Archive - April 2017

  It’s bad enough we have a president who is described as a narcissist but it’s even worse when he is combined with a China policy that is schizophrenic. I was reminded of that condition the other day. I heard Sen. Cory Gardner, a 42-year-old Republican from Colorado, open a think tank’s discussion about China’s “fault lines”…and “instability.” He is chairman of the Senate foreign relations subcommittee on East Asia, the Pacific, and international cybersecurity policy. His remarks swerved from the threatening (“the United States will deploy every economic, diplomatic and, if necessary, every military tool at our disposal to deter Pyongyang and protect our allies”) to the conciliatory, recognizing that China’s rise has taken 500 million people out of poverty and hoping for a peaceful relationship. His talk echoed both the thundering and more reassuring cool breezes coming from on high in the Donald Trump administration. His secretary of . . .

Thanks to a ‘heads up’ from Leita Kaldi Davis (Senegal 1993-96) about the RPCV Gulf Coast, Florida group which has made great strides during the past few years fulfilling the Third goal of Peace Corps. The RPCVs have done a number of community projects: box gardens for children at a Sarasota library,  highway clean-up, sharing their Peace Corps experiences with library displays in Manatee and Sarasota Counties, making presentations to schools and colleges in the area, and a radio program of RPCV interviews. Their latest milestone was the presentation of an award of $800 to Project Light Manatee for exemplifying the spirit of the Third Goal, helping people in our community to become full-fledged and thus contributing members of the community.  Project Light teaches English to immigrants, mainly Hispanic and Haitian. It has been providing this important service to thousands of immigrants and others for twenty years or more.  Project Light was extremely . . .

Bill Moyers tells the story of how when he and Shriver went to talk to Vice President about getting the Peace Corps approved by Congress, LBJ took Moyers aside and told him, “don’t sell the Peace Corps, sell Shriver.” And that’s what Moyers did. Late in the afternoon—after a full day at the Peace Corps Headquarters in the Maiatico Building across from the White House and Lafayette Square –Shriver and Moyers would go downtown and “walk the halls of Congress” peering into open doorways to see who was still working and seek out Congressman and Senators as if they were two Girl Scout girls selling cookies. They’d introduce themselves and talk about the Peace Corps. Or Shriver would talk about what PCVs would do in the Third World and Moyers would “sell” Shriver and what this man could do with this new government diplomacy. Well, as we know, it worked. . . .

Last night on Hard Ball Chris Matthews (Swaziland 1968-70) was asking his panel for “something he didn’t know” and one commenter said the Secretary of State had gotten much of AID’s budget restored. Matthews asked immediately, “what about the Peace Corps?” The reply was “I think Peace Corps is okay, the politics behind it are so strong.” The reason that they are strong is that NPCV president Glen Blumhorst (Guatemala 1988-91) led the efforts to generate a record number of signatures from 175 members of Congress to sign a “Dear Colleague Letter” for funding for the Peace Corps at no less than $410m for FY 2018. Also significant was that the Peace Corps Director Carrie Hessler-Radelet spent the last two weeks of her directorship walking the halls of Congress talking to congressmen and senators about supporting for the agency in the upcoming budget. Rumors are that the Senate will also . . .

Carol Bellamy left the agency on May 1, 1995, and for several weeks it appeared that Harris Wofford (Ethiopia CD 1962-1964), a central figure in the creation of the agency, might become the new director. Clinton, however, had other plans and Wofford was asked by the president to take over and ‘save’ the new National Service Corporation. In August, Mark Gearan, then in the press office of the White House, and a political type, was named the next Peace Corps Director. Gearan was Director until August 1999, a total of four years and proved to be an outstanding director. I am indebted to Mark for taking an idea of mine—the Crisis Corps—and making it a reality. I had previously floated the idea of a “Crisis Corps” in a memo to Carol Bellamy who was intrigued by the idea but she didn’t last long at the agency. However, shortly after Gearan . . .

Thanks to the ‘heads up’ from Dan Campbell (El Salvador 1974-77) How to Reverse the Resentful, Unequal, Uncaring Parts of American Culture—-From the Atlantic Monthly A new book by Charles Peters (PCW/Staff 1961-65) looks to the past to address the problems of the contemporary United States Stories From Another Time, for Our Times: ‘We Dp Our Part’ James Fallows 8:42 AM / April 3, 2017 To the extent I spent any time studying in college, it was to learn about American history. The main impression the lectures and readings left on me was the realization that the country has always had big, serious problems. Slavery, violence, corruption, injustice—things were worst-ever during the Civil War, but if you choose your decade, you can name the corresponding set of failures and crises. As I think back to almost any stage in my own lifetime, I can tick off the emergencies of each . . .