“It is just the beginning of a sustained collaborative and focused effort to involve our greatest resource, our citizens in the work of remaking this nation,” the president said.
-- From "New legislation triples service program" by Nia-Malika Henderson, Politico 4/21/09
President Barack Obama signed legislation Tuesday to triple the size of the national service program, calling the expansion a new opportunity to connect “deeds to needs.”
“I’ve always believed that the answer to our challenges cannot come from government alone,” he said. “We need Americans willing to mentor our eager young children, or care for the sick or ease the strains of deployment on our military families.”
The bill, passed by Congress last month with bipartisan support, will create four new service corps: a Clean Energy Corps, a Healthy Futures Corps, a Veterans Service Corps and an Education Corps. It will also create a Summer of Service that will allow middle and high school students to earn $500 education awards.
Calling such programs “force multipliers,” Obama said they will leverage small numbers of people into thousands of volunteers. “We will focus their service towards solving today’s most pressing challenges,” he said.
Community service has been priority for Obama, who often talks about his stint as a community organizer on the South Side of Chicago as a turning point in his life. And Michelle Obama, who founded an AmeriCorps program in Chicago, is focusing on community service as first lady.
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From "New law to 'manage' 8 million 'volunteers' - Obama signs huge expansion of youth brigades legislation" by Bob Unruh © 2009 WorldNetDaily 4/21/09
President Obama today signed into law the "GIVE Act," H.R. 1388 ['Generations Invigorating Volunteerism and Education], which massively expands the National Service Corporation and allocates to it billions of dollars, and one executive for the program now says it will allow for the "managing" of up to 8 or 9 million people.
The bill includes a "National Service Reserve Corps" whose members have completed a "term of national service," "training" and "not less than 10 hours of volunteering each year."
Congress also is considering a "public service academy, a four-year institution that offers a federally funded undergraduate education with a focus on training future public sector leaders."
WND reported when the bill began its quick trip through Congress, and its original language called for a study of how best to implement a mandatory national service program for citizens of the United States.
Later the language was dropped from that bill, only to appear at the same time in another legislative proposal. That plan, H.R. 1444, now is in committee.
The plan also raises First Amendment issues over its limitations on what various corps participants are allowed to do.
For example, it states those in an "approved national service position" may not try to influence legislation, engage in protests or petitions, take positions on union organizing, engage in partisan political activities, or, among other issues, be "engaging in religious instruction, conducting worship services, providing instruction as part of a program that includes mandatory religious instruction or worship, constructing or operating facilities devoted to religious instruction or worship, maintaining facilities primarily or inherently devoted to religious instruction or worship, or engaging in any form of proselytization."
Judi McLeod of Canada Free Press wrote that the bill simply would turn everyone into a community organizer.
"There's no room for God in Obama's long promised Youth Brigade, no room to protest, petition, to boycott or to support a strike, and loopholes to give its mandatory membership a pass," she wrote. "Obama's plan requires anyone receiving school loans, among others to serve at least three months as part of the brigade."
Gary Wood at Examiner.com said it's part of Obama's plan to set up national service. He noted the explanation offered by White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel: "It's time for a real Patriot Act that brings out the patriot in all of us. We propose universal civilian service for every young American. Under this plan, all Americans between the ages of 18 and 25 will be asked to serve their country by going through three months of basic training, civil defense preparation and community service."
Duane Lester, writing at All American Blogger, put into words the worst fears of opponents.
"Hitler knew that if you control the youth, you control the future. I wrote about him in 'The Threats to Homeschooling: From Hitler to the NEA.' As I noted in that article, Hitler said: 'The Youth of today is ever the people of tomorrow. For this reason we have set before ourselves the task of innoculating our youth with the spirit of this community of the people at a very early age, at an age when human beings are still unperverted and therefore unspoiled,'" he wrote.
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