At a poker table ringed by war contractors, radical Hamas, dictators, and weak thinkers, can a couple jocks think outside the lobbies' designed narrow box and play a hand that none of the gamblers expect? Can Congressman Veeshun help Obama do a "Sting" that would spread the chips from the House of Big Money among the people too poor to play?

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(Article changed on September 23, 2013 at 11:46)

(Article changed on September 22, 2013 at 19:26)

(Article changed on September 21, 2013 at 20:27)

(Article changed on September 21, 2013 at 16:30)

Some history: It is 2013. President Obama is ready to rain war upon the poisonous Syrian bad guys. He has, however, turned to the constitutionally war-empowered Congress to debate his decision. He is also aware and supportive of the sneaky rider that snuck into our gigantic war budget a few years earlier.

In 2010, in a progressive district of California, Congressman Winthrop Veeshun introduced America's World Service Corps (AWSC) Congressional Proposal.  As a favor, Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders introduced the Senate version saying, "Sometimes, I introduce good bills that have no chance of passing."  

In order to win over a few needed votes of those concerned about spying, free speech, our growing dark-side image, and other constitutional losses, the AWSC Congressional Proposal was attached as a rider in the more than 1,000-page, $600+ billion, 2010 Defense Authorization Act.   In 2010, that rider started funding the 27-year-spanning America's World Service Corps (AWSC) Congressional Proposal, which would use 21 million full-time American volunteers to fix, not bomb, the world.

Following the timetable set in the law, there were now an additional 229,000 Americans serving full-time at home and abroad in a voluntary national-service program. Existing organizations that had already been doing good, and some new ones, found these 229,000 Americans clamoring at their door to serve doing peaceful chores.

Here is some of what we hear via C-span as Congressman Veeshun speaks to an almost empty Congressional chamber about whether to drone into another war in the world's religious sandbox surrounded by pipes filled with dark gunk.  

***

"In early September the treacherous and bloody civil war that is Syria moved front and center for Congress and the Executive branch.   I reported to my constituents then that I would not support our military's entree into Syria unless and until it could be positively identified for CERTAIN who did what.

"Since then our president has deftly handled a situation that could have moved us into another war and initiated a constitutional debate. By defusing a Middle Eastern tinderbox and Ali-shuffling politely with Prime Minister Putin, he has turned the fiery Syrian situation into a possible opportunity.

"President Obama stands on second base with a clean double and hopes to find a way to score enough runs to end the Syrian war--and perhaps do more.

"It is to "do more' that I offer these suggestions into Congress' public record and for consideration by our Executive branch.

"Do our tax dollars go where the American people want them to go? Consider this graph."   

Where Do Our Income Tax Dollars Go? by Friends Committee on National Legislation

Where Do Our Income Tax Dollars Go? by Friends Committee on National Legislation

 

"We do not yet have the world where one can vote on where one's taxes should go, but how long must we ponder, wonder, and anger over the proportion that we spend on war-related activities.

"Have we become safer by spending more on wars' stuff, while the economies of those countries who avoid war improve their infrastructure, education, patent production, and general well-being? Or have our physical and moral foundations become weaker based on where we mistakenly spend our moral and financial resources?"  

Global Military Spending 2009 by National Priorities

Global Military Spending 2009 by National Priorities

"Why is it that the approximately 1/3 of the budget that Congress and the executive branch have discretion over still distributes about 60% of its funds for war-related activities?"  

 
Discretionary Budget 2013 by Americans Friends Service Committee

Discretionary Budget 2013 by Americans Friends Service Committee

 

"In 2012, Senate colleague Kent Conrad, D-North Dakota, asked the Department of Defense's leaders, "What is the cost per soldier, to maintain a soldier for a year in Afghanistan?'

"Under Secretary Robert Hale, the Pentagon comptroller, responded 'Right now about $850,000 per soldier.'

"Depending on whom you ask that number is between $850,000 to $1.4 million, the larger numbering being what the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments lists as the cost.

"It is difficult to lay that cost inflation upon our courageous volunteer soldiers, since the typical army sergeant with four years of service makes a base pay of less than 30,000 a year.

"Someone, however, is making money. Perhaps our largest defense contractors? Here's a peek to see if that's true:"

 
Top War Contractors Stock Growth 2000-13 by People's Lobby's Education Foundation

Top War Contractors Stock Growth 2000-13 by People's Lobby's Education Foundation

"In the 60's the military-industrial complex's lobbying machine, which Eisenhower warned us about, planted in Middle America's minds the fear that communist dominoes falling in Vietnam, Cuba, and other little places would soon encircle America and deprive us of life, limb, and free will. A trumped-up Gulf of Tonkin incident pushed us into a guerrilla war halfway around the world, which swallowed lots of petrol and blood.

"Various estimates put the cost of the Vietnam War at $500 + billion. Incidental costs included agent orange-defoliated Vietnam, with millions of dead Vietnamese and agent-orange-exposed American soldiers returning to live their lives on crutches and wheelchairs, something many limb-lost Vietnamese could not afford.

"In the 1990s and 2000s, the military-industrial estate and increasingly concentrated media pushed Americans to believe that we had to stay involved in the world via armadas, tanks, and planes inflicting blood, pain, and gore.   That kind of involvement required even more petrol. Therefore, we shuffled the card deck of dictators who controlled the oil and/or the pipelines over which it flowed to keep 19^th- and 20^th-century warfare as the world's biggest show.

"We used diplomatic jargon to dupe Saddam Hussein into believing we would not mind if he invaded Kuwait. Then we assembled a tremendous international army to kick him out and most of the cost seemed to be covered by the likes of oil-rich countries like Saudi Arabia. Most Americans thought it was a pretty awesome and cost-effective "Shock and Awe' show.

"But even amidst the long dawning of the Age of Aquarius, a self-proclaimed 'humble' administration came to power in today's Roman Empire proclaiming they cared nothing about "nation building,' obviously knew  little about the metaphysics of spirituality, but was certain it knew exactly where the WMDs were and how the physics of bombing would harmlessly expose them. To official reports from UN Weapons Inspector Scott Ritter that no WMDs existed, the Bush II administration said, 'Aww, we know better.' 

"So, alas, today the world's worn down and overwrought #1 military power has been dealt another stacked deck containing one of its many once-supported and now-opposed Jokers named Bashar Assad.  We almost responded as we have been lobbied to do--by sending more taxpayer dollars to our war-making industries and packaging our mostly low and striving for the middle-class youngsters into Star Wars uniforms for another debilitating war.

"So far, our President has deftly avoided contributing ours to their bloody civil war, and has pulled hard-pumped Putin into the chess game at which Obama seems to have some dexterity.   But the war-making industry, Project for the New American Century (PNAC) and its team of Wolfowitz, Cheney, Libby, Rumsfeld, Bolton, etc., along with the tag team of repetitive Sunday talk-showers Graham and McCain, will still strive to juice up Americans to the heroic benefits of what they seem to believe is only a "game' called war.

"Now that the President has the UN, PNAC, Tea Partiers, voters, Putin, and moms involved in his chess game, is there another card he can throw from this once stacked-against-him deck that can change this grey-hairing game of conflict, hatred, and violence? Is there a way Obama can play his hand so that it does the opposite of spewing bloodshed, spreading refugee camps, and increasing poverty, especially when Oxfam tells us that more than 250 million a year are personally affected by disasters?

"If President Kennedy had lived and his ideas grown over two terms, long before now we would've had 1 million strong Peace Corps Army from which he could have implemented his strategic desire to 'Send the Peace Corps rather than the Marine Corps.'   We could have witnessed decades of tens of thousands of Americans annually building understanding, hope, and positive change. Instead, we see how meager our peaceful-service influence has been in the Middle East."

"If since 1961, when Kennedy birthed the Peace Corps, we had sent 5200 Peace Corps volunteers to some of the trouble spots listed above; do you think we would have spent $5+ trillion dollars on Bush II's trumped-up Iraq war?" 

"Waging peace is a much better strategy for avoiding the costs of maiming wars and winning economic battles. If only our leaders had been wise enough to understand just three rules of the Chinese warrior Sun Tzu:

1.    All war is based on deception.

2.    The supreme excellence is to subdue the armies of your enemy without fighting a battle.

3.    He wins who knows when to fight and when not to fight.

"Sun Tzu explains why sending 21 million Americans over the next 27 years under the umbrella of the America's World Service Corps (AWSC) Congressional Proposal   is essential to America playing a long-term positive role in the world.   The president knows and believes in the importance of such robust national service . Let us push him now by offering legislation related to the AWSC and some of the platoons that it sends volunteers to--Peace Corps, TechnoServe, Oxfam, American Friends Service, Heifer, FINCA, etc.   Let them, rather than our military corps, get involved all over the world, so that our military only rarely has to fire its deadly guns.

"I close my talk not just pushing the AWSC but to make an ancillary suggestion for the President and Congress' consideration.

"As President Obama shuffles the card deck filled with dangerous jokers, while sitting at a table with Hamas, a brutal dictator, and a chest-thumping Russian leader, he has played a difficult hand well. Why not now throw a trump card, win the table, and leave the chips for all the players to happily pick up?

"Call on Prime Minister Putin to join with you and build a joint American Russian Peace Corps, or call it a Russian American Peace Corps, if it makes him ride taller in the saddle.

"Fashion it after the legislation People's Lobby proposed in the late 1980s, which then Congresswoman Boxer introduced in 101st Congress of 1989 as House Resolution 1807, the United States-Soviet Peace Corps Agreements Act.

"On the world's biggest stage, in a bigger-than-Chicago poker game, Maverick Obama would trump everything that has been thrown on the table. It could move two great superpowers to shift their energies from drones, chemical weapons, and war-contract money making to doing what all the religions from all parts of the world ask their believers to do--helping your neighbors and treating them as you would like them to treat you.

"Twelve apostles may no longer be enough.   But thousands of American and Russian Peace-Corps volunteers and those who work like them would be a good start to bringing peace to the Holy Lands.

"Chicago plays high-stakes poker, bluff and all. But in this world-stage poker game, the tanned Maverick could trump them all with the hand that Christ and Muhammad would love to see him play. Build a much bigger Peace Corps and have the Russians get involved in the same do-gooders game.

"Let American and Russsian PCVs serve side-by-side.   Let our diplomacy shift from building forts relying on drones and turning out more guns to small farms milking goats and turning out more butter.  

"Pull this off and use your winning hand to get 100 nations in the world to build their own World Service Corps and, as climate change sweeps down upon us, you and Putin will have reason to not be surprised by the Nobel Peace Prize."

Oh, but if only we had some Congressmen Veeshuns with... vision.

Maybe in this Congress we, with your help, will find a few. 

Authors Website: http://peopleslobby.us/

Authors Bio:

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, political organizer, small businessman, affordable housing developer, and a rock-piler at Rubel's Castle. Some pics and stories at http://peopleslobby.us/more-projects/rubelia.

Some story tidbits about his recent well-regarded book about Rubel's Castle are available at http://peopleslobby.us/more-projects/rubelia.

In 2013 Rubelia was designated a National Historic Monument, right up there with Hearst Castle. CBS clip: Rubel's Castle is on verge of listing on National Registry http://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2013/08/07/rubel-castle-in-glendora-on-the-verge-of-getting-national-historic-recognition/

Dwayne is presently Executive Director of People's Lobby Inc (PLI, 501c4)and People's Lobby's Education Foundation (PLEF, 501c3). You can read PLI's American World Service Corps Congressional Proposal (AWSC) at
http://peopleslobby.us/awsc-congressional-proposal

Rebuilding People'Lobby web site is available at http://peopleslobby.us/

Congresswoman Woolsey (D, CA) offered to introduce it in the 111th Congress, then retracted. Please contact your Congressional reps and ask them to become an original sponsor or cosponsor. The AWSC citizen-initiated congressional proposals could be, with you pushing your representatives, among the most significant legislation passed and implemented in decades. Imagine having 21 million Americans cost effectively doing good at home or abroad over the next 27 years.

In December 2009 Ralph Nader choose People's Lobby's book, "Ordinary People Doing the Extraordinary, The Story of Ed & Joyce Koupal's People's Lobby" as one of the Ten Best Books to Read for 2009. You can purchase the book from PeoplesLobby.us or learn more at http://peopleslobby.us/more-projects/books.

"This country runs on laws. If you want to change the country, write its laws," People's Lobby's founders Ed and Joyce Koupal used to say. If you want to enlighten public policy, involve millions of Americans in addressing public needs, prepare for climate weirding, etc., help make it happen. The AWSC addresses with people action many of our most pressing and costly needs. To sign the reopened American World Service Corps petition/letter, which contacts Congress for you: Paste http://www.change.org/petitions/view/field_21_million_american_world_service_corps_volunteers_over_the_next_27_years
Please help make the AWSC happen. To learn more about People's Lobby, visit the web site at www.Peopleslobby.us.

Recent books both available on line and from publishers: Every Town Needs a Castle (Prelude to next book, Every Country Needs a World Service Corps)
http://peopleslobby.us/more-projects/rubelia


Ordinary People Doing the Extraordinary (Nader's 2009 TopTen Books to Read List)
http://peopleslobby.us/archives/736
Library: http://peopleslobby.us/organizations/peoples-lobby/library