Tag Archives: President Kennedy

TedDraft

Ted draft.  Pictures = Powerpoint background.

Ordinary People Doing the Extraordinary ISBN No. 0-9717239-9-0
“Write its laws…”

What if…

 

"Why not?"
“Why not?”

 

What if…  Ed Koupal, People’s Lobby’s co-founder, who revived the initiative process for grassroots organizations, had lived beyond his 48th year in 1976 and continued teaching us his mantra:

“This country runs on laws.  If you want to change the country, write its laws.”

What if…  John Kennedy had served eight years instead of barely three, and continued inspiring generations with his words:

“And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you–ask what you can do for your country.

My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man.”

Would this former People’s Lobby and Peace Corps volunteer be “TED asking” you to pester Congress to introduce and enact the American World Service Corps National Service Proposal and field a million Americans a year into peaceful National Service by dramatically expanding the Peace Corps, AmeriCorps, Habitat, Mercy Corps, and other local and national do-good organizations?

During my senior year in college in the mid 60’s, buddies told me that a couple FBI agents were asking questions about me.  Fortunately, they did not hover-up that much disparaging information, which led me to spending about 15 hours a day for three months doing Peace Corps Urban Community Development training out of Columbia University, with field training in South Bronx and Harlem.  Training was intended to prepare us for the slums of then Bombay, India.

On two of our training sessions from high powered Columbia University professors, I fell asleep.

On one of those occasions I was jolted awake when the professor said, “Fifty percent of India’s beggars are purposefully maimed.”

I asked where he got that statistic.  He said, “Government of India.”

I asked, “How does the government of India get that statistic?  Do they go around and ask mothers did they maim their kid today?”  He didn’t know.

I asked if he had ever been to India.  He said no.  Know-it-all me cockily rested my case.

Then I went to serve in India.

My first day introduced me to that little girl with the pussy, bloody, jagged hole in the side of her cheek the size of a Kennedy silver dollar.

Near her street beat, I watched armadas of skateboards carrying children and adults with chopped off ankles, knees, hands… using their skateboards to latch onto cars and beg for rupees at Church Gate Railroad Station.

I saw families of four and five living in pipes and cardboard shanties everywhere.

… Stared at beggars with seemingly gouged eyes begging on crowded trains and buses.

… Gave late night rupees to the men eating from 5’ piles of garbage near Bombay’s financial district.

… Stared at the woman lying next to the curb of the bridge over which a thousand people must have tread each hour.  She lay on her back, had tattered rags covering part of her breast and had nothing else.  I thought she was dead.  Maybe I stared for a minute or two, until many people gathered to stare at me.

At a village railroad station, I stared hard at the father until he finally stopped his little daughter from licking her fourth scoop of her own mashed potato consistency diarrhea.

To borrow a few words from national service proponent and First Lady Michelle Obama, this is not, “The world as it should be.”

How can we move closer to a “Should-be world?”

What if… we built a robust, peaceful national service program and incentivized a million Americans aged 18 through 70 + to annually serve by dramatically increasing the size of already proven organizations like the Peace Corps, AmeriCorps, Habitat, Doctors Without Borders, Head Start, Red Cross, International Rescue Committee, Oxfam, Mercy Corps, State Conservation Corps, effective local non-profits, in-need schools, etc.,

What if … AWSC’s volunteers working as full time teachers’ assistants could tutor, mentor, expand Head Start to the other 50% of un-served Head Start children, help at crowded, overburdened physical therapy centers of hospitals, and engage with local community development movements?

What if… this proposed AWSC National Service Proposal required an investment of $700 billion over its proposed legislated life of 27 years to field 21 million Americans doing good at home and abroad?

OnlySuperRichSave

GiversGatesClintonLucasBranson

What if … we took  up Nader’s call and benefitted from the Buffet and Gates Giving Pledge movement and publically posted  voluntary AWSC spread sheets reflecting what amount the world’s richest, Forbes 400, top celebrities and athletes, biggest corporations, etc.,  would “voluntarily” give to this escrowed account to underwrite AWSC National Service?

How much would just the Forbes 400 Richest Americans need to invest in “serving Americans” to make a safer, saner world?

1.1% of Forbes 2014 wealth donated annually totally funds 27 years of 21 million AWSCs doing good.
1.1% of Forbes 2014 wealth donated annually totally funds 27 years of 21 million AWSCs doing good.

A voluntary annual donation of about 1.15% of “just the Forbes 400’s wealth” would cover the 27 year $700 billion investment in the world’s future.

What if …. This inspired other nations to replicate such a doing-good investment?

We have our troops serving with others in NATO and the UN. Have multi-nation astronauts serving together.

What if… we resurrected Congresswoman Boxer’s People’s Lobby inspired House Resolution 1807 of 1989 and built a US Russian Peace Corps?

US Soviet Peace Corps Proposal
US Soviet Peace Corps Proposal

Why not do the same with Japan, Canada, Iran, Cuba… name your country and get the world to start building 21st century, peaceful, development-oriented armies needed to foster diplomacy, build the foundations of peace, and battle climate weirding.

Isn’t it time you asked yourself and Congress that George Bernard Shaw question that Robert Kennedy often borrowed?

AWSC global erasing

“You see things; and you say ‘Why?’

But I dream things that never were; and I say ‘Why not?’”

We have 1.4 million active military doing full-time national service.   That’s 4/10th of 1%… or

.44% OR 1 OUT OF 229 Americans doing military national service.  Our troops battle a lot.  Many come home with PTSD.

Maybe they must battle too much because not enough of the rest of us make the world a friendlier and safer place for them.

Depending on what stats one uses, our Greatest Generation had 33-50+% of their generation doing national service.  It is a big part of what made them the Greatest Generation.

Isn’t it time to start building 21st century armies that use their arms to teach, nurse, spread clean energy, build Habitat homes and latrines, and respond to an angered Mother Nature?

Most who serve in our military, Peace Corps, AmeriCorps, or related organizations believe more should serve…  So why don’t we use the American World Service Corps National Service Proposal to build those service numbers?

Many congresspersons object to investing tax dollars in do-good projects…  But with the AWSC National Service Proposal, in an age of growing financial inequities, we have a non-traditional, voluntary funding mechanism that could fund the whole, or a significant part of, a national service program that could develop a safer and more prosperous world.

Hopefully, you are asking yourself “Why don’t we do this?”

More importantly, hopefully, you will tomorrow and consistently thereafter pester and vote for a Congress that will get more Americans involved in robust AWSC National Service.

Was that butterfly who stung like a bee, Mohammed Ali, right when he said?

“Service to others is the rent you pay for your room here on earth.”

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Remember, “If you want to change the country, write its laws.”

And if you want help make some lives better, involve yourself in meaningful service.

Thank you.

 

 

 

Enlarged Peace Corps could change map

Peacefully changing the map for decades?
Peacefully changing the map for decades?

Portland Press Herald    Tuesday, November 5, 2002

Maine Voices                               Forum

A Different Army

Enlarged Peace Corps could change the map

  • See what 10 percent of the Vietnam budget could have accomplished.

By Dwayne Hunn

Osama, Saddam and their followers are bad actors and will get what they deserve, probably mostly from our superb military. In the meantime, it would be healthy to hear candidates, politicians and parties lay out a long-term solution to the terror these actors              breed, before we get too deeply entwined in war’s bloody human and  financial costs. The solution lies in a quote from Sargent Shriver:

“If the Pentagon’s map is more urgent, the Peace Corps’ is, perhaps, the long run the most important. . . . What happens in India, and South America – whether the nations where the Peace Corps works succeed or not – may well determine the balance of        peace.”

In the 1960s and ’70s, then-New York Sen. Jacob Javits proposed a peace army of 1 million young men. Labor leaders advocated an overseas service corps of 100,000. The Peace Corps’ first deputy director, Warren Wiggins, said a Peace Corps of 30,000 to 100,000  volunteers was needed.

The Peace Corps’ mean yearly budget from 1965-69 was $108 million, with its mean number of Peace Corps volunteers in the field    numbering 13,947, with a cost per volunteer of $7,743.

On the other hand, for that same period the Vietnam War budget was $16.3 billion. The mean number of soldiers we kept in Vietnam was 413,300. The cost per soldier was $39,370.

If just 10 percent of the Vietnam War budget, $1.6 billion, had been   put into the Peace Corps budget to advertise “the toughest job              you’ll ever love that really does good,” then an additional 210,000        Peace Corps volunteers could have served during that period.

Imagine if we had continued inspiring 55,000 American volunteers     each year to serve in countries where clean water doesn’t run              easily, chalkboards are luxuries, people house themselves in mud-        clay and cow-dung-padded walls, education is treasured and health    and food too often wanting. Instead, since its 1961 inception only        slightly over 150,000 volunteers have served in about 130 nations.

Had our army of over 2 million Peace Corps volunteers already served in the field, do you think international newspapers would be   lambasting America on their pages? Would readers buy them? Would Osama bin Laden and his cells have risen in such a world?

Maybe. But having been a Peace Corps volunteer as well as a Global  Village Habitat for Humanity home builder working near the struggling  masses, I think not. Even most ivory-towered policy wonks would probably agree.

Yet, where on the political hustings, on the forums provided for             perceived leaders, do you hear even some of them planting visions of  common sense, of marshaling good-doers to address the sufferings of the world?  The lines drawn between long-suffering masses and  terrorists and comfortable Americans are short and getting shorter.

The line eraser is not a stealth bomber or more technically armed        Special Forces. The eraser cleans when you build what an American Peace Army does – relationships, schools, sanitation systems, small      farms and businesses. Shriver was right: In the long run the Peace       Corps map of the world is more important.

Today’s world reminds us how much more his words needed heeding. Edwin Markham was one of John Kennedy’s favorite poets. One of   Kennedy’s favorite Markham poems was:

“Why build these cities beautiful,

If man unbuilded goes.

In vain we build the world,

Unless the builder also grows.”

Some brothers-in-law think alike. Their vision of a vastly expanded     Peace Corps is what today’s unbuilded global village needs. Building  a life for one’s loved ones forges a sense of pride, and that builds          villages and cities beautiful.

It’s what two visionary leaders preached. It’s what isn’t pushed              enough today.

– Special to the Press Herald

Copyright © Blethen Maine Newspapers Inc.

Portland Press Herald    Tuesday, November 5, 2002

 

What we can do for the world

San Francisco Chronicle.
San Francisco Chronicle.

   San Francisco Chronicle

THE VOICE OF THE WEST

 SATURDAY, JUNE 2,1990

 What We Can Do For the World

FOR MOST OF the 125,000 of us who worked with the Peace Corps, President John Kenne­dy’s 1961 inaugural words served as our invisible armband: “Ask not what America can do for you, but together what we can do for the freedom of man.”

Hopefully, President Bush was the world leader who said to Gorbachev during his visit to Washington: “Ask not what you can do for just your country, but together what we can do for the world.”

Bush should support legislation that provides for joint implementation with the Soviets of pro­jects that are designed to address problems In areas including care of the elderly and the disa­bled, health, and protection of the environment.

The sooner American and Soviet “peace corps volunteers” can serve under that invisible armband, the more quickly we will have fewer hungry and angry people.

At about $20,000 per volunteer per year, there are few better long-term investments. Shift­ing the $400 million (and climbing) that goes into building a single B-1 bomber to funding for 20,000 U.S. volunteers for a year In an American-Soviet Peace Corps would be a giant step toward a kind­er and gentler mankind.

This Peace Corps would start with Soviets and Americans training, living and working to­gether in their respective nations. Then volun­teers would live and work together on problems facing lesser-developed nations.

The world needs concerted and coordinated efforts from the superpowers so that they may better understand each other and global needs.

An American-Soviet Peace Corps would be a small step that moves all of mankind forward.

Dwayne Hunn is a former Peace Corps volunteer in India. He now lives in Mill Valley.

 

Some ASPC coverage

Imagine if those seeds had been growing for 30 years...
Imagine if those seeds had been growing for 30 years…

 Tuesday, Sept. 3, 1985, Marin Independent Journal

OPINION  \ EDITORIALS

 We must plant the seeds of peace

By Dwayne Hunn

FOR MORE THAN A DECADE the deserts have spread over once-produc­tive African lands. Now African famines are the harvests being reaped. In our Latin American back yard inflation soars, insurrections take innocent lives, governments tumble and communist regimes spring up or become more likely.

Our answer? Politically, the out-of-power party blames the in-power party for not implementing a long-range plan to combat such tragedies and evils. What I propose is a program for which both parties can take credit – the Democrats for initiating it and the Republicans for expanding it. Ronald Reagan, the Great Communicator of this decade, could assure his place on the list of great presidents by a simple bold but peaceful move.

In the early 1960s, Sargent Shriver, the Peace Corps first director, said:

    “If the Pentagon’s map is more urgent, the Peace Corps is, perhaps, in the long run the most important…What happens in India, Africa, and South America – whether the nations where the Peace Corps works succeed or not – may well determine the balance of peace.”

    In 1966 America spent $114 million to send 15,556 Peace Corps volunteers into service, the most dollars ever committed to volunteers.

At the time, Sen. Jacob Javits proposed a Peace Army of a million young men. Labor leaders advocated a service corps of 100,000. The Peace Corps first deputy director, Warren Wiggins, called for a corps of 30,000 to 100,000.
In 1984 America spent approximately $108.5 million and sent approximately 5,200 volunteers into service.
What happened? Had the world’s plight improved so much that we could cut the Peace Corps by two-thirds? Were the hearts and minds of enough Third World people swayed to see the economic and social benefits of the democratic way? Had communist-inspired tur­moil and revolt diminished? Did we find a better way to let the world know who we Americans were than by exporting our skills, courage and heart through the Peace Corps?
From 1965 to 1974, we assigned 2,582,304 soldiers with a budget of $138.1 billion to defoliate, mutilate and whore over the countryside of Vietnam. The cost for these services was $53,480 per soldier. In that same period we sent 108,579 Peace Corps volunteers with a budget of $956 million to teach, build and inspire over the world. The cost was $8,809 per volunteer.
If America had used the Southeast Asian war budget to send volunteers into the world, America could have sent more than 15 million people out to plant crops, ideas and ideals. Which choice do you think would have most benefited our long-term national security de­sires? Our economy? The global village’s needs?
Former California Congressman John Bur­ton in his last Washington Report to his constituents wrote in 1981:

“When I was first elected to Congress eight and one-half years ago, some of the issues facing us were the war in Vietnam, the escalating arms race… Now as I leave Congress, the issues are American involvement in Nicaragua and other parts of Central America, which might become the next Viet­nam, the nuclear arms race typified by the MX missile…”

What America needs today is leadership that will put 100,000-plus volunteers into the field of economic development:

  • Challenging communist economic ideas with practical programs.
  • Helping Africa reclaim its desert and grow food.
  • Pitting the character of the working volunteer against the slogans of radicals and terrorists attempting to antagonize the masses.
  • Establishing the economic and education­al infrastructure of developing countries.

Then we need leadership that challenges the Russians to do the same. President Reagan is the only leader that could do this today.

In 1963 President John Kennedy said:

“In some small village, volunteers will lay a seed which will bring a rich harvest for us all in later days.”

  He was right. It happened. But the crop comes from small gardens. We should be tilling fields upon fields. The time is late. We need to lay more seeds.

Dwayne Hunn of Mill Valley sewed in the Peace Corps in India from 1966-68 and speaks to groups about the importance of the Peace Corps.

When strong players partner-up, do good teams grow from them?
When strong players partner-up, do good teams grow from them?

Marin Independent Journal, Wednesday July 2,  1986

Partnership to build a better Earth

By Dwayne Hunn

DARTH VADER need not battle homeless white knights eons from now if treacherous frontiers are conquered today.

Reagan:  Gorbachev, my boy, the whole world knows your economy is not red hot and your Ukrainian breadbasket is leaking hot wa­ter. You also have some money and media problems that even you must admit.Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev could assure this result at the next summit meeting. Their conversation could go something like this:

On the other hand, our stock market is sizzling and I am cutting our peoples’ taxes.  With so much spare change, I am about to give another $300 billion to the Pentagon.

Since you Russians have this penchant for wanting to keep up with the Pentagon Jones.  I can imagine what this does to the nerves of the Politburo’s allowance-givers.  So I am about to make you an offer you would be a fool to refuse.

Gorbachev:  Why would a politician such as you make me a good deal?

Reagan:  Maybe because it is the right thing to do, or because I am tired of you and those Democrats calling me a gun-swaggering cowboy.

Gorbachev:  What is in it for me?

Reagan:  You help your nation’s image without marching in your army or mercenaries.  You force your snobbish international delegates to learn some etiquette.  You give your increasingly restless young people and many of your older ones – who instead of getting wiser have of late only been getting drunker – an outlet for their pent-up energies.

Gorbachev:  You talk like we should re-engage in the Olympics.  Is this your big deal?

Reagan:  In a way.  It’s an Olympics where your comrades will train, prepare for combat and compete on the same treacherous fields with our Americans.  The races will go on for so long that your

comrades and my Americans will win hundreds of thousands of gold medals.

These will be cast from the lasting bonds of friendship that we carry for each other and forged by the respect of those whose fields we triumph on. Those bonds will be our mutual security pact, stronger than any piece of paper we ever sign.

Gorbachev: How much does this deal cost in dollars or rubles?

Reagan:      Not much, considering how much it will save and how much world trade it will bring us. I could probably give you an esti­mate if you could tell me how much it is costing you per soldier in Afghanistan and merceneary in Af­rica.

Gorbachev: (Coughs.)

Reagan:      Well, I understand how we big kids sometimes blunder in our foreign adventures, so let me estimate from some gross figures we once tabulated.

From 1965 to 1974 we sent 2,582,304 of our finest young men and women, with a budget of $138.1 billion, to bring peace to Vietnam. That cost $53,480 per soldier. We lost many of our finest. Many who returned are mutilated and confused. We still pay a price for them.

Gorbachev: Yes, you do misuse the word “peace,” don’t you?

Reagan: Well, yes, don’t we both. So let me throw my deal on the table, knowing full well that in my hand I hold the most massive bunch of top guns and that I am willing and able to trump you should you refuse my simple offer.

This year I have an elite corps that numbers about 5,000. Since 1961 about 100,000 of these sol­diers have served around the world. They have cost this government less than $10,000 per soldier:

You had no soldiers to offset them. I propose that you deploy the same elite corps and within five years build the force to 100,000 per year. America will match that increase.

You will not supply them with anything more than we supply ours  — enough food, money and shelter to live like the people whom they fight alongside against hunger, illit­eracy and deprivation. You’ll also teach them a language and techni­cal skills and the initiative to think and work on their feet.

Gorbachev: What do you call this army?

Reagan: We call it the Peace Corps.

Gorbachev: What if I can’t get my government to agree to this dangerous and radical proposal?

Reagan: At the Peace Corp’s 25th anniversary in September, 1 may have to convince America to assign 100,000 Peace Corps volun­teers to duty. In the hearts and minds of the world’s people we will bury you and your philosophy —and we will do it without misusing the word “peace.”

Dwayne .Hunn of Mill Valley suggests  that anyone who thinks this proposal makes sense should clip and send the column to President Reagan with a note asking, “Why not?”

Novato's World College West campus was ready to start model ASPC.
Novato’s World College West campus was ready to start model ASPC.
March 18, 1987 Novato Advance

Model Peace Corps proposed at WCW

By Dwayne Hunn

World College West would become headquarters for a Model East-West Peace Corps if a pro­posal for use of part of the Buck Trust Major Project funds is approved.

The idea, according to originator Dwayne Hunn, is to build something similar to the United States’ successful Peace Corps program that would include volunteer youths from both the United States and the Soviet Union.

After training at World College West, young men and women from both countries would work together, in villages, slums, schools, recrea­tion centers and other places throughout the world.

The program would begin with 25 young Russians and 25 young Americans learning side-by-side with the hope it would be emulated by other countries throughout the world until even­tually there would be an “invasion” of Peace Corps volunteers from all nations.

In his proposal, Hunn says the project would have a number and variety of beneficial results, including:

–Building personal communication links that foster inter­national understanding.

–Reducing international tension by building bonds of friendship through healthy and peaceful side-by-side work

–Promoting economic develop­ment in lesser developed countries.

–Aiding Mann County and the Bay Area, because volunteers would work on self-help projects in the area as part of the training pro­gram.

–Developing a comprehensive program that would be applied locally, nationally and internationally

–Sponsoring conferences, seminars and discussion groups in Marin to help further understan­ding between nations.

The training, which would be conducted at World College West, would include:

–An introductory one-week training class to teach problem-solving, fear-facing, communica­tion, teamwork and trust.

–Intensive course work in Rus­sian and English, the language of the planned host country, skill training for the work requested by the host country and culture of the host country. .

–Field training in a Bay Area program that would help those in need in the area.

–A physical training program that would emphasize team sports.

The Soviet and American youths would live together throughout the program.


 

We must plant the seeds of peace

 Tuesday, Sept. 3, 1985, Marin Independent Journal

OPINION        EDITORIALS

 We must plant the seeds of peace

 Dwayne Hunn

 PEACE CORPS                            

 FOR MORE THAN A DECADE the deserts have spread over once-produc­tive African lands. Now African famines are the harvests being reaped. In our Latin American back yard inflation soars, insurrections take innocent lives, governments tumble and communist regimes spring up or become more likely.

Our answer? Politically, the out-of-power party blames the in-power party for not implementing a long-range plan to combat such tragedies and evils. What I propose is a program for which both parties can take credit – the Democrats for initiating it and the Republicans for expanding it. Ronald Reagan, the Great Communicator of this decade, could assure his place on the list of great presidents by a simple bold but peaceful move.

In the early 1960s, Sargent Shriver, the Peace Corps first director, said:

“If the Pentagon’s map is more urgent, the Peace Corps is, perhaps, in the long run the most important…What happens in India, Africa, and South America – whether the nations where the Peace Corps works succeed or not – may well determine the balance of peace.”

In 1966 America spent $114 million to send 15,556 Peace Corps volunteers into service, the most dollars ever committed to volunteers.

At the time, Sen. Jacob Javits proposed a Peace Army of a million young men. Labor leaders advocated a service corps of 100,000. The Peace Corps first deputy director, Warren Wiggins, called for a corps of 30,000 to 100,000.
In 1984 America spent approximately $108.5 million and sent approximately 5,200 volunteers into service.
What happened? Had the world’s plight improved so much that we could cut the Peace Corps by two-thirds? Were the hearts and minds of enough Third World people swayed to see the economic and social benefits of the democratic way? Had communist-inspired tur­moil and revolt diminished? Did we find a better way to let the world know who we Americans were than by exporting our skills, courage and heart through the Peace Corps?
From 1965 to 1974, we assigned 2,582,304 soldiers with a budget of $138.1 billion to defoliate, mutilate and whore over the countryside of Vietnam. The cost for these services was $53,480 per soldier. In that same period we sent 108,579 Peace Corps volunteers with a budget of $956 million to teach, build and inspire over the world. The cost was $8,809 per volunteer.
If America had used the Southeast Asian war budget to send volunteers into the world, America could have sent more than 15 million people out to plant crops, ideas and ideals. Which choice do you think would have most benefited our long-term national security de­sires? Our economy? The global village’s needs?
Former California Congressman John Bur­ton in his last Washington Report to his constituents wrote in 1981:

“When I was first elected to Congress eight and one-half years ago, some of the issues facing us were the war in Vietnam, the escalating arms race… Now as I leave Congress, the issues are American involvement in Nicaragua and other parts of Central America, which might become the next Viet­nam, the nuclear arms race typified by the MXmissile…”

What America needs today is leadership that will put 100,000-plus volunteers into the field of economic development:

  • Challenging communist economic ideas with practical programs.
  • Helping Africa reclaim its desert and grow food.
  • Pitting the character of the working volunteer against the slogans of radicals and terrorists attempting to antagonize the masses.
  • Establishing the economic and education­al infrastructure of developing countries.

    Then we need leadership that challenges the Russians to do the same. President Reagan is

the only leader that could do this today.

In 1963 President John Kennedy said: “In some small village, volunteers will lay a seed which will bring a rich harvest for us all in later days.”

He was right. It happened. But the crop comes from small gardens. We should be tilling fields upon fields. The time is late. We need to lay more seeds.

Dwayne Hunn of Mill Valley sewed in the Peace Corps in India from 1966-68 and speaks to groups about the importance of the Peace Corps.