Growing up in the 70’s and listening to John Lennon and Martin Luther King made my generation want to work for PEACE.
In fact? Many in my generation wanted to join the PEACE CORPS.
HERE IS THE WIKIPEDIA ON THE PEACE CORPS!
While President John F. Kennedy is credited with the creation of the Peace Corps, the first initiative came from Senator Hubert H. Humphrey, Jr. (D-Minnesota), who introduced the first bill to create the Peace Corps in 1957—three years prior to JFK and his University of Michigan speech. In his autobiography The Education of a Public Man, Hubert Humphrey wrote: “There were three bills of particular emotional importance to me: the Peace Corps, a disarmament agency, and the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. The President, knowing how I felt, asked me to introduce legislation for all three. I introduced the first Peace Corps bill in 1957. It did not meet with much enthusiasm. Some traditional diplomats quaked at the thought of thousands of young Americans scattered across their world. Many senators, including liberal ones, thought it silly and an unworkable idea. Now, with a young president urging its passage, it became possible and we pushed it rapidly through the Senate. It is fashionable now to suggest that Peace Corps Volunteers gained as much or more, from their experience as the countries they worked. That may be true, but it ought not demean their work. They touched many lives and made them better.”
The way I see it? These two are turning over in their graves this morning.
I have been very concerned at the “splitting” going on in our country. VERY.
When I watch the news? I see it.
I happen to be a PRESIDENT KENNEDY generation Democrat born in AMERICA.
President Kennedy would have made the states splitting apart his first concern, and the oil spill.
It is very unclear what this administration is trying to do except make people more scared.
Maybe they should think about that?
Here is the Huffington Post today:
Such an obviously misguided law cannot be allowed to stand. Since the Supreme Court has chosen to hold the Constitution hostage to the fear of terrorism, Congress must step up and do its duty to craft a law that recognizes the peaceful paths to fighting terrorism and helping the innocent civilians who are every bit as victimized by extremists in their midst as the extremists’ supposed enemies.
In the meantime, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton should use her authority under the existing law to carve out exceptions for organizations that work through peaceful means toward peaceful ends.
I’m a KENNEDY era Democrat.
Nearly everybody in America in the Baby Boom is. The Peace Movement is part of the legacy of the 1960’s that was carried forward by our American HEARTS.
Fifty years from now, I really wonder what people will be meaning when they say “I’m an OBAMA era Democrat.”
Kennedy was my generation’s inspiration. And so was Martin Luther King.
What legacy does this administration intend to leave?
VALENTINE BONNAIRE - WRITER 