Civilian Reserve Corps: Threat or Fantasy?

A WW2 Buff? Here’s A MUST READ! “The Path To Victory: The Mediterranean Theater in WWII” by Douglas Porch, 2004. Not overly long at 793 pages, it deals with the subject at the divisional level. It turns out the Mediterranean Theater is a microcosm of the greater “Crusade in Europe” that Ike wrote about in his required reading work. Author Porch deals with the African campaign, the never to end British-American rivalry and the constant interference in military operations by Churchill, Roosevelt and other politicians. Where before I was not sure if Overlord’s Eisenhower did not in fact walk on water, now I see he got his shoes wet. Real wet! And Hitler was not the lunatic he is so often portrayed on History Channel. It is essential to understand the Italian Campaign and why Great Britain was so much committed to the defeat of the smaller Afrika Korps. I recommend it.

[edit on 7/14/2007 by donwhite]

In the context of the topic it is worth noting that Blackwater is under investigation for smuggling weapons in Iraq. See this thread for more. Clearly mercenary's should remain the focus of popcorn chewing movie viewers in real life there not suitable for widespread use in a war zone. The US military is quiet capable of cooking its own meals and other such duty's.

I didn't read through all the pages so forgive me if this analogy has already been discussed, but:

This Civilian Reserve Core reminds me of the old miniseries V. Remember, they had a human volunteer cadet program that people could sign up for. That one kid that signed up got a little too into it and started informing on his family and friends that were part of the uprising against the visitors.

Is this the kind of thing that we have to look forward to with this?

Originally posted by deessell
Interesting thoughts Justin. Personally, I interpreted it as meaning hiring more mercenaries. As I posted in another thread, these "civilians' don't operate under the normal 'rules of engagement'.

Private contractors - winning again.

I agree completly this is a corporate reserves, it almost seems to be a list of people willing to take mercenary pay given to corporations that goverment would contract to go and fight wars. Probally the logistical arm to Blackwell. Like Haliburton is today, but with people signed up under a civilian Reserve Corps, the goverment could order them to go work for Haliburton.

reply to post by scooler1



scooler1 This Civilian Reserve Core reminds me of the old miniseries V. Remember, they had a human volunteer cadet program that people could sign up for. Is this the kind of thing that we have to look forward to with this.

J/O had in mind the 1930s Civilian Conservation Corps. The CCC. It lasted about 4 years and many of the projects it did are still in use in places like the Smokey Mountains National Park, and 1000s of other smaller places around America where the CCC was assigned to do work. Primarily aimed at unemployed and unemployable urban youths.

The Corps was run in a quasi-military manner. The boys - young men - lived in barracks, wore uniforms and followed a strict work and play schedule. All food, clothes, quarters and other necessities were furnished along with $30 a month pay. However they were required to send $25 back to their homes. In many cases, this was the only cash money in the household. Opponents likened it to the German Nazi Youth movement and FDR felt the gain was not worth the pain.

[edit on 9/22/2007 by donwhite]

reply to post by Redge777


Redge777 I agree completely this is a corporate reserves, it almost seems to be a list of people willing to take mercenary pay given to corporations that government would contract to go and fight wars.

I have always opposed the notion of a volunteer Armed Forces. The bottom line in “volunteer” army is it's an Orwellian PC word for MERCENARY army. WHO will they obey? Young people, subjected to relentless propagandizing, and worse, subject to the UCMJ which mandates obedience to “lawful orders” what will a solder do when ordered to do something he thinks is wrong? Like at Vietnam’s My Lai? America’s own version of the French Foreign Legion.

Will he or she obey the person who signs their paycheck and holds their financial future in his hands, or adherer to some remote and incomplete understanding of the US Constitution and its application to the task he is being called on to do. This potential for disorder reminds me of what I call the Nuremberg Syndrome. “I was just following orders, sir.”

Yes, I volunteered to serve in the Army National Guard. Yes I volunteered to serve the US Air Force. My AF enlistment was “urged” along by the draft and me not wanting to serve in the Army or MC Infantry.

Here’s how it was in the draft days. The draft was for 2 years. The draftee was vulnerable to the Army infantry and the USMC. The two least appealing branches of service. To me, anyway. To avoid the infantry service, you could enlist in the Army or MC for 3 years. In that case, you got to chose from the available openings which you would prefer. In my case, had I chosen to enlist in the Army, I’d have chosen Field Artillery which was my prior service in the National Guard.

Finally, you could chose to enlist for 4 years in the Navy or the Air Force. In both cases you were assured of receiving the world’s best technical school training and in having a job more nearly resembling a white collar job while the Army and MC were more nearly like blue collars jobs. Brains vs. sweat.

If an armed force is good enough for America to have, then its young men and women must be required to serve in it despite their personal views. The problem is this: we need about 3,000,000 men and women, but we have about 24 million people eligible to choose from. Men and women 18-26 years old.

We proved incapable of having a fair draft in the Vietnam War and we ended the draft at the wars end.

In 1975 we went to the ALL volunteer armed forces. Further exacerbating this problem is that the military is far more technical and much better trained than ever before. A man or woman is essentially useless on a 2 year term. Same for a 3 years term. By 4 years, the man may pay-back some of the investment. 8 years would be far better from the Army’s POV. But the country would not stand for an 8 year draft.

The best alternative I’ve heard is to draft EVERYONE but give them a choice of community service, child and aged care, parks and recreation area maintenance and other publicly useful tasks. Depending on the general disagreeableness of the job, they would be required to give service for 2 to 4 years. Those who select the Armed Forces would be obliged to do so for 4 years.

[edit on 9/22/2007 by donwhite]

Hate to say it ,but my opinion remains unchanged. I still think those cadres are still in our future. I still think they will happen under a Democratic administration, too. With all due respect, I think the Dems will take that 'corporatocracy' to new levels that the conservatives just couldn't wrap their brains around. Political mobilization is very attractive to centralized regimes. No matter what you think about what W has done, the fact remains that we're going to see more of that trend I've been documenting.

[edit on 24-9-2007 by Justin Oldham]

Originally posted by Justin Oldham
...“A second task we can take on together is to design and establish a volunteer Civilian Reserve Corps. Such a corps would function much like our military reserve. It would ease the burden on the Armed Forces by allowing us to hire civilians with critical skills to serve on missions abroad when America needs them. And it would give people across America who do not wear the uniform a chance to serve in the defining struggle of our time.” ...

Just wondering.... Will the uniform consist of brown shirts?

reply to post by sir_chancealot


Justin Oldham ...“A second task we can take on together is to design and establish a volunteer Civilian Reserve Corps. Such a corps would function much like our military reserve. And it would give people across America who do not wear the uniform a chance to serve in the defining struggle of our time.” ...

sir_chancealot Just wondering.... Will the uniform consist of brown shirts?

Sieg Heil! See note.

Brown shirts. From the Hitler era, the Sturmabteilung or SA. Translates into “storm troopers” in English. Wearing First World War surplus brown shirts, they became known by their shirt color especially after the SS was created and assigned to wear black shirts. Schutzstaffel (SS). Originally 322 men as Hitler’s personal bodyguard, by 1943, it numbered 37 divisions. Wikipedia.

America’s Civilian Conservation Corps wore green uniforms. I think J/O has suggested medium to dark blue uniforms for his CRC - Civilian Reserve Corps.

[edit on 9/24/2007 by donwhite]

As the economy tanks, it will not surprise me to see the old CCC revisited as a form of nostalgic fix to a worsening situation. I don't expect so see Soviet-style Octobrists, but I do expect to see numerous cadres formed around dedicated tasks.

reply to post by donwhite


Note from prior Post
Saying the phrase in Germany today is a criminal offence punishable by up to three years of prison (StGB, section 86a). The same is true for expressions that might be mistaken for "Sieg Heil." Usage for art, teaching and science purposes is exempt from punishment.

Germans have taken de-Nazification very seriously to their good credit. Danke schön! - (Thanks!)

[edit on 9/24/2007 by donwhite]

I still hope to be proven wrongabout this dark possibility that could be in our future. I'll stand on what I've already said. I WANT to be the guy who read too much in to this. I'll be quite happy to make all of the appropriate apologies.

reply to post by Justin Oldham


Justin Oldham I still hope to be proven wrong about this dark possibility that could be in our future. I'll stand on what I've already said. I WANT to be the guy who read too much into this. I'll be quite happy to make all of the appropriate apologies.

White Americans refuse to confront the reality of our segregated society and its direct consequence, economic discrimination. Republican Supreme Court justices continue the UNDOING of Brown v. Topeka. In every case, the state is limited more and more in its capacity to keep public schools INTEGRATED. Blacks continue to be forced into or kept in ghettoes by bank lending policies and credit scores.

I heard just yesterday on the McLaughlin Group a Republican stalwart repeating - boasting? - that 40% of black males age16-40 are in prison, have been in prison or are on parole or probation. Law and order types see this number as a sign of progress. Raise the 40% to 50% they urge! In reality, it is a sign of the GROSSEST OF FAILURES of our society. And one day soon we will pay for that. There ain’t no free lunch! Even in crime fighting.

I have heard others warn that we are beginning the decade when more than 150,000 men will be released from prison after serving those draconian sentences we so dearly love in America, to go back into public life. Most of these men will have no salable skills, no ability to get a good paying job with a future. Yes, by 2017, we’ll have 1,500,000 men back on the street! If the were not SKILLED criminals when we first locked them up, they will be on graduating from (your) Crime State U.

We are currently spending $60 b. annually to keep 2.2 million people behind bars. Average cost? $27,777. And this must be a revolving door as we have no plans what to do with, to or for those men. And frankly, not many people really give a dam. I expect before this decade is out, they will. Give a dam. Que Sera, Sera!

[edit on 9/29/2007 by donwhite]

As the economy tanks, we should be on the look out for a new form of Civilian Conservation Corps. It'll probably be Americorps with increased funding. Even so, that'll still be all it takes to start those cadres.

Wow! And I was worried when I found out recently that firemen and EMT's are now under the umbrella of the Department of Homeland Security. It seems to me that the administration is giving an awful lot of power to that particular organization while limiting the powers of the democratically elected Congress.

I haven't been in this thread in quite some time. I'm glad to see that you found it. This is just one more thing that I'd like to be proven wrong about.

reply to post by Justin Oldham

It's quite possible that some organizers during the 1960's came to understand the power that could be at their disposal through their experience with Peace Corps projects. The 'chance' to be implementing the idea once more didn't resurface until the 1990's and the start of Americcorps during the Clinton administration. It may very well be that the success of his small-scale program allowed political elites inside the government to once more see the potential leverage value of a modern cadre. Funding issues may still be causing them to move slowly.

J/O and I have had back and forth banter ever since he started this thread. I view with favor the New Deal CCC - Civilian Conservation Corps - that gave urban youth good paying jobs and also gave them honest and worthwhile work to do. Anyone reading this who goes to National Parks will find evidence of their labor still in use now 75 years on. What a bargain!

Young men in the CCC were paid $30 a month, but HAD to sent $25 home to their families. This was all the cash income a lot of families had then. The CCC were quasi-military. They were furnished food, clothing, shelter and medical care. I cannot avoid a personal anecdote. My older cousin joined the CCC. He was later drafted into the Army during WW2. He achieved the highest rank of any of my 7 relatives who served in the war. E7, Master Sergeant.

All the more remarkable was that when you consider he was a conscientious objector. The same standing on principle that got Cassius Clay - later Mohammad Ali - into trouble. Americans don’t like COs as they were denominated. To further stigmatize COs the Army stamped each man’s personnel file folder with big black letters C O. God Bless America.

To the best of my knowledge, none of the labor disputes that occurred during the Second World War--or in its immediate aftermath--was of a scope, scale, or magnitude to provoke a radical youth movement. It's true that there was a lot of strike busting, but no real social backlash came from those incidents.

I concur. We had the War Labor Board in every neighborhood. The boards were made up of 3 members, 2 respected citizens from the neighborhood - volunteers - and 1 from “downtown” who would be the chairman and was informed of the applicable rules and regulations. On every case the boards voted. The Boards met once or twice a month. Similar Ration boards and Draft boards were established.

All workers were required to register. When a person had a skill needed in a defense industry plant, he or she would be assigned to that job. Voluntary or self-initiated movements between jobs was not allowed. However you were allowed to apply for a transfer to another job but that required the Board’s consent. The system worked well for 4 years but as battlefield successes added up, the boards were less and less popular. The same loss of urgency was felt for the local Draft and Ration Boards. But what a beautiful concept skillfully executed! The Federal bureaucracy at work at the local level.

I'm not sure that very many political leaders of the period fully appreciated or understood what kind of political fulcrum they had at their disposal. I don't think they "got it" until the post war period. then, as they dissected what went on in Germany and inside Soviet Russia, they began to see the power of the cadres. Anti-Communist films from the 1950's suggest to me that then and only then was the American political establishment aware of the power of cadres.

Very keen observations, Mr J/O. Again, I have to concur with your conclusions. I was alive and well then and I have said here before it was the BEST of times and the WORST of times at the SAME time. For me, it was a privilege to have lived then. Even though that means I’ll have to depart this vale of tears in the not too distant future. Ugh! See Note 1.

Those modern State sponsored cadres that still exist grant their governments and bureaucracies considerable power over the populations of their respective countries. That's because they represent a loyalist voting block that will almost always be guaranteed to steer the official vote tallies in whatever direction the elites most desire. As Federal power continues to centralize, I have few doubts that U.S. leaders will rethink their use of cadres.

One of us is wearing opaque glasses. I see Federal power diminished since the Reagan Revolution. It is no longer just inefficient, it is now insufficient. J/O writes as if it was expanding. Yes, the abuse is enlarging, but not the size. Every regulatory body FDR put into place as part of the New Deal has been stripped of staffs and is headed by people antithetical to the very purpose the agencies were created to accomplish.

Since 1981, the US Government has been decapitated. THAT IMO, is the dangerous underlying circumstance that will create riots and turmoil in the country. Unresponsive government (say Katrina) is at least as dangerous to the tranquility of the commonweal as is repressive government. But the former is all the more insidious than the latter which is usually plainly visible.

I’m for GOOD government which we have proved in the 1930s to the 1950s that we can have. If it is BIG I have not a problem, as this is a BIG country. It is hard to impossible to have good government when the people at the top are out to destroy it for their own ulterior motives. To advance their agenda. You can’t run New York with the same size government that runs Vermont!


Note 1. Ecclesiastes 3:1-8. From The Holy Bible (King James Version)
Attributed to King Solomon

“To everything there is a season, and
a time to every purpose under heaven:

A time to be born, and
a time to die;
a time to plant, and
a time to pluck up
that which is planted;

A time to kill, and
a time to heal;
a time to break down, and
a time to build up;

A time to weep, and
a time to laugh;
a time to mourn, and
a time to dance;

A time to cast away stones, and
a time to gather stones together;
a time to embrace, and
a time to refrain from embracing;

A time to get, and
a time to lose;
a time to keep, and
a time to cast away;

A time to rend, and
a time to sow;
a time to keep silence, and
a time to speak;

A time to love, and
a time to hate;
a time of war; and
a time of peace.”

See also "Turn! Turn! Turn! (To Everything There Is a Season) composed by Pete Seeger in the 1950s but not recorded until 1962.

[edit on 4/30/2008 by donwhite]

I really am glad to see that there is some life left in this old thread. I'll grant you that this is ap roblem we won't actualy have to face until late in the next decade, but I do still think its a real threat to the citizenry of this country. It's not always fun to be ahead of your time.

reply to post by Justin Oldham

I really am glad to see that there is some life left in this old thread. I'll grant you that this is a problem we won't actually have to face until late in the next decade, but I do still think it’s a real threat to the citizenry of this country. It's not always fun to be ahead of your time.

Let me attach some numbers on what we’re talking about. For lack of a better method, I use the number - 300 million - as the US population. For lack of more easily available numbers, I use 72 as the life expectancy of Americans of all colors although I know blacks have substantially lower lifetimes than whites. Finally, once more for lack of real numbers I use 1/72 as the number of people in each age range of one year.

One seventy-second is also equal to 1.38%. Therefore for each 1 year of age, there are 4,166,666 people in the US. Let’s just say 4 million and let the accountants deal with the overage. Let us also accept as fact that blacks are 13%, Latinos 14% and “all others” are 73% of the population.

Those assumptions produce 540,000 blacks of any 1 year of age. If we take it for granted that the “love to RIOT” and loot age is 15-24, then we have nearly 5.5 million blacks in the 10 years range of black youth ready and able to disrupt the genteel tranquility we (whites) generally enjoy and have come to expect in our gated communities. We (whites) tend to ignore the drive by shootings prevalent in OTHER neighborhoods.

Hey, it’s a free country! Live where you please. If you like rats and crooks, move into a ramshackle apartment complex! Betcha 1000 dollars to a hole in a donut it is absentee landlord owned. Betcha 990 dollars to a hole in a donut it’s owned by a white man. Hmm? But I digress.

Again, I don’t know the numbers. What part of black Americans live in say, the 10 largest cities? Or the 25 largest cities. I’ll bet the FBI, CIA, NSA, the Pentagon and the White House know. I’d bet that somewhere deep in the Pentagon is a War Contingency Plan that includes estimates of which cities are MOST likely to riot. I'd guess the plans ALSO include secret lists of Armed Forces units with the FEWEST black and Hispanics with the unspoken implication that those units would be MORE reliable in putting down - i.e., shooting - the rioters - a/k/a in New Speak as civil insurgents. Not with water canons, but with LIVE M16 5.56 mm ammo. No rubber bullets here. When “put down” they stay down!

The last time American labor unions had to fight for survival was in the late 1930s in the coal fields of PA, VA, WV and KY. Dozens were killed by Pinkertons and company “police.” The American labor movement was neutered if not killed by Nixon and Reagan. What remains today are more social clubs that scab bashing strikers!

For the last 8 years, Bush43 has employed Elaine L. Chao, the wife of lifetime anti-union GOP Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell to wreck the remainder of union rights. I’ve said a lot to say this: you cannot count on labor unions to resist unconstitutional expansion of the executive branch.

Any hope for a general uprising in America to protest or push back an excessive grab for executive power rests in the LEAST admired group in America, its long suffering and always loyal BLACKS! Maybe we (whites) should take a person of color to dinner this Sunday?

[edit on 5/3/2008 by donwhite]

Originally posted by donwhite
Any hope for a general uprising in America to protest or push back an excessive grab for executive power rests in the LEAST admired group in America, its long suffering and always loyal BLACKS! Maybe we (whites) should take a person of color to dinner this Sunday?

Throughout history, those who have the least have often had to do the most. Cadres have always been just one more tool to keep them in line while making them feel like they belonged to something bigger than themselves.