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2/22/2016

Euphemisms of the Radical Right Hide the Blunt Truth

It’s time to expose those euphemisms used by certain Right-wing Republicans.  They are mostly racially biased utterances by politicians and their followers that are seemingly mild, indirect or vague but they act as substitutes for a harsh or blunt underlying meaning that usually serves to denigrate the target of the expression.

Obama is a Muslim’ – not a Christian; a divider not a uniter; he ‘leads from behind’, he is a ‘socialist.’  He was born in Kenya so he’s a foreigner; he’s on vacation again; another scandal; he should be impeached – or sued.
Strangely enough, this over-use of euphemisms has seemed to have less success in hiding meanings than in revealing the very worst of who some Republicans really are in essence.  Their attempts to hide bigotry, scapegoating, demonizing, or racial superiority have not worked as they thought they would because they haven’t been able to cease and desist, even when others encouraged them to do so.  Let’s have a closer look at this phenomenon.
In spite of a speech to a lawyer’s organization in which he granted Reagan the green light in making a nomination to SCOTUS in an election year, Republican Senate Majority Leader, Mitch McConnell, (and most of the Republican presidential candidates) asserts that Obama must wait for a new President to be elected so that person can fill the SCOTUS vacancy with a voter mandate.  
In contrast to McConnell's partisan obstructionist dictum, presidents dating back to George Washington and Thomas Jefferson have made election-year Supreme Court nominations—a power bestowed upon the presidency by the very Constitution that America's founders wrote.  In total, 17 Supreme Court justices have been nominated during election years, though some received confirmations following November elections.  Most recently, Supreme Court Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy was nominated by President Ronald Reagan on Nov. 30, 1987, in the midst of more than a dozen on-going presidential campaigns.  Kennedy assumed the bench on Feb. 22, 1988, just 10 days after that election year's Iowa caucuses. (material attributed to www.dailydot.com)
So here we are at a point where the Republicans have already established that Reagan could send an Associate Justice nomination to the Senate during an election year, but Obama should not.  What is the difference?    The same thing it has been since the beginning of Obama’s election: not birthplace, not religion, not inexperience, not socialism, not any of the other euphemisms bestowed upon this President.
It is again why every conceivable thing has been blamed on President Obama, why everything he does or proposes is suspect.  Why every budget of his was dead before it even got delivered to Congress.   Why every glitch is a scandal; why he is despised, hated, and vilified.  Anything good that he accomplishes has to be demeaned immediately.  It’s why most of his appointments have been delayed or over-interrogated.  It’s why he gets blamed for the economic problems produced by the Bush administration and why the Republicans blamed him before the 2010 election for the mess in Washington.  It’s why the Affordable Care Act  has been vilified and voted on for repeal over 50 times.  Sure, FDR’s New Deal programs still come in for criticism from the conservative Right, but mostly surrounding ideological issues not personal vilification; pretty much the same is true of Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty.  Unrelenting repeal votes on those programs are not in evidence. 
So, take another look.  This President alone of all Presidents is told to refrain from nomination of a Justice because an election is 10 months away (Reagan was 18 months away from an election when he made three tries and finally got an appointment through during an election year!).  It is finally time to stop the cover-up. The Radical Right should tell us the blunt truth for once.  Say right out loud that you hate this guy and all he stands for and all he tried to do because he is a man of color, and make clear in plain English your belief that no Black man deserves to go down in history as an outstanding President or even as an accomplished one.  Not one.  Just say it.
This fatal bias has been there in all its disguised ugliness for all eight years of the Obama administration.  In fact, it has been around from before the beginning of our Revolutionary War and throughout our history, becoming most evident in critical manifestations:  civil war over slavery, reconstruction of the South, Jim Crow legislation, segregation practices, the Civil Rights movement of the 1960’s and now in a reactionary period following the election of our first African-American President. 
All this and more has bedeviled this country for its entire life and that bedevilment is not over.  The racial purists will continue their attacks even after Barack Obama leaves office.  They cannot allow themselves to stop, because just as they are now seeking to restrict the President as no other president has ever been restricted, they are planning what they can do to destroy this President’s legacy.  We know one thing from what they have already said and done: they will describe his presidency as the worst; as the most corrupt; as the ‘abominable legacy’ of a failed President.  Don’t believe it?  Wait and see.
We might want to remind ourselves that criticism of particular legislation, policy or program has happened before in our history.   But this particular vilification of President Obama, has been, and will continue to be, of a depth and character that reflects the worst of our human nature: the need to denigrate and degrade those who are different.  
The perpetrators of division and enmity are fools of course, but worse, they are destroyers, and fascist-like in their choice of a people to scapegoat and to annihilate, attempting to destroy one group in total favor of the inheritors of everything they believe to be exceptional and superior.  It is no accident that they use the word ‘exceptional’ to describe the perceived #1 status of this country and its (white) people.  Even when the U.S. ranks somewhere in the twenties or thirties among nations, they hide that failure and promote their "exceptionalism" which serves mainly to hide the bluntness of Aryan ‘superiority’ or ‘white supremacy.’
This is a pernicious flaw in the American experience.  And when racial bigotry comes out of the woodwork to once again bring this flaw into full force, it demeans us all.  This radical Republican emergence from the Tea Party Movement has also brought Fascist-like strategies and tactics to our country’s political process and it has not been pretty.  Strange that two strains run together: we have a sizeable group of white people supporting the election of our first Black President and another group openly promoting racism and bigotry that reacts in hate and denial to that very same election, and to the person who leads the free world.  
Now we have Republicans running for President who have allowed themselves the 'distinction' of sinking to the lowest levels of hypocrisy, xenophobia, and anti-democratic rantings, supported as always by the Screechers of Fox network.  It just so happens that even as the President took time from his recent vacation to acknowledge the passing of Justice Scalia, that a writer of dubious distinction could not restrain from a tirade of negativity regarding him, his demeanor and his appearance.  I put special emphasis on the key words of denigration just so you can be sure to recognize the not-so-veiled racist talk:
“President Obama’s official remarks Saturday on the death of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia have been derided as “a mess,” while one website reveals it followed hours of plotting to maximize the political opportunity Scalia’s death might provide the president. Kristinn Taylor, writing on The Gateway Pundit, called Obama’s announcement a “disrespectful presentation.” “When he did deign to interrupt his Washington’s Birthday holiday weekend vacation, Obama spoke to the nation from the press filing center in Rancho Mirage while not wearing a tie with his rumpled shirt collar open under a suit jacket,” she wrote. “Two-thirds through reading prepared remarks staged on the lectern, Obama placed both elbows on the lectern and finished the three-minute speech slouching on the lectern”

A lot of stumbling and bumbling by Obama through his obligatory remarks about Scalia. What a mess.
— Michelle Malkin (@michellemalkin) February 14, 2016


If you just read what I have bolded, italicized and underlined, you will have absorbed the distinct flavor of these bigoted and disrespectful remarks about the President of the United States.  He was clearly characterized as a sloppy mess with a plotting and disrespectful demeanor, just barely deigning to read prepared remarks that he stumbles and bumbles through in a mere three minutes while slouching on the lectern with elbows akimbo.  If you can’t understand the stereotypical profile being painted here of the stumbling bumbling, disrespectful, sloppy and slouching “darkie” characterized as the ‘fool’, then you will have missed the point entirely. It is a description teeming with salacious characterizations of black folk similar to the minstrel shows of old.
But perhaps more to the point is that bigots use such terms to indiscriminately characterize all ‘welfare queens,’ rappers, gang members, the jobless, homeless and felons, along with Black workers, families, churchgoers, teenagers and this particular President of the United States!  Stereotyping, profiling, discrimination, bigotry continue to fall upon all persons of color, and have by no means gone away. These forces are lurking everywhere in spite of the fact that President Obama was twice elected President by substantial margins.
Be sure to keep watch, Progressives.  While we herald the progressive accomplishments of President Obama, these Right-wing authoritarians (my euphemism for ‘Fascist’ or ‘Nazi’) will be hard at work attempting to destroy all they possibly can in relation to this two-term President. They will be relentless in their efforts to cast a slimy net over all the accomplishments of this administration.  They will desecrate and diminish even the following:
  • The undeniable fact that 18 million people who had no health insurance are now covered
  • The slowing of premium rate increases, the expansive use of Medicaid for coverage, the increase in consumer protection, and the elimination of private insurance scams such as total payment limits, the drug hole for seniors, the imposition of pre-existing conditions and the unequal treatment of women in terms of their health needs.
  • In his first year, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act created and sustained 2.1 million jobs and stimulated the economy 3.5%.  http://reut.rs/i46CEE
·         Obama completed the massive TARP financial and banking rescue plan, and recovered virtually all of its costs.   http://1.usa.gov/eA5jVS   http://bit.ly/eCNrD6
·         He created the Making Home Affordable home refinancing plan.  http://1.usa.gov/goy6zl

·         Obama oversaw the creation of more jobs in 2010 alone than Bush did in eight years, and has overseen an incredible streak of job creation, lowering of the unemployment rate and increase in manufacturing rates, including
·         a bailout of General Motors that saved at least 1.4 million jobs, and put pressure on the company to change its practices, resulting in GM returning to its place as the top car company in the world
·      Cutting the deficit by 2/3s since he came to office

  • The elimination of “don’t ask, don’t tell” in the military
  • The successful mission to eliminate the leader of Al Qaida, Osama bin Laden
  • The successful use of special ops forces to eliminate more than 30,000 members of terrorist forces, including many leaders of Al Qaida and of ISIS. (On December 7, 2015, the Washington Post reported that since 2001, in five theatres of the war (Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Syria and Somalia) that the total number of terrorists killed ranges from 65,800 to 8,600, with the Obama administration being responsible for between 30,000 and 33,000. [222 Wikipedia).
  •  Treaty with Iran to reduce their nuclear capability and the opening of trade with Cuba
  • The end of the original wars in Afghanistan and Iraq
  • The agreement on climate standards with 64 nations including China
  • Read much more at:  http://www.addictinginfo.org/2013/02/15/a-long-list-of-president-obamas-accomplishments-with-citations/

  • The compiler of these accomplishments  (addictinginfo.org) has this to say to critics:
“If you’re one of those folks who thinks President Obama is a “disappointment,” you haven’t been paying attention the last few years. And those of you who try to draw comparisons with the Bush Administration should put away the hallucinogens and have your memory checked.  If you were in a coma for the eight Bush Years, I apologize and forgive you. But please join the real world. So far, this president has done most of what he said he would do if elected; imagine what he could have done by now if progressives had supported him and not given him a Congress that doesn’t look at him as if he’s the demon seed.”
“Not only is he NOT a ‘disappointment,’ he’s pretty much the opposite. And no, I don’t just say that because he took out Osama bin Laden, helped Libya determine their own destiny for the first time in a while, and because he seems able to handle international incidents without starting a new war. The guy does nearly everything we elect a president to do, and he doesn’t brag about it constantly.”
In stark contrast to what the denizens of the radical Right are declaring about the President (too often from a bigoted point of view), let us begin to proclaim the opposite: that Barack Obama is the epitome of an accomplished and multi-tested President who should have every opportunity to nominate Justices to the Supreme Court.  With 12 years of teaching constitutional law at the University of Chicago (lacking in the backgrounds of most of his radical Republican critics), added to his substantial accomplishments, he should do it as speedily as he can.  After all, he has already wisely appointed the first Latina woman, Sonia Sotomayor, to the Supreme Court who had bi-partisan support when President George H.W. Bush appointed her in 1992 to the District Court for the Southern District of New York, and when President Clinton appointed her to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd District. 
 A writer for TruthDig.com brought forward the President’s experience in constitutional law as it applies to this situation:
“The president drew heavily upon his knowledge of America’s foundational text Tuesday as he attempted to school the opposition about what exactly the Constitution spells out for just this situation, as The New York Times reported:
‘The Constitution is pretty clear about what is supposed to happen now,’ Mr. Obama said during a news conference after a meeting in California with leaders of Southeast Asia. He said the Constitution demands that a president nominate someone for the court and the Senate either confirms or rejects.
‘There’s no unwritten law that says that it can only be done on off years,’ Mr. Obama said. ‘That’s not in the Constitutional text.’

Mr. Obama said he understood the political stakes of a nomination that could change the balance on the court. ‘I understand the pressure that Republican senators are now under,’ he said. ‘This would be a deciding vote.’
But the president said the Supreme Court ought to be above political gamesmanship. ‘This will be a test of whether rules, norms, and fair play can function at all in Washington,’ he said.
Meanwhile, Obama is doing his part to push a nominee through the inevitable roadblocks to the nation’s top court by carefully picking someone who, as he put it, is ‘indisputably qualified’ for the job.”
As for all of us who call ourselves Progressives, we should take this case to the public and keep the pressure on the Senate to do the right thing:  consider President Obama’s nominee on the merits of past decisions or votes, the outcomes of community and public involvement, and the judgment s/he displays.  While race, gender, or cultural background may be important in a nominee, they should not be deciding factors in whether or not to confirm.  Likewise, we must make the case that it is an entirely specious argument that we should wait for a Presidential election before anyone is nominated.  There is simply no constitutional, legal or even logical requirement for such a delay.  It is simply one more euphemistic production of the radical Right to demolish the legacy and legitimacy of this President.

2/08/2016

NATIONAL SERVICE INITIATIVE: Put Real 'Skin in the Game'


In the last post on this Blog, I attempted to start a discussion about one particular aspect of being a citizen: that as such one must put some ‘skin in the game.’  We talked a bit about the meaning of that phrase and came to the conclusion that its origin may have been in the world of finance, and may have been mostly used to indicate the commitment of an inside executive of a company.  In other words, if that inside executive used some of his or her own money to purchase company stock, he or she would be known as having ‘skin in the game.’  Taking that concept to a broader definition, we applied some key elements to the phrase ‘skin in the game’ as it might apply to a societal (political) movement, and came up with a few like:

v voluntary contribution
v investing directly with some self-risk
v a charitable or selfless motivation

v a sense of obligation

At this point, it probably makes sense to ask: how are we doing as citizens and as a leading democratic society in the area of meeting our obligations as citizens?  How much are we investing ourselves in activities and organizations that promote a service to others? And, how are we doing in terms of our overall commitment to national and community service?  I’ve picked out a few general categories by which to measure ourselves: Contributions to political campaigns, Voting, Charitable works, and Volunteerism.  Let’s have a look:

CONTRIBUTIONS to Political Campaigns:
The Nation.com reports somewhat shocking statistics related to the effects of the SCOTUS Citizens United decision:
§  Only 26,783 Americans donated more than $10,000 to federal campaigns in 2010—or, about one in 10,000 Americans. Their donations accounted for 24.3 percent of total campaign donations. [Sunlight Foundation]
§  Average donation from that elite group was $28,913. (The median individual income in America is $26,364) [Sunlight Foundation].  Amount the Karl Rove–led Crossroads GPS claimed it would spend on the 2012 elections: $240 million. [On the Media]
§  A shocking 72 percent of political advertising by outside groups in 2010 came from sources that were prohibited from spending money in 2006. [Committee for Economic Development]
§  In 2004, 97.9 percent of outside groups disclosed their donors. In 2010, 34.0 percent did. [Committee for Economic Development]
§  In 2012, totals in all elections included 2,354,232 individual contributions totaling $610,515,819. 
§  In 2014, there were 3,103,280 contributions totaling $1,124,379,388 (Followthemoney.org). 
§  Out of the total number of eligible voters, that would mean that in 2012, less than 11% actually made a campaign contribution, and probably less than that since some of those 2.3 million donors probably gave more than once.

VOTING Statistics (from Statistic Brain Research Institute)

Total number of Americans eligible to vote                                                   218,959,000
Total number of Americans registered to vote                                             146,311,000
Total number Americans voted in 2012 Presidential election                   126,144,000

Percent of Americans who voted in the 2012 Presidential election        57.5 %

[Want more Voter Registration by Demographic stats.? – see http://www.statisticbrain.com/voting-statistics/]

Top Reasons Cited for Not Voting  
Too busy conflicting schedule                17.5
Illness or disability                                    14.9
Not interested                                           13.4
Did not like candidates or issues            12.9
Out of town                                                  8.8
Don’t know                                                   7.0
Registration problems                                6.0
Inconvenient polling place                         2.7
Transportation problems                           2.6

CHARITABLE ACTIVITY:
Giving by individuals makes up the vast majority of contributions received by nonprofit organizations. Giving USA 2015 estimates that individual giving amounted to $258.51 billion in 2014, an increase of 7.1 percent in current dollars from 2013. This accounts for 72 percent of all contributions received in 2014. 

 For More Details:
Source: Giving USA 2015: The Annual Report on Philanthropy for the Year 2014 (Chicago: Giving USA Foundation, 2015), p. 26.

VOLUNTEERING:

 Table A.  Volunteers by selected characteristics, September 2012 through September 2014

(Numbers in thousands)                                                                                                                                                     

                                                                                                                                                                   September 2012        September 2013        September 2014  
                                                                                                                                              

                                                                                                                                                     

                                            Number     Percent    Number   Percent   Number   Percent  

                                                     

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        

                                                                                                                                                     
Total both sexes.......................   64,513       26.5     62,615       25.4      62,757       25.3  

Men....................................   27,238       23.2     26,404       22.2      26,375       22.0 

Women .................................   37,274       29.5     36,211       28.4      36,381       28.3 

                                                                                                                                                      

Age                                                                       

                                                                                                                                                      
Total, 16 years and over................   64,513       26.5     62,615       25.4     62,757       25.3 

16 to 24 years                             8,776       22.6      8,466       21.8      8,469       21.9 

25 to 34 years.........................    9,513       23.2      9,118       21.9      9,291       22.0 

35 to 44 years.........................   12,527       31.6     12,098       30.6     11,783       29.8 

45 to 54 years.........................   12,777       29.3     12,184       28.2     12,204       28.5 

55 to 64 years.........................   10,619       27.6     10,191       26.0     10,331       25.9 

65 years and over......................   10,301       24.4     10,558       24.1     10,679       23.6 

                                                                                                                                                     

Race and Hispanic or Latino ethnicity                                    

                                                                                                                                                     

White...................................   53,778       27.8     52,685       27.1     52,201       26.7 

Black or African American...............    6,316       21.1      5,637       18.5      6,094       19.7 

Asian...................................    2,524       19.6      2,525       19.0      2,513       18.2 

Hispanic or Latino ethnicity............    5,635       15.2      5,838       15.5      5,982       15.5 

                                                                                                                      Educational attainment                                                 

                                                                                                                                      

Less than a high school diploma.........    2,177        8.8      2,204        9.0      2,100        8.8 

High school graduates, no college ......   10,527       17.3     10,138       16.7     10,075       16.4 

Some college or associate degree........   15,832       28.7     15,562       27.7     15,494       27.3 

Bachelor's degree and higher    ........   27,202       42.2     26,244       39.8     26,619       39.4

The national government’s Corporation for National and Community Service (that oversees programs like VISTA, AmeriCorps, the Senior Corps including Foster Grandparents) boasts about its website that it is “home to the most comprehensive look at volunteering and civic life in the 50 states and 51 cities across the country.”  Here are the “Quick Stats” it presents for your consideration:

·        In 2013, one in four adults (25.4 percent) volunteered through an organization, demonstrating that volunteering remains an important activity for millions of Americans.

·        Altogether, 62.6 million Americans volunteered nearly 7.7 billion hours last year. Based on the Independent Sector's estimate of the average value of a volunteer hour, the estimated value of this volunteer service is nearly $173 billion.
  • More than 138 million Americans (62.5 percent) also engaged in "informal volunteering" in their communities, which includes helping neighbors with such tasks as watching each other's children, helping with shopping, or house sitting, and more than a third (36.3 percent) are involved in a school, civic, recreational, religious, or other organization.
  • The top volunteer activities included fundraising or selling items to raise money (25.4 percent); collecting, preparing, distributing, or serving food (24.2 percent); providing transportation and general labor support (19.6 percent); tutoring and teaching youth (18 percent); mentoring youth (17.3 percent); and lending professional and management expertise (15 percent).
  • Volunteers are almost twice as likely to donate to charity as non-volunteers. Nearly eight in 10 (79.2 percent) volunteers donated to charity, compared to four in 10 (40.4 percent) of non-volunteers. Overall, half of all citizens (50.7 percent) donated at least $25 to charity in 2013.
We can definitely learn some valuable insights from these raw statistics:
1)     We are a charitable nation; we do give large amounts of money and time to causes and politics.
2)     We have a core of volunteers at about 25% of the population who keep coming back to serve others year after year.
3)     Interestingly, the % of those volunteering by various age or racial groups does not vary to any great degree, but lack of education seems to be a very influential factor in terms of less giving, voting and volunteering.
4)     Individual charitable contributions are at the core of our giving – a huge 72%
5)     As a nation, we are pretty generous when one sees the amount given in total charitable contributions in 2014 -- $358.48 billion dollars – plus the amount our volunteer hours contribute - $173 billion!
6)     For all levels of educational attainment, volunteers were most likely to volunteer for religious organizations, followed by educational or youth service organizations.
But here’s the rub:  we are NOT necessarily world-leaders in terms of our degree of involvement by our citizens.  Here are some other items to consider:
A.    We seem satisfied to have just 25% of our population carrying the heavy need for volunteer work on behalf of others.
B.     We seem satisfied with an electorate that too often votes in numbers below 50% of those eligible to vote, and we seem satisfied that only 66.8% of eligible voters are even registered to vote!  Both Sweden and Australia, for example, manage to get more than 96 percent of their citizens on the books. The Swedes pull this off through virtually automatic enrollment.   Plus, the Swedes maintain a national database that includes the name, address, place of birth, and marital status of each individual.
C.     We seem to be a nation that is comfortable with a military made up of young men and women who volunteer their service on our behalf – a total of 1,429,036 on active duty (and another 1,100,000 in reserve).  Yet that number on active duty is only about 12% of those men and women who are eligible and fit for military service, and about 4.4% of the total population.  Reporting on this in 2011, the NY Times warned that less connection between the military and the rest of society could lead to less-informed decisions about whether to go to war, because conflicts and the people who fight them are not part of most people’s everyday lives.
D.    As a nation, we have allowed our electoral system to become infected and overwhelmed by the insidious dominance of large contributions from the richest individuals and corporations.  Individual and public tax contributions are not driving the system as they should, and the SCOTUS decision on Citizens United has left us with legal bribery by unknown donors as our accepted standard.  It is beyond disgraceful; it is appalling.
What needs to be said and recognized, in conclusion, is that we have the framework and some of the concepts that are needed for a revolution in our attitudes toward national and community service.  What you may not know is that the Corporation for National and Community Service touts one of the most important truths of our system of governance: “Volunteering and civic engagement are the cornerstone of a strong nation.”
And, little noticed outside the field of voluntarism is the tremendous effect that one of their early programs-- called “Learn and Serve”-- has had on our school-age young people.  The idea of volunteer work as part of the secondary school curriculum and activity (and its subsequent emphasis on college campuses) -- – now called “service learning” -- has engendered a sense of community service and volunteering as important facets not only of citizenship, but of life itself.  

If Hillary Clinton and/or Bernie Sanders want to change this country in a way that can have some lasting effects for all of us, then I suggest we add this to the national debate.  We need a national and community service initiative that implants the concept of service to the people of our nation and our communities as a necessity of citizenship; and let us not forget our relationship to the world at large.  The CNCS used to house the Peace Corps until the Reagan years, when it was moved over into the Department of State (where it probably belonged at that time) although one could question whether it got the attention it deserves in that environment. 
I am suggesting the inauguration of a movement toward national and community service that places some obligation and responsibility upon all citizens.  I hesitate to use the word “mandatory” but I believe that such service is as vital, crucial and integral to our political, economic and spiritual well-being as any rights or protections that we so vigorously proclaim. 
So Bernie – here’s a thought:  if you believe in single-payer health care and universal suffrage as rights and not privileges, how about touting a belief in universal service to this country as an inescapable responsibility of citizenship? 
And Hillary – if you believe, as I know you do, in the importance of family leave and women’s rights such as equal pay, and in the right of all children to a world-class education, how about adding the giving of service to community and nation as a responsibility incumbent upon all who can reasonably serve? 
And for all those right-wing candidates on the Republican side, I have something for you as well:  if you believe in the responsibility of each individual for his or her own welfare and advancement, how about providing a platform for every citizen to help, assist, create and mentor that responsibility.  And if you believe that every citizen has the responsibility to contribute to the welfare of this nation, not taking a handout but putting forth effort to pay taxes, get an education, be responsible family members and contribute to the economy, then how about getting on board the national service train because the volunteer efforts in this country are worth $173 billion last year alone, and they result in demonstrable PERSONAL GROWTH.  And, if every citizen is giving back to their country in one form of service or another, they will be contributing to their own advancement and to the welfare of other citizens and non-citizens alike. 
This national service movement is not a liberal or conservative idea – it is an American idea, with ideological principles and outcomes integral to each side of the political divide.  So get on-board.  Here’s an outline of my thoughts about this:
A.               NATIONAL SERVICE INITIATIVE
1)                  Urge Upon All Citizens beginning in grade school:  the equivalent of 4 years or 4,000 hours of community service donated over a lifetime or all at once 

a)                 Make it mandatory for some as an obligation to this country
(1)             Undocumented immigrants who want to earn a temporary visa and eventual citizenship
(2)             Anyone on parole or probation
(3)             Anyone sentenced to prison
(4)             Anyone in juvenile detention
(5)             Anyone convicted of a crime against persons or property
(6)             All corporations or businesses that receive tax dollars as a subsidy, rebate, incentive, or government contract
(7)             All persons who earn over $1 million the majority of which income has been derived from the coffers of government or the pocketbooks of ordinary citizens (and non-citizens)  

b)                Provide Incentives to volunteer for all citizens who do not already have access to:

(1)             Tax breaks
(2)             Scholarships
(3)             Grants
(4)             Loans
(5)             Stipend payments
(6)             Job training and internships
(7)             Child Care
(8)             Transportation
(9)             Healthy food
(10)         Tutoring
(11)         Mentoring

In other words, this national service program is also an opportunity to provide volunteer help to certain of the volunteers themselves to enable them to volunteer in the service of others, and to enrich their own lives at the same time.  It has already been demonstrated by the CNCS that community service is a two-way street that provides rewards for the nation, the recipients of services and for the volunteers who provide them. It’s a win-win-win proposition!  

c)                 Expand Choice of service

(1)             A Good Works Corps – dedicated to the revitalization of inner city communities

(2)             Neighborhood watch – not spying on others, but watching for, mentoring and developing future leaders

(3)             Mentoring – an indispensable tool for assisting in the positive development of young people

(4)             Expand CNCS programs – they are all worth expanding because they are proven to pay dividends

(5)             Establish stipended Volunteer Internships – start internships off on the right foot by paying something right away to people involved in training and continue stipend until a wage can be paid

(6)             Citizen Advisory Groups within public offices – we need ordinary citizens in the offices of government at all levels as auditors, advisers, and advocates for citizens

(7)             Allow CNCS to certify volunteer programs as qualified for required years or hours of national service

(8)             Allow informal volunteering to count toward quota – as above, define what these entail

(9)             Voluntary Military Service must be counted toward national service 

d)                Expand the Corporation for National and Community Service

(1)             Combine all current and new domestic programs under one roof

(2)             Consider bringing foreign programs such as Peace Corps under the CNCS if that would be productive and protective of these programs, and assure that goals and purposes are aligned between foreign and domestic programs

(3)             Bring in other volunteer programs that are now independent (if feasible) as Affiliates of National Service, such as:

(a)              Big Brothers-Big Sisters
(b)             Meals on Wheels
(c)              Habitat for Humanity
(d)             MADD
(e)              Volunteers for America
(f)               AARP
(g)             Global Vision International 

e)                 Expand Database to include all volunteer statistics (encrypt personal data)

f)                  As CNCS does now, expand efforts to involve all levels of government, as well as the private sector in the monetary and in-kind support of these efforts 

In essence, under this plan (except for the Military), the Corporation for National and Community Service would become a clearinghouse, a trainer of trainers, a repository of data and of resources, a broker, an advocate and a certifier of appropriate volunteer service as well as the certifier of those who meet their obligation of years or hours of national service.  However, instead of emphasizing only the aspect of meeting a quota, it would be the mandated duty of CNCS to broaden the concept of giving back to one’s nation and community as a life-long endeavor and responsibility.  It would be incumbent upon this agency to make real the aforementioned concept that
“Volunteering and civic engagement are the cornerstone of a strong nation.”
Do we need to remind ourselves of that potent phrase used by John F. Kennedy in his First Inaugural speech – it should be familiar -- and a national service movement should make it another cornerstone of its call to service:
“Ask NOT what your country can do for you; ask what YOU can do for your country.”
Going back even further to our origins, have we Americans lost sight of Thomas Jefferson's sense of active citizenship?  If a government body gives rights to the people, then those same people have certain responsibilities to uphold. This would be most obvious at a country or nation-state level, but could also be of wider scope (global citizenship). The implication is that an active citizen is one who fulfills both their rights and responsibilities in a balanced way. (Wikipedia)

I end this posting by saying that this proposal is but an outline of possibilities, and a work in progress.  There are other plans out there that should be considered.  Here are just a few links if you are interested in pursuing this subject further:

https://www.opm.gov/about-us/doing-business-with-opm/small-business-program/ --parallels some of the concept but for small businesses