What's more important to nation & world welfare--following the news - faked or otherwise, social mediaing, twittering, & apping your 3" phone? Or spending a year in communities different than yours working shoulder to shoulder on needs that never blistered or teared you digitally? Which life produces more true art, as well as social & economic progress? Which path should our super-rich invest in having Americans serve?

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While roaming through the slums of Mumbai, India in the late 1960s, this Peace Corps Volunteer was a keen observer of art. Yes, the 12 by 16' rooms of the four-story tenements of my first work site, Worli Chawls, had art hanging from their walls viewable through their barred windows.

There were three categories of the art in Worli Chawls, pictures of:

1) Gandhi and Nehru

2) Hindu gods

3) John Fitzgerald Kennedy

Why JFK?

Because JFK used the camera well, offered the struggling a vision along with programs to implement peace and prosperity, and sent more "Shanti Senna" Americans annually to India than to any other country.

Hindi "Shanti Senna" translates to "Peace Army." Gandhi conceptualized it as a nonviolent volunteer-peacekeeping program dedicated to minimizing communal violence in India.

JFK conceptualized "Peace Corps" to minimize violence throughout the world. Even those struggling in the chawls of India seem to know that

.

Pesident-Elect Donald Trump uses the camera well and hopefully is conceptualizing programs for peace and prosperity. Could media savvy Trump build a AWSC National Service Corps that rebuilds the Peace Corps to the size JFK envisioned it, and muscle-up other do-good organizations to the size JFK knew they needed to be?

If President Trump pushes Congress to introduce and pass the American World Service Corps National Service (AWSCNS) Congressional Proposal, America and the world would have a healthier, greater future.

Implementing this AWSCNS could move America together toward greatness...

A robust AWSCNS Congressional Proposal could help knit this fraying great nation back together again by having diverse colors, regions, classes, and religions work together to address domestic and international problems.

For two years of AWSC National Service in such organizations as Peace Corps, AmeriCorps, Habitat, Doctors Without Borders, Head Start, Mercy Corps, Oxfam, Americans Friends Service Committee, TechnoServe, Heifer, Red Cross, International Rescue Committee, State Conservation Corps, In-Need Schools, Hospitals Therapy Wards, Homes for The Elderly, etc., four years of college/vocational tuition would be paid, or equivalent home down payment, health-care savings deposit, tax credit granted, etc.

Free education would be earned.

Immigration rights earned.

Public policy understanding enhanced.

And, as Mark Twain correctly opined, the national service and travel a million Americans a year would be engaged in at home and abroad would be "fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness."

Also, reintroducing and enacting Congresswoman Boxer's HR 1807 would dramatically reduce worldwide tensions by having Americans and Russians work together on a Joint US-Russian Peace Corps.

Let's build tens of thousands of bonds between serving Russians and Americans, not just between a couple hundred astronauts, cosmonauts, and executives.

Let's start building armies around peaceful service rather than around expensive drones.

Let's try People's Lobby's non-traditional funding mechanisms so that the heaven-bound goodness and wisdom of the super-rich funds 21 million Americans doing, learning, and forging friendships at home and abroad via national service over the next 27 years, without costing taxpayers a dime.

Let the Trump administration bring Congress together in recognizing that there are cost-effective means to build security peacefully and thereby address President Eisenhower's concerns.

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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