Dear Bill,

Before moving to my reason for writing here I must pause to congratulate you. Someone recently brought to my attention just what an unprecedented thing it was how you garnered the high percentage of votes you did running for the first time for Congress. Having seen you debate Lungren, however, I really shouldn’t wonder. I know ’08 is going to be your year!

Meanwhile, I want to direct your attention to a project it is in your interest to throw your considerable moral weight behind—because it is a cause so unquestionably in the interest of this country. You’ll recall the evening you offered your stirring address to the Peace Pyramid in the home of Zohreh Whitaker that the floor was sort of, unh, “taken hostage” at one point by a man named Dwayne Hunn. Well, I can’t say whether it was Dwayne’s eloquence or simply the ineluctable rightness of his cause, the World Service Corps (www.worldservicecorps.us)—but that night he gathered me up and dragged me aboard.

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Dwayne was directing his plea that night at you in particular, and I remember when he was through you gave some indication that AWSC seemed a worthy cause, and that it was one you wanted to support. Knowing where you stand on so many other issues, I can’t imagine that you wouldn’t!

In the year 2000 Dwayne, Executive Director of People’s Lobby, revisited haunts he had served as a young man in the Peace Corps and worked on Habitat for Humanity projects in Sri Lanka, Fiji and Georgia, where Jimmy Carter was swinging his hammer with a lot of other sweaty Americans erasing poverty housing. The tales he tells run to a gladdening close: whole villages of folks who come to view Americans not as an army of occupation and exploitation, but rather as ministering angels.

Unfortunately the arms of U.S. world service are feebly staffed at this time. The Peace Corps, for instance, while still in operation, has a serving base of only around 7000, compared to 15,000+ a few years after Kennedy and his vision were taken from us. History leaves us JFK’s immortal summons, Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country... From the ashes of this all but forgotten idealism rises the phoenix of Dwayne Hunn’s dream and mission: American World Service Corps Congressional Proposals to build a volunteer service corps of one million can-do Americans (comprised not just of our youth, but tapping all age groups). These proposals would engage already existing core organizations such as Peace Corps, Habitat for Humanity, AmeriCorps, Headstart, Doctors Without Borders, Red Cross, International Rescue Committee, Oxfam, etc., asking not simply what we can do for our country, but what we can do for the world.

I’ve been inviting my fellow citizens to dream along with Dwayne Hunn...; to think of quelling terrorism through our friendly acts instead of creating terrorists by our violence; to imagine legions of the peaceful and productive going forth to assist with the next disaster such as Katrina, a tsunami, or an African genocide. I say to them, Imagine standing tall again as Americans!

What’s in it for me? the inevitable rejoinder resonates on my inner ear. Sad to say, we live in times when the Jeffersonian dream sometimes seems to have dwindled to a consumer’s paradise of materialism and greed. Perhaps only imagination and education can save us: the imagination that comes from educating ourselves in the classroom of world needs. Our payback then comes from the blessings we feel from having helped those less fortunate than ourselves.

Just now the effort afoot is to gain the project’s endorsement by Congresswoman Lynn Woolsey. When I write her, I’ll be able to say that AWSC has the enthusiastic support of Congressional candidate Charley Brown. Will you—with the briefest email clicked in my direction—grant me the authority to say the same of Bill Durston?

Yours in the spirit of hope in the new year,

Tom

P.S. My wife Dar and I extend wishes to you and Diane for the very best of holidays.

Dr. Thomas J. King, People’s Lobby Steering Board member

6923 Vera Cruz Ct.

Citrus Heights, CA 95621

916-728-2391

tjking@rcip.com