The 45th anniversary of the Peace Corps passed quietly in March because no major news media even took notice. The Peace Corps? Does it still exist, I asked myself? You never hear about it. Has President Bush even mentioned it once in the past 6 years? I don't think so. Why? Because we live in a military culture. Does anyone wrap a yellow ribbon around the old oak tree for the Peace Corps troops? Hell, no! Somebody's making a fortune with those little magnetic yellow ribbons you see attached to every other car. The Peace Corps is entirely forgotten about. They're probably a bunch of tree huggers, liberals and do-gooders. Semper Fi, Peace Corps volunteers!
All this emotinalism that's attached to the military. Honor! Patriotism! Heroes! Purple Hearts! Do they give Purple Hearts to Peace Corps troops who get murdered or die from some godforsaken disease they catch in equatorial Africa? No. You never hear about them. The Rockets Red Glare! The Bombs Bursting in Air! All our patriotic paraphernalia is concerned with war. From the Halls of Montezuma! To the Shores of Tripoli! Over Hill, Over Dale. We have hit the dusty trail. Over there! Over there!
No emotionalism about the Peace Corps! That's why there's a poor prognosis that the human race will even survive. Human beings are war lovers, not peace lovers. Look at how much is spent on the military budget compared to what is spent on the Peace Budget:
U.S. Military Spending
The United States, being the most formidable military power, it is worth looking at their spending.
The U.S. military budget request by the Bush Administration for Fiscal Year 2007 is $462.7 billion. (This includes the Defense Department budget, funding for the Department of Energy (which includes nuclear weapons) and “other” which the source does not define. It does not include other items such as money for the Afghan and Iraq wars—$50 billion for Fiscal Year 2007 and an extra $70 billion for FY 2006, on top of the $50 billion approved by Congress.)
- For Fiscal Year 2006 it was $441.6 billion
- For Fiscal Year 2005 it was $420.7 billion
- For Fiscal Year 2004 it was $399.1 billion.
- For Fiscal Year 2003 it was $396.1 billion.
- For Fiscal Year 2002 it was $343.2 billion.
- For Fiscal Year 2001 it was $305 billion. And Congress had increased that budget request to $310 billion.
- This was up from approximately $288.8 billion, in 2000.
These figures typically do not include combat figures, so 2001 onwards, the Afghan war, and 2003 onwards, the Iraq war costs are not in this budget. As of early 2006, Congress had already approved an additional funding total of $300 billion for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Now what is the budget for the Peace Corps - a paltry $318.8 million for FY 2006 - a drop in the bucket! We value war a thousand times more than we value peace! Does one in a milllion Americans know who the Director of the Peace Corps is? Why not? He's in the news all the time, isn't he? We all know Donald Rumsfeld, the Secretary of Defense. (It should be changed to Secretary of War because that's what he really is. Isn't there supposed to be Truth in Marketing here?) The Peace Corps Director's name is Gaddi H. Vasquez. Ever heard of him?
Well, how many people are there in the Peace Corps compared to the Armed Forces. 7810 in the Peace Corps. Over 2.6 million in the armed forces. On the order of a thousand times more people! Both budget and manpower for the military are on the order of a thousand times more than the budget and manpower for the Peace Corps. Well, who mainly joins? Young people right out of college and senior citizens. Up to 80% of Peace Corps volunteers are between the ages of 22 and 25. But then the Peace Corps is hard to get into. According to AdventureDivas, three times as many applications are received annually as there are positions available. America puts it's money where it's mouth is: war, not peace! Is there a cabinet level position for Secretary of Peace? Give me a break!
Since the Peace Corps was created by President Kennedy in 1961, 182,000 people have served in it to date. How many people have served in the military since that date? Probably about a thousand times that many according to the above ratios.
Three simple goals comprise the Peace Corps' mission:
1. Helping the people of interested countries in meeting their needs for trained men and women. 2. Helping promote a better understanding of Americans on the part of the peoples served. 3. Helping promote a better understanding of other peoples on the part of all Americans.
Hmmm. It doesn't say anything here about providing the basic necessities for the poverty-stricken of the world such as clean water, health care, agriculture, housing, education etc. Must have been the language Kennedy had to use to sell it to Congress who probably saw it as a big propagandistic device for the US to combat the impressions rendered in The Ugly American.
It is fitting that the Project for the New American Century says nothing about eradicating poverty and disease for the majority of the world's people who live on less than a dollar a day. It's all about exercising American power in the world: American military power. Honor! Country! Patriotism! Semper Fi! The Destruction of the Human Race: coming shortly to a world near you. When peace culture becomes as fashionable and as emotionally dear to our hearts as military culture, then maybe there might be a positive outcome for homo sapiens. Until then I'm betting on the Neanderthals who lasted 250,000 years on the planet. We've got 100,000 to go to beat their record. Think we'll make it? Don't bet on it.
