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Professor Tzu on JFK, GW, BD, PCVs, and How Ugly Americans Are Remolding AMC

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After a generous introduction by Yale's revered Brian Dowling, the losing QB in the Harvard Beats Yale 29-29 movie blockbuster, Professor Tzu Logicanobe, a distant descendent of warrior Sun Tzu, moved to the podium.   He fronted the power-pointed screen established as part of a TED production at the Yale campus that graduated intellectual giants such as George W. Bush.

 

"Thank you, BD, who so often gallantly donned a uniform to fleetly scrabble on nearby hollowed fields to throw long that spherically-shaped American ball that, is seldom footed, for your generous introduction.  

 

"And, if he is here, thanks to your fellow graduate, a guy named Gary who Trudeau-stripped you to a BD comic life where you continued throwing, albeit not oddly shaped balls, but a record-setting number of guffaws.    

 

"My talk may not be as funny as some may find Doonesbury, for it is intended to reduce the number of debilitating injuries that BD and so many other helmeted warriors suffer.   Thus, this is not a laughing matter.

 

"The Ugly American was a 1960's bestseller.   President Kennedy read it and provided the cure:   It was called 'The Peace Corps.'"

 

Ugly American book cover
Ugly American book cover
(Image by Book Cover advertisement)
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Ugly American book cover by Book Cover advertisement


"Then a couple bullets made several magical turns, blowing off the back of JFK's head.  

 

"Subsequently we bombed Asian dominoes, illegally funded Iran Contras, watched two planes crash three reinforced buildings in near free-fall time, which led to a phony long-term $7 trillion Iraq war that enriched plutocrats, shrunk the middle class, and droned over Mother Nature seeding hatred, death, and destruction.

 

"If you haven't visited the plethora of mansions of the rich and powerful or their numerous yacht-laden playgrounds, then deduct from your academic backgrounds the graphic results of wealth disparity and taxation inequity that has been accumulating for four decades among us."  


Sahre Total Wealth Gain, 1983-2009 by http://www.michelledunlap.com/2011/09/24/its-not-class-warfare/



 


Tax Rates Drop Sharply for Highest Earners by IRS chbp.org



"JFK, who was working to reform the tax system, wanted to bring back US Notes, and believed Vietnam should be a Special Forces operation and not a huge middle- and lower-class-draining, bloody war.   He also had another visionary goal that would have made a heavenly difference in today's world.  

 

"Kennedy quickly wanted to grow his Peace Corps to 'a million, where it would make a difference.'   He wanted to deploy more Peace Corps than Marine Corps.   He wanted Camelot.   Had he obtained more of those soaring visions, we would not be relying for decades on minefields, Humvees, and drones to send people heaven-ward.

 

"Instead, it took 52 years to nudge the total number of Peace Corps volunteers over 200,000, a fifth of JFK's envisioned quick goal.

 

"In 2013, barely 8,000 Peace Corps volunteers serve.   And none have served in Iran, Syria, or Palestine."

 


PCVs Serving 1961-2012 by Dwayne Hunn

(PLEF Research)

 

"None in Pakistan since 1967.

 

"None in Iraq since '72.

 

"Instead we piled on humongous financial expenditures, much of it hidden off George W's budget, as well as huge civilian and unnecessary military fatalities."

 

 

 

 
Iraq Coaltion Military Fatalities by Year by www.icasualties.org



 

 
Budget Authority for Iraq War, $ Billions by Congressional Research Service



  

"No PCVs have served in Afghanistan since '79, which has much to do with losing soldiers' lives 40 years later."

 


Afghanistan Coalition Military Fatalities by Year by icasualties.org





"Imagine how much healthier our warriors, laborers, and environments would be had JFK and Shriver's robust Peace Corps and VISTA visions been built since 1961.   Imagine if our service corps had quickly grown to a million as JFK envisioned.

 

"When the Peace Corps started in 1961, America invested about $5,000 a year to field a volunteer.   Each volunteer won hearts and minds and learned a lot in the process. Today, we invest about $40,000 a year in each volunteer to win hearts and minds and return home smarter and without symptoms of PTSD.   During the Iraq War our cost per military personnel rose to $1 million each.

 

"Imagine, if in the 60's we had quickly grown the Peace Corps to a million and in the process had sent 5,200 additional volunteers to the troubling nations listed below, where blood and resources flow today for all the wrong reasons."

 

 
If had sent 5200 PCVs by Peoples Lobby

(PLEF People's Lobby's Education Foundation Research) 

 

"Had America followed Kennedy's vision and sent 56,367 White Knighted PCVs into this troubling part of the world to do the right thing for the right reasons, do you believe we'd be looking at 8,109 + Coalition Fatalities today and trillions of wasted dollars?  Not to mention the lost Iraqi and Afghani lives. 

 

"Every American contributes about $1.23 towards the Peace Corps' peaceful, productive means of eradicating terrorists and reducing dumbness. That's about the cost of one of those privatized plastic bottles that is littering our landscape, gyre-ing our oceans, ingesting their plastics into our fishes, and passing resultant sickness and deformities among us and other species.  

 

"Quit buying that plastic junk that builds plastic characters.  Let's start building solid characters via service in economic and educational development at home and abroad.  Start investing in organizations like the Peace Corps as part of the larger America's World Service Corps (AWSC) Congressional Proposal, so we can have a robust volunteer national-service program that builds true characters peacefully throughout the world, while avoiding littered explosives, carpeted plastic, maimed legs, Hurtlockers, and dead and dying young and old.

 

"Let's put a million Americans a year into national service for a generation, as the AWSC Congressional Proposal proposes.  Who doesn't believe it will improve the world?"

 


PCV Investment vs Terror War Cost by Dwayne Hunn & Peoples Lobby

PLEF Research

 

"If Sun Tzu is scoring recent American wars based on his well-woven philosophy 'The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting,' who would he choose as winners?  

 

"Rubber-banded together Talibans using hand-me-down weapons or history's most expensively armored military guided by holy-ghosted drones?

 

"The world's once strongest military is suffering from PTSD.   Its economy works mostly for those at the top of the top 2%, especially for the 1% of the top 1%.   Its once growing and vibrant Middle Class is shrinking, as has the healthy opportunities for their children, while the Walton family alone has more wealth than the bottom 41.5% of American families.

 

"The strength of nation is determined by the solidness of its economy, which is founded on a hard-working, skill-building, educated work force.   A strong economy cannot be based on phony financial derivatives magically made and manipulated by a finance industry, which dictates how tax laws are written and rewards hocus-pocus rather than real work.

 

"That is the specific raison d'etre for the corporate-funded American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), which is founded to help assure that the rich and powerful have rules that increase their riches and power.   And ALEC's biggest donors come from the same group that is driving today's Republican Party further right, the 1% of the top 1%.

 

"In contradistinction, People's Lobby (PLI) proposes its American World Service Corps Congressional Proposal and Fair Tax Bracket Reinstitution Act, without any financial support from secretive donors.

 

"The AWSC legislation, albeit without Koch Brothers, Enron, ATT, Intuit, etc., corporate support, would provide skill-building jobs that address generation-spanning economic and environmental needs, while keeping us out of future wars and raising our public-policy IQ enough to reinstate equitable tax and public policies."

 


Causes of National Deficit by Center on Budget & Policy Priorities



"People's Lobby's American World Service Corps Congressional Proposal cost-effectively incentivizes a million Americans a year to nation and skill build in existing do-good organizations, such as Peace Corps, AmeriCorps, Habitat, Mercy Corps, Heifer, TechnoServe, OxFam, local non-profits, state conservation corps, etc.   These and so many other good non-profits are ready and able to become the peaceful platoons that could be the basis for a million Americans a year to do enriching national service, which decades back we had gestating with the CCC, WPA, Selective Service Draft for all, Civilian Conservation Corps, Workers Progress Administration, and a nascent but growing Peace Corps.

 

"We have to stop sending our people to war and ignoring domestic and international needs while so many sit at home, cheering about being #1 over pizza, beer, and big-screened TV.   More Americans have to act on the reality that America's rich are getting richer while by 2013 America's Middle Class has grown only scars that allow them to grovel with the whimpering downward cheer "We're # 27!"   That's 27th in Median Wealth, at $38,786 per adult, which is more than 1/4 lower than had been reported by Credit Suisse's Global Wealth Databook for 2011.

   

"But worry not, we're still Number 1 in having the most ultra-wealthy, from a surplus of $50,000,000+ millionaires to a flock of 1+++ billionaires.   At their palatial parties, a bug on the wall might hear in reference to the mean streets below 'Let them eat Twinkies...'"

 


Charts: America Has the World's Luckiest Billionaires by Mother Jones Magazine


(James Davies, Rodrigo Lluberas and Anthony Shomocks, Credit Suisse Global Wealth Databook, 2011, http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/07/charts-how-americas-billionaires-get-off-tax-rich-congress

 

"Can involving a lot more American directly in working on public policy and community building help America rebuild its Middle Class and benefit the world's health?  

 

"If we put enough Americans' sinews and hearts into these endeavors, a smarter and more respected America can return to exploring the path toward greatness. If not, we'll keep getting softer, dumber, poorer, and riddled with more than head and body wounds.

 

"The America's World Service Corps Congressional Proposal can help us grow better and prolong our moment in the sun.   Learn more at www.WorldServiceCorps.us.   You can help by signing the Change.org petition for the AWSC and the Fair Tax Bracket Reinstitution Congressional Proposal and telling us if your Congressperson would be open to supporting the AWSC Congressional Proposal.

 

"You young people in the audience should help reenact the peaceful vision JFK had for America and the world.   A troubled world and climate is about to rain upon your parade.   America should build a robust service corps and, by example, inspire other nations to do the same. You are going to need such armies to deal with an angry Mother Nature and the mushrooming of hatreds growing in the world."

 


Climate Silence by National Geographic



 "Thank you."

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Dwayne served in the Peace Corps in the slums of Mumbai, India, worked several Habitat Projects, and was on the start-up team of the California Conservation Corps. He has a Ph.D. from Claremont Graduate University, has been a builder, teacher, (more...)
 

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