It's just plain wrong

Opinion

Discussion

April 2, 2009

James Living, Moultrie The Moultrie Observer Thu Apr 02, 2009, 08:48 PM EDT

Rep. George Miller, a Democrat from California, tacked an amendment on H.R. 1388, entitled “Generations Invigorating Volunteerism and Education Act,” or GIVE, Obama's plan to require mandatory service for all able young people. Miller’s amendment will “prohibit organizations from attempting to influence legislation; organize or engage in protests, petitions, boycotts, or strikes; and assist, promote, or deter union organizing,” according to GovTrack.us, a site that tracks Congress.

Requiring the government to develop a plan for indentured servitude, would deny millions of people their right to oppose and organize against government legislation under the First Amendment.

Section 120 of the bill discusses the “Youth Engagement Zone Program” and states that “service learning” will be “a mandatory part of the curriculum in all of the secondary schools served by the local educational agency.” This part remains in the version passed by the Senate.

Roles which will be staffed by members of the programs, labeled “Required National Service Corps,” include “criminal justice,” “environmental stewardship,” and “public safety”.

Aside from the programs aimed at college students and young people, others will be specifically targeted towards, “Retired and other former law enforcement, fire, rescue, and emergency personnel, and other individuals with backgrounds in disaster preparedness, relief, and recovery.”

The bill was rubber stamped by the Senate in a 74 to 14 motion, in what is described as a “procedural vote,” a move that creates “An army dispersed to help with education, health services and the environment, (which) would vastly enlarge the notion of “community organizing,” and allow, as Senator Barbara Mikulski, Democrat of Maryland, said tonight, for about 7 million people to be engaged in such work,” reports the New York Times.

The GIVE Act is just one of many pieces of legislation that vastly expand service organizations in line with Obama?s agenda to create a “national civilian security force”.

In January it was reported the introduction by the Department of Defense of a “civilian expeditionary workforce” that will see American civilians trained and equipped to deploy overseas in support of worldwide military missions.

The DOD report states, “Management retains the authority to direct and assign civilian employees, either voluntarily, involuntarily, or on an unexpected basis to accomplish the DoD mission.”

Another program which involves hundreds of police, firefighters, paramedics and utility workers recently trained and dispatched as “Terrorism Liaison Officers” in Colorado, Arizona and California are called to watch for “suspicious activity” which is logged then later fed into a government database.

Other programs include the Service For All Ages Initiative, the Summer of Service Act, the Semester of Service Act, the Encore Service Act and the ACTION Act.

The passage of such shocking legislation with barely a whimper from political activist groups goes to show how well the corporate media has performed in camouflaging the legislation with flowery characterizations of helpful volunteerism, when in reality the bill creates the pretext for mandatory national service and the creation of a multi-million man domestic civil defense unit who will be tasked with spying on their fellow Americans under the justification of security.

There is nothing wrong with doing volunteer work, it makes people feel good about helping others and it provides a service.

To make it mandatory with that person not being able to even protest about having to do it is one against the First Amendment and just plain wrong. This is about compulsory service for your children as young as your middle schooler, Wake Up.

James Living

Moultrie

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