USA Freedom Corps, Citizen Corps, Americorps, Senior Corps, Peace Corps

USA Freedom Corps---JOHN BRIDGELAND
Citizen Volunteers---National Service

Isn't the priority that the State exists for the citizen, and not the other way around ?
(the citizen for the State).
The latter invites abuse and absolute power, which corrupts absolutely.

Clark wants citizens to replace National Guard --October 19, 2003
Gen. Wesley K. Clark called yesterday for a national service program, envisioning a voluntary civilian reserve that would allow people to be activated in times of national need.
General Clark, who is retired from the Army, was the latest Democrat to embrace the concept of national service. Under his proposal, people would register their skills and talents and be on call for five years. A tour of service would be six months.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/15/politics/campaigns/15CLAR.html?fta=y

Volunteerism: Servitude or Slavery ?
http://www.newswithviews.com/Betty/Freauf17.htm

In John Bridgeland's own words:
Service could be military or civilian; serve great national purposes or local community needs; be domestic or international. It's also clear that two years of service is within reach. Currently, 44 percent of Americans serve, on average, about 187 hours per year. So that service -- maybe a young person coming out of high school or college could go into an activity and serve their country for one or two years. Or a senior entering retirement could go and serve their country for one or two years.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/01/20020130-13.html
Ed note: the time of service is 2 years. Yet how many times have we seen military service extended beyond their expressed dates ? Could abuse come into this program and then "service" would be at the will of the government ?
It's something to think about. What happened to private enterprise and the capitalistic system? If there are needs out there, there certainly could be businesses that could fulfill those needs.

Please see 1 Samuel 8: 11-18

Bridgeland and Faith-based
Mr. Bush introduced Mr. Bridgeland, 41, in Winston-Salem and said his adviser would be accountable for carrying out his vision. Mr. Bridgeland, who has been involved in the president's faith-based initiatives, will move into the new post from the White House Domestic Policy Council.
A new Citizens Corps will encourage people to help with homeland security by volunteering with police, neighborhood watch, emergency response and medical reserve programs. Communities would receive federal matching money to establish new citizen corps councils made up of civic leaders. The councils would develop action plans and identify potential security threats.
http://enquirer.com/editions/2002/01/31/loc_volunteer_leader_has.html

Homeland DEFENSE : A Call to the CHURCHES
by Bob Just (he thinks it's a good idea to turn churches into snoops and tattle-tales )
neighbors spying on neighbors (forget about the terrorists)
We need people who are already somewhat known to their community, and who are organized in every state, every city and every town. In sum, we need America's churches.
How to rally the churches to the cause and how to build a system around them, responsive to the needs of law enforcement and homeland defense, is another question. The following may provide some answers. ...The solution seemed obvious. Get lots of people involved – giving each one only a limited responsibility – patrolling the community as the eyes and ears of law enforcement....
Groups like Promise Keepers had encouraged Christian men to be more visible, to better fulfill their family, church and community responsibilities. It was in this atmosphere that I, along with two other men, Bill Evensen and Jeff Boone, formed Concerned Fathers Against Crime, beginning patrols in October of 1994....
Yet understandably, in the beginning, there were doubts. Even our board of directors was wary in forming the group. No one wanted a bunch of hothead, vigilante types running around the community. No one wanted "wannabe cops." We deliberated on this for some time. Of course there would have to be background checks. We knew that in order
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=25961
Ed note: We think it is a VERY BAD idea to turn churches into civic duty patrols

Freedom Corps to oversee: Citizen Corps, Senior Corps, Americorps and Peace Corps
"Where the "corps" is , there will the eagles be gathered". [ "corps" = "body" ]
http://www.msnbc.com/news/696325.asp
All of these corps are tied into a type of neighbor-watch and police program, with a HOTLINE.

"Trust ye not in a friend, put ye not confidence in a guide: keep the doors of thy mouth from her that lieth in thy bosom.
For the son dishonoureth the father, the daughter rises up against her mother, the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.
A man's enemies are the men of his own house." MICAH 7: 5, 6
See also Matthew 10:36-39 and Luke 12:51-53

"Volunteerism" to become LAW ( with help of John McCain)
"A Web site and toll-free number were up and running first thing Wednesday, but turning presidential vision into actual armies of new volunteer patrols will take congressional approval. Bush said he was counting on political rival Sen. John McCain to help make the new volunteer program law and win the federal money to pay for it. McCain, R-Ariz., campaigned against Bush in the 2000 primaries on, among other issues, the theme of national service."
http://ocregister.com/nation_world/31bush2cci1.shtml

USA Freedom Corp ... Jan 29-2002-www.usafreedomcorps.gov

Bush Remarks on Freedom Corps--July 30-2002
( Spoken as a lamb : Patriotism as a religious duty )
"part of a cultural change" [ Ed. note: What will we change our Judeo-Christian culture to ????]
make service a more central part of American life.
Gale Norton, Bob Dole, Steve Goldsmith, Les Lenkowsky
Corporation for National Community Service, ... the Network for Good, ...Walt Disney Company.
A new culture of service:
commit at least two years, 4,000 hours over the rest of your life, to service for neighbors and our nation.

We're promoting service to prepare for crises at home, to strengthen our communities, to help people in need,
VolunteerMatch, a group that matches volunteers to charities on the USA Freedom Corps web page

Businesses are offering employees annual paid leave to perform community service.

Citizen Service Act, which incorporates many of the principles to strengthen and reform national service programs.
" Everyone can do something" [note: especially is you're coerced]
an effort that includes radio and print and the Internet. To support Americans who will respond to the call to service, we are launching the new USA Freedom Corps Volunteer Network, which is the most comprehensive volunteer clearinghouse ever. The network connects Americans to service opportunities throughout more than 50,000 organizations, including America's Promise and the National Mentoring Partnership, the Points of Light Foundation, SERVEnet and the United Way and VolunteerMatch
http://www.usnewswire.com/topnews/prime/0730-137.html

National Service--"Compassion Fascism"...Feb 25-2002 by Miguel A Faria,jr MD
Writing in Investor's Business Daily, even before President Bush's remarks, James Bovard revealed presciently that "fighting terrorism" has become an excuse to expand state power and government bureaucracies...

But it is more perverse than that. When National Service (or Community Service, as we shall see) is directed by the State, it easily becomes perverted into compulsory service, regardless of the purported good intentions behind it.
And if it is compulsory, then it's not freely exercised or given charitably, but required – in other words, obligatory. And if it is obligatory, then it cannot be a USA Freedom Corps but is instead an alien form of compulsory fascism. It is not American, or voluntary, or anything remotely associated with our legacy of freedom.

National Service and compulsory Community Service have their roots in authoritarianism and collectivism – e.g., the Total State of Benito Mussolini (compassion fascism), the Soviet Communism of Lenin and Stalin, Nazi Germany (Hitler Youth), the Little Red Book of Mao-Tse-Tung (the Red Guards), and in my native Cuba, the Young Pioneers of dictator Fidel Castro. (3)
First, NS is about forcing citizens to work for the economic benefit of the State. Likewise, CS is about teaching the young to conform in society – for the same ultimate benefit of the State.
Second, when NS and CS are obligatory, the work of citizens is not freely given. It is not charity. It is not even altruism. It is obligatory, and thus deprived of genuine good faith and volunteerism.....

It is interesting that when CS becomes NS, required and enforced by the State, it is the government that decides what qualifies as "service," not the individual. Work that Christian groups want to perform frequently doesn't qualify as "service." (4)

The legislation "will not pass if I can help it," Armey told CNSNews.com. "America is great at giving from the heart, but I think it is a bad idea for government to mandate voluntarism." (6)
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2002/2/22/150218.shtml

When is Volunteerism not volunteerism ? When it's mandated.

Businesses and charities do not mix.

Citizen Corps www.citizencorps.gov ...the one to watch

Bush calls on retired to volunteer; wants 200,000--June 1-2002
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - With America on alert for another attack, President Bush (news - web sites) called on Saturday for a volunteer army of retired police officers, doctors and utility workers to be on watch for danger and respond to emergencies in their communities.
Tapping into the wave of patriotism generated by the Sept. 11 strikes, Bush has proposed an unprecedented expansion of volunteer programs, including the new Citizen Corps to help fight terrorism at the local level, an expanded Peace Corps for overseas service, and a Senior Corps for older Americans.
Bush has vowed to quickly dispatch American volunteers to Afghanistan (news - web sites) and other Muslim nations to spread "the universal values we hold so dear."
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=578&ncid=578&e=6&u=/nm/20020601/ts_nm/bush_volunteers_dc_1

Operation TIPS : Volunteer efforts "to spot suspicious or threatening activity"..Jan 31-2002
none dare call it spying: neighbor watching neighbor
"If you want to fight evil, we've figured out a way to do so militarily," the president said to a coliseum full of police officers, firefighters and GOP faithful. Tying national service to the war effort as he did in his Tuesday address, Bush added: "But at home, you fight evil with acts of goodness"
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A64678-2002Jan30.html

Feb. 8-2002.......
FEMA to set up training camps for 400,000 Citizen Corps volunteers around the country
Trained for Police work etc.
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20020206-50920568.htm

Citizen Corps--to fight terrorism at the local level.... (a John McCain idea ? )
Seeking 200,000 "volunteers" (mostly from the working class)
"The Citizen Corps will consist of locally organized programs such as those enlisting civilians to help police and fire officials, retired medical workers to help in the event of disaster, and expanded neighborhood watch programs.
Truck drivers, letter carriers [postmen / women] , train conductors and other transportation workers would be enlisted to stay alert for danger and report threats to a national hotline.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency [ FEMA ] will coordinate the Citizen Corps nationally. http://sg.news.yahoo.com/reuters/asia-86978.html

A "new Spirit" and a new culture...hmmmm sounds Biblical
http://chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0201310223jan31.story?coll=chi-newsnationworld-hed

THE AMERICAN CHARACTER.....weak and materialistic ??
" In a message that occasionally took on an almost religious fervor, Bush talked at each stop about
“the enemy watching too much daytime TV” and thus concluding that Americans were
decadent, effete [ no longer capable of producing, sterile]and self-indulgent, that Americans would not fight to defend themselves and would instead cower in the face of terrorism."
http://www.msnbc.com/news/696325.asp?0si=-
If Bush wants to change our culture, does he believe what the enemy says?
If he doesn't believe it, why change our culture ?

Americorp has 50,000 volunteers (young people)
Senior Corps has 500,000 (elderly)
Peace Corps has 7,000.....they want it expanded to 15,000 (sent to Islamic areas)

Bush Vows to Defeat terror, recession
"Praising what he called the "culture of responsibility" that has grown since the attacks, Bush said he wants to double the size of the 7,000-strong Peace Corps, and he challenged
all Americans to commit at least two years, or 4,000 hours, to public service over their lifetimes....
To coordinate such individual generosity, he said, the government will create a new
"U.S.A. Freedom Corps" as an umbrella organization that will focus on responding to "crises at home,
rebuilding our communities and extending American compassion throughout the world."
It would essentially add a homeland security component to the Peace Corps that began under the Democratic Kennedy administration of the 1960s and to the Corporation for National and Community Service, which was created under President Bill Clinton."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A58475-2002Jan29.html

Volunteerism to become mandatory ?
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/fr/621160/posts

Hitching Civic, Economic goals to the War...Jan 29-2002
" significant expansions of his earlier interest in community service at home and the spread of American values overseas. In the context of a fight against terrorism, they intertwine foreign and domestic issues. The expanded Peace Corps proposal makes the domestic foreign by taking American values to the Muslim world. The expanded Americorps makes the foreign domestic by making homeland defense a key part of volunteer service."
CHANGE OUR CULTURE
[ why? ? We have / had a Christian culture....what will the new culture be ???]
"This time of adversity offers a unique moment of opportunity,
a moment we must seize to change our culture," Bush said.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A58440-2002Jan29.html

Is it really "volunteerism" when it is mandated ???
State of the Union Address...Jan 29-2002
"My call tonight is for every American to commit at least two years -- 4,000 hours -- over the rest of your lifetime to the service of your neighbors and your nation.

Many are already serving, and I thank you. If you aren't sure how to help, I've got a good place to start. To sustain and extend the best that has emerged in America, I invite you to join the new USA Freedom Corps. The Freedom Corps will focus on three areas of need: responding in case of crisis at home, rebuilding our communities, and extending American compassion throughout the world.

One purpose of the USA Freedom Corps will be homeland security. America needs retired doctors and nurses who can be mobilized in major emergencies, volunteers to help police and fire departments, transportation and utility workers well trained in spotting danger.

Our country also needs citizens working to rebuild our communities. We need mentors to love children, especially children whose parents are in prison. And we need more talented teachers in troubled schools.

USA Freedom Corps will expand and improve the good efforts of AmeriCorps and Senior Corps
to recruit more than 200,000 new volunteers.

And America needs citizens to extend the compassion of our country to every part of the world, so we will renew the promise of the Peace Corps, double its volunteers over the next five years and ask it to join a new effort to encourage development and education and opportunity in the Islamic world."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A58727-2002Jan29.html

Salvation www.cybertime.net/~ajgood/sal.htm
Bible www.blueletterbible.org