Column: Democracy Unbound
Change the World? Try This!
By
“We can’t change the world unless we know what’s happening in it.”
Words
written by Marnie Glickman (GHQ Spring/Summer 2005).
Many more Americans must live those words in order to create a safer and better world.
This year People's Lobby has sponsored citizen-initiated legislation that would dramatically improve the world for tens of millions, while dramatically raising the public policy IQ of the world’s declining super power.
Who is People's Lobby?
People's Lobby Inc. (PLI) revived
the grassroots initiative process in
· Writing and leading California’s 1972 Clean Environment Initiative which, even in defeat, moved the state and nation to low lead gasoline, banned DDT, lowered the sulfur oxide content of diesel fuels, and set nuclear power plant standards that began the process that stopped the licensing of new nuclear power plants;
· Enacting the Political Reform
Act, and establishing
· Spearheading the eighteen state Nuclear Safeguards Safe Power initiative campaigns in the late 1970’s;
· Teaching groups as varied as Howard Jarvis to Ralph Nader to Coastal Commission supporters the subtleties of initiative campaigning;
· Convening the first and only Senate Judiciary Hearing on instituting a National Initiative Process;
· Funding with significant
loans and expertise the launch of the National Initiative for Democracy Campaign
from
Throughout its political crusades, founders Edwin and Joyce Koupal’s words drove PLI’s workers:
“Final responsibility rests with the people. Therefore, final authority never is delegated.”
“This country runs on laws. If you want to change the country, write its laws.”
PLI is adding to its 501c4 advocacy arm a sister 501c3 Think Tank to educate the state and nation on common sense, beneficial changes that citizen proposed or initiated laws can produce.
Why is PLI
seeking your support?
PLI would like to “change the
world” by having a lot more Americans “know what’s happening in it.” It proposes to do this through its
citizen-initiated World Service Corps proposed congressional legislation, www.worldservicecorps.us.
If the World Service Corps (WSC) proposals were enacted this year, each year for the next six years approximately 130,000 would voluntarily choose to serve 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. By the seventh year one million American World Service Corps members, or .6th of 1% of those aged 20-60, would be annually serving at home or abroad for at least the ensuing 20 years. After 20 years, the legislation allows Congress to consider sun-setting the program.
In an era when Americans want to peacefully and productively erase the growing Ugly American image, reduce terrorist recruitment, and ameliorate poverty, the cost effective financial incentives used to attract volunteers would also strengthen the nation. Upon completion of service, volunteers would receive their choice of:
· Two years of community plus two years of state college tuition, approximately $15,000.
· Equivalent educational loan pay off or
· Equivalent investment in Medical or IRA Accounts.
All of the above would be transferable to family relatives.
With the mixed influx of the young, baby boomers, and career breakers aged 18-60+, the participating non-governmental and governmental organizations would competently handle the increase of can-do Americans into their organizations and more quickly improve the world.
Recent financial incentives offered by military recruiters are in the $90,000 range. Would the WSC’s cost effective incentives be enough to keep a million WSC Americans serving each year?
Yes, because increasing numbers of aware Americans:
·
Sense the need to involve themselves and their
young in changing the world, lest bloodshed and economic decline fill
· Like playing on good teams that challenge them to build and do good in unchartered frontiers.
· Understand that the WSC’s mini GI Bill of Educational Rights would encourage many, particularly those of low and moderate incomes, to serve and simultaneously build their, and their nation’s, skill and educational base.
· Are undaunted in defeating enemies like poverty, hatred, and misunderstanding and
· Believe they can build whatever needs building.
About 15% of Americans take out passports. When corporate, Club Med, and rich and famous trips are subtracted, a small percentage of rednecks and blue noses taste, understand, and work amidst the myriad cultures, needs, and prejudices that exist in our global village.
It does not bode well for a declining super power to have so few Americans aware of international and domestic complexities and needs. Citizens vote on what they believe they know. They base what they know on what they read, see, and learn through practical experience.
The best house building lessons
come with blisters and slivers learned in putting the house puzzle together.
An increasingly corporatized major media feeds the pouch of Joe Sixpack, reclining on a couch, a less than full and real vision of the how the puzzle of the world fits together. Continuing our myopic vision of home and world will continue growing our soft underbellies, while leading us into bloody disastrous and economically draining policy quagmires.
So, take Glickman’s words, “We can’t change the world unless we know what’s happening in it,” and…
Unpack the backpack in the world’s pocket of needs. Spend a year or two learning and serving at home oar abroad. When you return, you’ll know a helluva lot more than what the “corporate-owned-media-conglomerate” feeds you. You will also find that your educational influence on those who only get their news from slanted or myopic sources will have dramatically increased.
You become the one who deciphers what’s between the lines of the Wall Street Journal or Los Angeles Times.
Having a handful of
Americans unpacking backpacks will not, however, significantly change the
dangerous paths down which our policies are taking Americans. However, having a million of
What’s
its status?
The proposed legislation is written in Congressional Resolution format. Its ideas are slowly getting more print, radio talk show time, and more groups are beginning to hear it explained to them.
My Congresswoman,
Why
are tens of thousands of on-line Petition Signers needed?
Odds are if those numbers come without using Move-on.org early as the primary signature driver enough of them will become actively involved in educating the nation, using media, and contacting opinion and lawmakers to pass the legislation.
Odds are that those numbers will begin gathering the 40 BIPARTISAN cosponsors needed to get this through Congress.
What
you can do?
Ask yourself, “Would the
world be better, would
Would the global village be better off today if there were millions rather than today’s 177,000 Returned Peace Corps Volunteers who had worked and learned in the world’s pocket of need?
Would we have handled the aftermath of recent disasters if there were ten times as many as the approximately 6,000 AmeriCorps*VISTA volunteers serving today?
Would our educational competitiveness be better if we had enough Head Start teachers to reach the un-reached half of all eligible children?
Would kids be happier if we had enough volunteers to expand the Early Head Start program beyond the five percent of those eligible that it now teaches?
If you answer yes to most of the above, and recognize the benefits of expanding the workers for the Red Cross, Habitat, Mercy Corps, etc., then go to the www.worldservicecorps.us and:
1) Read the proposals.
2) Sign the on-line Petition.
3) Contact opinion and lawmakers.
4) Consider getting more involved, maybe open a virtual World Service Corps office and push the legislation.
5) Donate to People’s Lobby.
6) Go to http://www.worldservicecorps.us/how_to_help.htm for more.
If you want to change the world, make good law that sends a peaceful, productive American army that changes it by peacefully and productively earning in it.