I think Obama's pretty much got this one in the bag. That said, I want to know just what this Civilian National Security Force he plans to build will be for. My very skeptical mind imagines something like a National Despotism Force, and for the first time, I don't mind telling you I'm scared.
Somebody please quell my fears.
Thanks,
Syngas
Books I'm currently reading, and have recently read.
All purchases made at Amazon through these links contribute to support this site. Thanks for your help.
Last Topic: Praise the Lord by on Jan 5, 2009
Last Topic: The Great Chess Doping Scandal by on Dec 13, 2008
Last Topic: Trailer for my new film by on Jan 7, 2009
Last Topic: Trojan Horse by on Jan 6, 2009
Last Topic: Just After Sunset by on Jan 7, 2009
Last Topic: Iris Murdoch on Philosophy and Literature by on Nov 25, 2008
Last Topic: War on Gaza: Al Jazeera Reports by on Jan 5, 2009
Last Topic: Richard Preston: Climbing the world's biggest trees by on Dec 6, 2008
Last Topic: Email Notification by on Nov 12, 2008
I think this is a reference to the civilian side of foreign affairs - i.e., a rebuilding of the State Department and a scaling back of the defense department in foreign policy. Obama is basically echoing Robert Gates, the current secretary of defense. echoing Robert Gates It has nothing to do with some domestic force or national despotism army - you need to give up Drudge and wingnut devotion to 20 second media clips, Syngas.
Here is the full speech, Syngas. It's a call to citizenship - talking about new opportunities in community service, the peace corps., etc. (A side effect would be restoring America's stature in the world.) Perhaps when you hear it in context you won't be so scared. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Df2p6867_pw
Thanks Jill,
Sorry for the late reply, been kinda busy lately.
Hearing the whole speech relieved a few of my fears, but I do have a few questions for you:
If volunteering is mandatory, is it really volunteering?
and
If one is paid to do volunteer work, is it really volunteering?
I think you're just talking semantics here but I would have to listen again to get the gist. Sometimes, when you get the choice of non-profits you can work with - they call that volunteering. (As in - out of these five places for you to work, which one do you want to volunteer for - not being assigned to one or another.)
Depends on how you are paid. If it is a nominal sum or barter type, yeah - people will still say volunteering. Some places have to pay you for insurance purposes but it is WAY below salary and then they say you've volunteered. I'm not sure what exactly you're referring to, here.
Just got done with jury duty today. Sometimes private citizens need a little coercion to take part in their civic duties. I can honestly say I wouldn't have freely given up over a week of my life to some stranger's trial but I do appreciate the need for this service. Those who require it got $40 a day (I declined) and those who ignore this responsibility are threatened with fines or jail.
It's a little thing called duty.
I also feel that if more people had the experience of working in soup kitchens, distributing clothes to the homeless, tutoring in poor neighborhoods or helping people farm, teach or get clean water in developing nations, we would have a much less ignorant, greedy and selfish culture in America. Much less of the "Joe the Plumber" attitude of "I got mine, screw all y'all!"
Good for you Git,
Thank you for your service - not to that stranger, but to society.
Thomas Jefferson said, "I consider trial by jury as the ONLY anchor yet imagined by man by which a government can be held to the principles of its constitution."
I agree more people should volunteer their time and talents, but if they do so under duress you will have only hardened their hearts more.
Think back to when you were in the jury pool. Do you remember all the angry people grumbling about how they had really important things to do today? As if sitting on a jury wasn't important. Remember the jury selection process, when people answered the lawyers questions intent on being dismissed?
How much help do you think those people would be in a homeless shelter?
If we're going to start paying 'volunteers' with taxpayer money, would you be comfortable with people working at churches? Political parties? Abortion counceling services?
There were of course people grumbling about being there (including myself) but there is a difference in grumbling about the service required and grumbling about the people you are serving. the experience can and was actually very eye-opening in many ways.
As for those who would be "forced" into volunteering to help the poor or less fortunate. First, it is sad we live in a country where people would need to be forced to do such a thing. Second, they may not like the "duty" but the experience of seeing how other's live would open their minds and broaden their horizons.
A similar thing happened to my mother when her job sent her to the home of some illegal immigrants who had a young son with learning disabilities. She like so many felt that illegals were criminals that refused to adopt our culture, stole our jobs and caused crime in our streets. After meeting them and working with them she totally changed and now has compassion for the difficulties of those trying to better their lives by coming to this country even if it's illegal. My father and I were never able to change her mind after years of trying but two weeks of real world experience did.
As for the churches, they are already paid enough due to their tax-exempt status. How the right-wing can get pissy over Obama giving some cash to those who don't pay taxes yet support subsidizing church activities is beyond me.
I do understand your point, but I don't think it's such a bad idea to encourage people to help one another. I wish people didn't need a daddy in the sky or a legislator in D.C. to threaten them with punishment in order for them to show some humanity. But if that's what it takes for people to help the less fortunate, then so be it. Either that, or we could allow more immigrants into our country to do the humanitarian jobs American's don't want to do. :)
Watch the video again Jill. 100 hrs mandatory volunteer hours for all college students gets you $4000.
Wow, helping college students earn money to pay for school. That socialist bastard! what evils will he unleash on us next?
Seriously, is this the stuff that worries you? College kids being able to make $40 an hour so that they can have a little extra cash to help pay for their six-figure college tuitions (based on the average for four years out of state tuition).
http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20081030/NATION/810300338/1020
Again, this is the point I was making above: What is so wrong with encouraging people to help others and in return help themselves. I know capitalism usually encourages destroying and punishes helping (thus why oil, war and debt pay huge while charity, teaching and social work pays little to nothing), but is this idea of encouraging fellow citizens to help one another really that scary to you?
There is absolutely nothing wrong with encouraging people to help others and in return help themselves.
There is something wrong with putting a gun to someone's head (government mandate) to encourage people to help others and calling it volunteering. If you want to pay someone for services rendered, call it what it is - a job. Or if you insist on a euphemism, call it work study.
I think you acknowledged the slippery slope I was pointing to. As I expected, you objected to paying volunteers to work at a church (so do I). Government, being necessarily political could never resist systematically eliminating 'non-profit' entities from it's choices of forced labor, and eventually become a tool of what ever party is in power so it may protect it's power.
It sounds lovely when you hear Obama say it, because your political leanings are similar to his, but just imagine what you would be thinking if you heard Dubya propose the same thing. Do you think Planned Parenthood would be on his list? PETA? Moveon.org? GLAAD? okay, how about Catholic Charities? Salvation Army?, Creation Museum? Abortion councing services?
13th Ammendment:
Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime where of the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
and how could I forget ACORN!?!
Wow. Back in 1973, I wasn't making anywhere close to the equivalent of $40/hour, but I did have a draft card on which my status was 1A. My older brothers had mandatory service of that very sort and were lucky not to have been sent to our last stupid war.
I'd have been very happy to have been able to work 100 hours at $10/hour for my college education - my older brothers made a lot less than that doing their mandatory service.
Comparing mandatory service in the Civilian National Security Force to the military draft only confirms my suspicions Tim. Thanks ;)
Really? Isn't that funny? I took it as a direct response to this comparison of community service for college credit to slavery or involuntary servitude from you --- when you then quoted this to show how this is an attack on the Constitution:
Isn't that funny how different minds think.
I took it that way too Jill. I just happen to think involuntary servitude is wrong. Clearly you don't.
Here's what I think --- probably wrong - it's just what I think:
I think your reference to involuntary servitude is so far off base I thought you were kidding. I do think that it is somewhat laughable - or sad, I'm not sure which.
I think Tim was pointing out the example of what the military asks of U.S. citizens --- that it is a lot tougher and, no, even THAT example is not involuntary servitude and breaking the 13th amendment. I don't think he was comparing the military to what Obama is suggesting. Perhaps Tim was saying something else but that's what I think.
I think Obama's plan - if you are in college and do the required hours of volunteer work you get a tax credit to use against your tuition; if you don't put in the hours, you don't get the tax credit - seems like a great plan. I think a lot of wealthy parents will want their children to do it even though they might not need the tax credit.
I think you probably call school requirements like math, science and P.E. involuntary servitude. Maybe even going to school.
I think it is ridiculous speculating about something like this when there are so many problems that need to be handled and there aren't going to be any answers for months.
I think it's sad you aren't just relaxing a little bit and giving Obama a chance. He won't even be president until the 20th of January and NO ONE could be worse than Bush. There is the 100 day mark for presidents. I think that's when you might want to take stock again and let your pessimism take full flower. But, I think you probably enjoy looking at this as negatively as possible.
And now, I'm going to disengage with you Syngas. I also don't think you want to have a discussion - especially with me. I think you want to count coup and I want to do something positive.
Sorry to have upset you Jill,
From what I've been able to find on the net, he get this idea from Rahm Emanuel's book "The Plan: Big Idea's for America".
I wanted to check his website to clear things up, but that part has been removed. I'll check the local library to see if I can find it and let you know what the plan is. I might even break down and buy a copy - it could make for good bathroom reading.
Syngas,
Congressman Broun from Georgia just made headlines for a similar sentiment:
• "A Republican congressman from Georgia said Monday he fears that President-elect Obama will establish a Gestapo-like security force to impose a Marxist dictatorship." & "We can't be lulled into complacency," Broun said. "You have to remember that Adolf Hitler was elected in a democratic Germany. I'm not comparing him to Adolf Hitler. What I'm saying is there is the potential of going down that road."
Here's what the article states was Obama's quote:
• "We cannot continue to rely only on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives that we've set," Obama said in July. "We've got to have a civilian national security force that's just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded."
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27655039/
Judge for yourself but it sounds more like Obama talking about "National Security" in terms of the security of our nation - not a Gestapo. A liss hippie sounding version of Kucinich's "Department of Peace". An organization dedicated to winning the hearts and minds instead of bombing the homes and bridges of our adversaries.
They (Obama's people) aren't really saying much about it right now but they've only been elected for a week. Hopefully they will clear it up but try not to be too panic stricken yet.
Plus, ol' Bush financed the operations of a totally private security/mercenary force which flies in the face of what a military is. If you in anyway support this most fascist of military outfits, then I see no way in which a proposed national foreign service force would be offensive. At least one has the potential of being a good thing. The private military is by definition a dangerous enterprise.
Syngas,
In regards to my last paragraph, I apologize for sounding antagonistic which wasn't the intention. I brought this up as an example of a military force we already have which is the antithesis of democratic and holds a serious threat to our nation's peace and stability. And, how there has not been an uproar over this already present danger.
I did not intend for it to sound like I was attacking your views.
Thanks Git,
I've made it a personal policy to dismiss any presenter that makes comparisons to Hitler or Nazis. It's really the lazy way of making an argument when you really don't have one.
I don't doubt Obama has good intentions with his vague proposal, but if we don't play 'what if...' with such bold proposals, we are bound to hand over more, and more power to the authorities we are supposed to be questioning. I'm sure many of those bumper stickers will disappear now that Obama has been elected, but I hope the skepticism that made them so popular never fades.
I'm not sure if you are referring to Blackwater et al. or the UN, but I tend to agree the potential for them to become fascist entities is there and funding them is a mistake. That said, they are, as you pointed out, a foreign force, not, as the word 'national' denotes, a domestic force.
Way too many commas in that last sentence. Sorry ;)
The bumper stickers you refer to seem to bounce between left and right depending on who is in office. I remember seeing many "anti-authoritary" bumper stickers when living in Montana and Eastern Oregon in the '90's. I've noticed a huge hypocrisy about Executive powers in the past eight years of Bush from many I know on the right, just as I'm sure we'll see plenty of it from the left now with Obama in power.
Also, I was referring to Blackwater as well as Titan, Kroll and others of that nature. Companies that profit from combat will require more combat to grow business and please stock holders just as financial institutions that require debt to make profit require increased debt to grow. Profit for security means insecurity becomes needed for increased profit, and in turn the desire for profit adds instability. The dangers of this have already been seen around the world as this one example shows: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/3597450.stm
When private companies can hire private militaries to do their bidding that is a terrible danger. Much different from the right's fear of the UN which is a global body. BP and Exxon can't hire the UN to invade a nation, stage a coup and install a friendly power without the cooperation of the nations controlling the UN. Private companies can hire mercenaries to do this. When and if we ever see a relative peace in our nation again, where will the private military firms get business? From the private sector most likely.
It also means the dollar cost of war is much higher too as we have seen in Iraq, lives lost in war is not honest as they don't tally in the private security forces and the "rules of engagement" are blurred when the private military doesn't live by the same rules as our military yet the Iraqis see them as one in the same.
My basic point is this: There are no details on Obama's proposal yet so all the hubbub is speculative. Yet, there is an actual dangerous private military presence growing at alarming rates that has been either ignored or supported by moderates and the right for many years now. If you truly believe in freedom, you should be willing to stand up for it no matter if it's your "team" in power or not.
I find much of the right's "fears" about Obama hollow and/or insulting when they've stood by and watched all I have already said happen, allowed our actual troops to be used as props and slogans of "Support Our Troops" while their medical facilities crumbled, low level soldiers were thrown under the bus for following the orders of higher-ups, dead soldiers hidden from view and lied about, soldie suicide rates skyrocket, Habeus Corpus, Geneva Conventions and personal privacy were eradicated, Executive Powers were grotesquely enlarged, war profiteers encouraged or ignored and so much more has gone on...
You'd think they'd be happy Obama has already in his first week of being president-elect he has already spoke of limiting his own executive powers, of reaching across the aisle and restoring the rule of law. That a Democratic led congress has improved GI benefits and medical treatments.
I know a lot of this personally, as I've been doing a documentary on homeless vets and have interviewed many, I have vets in my family who have suffered due to injuries, lack of care and lack of benefits. Almost every one of them talks of how things are getting better in the last year. Yesterday at the veteran's parade there was excited talk about the new programs to help vets re-adjust to civilian life that were just introduced.
This is why I don't take the right serious when they call into question Obama or us liberals on democracy and military issues. If they spent half as much energy in the last eight years as they have in the last week on these issues we would not be in the state we are in.
Damn, I sure did rant. Didn't realize I went on so long and veered so far off topic. Oh well. :)
Library doesn't have it. I'll order it later today. Maybe I'll offer it up with one of Norm's free books when I've read it - Norm willing, of course.
Here is the Factcheck on the story, better still is the Daily Show analysis of the question.
Norm says I have an avatar. I couldn't see it, so I thought I'd try posting.
So Syngas,
Extended executive privilege without debate and the extension of the FISA law which includes retroactive Telecom immunity has never caught your attention as to things scary? The federal government spying on you is no big deal? It is Obama's call for "doubling the Peace Corps, creating volunteer networks and increasing the size of the Foreign Service" which has you shivering in your shoes? Really?
Syngas,
I've been doing a web search of what you posted here. The right-wing conspiracy wing nuts claim the following: http://worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=80539
Well, they link to no archive. They just made this shit up. And the misplacement of the comma after "America" is a sure sign that some idiot is down in the basement in his pajamas making this up.
This silly story is as embarrassing as Sarah Palin herself. No wonder that the Economist wrote this article:
The Ship of Fools
And mind you, this is an article published in the Economist!... not Daily Kos...
JoAnn,
I had hoped, or perhaps assumed, that a big GOP loss in 2008 would lead to a a huge internal battle in which the idiots would be thrown out. Now I'm not at all sure - they knuckle dragging morons in the GOP may well purge the last vestiges of intellect from their midst and emerge with a pure, distilled, semiliterate constituency. You have to wonder how long the formally "educated" neoconservatives like Bill Kristol, for example, will continue to pretend that the only fans he has left aren't drooling morons.
Syngas, I found something that I don't like from the Barnes & Noble webstie re Emanuel's book:
Yikes!
Ah, Syngas, I have found that you are not speaking your own mind. You have only reworded the following:
> So who gets to decide what constitutes "community service"? Who gets to decide which causes and organizations will be credit-worthy, and which ones won't? >
This link as has the full quote from Emanuel. "All Americans between the ages of 18 and 25 should be asked to serve their country".
To be sure, I'll have my eye on this, but as usual there is too much hyperbole.
Finally watched the full speech and read through all the comments.
"Call" to service, "ask to serve"; you can choose how you want to serve. Obama's call is more for groups like the Peace Corps. Volunteering here is equated with you don't have to do it; you choose - not that it's done for no money. There is the part where serving in your country/participating in this democracy should be part of what is discussed/taught in public schools.
None of this bothers me. There is a sentiment among many in this country that those on welfare are lazy and want someone else to foot the bill. There is another sentiment by many who have financial security that others should defend the country, do crappy jobs, etc. - "Why should I? I pay taxes. Btw, how's my stock portfolio?" There hasn't been a lot of sentiment that we as citizens should participate in our democracy so that we have a real stake in our country's policies (and so who cares if we go to war? someone else will fight it for me...I'm really close to quoting "Johnny Got His Gun.") This is what Obama wants to change, and calls for in this speech, from my viewing.
If we get into his presidency and the policy presented smacks of indentured servitude, then the public has a right to debate; lead the way Syngas! There are many who volunteered for all candidates during this election cycle who are ready to continue contributing, so the pool is fairly large.
Since this speech the economy has gotten worse. It'll be a challenge to get such programs approved because of national debt, but the other side of the coin is that we're seeing a high rate of unemployment. There is also need for things like an energy corps and so on, so the something's going to bubble up in the 1st 100 days.
P. S. We have a de-facto system of involuntary servitude: low income military recruits. Granted, there have been a number who were stable financially who have enlisted recently - think of the Tillman brothers - but the military has been a place to get a decent job when there are no other options. If everyone would find a way to contribute we could bridge the gap - in attitude at least - between the more and less fortunate among our citizenry.
And Syngas, check how you sign in. Your avatar shows up top - probably where you signed in through Moveable type. If you used Typekey for your later posts then the avatar won't show.
Yes indeed. Syngas, our hero, our independant intellectual will lead the way. Gooo Syngas... goooo Syngas..
Thanks Guys.
Amazon gave me free 2-3 day shipping, so I should have it Monday or Tuesday (do they count Sunday?)