AmeriCorps: Salvation via Hand-Holding
Bovard, James
Arabian Fables (I) How the Arabs soften up world opinion with fanciful myths. Josef Goebbels, the infamous propaganda minister of the Nazis, had it right. Just tell people big lies often enough...
...Rising Democratic star Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, Maryland's lieutenant governor, backed k a law that imposed compulsory service on high school students in her state...
...In appealing for support to expand the program, he said he wants "to use this moment to prove that this generation of young people, far from being a generation of cynics and slackers, is instead a generation of doers and patriots...
...Parts of this article are adapted from his book "Feeling Your Pain": The Explosion and Abuse of Government Power in the Clinton-Gore Years, forthcoming from St...
...9 In Los Angeles, AmeriCorps recruits busied themselves sewing a quilt to send to victims of the Oklahoma City bombing-but never bothered to finish the project...
...Again, this is a concept t h a t did not exist until 1948, when the army of the Kingdom of Transjordan, together with five o t h e r Arab armies, invaded the Jewish state of I s r a e l , on the v e r y day of its c r e a t i o n . In what can almost be described as a Biblical miracle, the ragtag Jewish forces defeated the combined Arab might...
...Many projects promise t 4,m0 ~ , ~ ~ l t ~ J grdUUdLt)U ~ "raise community awareness," empower" low-income citizens, and ool, don't "address human needs" of targeted groups...
...In practice, AmeriCorps operates more like a federal relief program for nightclub comics: _9 In San Diego, AmeriCorps recruits carried out the "First Annual Undergarment Drive," a high-profile campaign to collect used bras, panties, and pantyhose for a local women's center...
...dole, and the money they collect from AmeriCorps (unlike money from a private job) does not affect how much they receive in food stamps or housing subsidies...
...Babble like this has gotten Townsend mentioned as a possible Gore running mate-a prospect i i = _9 'S claiming which could ensure that AmeriCorps continues squandering hundreds of e hours for millions ofdollars a year for many years to come...
...When asked about the The American Spectator "July~August 2ooo 51 AmeriCorps program, MACE Direc...
...AmeriCorps effectively is paying nearly $5 ~ an hour for tutoring by individuals with meager reading ability...
...Martin's Press in September...
...of Newspaper Editors on April 15, 1999, a small army of AmeriCorps members was at the airport to ]nail his arrival...
...How then could the Israelis possibly be "occupiers" in their own territory...
...It insists it can teach them to read...
...They received no response, AmeriCorps grantees have repeat- members, ed]ybeen caught in political scandals...
...The attempt, quite successful, was to persuade an uninformed world that these territories were ancestral parts of the Jordanian Arab Kingdom (itself a very recent creation of British power diplomacy...
...But they are no distinct nationality at all...
...In Washington state, the Whatcom Human Rights Task Force uses AmeriCorps members to "organize the Hispanic Population...
...Clinton and other defenders claim that AmeriCorps is a big success because recruits "]everaged" their efforts by persuading other people to volunteer more hours of charity work...
...The last sovereign in Judea/Samaria and in Gaza was the British mandatory power - - and before it was the Ottoman Empire...
...both A1 Gore and Bill Bradley visited its headquarters within a three-day period in June 1999...
...Clinton, in his final budget, proposed to double AmeriCorps to lo0,o0o members by 2o04 and to increase its budget from $433 million to $533 million...
...One college graduate with the AmeriCorps National Conservation Corps program bitterly commented in his resignation letter: "There are no new projects...
...AmeriCorps gave over a million dollars to ACORN (Association of Community, Organizations for Reform Now), a radical group involved in political action and confrontations...
...In his speeches Wofford often mentions his own character-building experience in the Army Air Corps in World War II--but neglects to mention he never saw combat, as chiefflack Tara Murphy concedes...
...and so much more...
...One of his first tasks was to solicit federal funding to pay for committee meetings on forestry issues...
...After the victorious Six-Day War, during which the Israeli army defeated the same cabal of Arabs that had invaded the country in 1948, Israel regained possession of Judea/Samaria, which the Jordanians had illegally occupied for 19 years...
...Beyond Food/DC set up a hotline that referred people to local food stamp offices...
...Beginning with zo,o0o recruits a year in 1994, by 1999 AmeriCorps had 5o,ooo on the payroll (many of whom worked only part-time...
...What a shame t h a t the world has accepted most o f it...
...9 In New Jersey, AmeriCorps members are busy recruiting middle-class families to accept subsidized federal health insurance for their children under Clinton's new "Kiddie Care" program...
...Unable so far to destroy Israel on the battlefield - - though they are feverishly preparing for their next assault - - the Arabs are now trying to overcome and destroy Israel by their acknowledged "policy of stages...
...The Arabs who now call themselves "Palestinians" do so in order to persuade a misinformed world that they are a distinct nationality and that "Palestine" is their ancestral homeland...
...National parks abysmally eertifiq fail to maintain their trails and other facilities...
...The Arabs have learned t h a t lesson well...
...as the grant application noted, "All tenants in Section 8 [federal rental subsidies] buildings will have to make sure that Congress provides funds each year...
...The "Occupied Territories...
...When told of reports that L AmeriCorps members were going doorto-door telling people about food stamps, Woods admitted workers drove people directly to the food stamp offices --but did not go inside with them because that would be illegal...
...The project appears designed in part to recruit young people...
...That &neriCorps program directors believe that such things can be easily quantified raises severe doubts about their competence for any task more complex than picking up beer cans along a highway...
...In his 1995 State of the Union, Clinton saluted AmeriCorps as "citizenship at its best...
...But she also i[ emphatically noted that it would be ! illegal for AmeriCorps members to directly advocate that people go on food stamps...
...These claims are nonsense...
...Let's not overlook AmeriCorps members themselves, who are expected to develop personally and professionally during their time on the government payToll...
...Energy Express, one of AmeriCorps' premier literacy programs, enrolls 6oo college students to teach in West Virginia classrooms each summer...
...Internal files at AmeriCorps headquarters, however, show that the project had nothing to do with poverty...
...9 In Chicago, members compiled - a directory of welfare programs avail: ' r ~ ;,S ~ ' able for female Job Corps members, _~ specifying addresses, contact numbers, _9 and other pertinent information to k help trainees get food stamps, subsidized daycare, and public housing...
...The "West Bank...
...many of the program's supporters hope that AmeriCorps will be a stepping stone to laws compelling all young Americans to surrender their time in government-approved "service" activities...
...2uneriCorps canceled its involvement with ACORN after revelations that federal money had been directly used for advocacy-but AmeriCorps management made no real effort to get ACORN to refund the ill-spent money...
...Kit Bond (R-Mo...
...One of its goals is that "an additional 500 people will be referred to appropriate services to satisfy their food needs...
...The web of lies and myths that the Arab propaganda machine has created plays an important role in the unrelenting quest to destroy the State of Israel...
...Teams are sent to the same state parks over and over again...
...reduces our reliance on government by ! ~ mobilizing citizen action...
...AmeriCorps Executive Director Deb Jospin warned in a 1997 internal memo that"the LAGLG is a wellknown advocacy organization...
...A grant to the National Association of HUD Tenants pays for AmeriCorps members to "door knock and organize general meetings in each selected [subsidized] development," as does a separate grant to the Gray Panthers of Rhode Island...
...Almost all of our revenue pays for our educational work, for these clarifying messages, and for related direct mail...
...The goal was to enroll "75 % of surveyed rural Mississippi residents who are eligible for food stamps, but are not receiving them...
...She praised Clinton at a February z999 AmeriCorps pep rally: "You call out the best in our citizens...
...AmeriCorps is paying for four members to work with the Political Asylum Project of Austin, Texas...
...The average recruit costs AmeriCorps and its sponsors more than $23,ooo the equivalent of almost $12 an hour for minimum-wage tasks...
...If these actions fail to incite public opinion, an AmeriCorps member will "organize rallies as needed," according to the organization's successful grant application...
...In testimony submitted to the Senate Appropriations Committee in 1998, Wofford claimed of one summer program: "AmeriCorps members provided support to 3,544 students and improved testing scores in mathematics, language arts, science, and literature in all sites, 16 cities, by 63 percent to 97 percent...
...The concept of the "West Bank" is a myth...
...one objective is to "develop relationships with other area service providers who can help youth explore their sexual orientation effectively and build a referral network of people informed about sexual orientation issues...
...When President Clinton arrived in San Francisco to speak to the American Soeieb...
...Some AmeriCorps programs take welfare recipients offthe streets and send them into classrooms as reading tutors...
...9 One New York City AmeriCorps project states that its top goal is to "set up and administer programs to mobilize private sector resources to lessen the burdens of government agencies...
...The result is a profusion of goals that look as if they were lifted from a Dilbert cartoon: _9 MACE AmeriCorps members were obliged to "Give a reflection and self-assessment...
...Some AmeriCorps officials were concerned about this project even before it was launched...
...AmeriCorps members get paid for the time they spend cheering the president...
...AmeriCorps has poured millions of dollars into organizations fighting for rent control and federal housing subsidies...
...As a result, each member would achieve % 75% increase on average in understanding about self...
...there was The Palestine Post...
...The others are in Vermont, Wisconsin, and Washington, D.C...
...AmeriCorps members often do little more than attempt to patch holes ~ re I resulting from the failures of other government programs...
...The concept of "occupied territories" in reference to Judea/Samaria and Gaza is an Arab propaganda myth...
...Yet welfare recipients are among the least literate groups in American society...
...We found that a lot of them were still studying for their GED--it made no sense to me...
...The IG also reported in 1998: "Only 3 of 14 cooperative agreement files contained evidence of [AmeriCorps] monitoring and oversight of grantee activities...
...responded, "Does that mean that school testing scores are so low that you can improve scores essentially by lOO percent...
...More than 93 million Americans work as unpaid volunteers each year...
...Br~ve New Volunteer .6tdte IfAmeriCorps helped at a barn-raising, members would later claim not just to have helped someone build a barn-but swear they also redeemed the person's self-esteem, gave him a purpose in life, and introduced him to multiculturalism and diversity...
...Pete Hoekstra, the pro. . . . . . . . . . gram's most vigilant critic, and Rep...
...Many recruits are on the JAMES BOVAnD is a Washington writer...
...A study by Independent Sector, a coalition of voluntary organizations, found that AmeriCorps members were actually responsible for only a "3.5 percent increase in hours volunteered by genuine volunteers...
...The Illiterate Leading the Illiterate AmeriCorps has an even more surefire way to show its concern for children...
...Write at least sLx press releases...
...and of the Golan Heights, a plateau the size of Queens, which, though originally p a r t of Palestine, had been assigned to Syria by British-French agreement...
...The Mississippi legislature created the assistant teacher program in 198z to boost literacy in Mississippi's worst schools...
...Children sit in cardboard boxes or in indoor tents to do their reading...
...Symphony Orchestra (all Jews, of course...
...So why do AmeriCorps members often wind up acting as auxiliary government bureaucrats...
...In his August 9,1999 speech, Clinton congratulated AmeriCorps workers: "You have...taught millions of children to read" One AmeriCorps official ridiculed Clinton's claim, saying he doubted AmeriCorps had taught even a dozen children to read...
...AmeriCorps' biggest expense in training its own members is on General Equivalency Degree (GED) preparation--helping AmeriCorps members receive a high school degree...
...Nobody Goes Hungry As head of AmeriCorps, former U.S...
...All of Palestine, including what is now the Kingdom of Jordan, was, by the Balfour Declaration, destined to be the Jewish National Home...
...Service Corps (MGSC) concentrates on "Ethical Training": "Using well-established curriculum from the Institute for G/obal Ethics, the youth development dept at MCSC will implement a series of Ethical Fitness workshops for corps members that will increase awareness of ethics and develop a concept of what is ethical...
...In late 1998, AmeriCorps awarded $1.z million to the state of Mississippi to give AmeriCorps $4,75 ~ education awards to assistant teachers who are already on the state government payroll...
...The nationhood of the "Palestinians" is a myth...
...What's more, many of the "Palestinians", or their immediate ancestors, came to the area attracted by the prosperity created by the Jews, in what previously had been p r e t t y much of a wasteland...
...Clinton has repeatedly violated federal law by conducting campaign-sty,Ie rallies in which he urges AmeriCorps members to lobby Congress for more money for their program or to hype specific legislative goals...
...Smith had required that every youth (most of whom were mentally handicapped) pay him an "activity fee" of $4o in cash each time they received their living allowances...
...As its 1999 grant application promised, "there will be an increase by ~5 percent over last year in the number of incidents of child abuse reported...as well as the number of domestic violence incidents reported to police by the student population/' Once the accusations have been made and parents dragged into the dock, AmeriCorps helps pay for the accusers' court costs, including the costs of a court reporter...
...Shifting blame to the grant recipient, Wofford conceded that his testimony was false...
...We are trying to trick them into learning" Farar added...
...The report noted: "An increase of knowledge by at least 5o% is mandato...
...Such measurements reveal little more than the number of government employees standing around with their hands in their pockets...
...Each grant application must contain specific, quantifiable standards to assess AmeriCorps members' progress...
...One reason AmeriCorps' success claims have no more credibility than a campaign speech is that most programs are "self-evaluated": the only evidence for what a program achieved is what grant recipients claim...
...There was the Palestinian Brigade of Jewish volunteers in the British World War II Army (at a time when the Palestinian Arabs were in Berlin hatching plans with Adolf Hitler for world conquest and how to kilt all the J e w s ) ; t h e r e was the P a l e s t i n i a n "The web of lies and myths t h a t the Arab propaganda machine has created plays an i m p o r t a n t role in the u n r e l e n t i n g quest to d e s t r o y the State of Israel...
...But if you look at reports out there, the number of false accusations are low--the criminal justice system, and the people who interview children, is very sophisticated, and certainly much more sophisticated than a child's mind"--this from someone in a state that was host to some of the worst child abuse witch hunts in recent decades...
...Fulltime members are supposed to put in 1,7oo hours of"service" a year in return for a stipend of up to $8,75o (sometimes paid as a straight wage) plus health insurance, emergency dental care, free child care, and an education award worth up to $4,75 o for tuition or paying off college loans...
...Meanwhile, like government generally, AmeriCorps acts as therapist to the citizenry...
...You just want them to think they're doing a good job" when reading...
...But it is difficult to distinguish the AmeriCorps Alumni Association from any other Washington lobby...
...Some AmeriCorps members who did not complete their 1,7oo hours received prorated education awards as bribes to keep them quiet after they threatened to publicize their dissatisfaction with AmeriCorps...
...9 In Lone Pine, California, AmcriCorps members put on a puppet show to warn 1 four-year-olds of the dangers of earthquakes...
...Lax controls allow for expanded ideas on the meaning of service...
...However, Mississippi assistant teachers are only required to read at an eighth-grade level...
...The center is a must-stop for Democratic presidential candidates...
...Almost half of its members teach literacy or mentor students...
...AmeriCorps recruits almost anyone age r 7 and older...
...In 1994 he said that AmeriCorps "may have the most lasting i legacy of anything I am able to do as your president...
...Just tell people big lies often enough and they will believe them...
...There is no more difference between the "Palestinians" and the other Arabs of those countries than there is between, say, the citizens of Minnesota and those of Wisconsin...
...Therapy From Bureaucrats In the legislation creating AmeriCorps, Congress promised that the new program would "reinvent government to eliminate duplication...
...You remind Americans of the good that politics and education Id Ameri- can accomplish...
...One of AmeriCorps' technical assistance consultants formally encourages programs to inflate the number of claimed beneficiaries: "If you feel your program affects a broad group of individuals who may not be receiving personal services from members...then list the whole community...
...If so, that's only because the feds shovel out the money and ask few, if any, questions about how recipients spent the windfall...
...The concept of "Palestinians" is one that did not exist until about 1948, when the Arab inhabitants, of what until then was Palestine, wished to differentiate themselves from the Jews...
...Asked how food stamp recruiting meshed with his claims that AmeriCorps promotes self-reliance, Director Wofford replied, "A self-reliant citizen knows what their [sic] opportunities are and figures out how to make use of those opportunities...
...The Jordanians expelled all the Jews from the a r e a t h a t t h e y o c c u p i e d , destroyed all Jewish houses of worship, and renamed as "West Bank" the territories that had been Judea and Samaria since time immemorial...
...Program director Nidia Salamanca declared: "There are a lot of immigrants who are in detention right now--we see how their rights are being violated by police officers and by detention officers...
...tle or nothing to do with food stamps...
...The whole foundation of this approach towards teaching reading is faulty...
...9 In Cherryfield, Maine, an AmeriCorps recruit was put on the payroll as a grant writer for a local resource and development council...
...As part of the project, AmeriGorps members distributed a survey that clearly implied that students should report to school authorities any time they heard any student make a derogatory comment to any other stndent...
...The IG found AmeriCorps members "claiming and receiving certified service hours for inappropriate activities such as working at McDonald's to 'novel' approaches to accruing service hours such as the 'team concept,' where everyone on a team earns the total accumulated hours of the team for any given day, and the 'inherited service hours,' where new AmeriCorps members 'inherit' the service hours of a departing member...
...In a June 3,1998 speech to AmeriCorps members in Cleveland, Clinton urged recruits to "help me send a loud message back to Washington, D.C., to act and act now" on his proposed tobacco legislation...
...In the future, all high school students could be forced to "serve their country" the AmeriCorps way...
...In a speech to AmeriCorps members last August 9, he declared, "You are the modem manifestation of the dream of America's founders As always, reality and Bill Clinton move in opposite directions...
...They are the same - - in language, custom, and tribal and family ties - - as the Arabs of Syria, Jordan, and beyond...
...This program sends 19 AmeriCorps recruits into 52 July~August 20 o o _9 The American Spectator schoolrooms to lecture about child abuse and domestic violence...
...The moral smugness of many AmeriCorps officials has gone hand-in-hand with slip-shod accounting--which produced a "target-rich environment" for fraud, according to Inspector General Luise Jordan...
...C 0 r p s AmeriCorps members are sent in to do magic...
...Bruce Smith, director of the AmeriCorps Vision Youth Works program in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, was convicted in a federal court in December 1998 of defrauding AmeriCorps members...
...When reminded of a passage from the but MACE Website that mentioned food agttau01 stamp recruitment, Woods conceded her organization did inform some peo- . AmeriC pie about food stamps...
...The 97 percent number actually referred to an increase in attendance at the program and had nothing to do with academic gains...
...An Indiana AmeriCorps program was engulfed in scandal in June 1999 after the Terre Haute Tribune-Star revealed that vari54 J~ly/Aug~st 2000 " The American Spectator ous high school students were given credit toward the $4,75 ~ AmeriCorps education award for time spent baby-sitting, playing high school sports, going to band practice, working as a lifeguard, and attending Sunday School...
...Vollie Melson, the association's executive director, observed, "Alot of people are frustrated with the tax because they feel they're serving their country...
...ss...
...While the agency has made some progress, auditors actually found more "significant material weaknesses" in 1998 than in 1997 . A 1998 Inspector General report found that AmeriCorps routinely used illegal contracting methods to award contracts to its friends and favorites, especially in the case of minority-owned firms...
...That is the fundamental myth...
...What a shame that the world has accepted most of it...
...MACE is based in Greenville, Mississippi, the heart of the Mississippi Delta--one of the poorest regions in America...
...Teams are told they are doing work that really doesn't need to" done...
...9 In Buffalo, New York, AmeriCorps members helped run a program that gave children $5 for each toy gun they brought in-as well as a certificate praising their decision not to play with toy guns...
...Who would be the sovereign and who the rightful inhabitants...
...t~ail ~o Our Generous Chief As USA Today noted, AmeriCorps' "T-shirred brigade is most well known nationally as the youthful backdrop for White House photo ops...
...Robert Sweet, former director of the National Institute of Education, the premier federal education research agency, observed, "AmeriCorps is not workingJand Clinton's program is still the fraud that it was in the beginning...
...of the Gaza Strip, which had been occupied by the Egyptians, but which had never been part of their country...
...In Charleston, So uth Carolina, Del . w ~ , ? - . . AmeriCorps members went door-to~n' " door seeking to entice small businesses can b ~ to apply for government-subsidized " .:, loans...
...At best, AmeriCorps' 50,000 members amount to less than one-twentieth of 1 percent of all the volunteers in America...
...Gwen Baldwin, executive director of LAGLG, stressed that the program "is really [about] tracking and monitoring the instances of both hate crimes or anti-gay activities...
...But as long as an organization is not directly involved in a political campaign, political agitation is fine and dandy with AmeriCorps headquarters...
...Under the grants, AmeriCorps' assistant teachers are expected to provide an average of three hours a week of extra tutoring...
...One nr0~[ ;~i favorite claim: "National service ,_ ,.,[a ~11 !i...
...AmeriCorps members are sent in for photo opportunities with shovels and picks...
...9 The Milwaukee Community...
...A March 31, 1999, program update from LAGLC informed AmeriGorps headquarters that the AmeriCorps members and LAGLC staffwere "focusing on society's last'acceptable' prejudice: anti-gay bias...
...The Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center, the nation's largest gay rights organization, has received $200,000 in support from AmeriCorps...
...Until then, the Jews were the Palestinians...
...This a d h a s been p u b l i s h e d and p a i d f o r by FLAME Facts and Logic about the Middle East P.O...
...They have swayed world opinion by endlessly r e p e a t i n g myths and lies t h a t have no basis in fact...
...Cnnd[ICt.;~rCOilU U 5 William Goodling wrote to President Clinton on June 24, 1998 , complaining of the illegal political content of rallies with rally...
...tor Fanny Woods indicated it had l i t - from engagin...
...Puppet shows are a big part of the summer, as is 15 to zo minutes of"noncompetitive recreation" each day...
...Asked if there is any safeguard to avoid encouraging false accusations, program director Cynthia Rodgers responded, "No...
...The key to self-reliance, in other words, is knowing the address of the welfare office...
...We have virtually no overhead...
...Federally Funded Rabble-Rousing Federal law prohibits AmeriCorps grantees from engaging in advocacy...
...Wofford bragged in 1999: "The evidence shows that [AmeriCorps] has instilled an ethic of continuing service in the members...
...Consider Irk - . . ~ J ~ if:' what this means in practice: m~l~i...
...Derrick Max, former chief investigator for the House Education and Workforce subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight, recalled: "We went through and looked at the background of people tutoring and mentoring...
...AmeriCorps members can receive literacy credit for helping other members pass the GED...
...I hope that [management] can understand that part of the reason I am leaving is because I am so commired to education...
...The project was summarized by one AmeriCorps member as "working to reduce the problem of homophobia and hate violence in the LA schools and making schools safer for gay youth, and those who are perceived to be gay...
...9 In Washington state, AmeriCorps is bankrolling the Welfare Rights Organizing Coalition...
...A model of Wofford-style citizen involvement is the Mississippi Action for Community Education (MACE) program, which AmeriCorps has helped sponsor since 1994...
...sa "helps disadvantaged preschool chil- " . . . . . . . . . . . dren develop tlleir spatiaI and logic sk l s ro gh usiceduca on:'a er - federal law Corps can take the most mundane task = | and describe eampagn-st utopia...
...Yet its headquarters occupy one of the fanciest buildings in Greenville, and the plush leather chairs in its waiting room offer stark contrast to the shabbiness of the neighborhood...
...According to coalition director Jean Colman, "people are poor because they don't have enough money...
...MACE is one of four AmeriCorps "Beyond Food" programs devoted to boosting food aid...
...r . . . . . . . . . . ,~\meriCorps has provided more in adv0eaey, than $60,000 to support Equality ColoradO, an organization that describes itsc.lf as "dedicated to social change is fine with t, rough education, advocacy and organizing to combat violence and negative n~l'l~, attitudes towards GLBT [Gay/Les- IpS bian/BisexualFFransgender] people in our society...
...Its purpose is the research and publication of the facts regarding developments in the Middle East and exposing false propaganda that might harm the interests of the United States and its allies in that area of the world.Your tax-deductible contributions are welcome...
...Senator Harris Wofford a veteran of John Kennedy's fabled Peace Corps and until his defeat in 1994 an outspoken proponent of the Clintons' nationalized health care proposal has all the right qualities for the job: a reputation for moral bombast and, on ! "~_4 ~ Capitol Hill, renown as a man ofa mil~ lion and promises...
...9 An AmeriCorps member was detailed to the k Central Oregon Intergovemmental Council in Redmon, Oregon, to "assist the city of La Pine to achieve incorporation and...assist in identifying appropriate economic development t projects to receive lottery dollars...
...The association recently announced: "Feedback over the past two years indicates that the most pressing issue on the minds of AmeriCorps alumni is the taxation of the education award...
...Sen...
...What are some of these myths . The "Palestinians...
...AmeriCorps negligence is opening the door to con artists...
...They enable us to pursue these goals and to publish these messages in national newspapers and magazines...
...Incidentally, enrolling state government employees into AmeriCorps is a clear violation of federal law...
...A Pawtucket, Rhode Island AmeriCorps program promised that "80% of [children] enroIled in summer Enrichment programs will report improved attitudes...
...Even a f t e r the t o t a l rout of the Arabs in the 1967 Six-Day War, in which the Jordanians were driven out of Judea/Samaria and of Jerusalem, they and the world continued to call this territory the "West Bank", a geographical and political concept that cannot be found on any except the most recent maps...
...GAO criticized AmeriCorps for failing to make any effort to measure the actual impact of its members' actions...
...64 A meriCorps, the "national service" scam created in 1993, may be President Clinton's proudest achievement...
...According to President Clinton, "every young AmeriCorps volunteer...typically will generate 12 more volunteers helping on whatever the service is...
...But AmeriCorps is work that is politically blessed and thus far more meaningful than mere private sector work...
...In an interview, Wofford talked about how AmeriCorps could provide its members with the "moral equivalent ofwar"--the supposed moral stimulus that occurs from subjugation to some higher collective goal...
...If you 1 haven't graduated from high school, don't send 2 them back to mentor in the elementar,/school...
...While in the Senate, Wofford championed legislation to give federal grants to high schools that imposed compulsory service on all students...
...In 1995, 1996, and 1997, auditors concluded that the agency's books were "unauditable"--in such a mess that auditors could not even attempt to render a judgment on what happened to the billion dollars that Congress dell> ered to AmeriCorps in those years...
...Now it is lobbying to convert the education award into a tax-free benefit...
...In February 1999, at an AmeriCorps recruiting rally, Clinton declared: "America needs to think of itself as sort of a giant AmeriCorps, getting things done together...
...Public school teachers dismally fail to teach reading...
...It's a small price to pay to mobilize a key component of the Democratic Party base...
...When Clinton arrived in Colorado Springs to give the commencement address at the Air Force Academy on June 3,1999, a flock of AmeriCorps members were on hand to greet Air Force One...
...Like 0[|te" ~,!ii his boss,eXcuseShe talks theemptYrequisite talk...
...AmeriCorps workers are not only concerned with children's school environment, but have branched out into the home as well by providing more than $60o,o00 in aid for the Child Victim Rapid Response Program run by Florida's Attorney General's Office...
...That policy is to get as much land as possible carved out of Israel "by peaceful and diplomatic" means, so as to make Israel indefensible and softened up for the final assault...
...Equality Colorado Iobbies for special legal protections for gays, for mandatory, health benefits for the partners of gay and lesbian employees, and for equal legal status for homosexual marriages...
...An example of anti-gay bias that Baldwin offered was "one person not being invited to a lunch table...
...The result would be measured by "Self/diagnosis [sic] in an end-of-year survey...
...AmeriCorps claims its "unique" :k to mentor Hampshire Philharmonic ~rchestra Music Education Program The American Spectator elementary school...
...Box 590359 _9 San Francisco, CA 94159 FLAME is a tax-exempt, non-profit educational 501(c)(3) organization...
...A February 2ooo General Accounting Office report revealed that AmeriCorps relies on Soviet-style accounting to gin up its achievement claims...
...A Rising Tide of Fraud In 1994 President Clinton bragged that &neriCorps is "the least bureaucratic, least nationally directed program I have been associated with...
...Press releases should include the results of needs assessment and INS reports...
...In Moab, Utah, 32AmeriCorps '~ members seek to help at-risk youflr and i AmeriC0r low-income families "through a community gardening project in order to ~increase participant esteem, responsibility, healthy social skills and a service ethic...
...Public housing projects continue deteriorating, AmeriCorps members are sent in with paint brushes...
...In other cases, the IG found that AmeriCorps violated federal contracting law simply "because it is easier than competitive contracting...
...In its 1999 grant application, MACE openly promised that its AmeriCorps members would "conduct door-to-door canvassing to identify potential food stamp recipients" and would also provide "assistance...in completing necessary applications for food stamps...
...AmeriCorps members agitate residents to lobby Congress...
...Almost half quit the program before completing their term of service...
...In Denver, AmeriCorps troops distributed election leaflets attacking Hiawatha Davis, a city council member who was blocking a government grant to the non-profit group where AmeriCorps members worked...
...According to the grant application AmeriCorps approved, the federal money will pay to "organize \ community building and empowering k activities to the GLBT and allied communities," among other purposes...
...We don't seem to trust poor people enough to spend their money wisely, so we don't give them enough...
...Because many recruits arc unskilled, their pay and benefit package is more than they could earn in the private sector...
...TheAmerJcon Spectotor working at McDonald's...
...Asked "If you havl how much training they had received to teach children how to read, thes~ instruct~ seemed incredul~ Ameri from high Corps member Brian Farar observed "We'renotteachingthemtoread-~ send them L are just exposing them [to reading] an~ getting them to like it...
...GAO noted AmeriCorps "generally reports the results of its programs and activities by quantifying the amount of services AmeriCorps participants perform...
...But Transjordan stayed in possession of Judea and Samaria and the eastern part of Jerusalem...
...In San Francisco, 4 ~ AmeriCorps recruits devoted themselves to lobbying against anti-crime provisions of 1994 congressional legislation...
...The official agreement with the center claims AmeriCorps members will perform "volunteer service to strengthen and supplement efforts to eliminate poverty and poverty-related human, social and environmental problems...
Vol. 33 • July 2000 • No. 6
