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Democrats Introduce Public National Service
Bills
Comprehensive national service plan detailed; Corporation
for National Service would be granted Cabinet-level
status
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A Democratic Senator from Connecticut has introduced four bills
aimed at establishing a groundwork for a system of comprehensive
national service.
Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., says that the legislation
will “create the architecture and the structure that will
serve as the invitation for everyone to serve.”
The
Senate bills, co-sponsored by Thad Cochran, R-Miss.,
are companion legislation to bills Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-3rd
District, introduced Tuesday in the House, calling for increases
in federal spending for public service programs.
The
legislation would target everyone from schoolchildren
to the elderly and aim to create new bases of volunteers beyond
the usual young-adult pool of service-program participants,
reports The
Day.
Two of the bills, named the Summer of Service Act and the Semester
of Service Act, are particularly aimed at middle school and
high school students and will offer "credits" in return
for participation in community-service programs.
Some residents and education experts are concerned that such
public service programs may become part of student graduation
requirements.
A third bill, named The Encore Service Act, offers cash awards
to people aged 55 and over who complete 250 or 500 hours of
public service. In return for their service, participants would
also receive an education award which could be transferred to
their children or grandchildren.
A fourth bill, The ACTION Act, is aimed at increasing awards
for AmeriCorps volunteers and reestablishing the Corporation's
connection with federal agencies. The bill would also grant
the Corporation
for National Service Cabinet-level status under
the Obama administration.
Sen. Dodd is
reintroducing the bills which he previously failed
to bring to a vote.
Dodd told the media that the legislation is a response to President
Obama's call in his inaugural address for national service.
”People ask me why I joined - I joined because the president
asked,” Dodd said. “We've got a president who's
asking.”
(Article continues below)
We have previously highlighted the eagerness that
the new president and his staff have displayed in calling for
a system of national service.
Back in July 2008, Obama, then the presidential front runner,
called
for a "civilian national security force"
as powerful as the U.S. military.
"We cannot continue to rely on our military in order to
achieve the national security objectives we've set. We've got
to have a civilian national security force that's just as powerful,
just as strong, just as well-funded," Obama
told a Colorado Springs audience.
The comments that were ignored by the vast majority of the
corporate media but were found to be troubling by some independent
journalists who compared the idea to the formation of the Nazi
Hitler Youth.
Fears of "youth brigades" or civilian stasi style
units increased following Obama's appointment of Rahm Emanuel
to chief-of staff.
In his book, "The Plan: Big Ideas for America," Emanuel
writes: "It's time for a real Patriot Act that brings out
the patriot in all of us. We propose universal civilian service
for every young American. Under this plan, all Americans between
the ages of 18 and 25 will be asked to serve their country by
going through three months of basic training, civil defense
preparation and community service."
The book also notes, "Some Republicans will squeal about
individual freedom, ruling out any likelihood that they would
let people opt out of universal citizen service."
Emanuel is also an enthusiastic supporter of the United
States Public Service Academy Act, a lobbying group
founded in 2006 in order to promote the foundation of an American
public service academy modeled on the military academies - a
youth corps whose students would be trained in "civilian
internship in the armed forces".
Furthermore, in a rediscovered 2006 audio clip of an interview
with Ben Smith of the New York Daily News, Emanuel
outlined the agenda for compulsory military-style
training, essentially a domestic draft, aimed at preparing Americans
for a chemical or biological terrorist attack.
When controversy arose over the program last November, the
use of the word "required" to describe the program
was
removed from Obama's change.gov website and replaced
with "community service" type terminology.
Last month we also reported on the introduction by the Department
of Defense of a "civilian
expeditionary workforce" that will see American
civilians trained and equipped to deploy overseas in support
of worldwide military missions.
Though the civilian expeditionary workforce program is restricted
to DoD employees, similar programs have already been established
for public sector workers.
One such program has seen hundreds of police, firefighters,
paramedics and utility workers recently trained and dispatched
as "Terrorism
Liaison Officers" in Colorado, Arizona and
California to watch for "suspicious activity" which
is later fed into a secret government database.
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