United States

Last weekend, our friend Thomas Friedman argued that while things are looking up for China these days, America still holds on to the title of "World's Greatest Dream Machine." Unfortunately, Friedman writes, imagination does not translate into good governance. Friedman argues that the increased fragmentation of American society has rendered it incapable of producing optimal solutions to its problems. Friedman's answer?

The standard answer is that we need better leaders. The real answer is that we need better citizens. We need citizens who will convey to their leaders that they are ready to sacrifice, even pay, yes, higher taxes, and will not punish politicians who ask them to do the hard things. Otherwise, folks, we’re in trouble. A great power that can only produce suboptimal responses to its biggest challenges will, in time, fade from being a great power — no matter how much imagination it generates.

Okay, we can work with that. The generic call for more citizenship is a good step for Friedman. But as Peter Levine notes, Friedman stops at generalities when we need something more.

I agree with [the notion that we need better citizens] and have staked my whole career on this premise. But how do you get 'better citizens'? ... I welcome Friedman's conclusion but wish he would get behind concrete solutions.

Levine asserts that any plan to reform the nation's media to encourage better citizenship skills is ill-fated; the increased fragmentation of interests, opinions, and messages prevents even our most charismatic of messengers (Barack Obama) from clearly communicating to the rest of society. Instead, Levine suggests that the development of better citizens can be found in two strategies.

1. Get them while they're young, receptive, and a captive audience. Build really engaging, unbiased, motivating, and informative civic education into the school curriculum. My blog posts categorized as advocating civic education and a high school civic curriculum are about that.

2. Reform institutions so that hands-on participation by ordinary adults is welcomed and rewarding. The theory is that people who see tangible impact from their own civic engagement (mainly at the local level) will want to be informed and to exchange ideas and perspectives with people different from themselves. My blog posts about deliberation and civic reform are about that.

I wholeheartedly agree with Levine's approach and felt it was important to echo this here. We should be doing everything possible, working with organizations like the National Center for Learning and Citizenship (NCLC), to infuse civics education into K-12 education as much as possible. Levine's second strategy is particularly apt in discussions regarding youth involvement in political parties. In 2008, for example, youth were still struggling for representation near the top of the Democratic Party. To create better citizens, targeting education to the young and increasing access to opportunities are far and away better solutions than simply restating the problem.

Last week I wrote about the House passing the Paul Simon Study Abroad Foundation Act. Because I failed to detail the bill then, I want to now examine the ramifications of the legislation's passage this week, reiterating why it is so important to today's young people.

According to the Institute of International Education, there are three times as many foreign students studying in the United States as there are Americans studying abroad. And those Americans who do study overseas can't help but go to the beautiful cities/cultures they're exposed to in today's media - cities with economies that are functional and developed. (I certainly am not implying that this is a wrong choice, but merely noting that it's natural for students to want to see romanticized cultures described to them for most of their lives.) The Paul Simon legislation not only seeks to balance those Americans studying abroad with the number of foreign students studying in the United States (it will do so over ten years), but it also wants to diversify locations across the world. Europe and Australia might still be popular, but hopefully options in underdeveloped countries in Africa and Asia will grow in popularity as well.

Of course, the legislation's main benefit to students and institutions, as cited last week, is the funding commitment. More opportunities will be offered to students should the bill be signed into law by President Obama, thanks to the injection of millions of dollars into the process. In return for the funding, though, institutions will be expected to examine common barriers to students studying abroad on their individual campuses and finding solutions for those problems.

If passed, the legislation would create other initiatives that fortify the U.S.'s presence in the world, especially among young people. In addition to study abroad provisions, the legislation adds 1500 Foreign Service Officers and modernizes the diplomatic corps. From a House Foreign Affairs Committee press release:

Among other significant measures in the bill are provisions that:

• strengthen the arms control and nonproliferation capabilities of the State Department

• reform the system of export controls for military technology and improve oversight of U.S. security assistance

• ensure that the United States will meet its financial commitments to the United Nations (U.N.) and other international organizations

• allow financing the refurbishment of helicopters for U.N. peacekeeping missions in Darfur, Chad, the Democratic Republic of Congo and other peacekeeping missions authorized by the U.N. Security Council

• establish the Senator Paul Simon Study Abroad Foundation as a new executive branch corporation to expand dramatically the number and economic diversity of U.S. students studying overseas

• substantially increase the budget of the Peace Corps to support President Obama’s goal of doubling the number of Peace Corps volunteers, and authorize a plan to use short-term volunteers to respond to humanitarian and development needs

• broaden the Merida anti-drug trafficking initiative to include the Caribbean, and improve monitoring and evaluation of Merida programs

• and increase resources and training for enforcement of intellectual property rights, especially in countries identified by the U.S. government as lax in enforcing those rights.

NAFSA has been doing a fantastic job of outreach and education on this bill. Their release on the House's passage of the bill can be found here. NAFSA has made an online guide to the bill, while also creating a Facebook group to track its progress with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, where it heads next.

There's no doubt young people would benefit from this bill, especially given how much it does target multicultural, compromising, and pragmatic millennials. There's no reason for the legislation to run out of time this session. We'll keep an eye on this as it moves on to the Senate. In the meantime, be sure to take advantage of NAFSA's coverage above.

I was reading a recent article from John Gray of The Observer, a UK publication, whose title/subtitle read: "A shattering moment in America's fall from power: The global financial crisis will see the US falter in the same way the Soviet Union did when the Berlin Wall came down. The era of American dominance is over" In the article, Gray takes note of the “interaction of debt and war” in determining the future of an empire, and cites the British and Soviet Union empires as historical examples. Nevertheless, I must ask, weren’t there Americans who realized that the fall of the United States as a world empire was already taking place before the crash of Wall Street?

In my current fellowship placement at The Greenlining Institute, a multi-ethnic public policy and research advocacy organization, we address systemic inequities. The Green Assets/Sustainable Development Program for example, looks at low-income populations and communities of color accessibility to a world that is increasingly “going green.” This team looks at corporate responsibility and government regulation since history shows that corporations have maintained unsustainable energy practices that have disproportionately affected low-income people of color. For example, the expansion of the Chevron refinery in Richmond, California , contributed to high rates of neurodegenerative diseases and asthma in its population, 49.8% of which is African American. The Higher Education Team looks at predatory lending to and credit card debt among college students, and how California is able to continue expanding its prison system while decreasing financial aid and raising college tuition. Our Media Academy takes a critical look at mainstream media and how certain news make headlines while other issues that matter to our community go unnoticed. Thus, the Academy serves to take back media and feature stories that matter to Greenlining, our Coalition, and the communities we serve. As part of the Bridges to Health Team, as I’ve mentioned in previous blogs, I look at language and cultural competency in telemedicine, or, the use of technology in accessing health services. Some of my other colleagues are looking at diversity in the University of California’s medical schools, or lack thereof, and how this contributes to a health workforce that is unable to provide quality care to the diverse communities of California.

But, the Founding Fathers have shown when they split from the English King, you can only maintain your power and suppress your people for so long until the pedestal is pulled from your feet. In our situation, America can only intoxicate, lock up, and keep its citizens from being viable contributors society vis-à-vis having access to a decent education and being competitive in the job market, for so long until it too, must face the karma of injustice and meet its end.

So what do we now?

As my time at Greenlining has reaffirmed, maybe we can start by not obsessing over our stock options and instead, begin to invest in people.