory. and that i do disagree with just as i disagree with selective service and the draft. however i doubt the repukes would try to reinstate the draft. it would doom any chance of Bush's election in 2004, and would mean the end of almost anyone who voted for it. no party could bring back the draft and survive the backlash, that's why no party will try.

this is another reason why the DLC needs to be destroyed.

I can't believe more people aren't commenting on this.

I have believed for quite some time that some kind of mandatory service for all citizens is a good thing. But I DON'T believe that the best way to go about it is simply by "targeting America's security needs."

Some sort of universal service program (so long as EVERYONE is included in it) would have the potential to be a good thing. It could provide young people with the opportunity to interact with other people from very different walks of life. It could help foster a spirit of "togetherness" rather than selfishness. It could even provide an "out" other than the military for kids from disadvantaged backgrounds, by allowing them access to higher educational opportunities.

Rather than concentrating on "defense" as the focus of the program, however, I would concentrate on public and civic works. But the general idea is a good one, IMHO.

Last one....

I'm really shocked at the blah reception this post has gotten. Any time we've had similar threads they've taken off through the roof.

Bad title, maybe?

:shrug:

I pretty much agree with IC on this one...

I still think the DLC is being used to introduce unpopular Republican policy so that Republicans don't have to take the political hit.

I don't want our military expanded, although I do want better pay and benifits for our volunteer soldiers. Our military is just the right size now as long as some whacko (like Bush) doesn't take over the government and start invading as many countries as possible before his one term ends.

This looks DLC proposal like a policy to create more cannon fodder for PNACers to chew through, IMHO.

- How do these guys get away with pretending they're Democrats?