Will the State Department Torpedo Its Last Great Program?

[eridani]

http://www.thenation.com/article/179747/will-state-department-torpedo-its-last-great-program?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_term=email_nation&utm_campaign=Email%20Nation%20%28NEW%29%2020140508&newsletter=email_nation_tuesday

Often it’s the little things coming out of Washington, obscured by the big, scary headlines, that matter most in the long run. Items that scarcely make the news, or fail to attract your attention, or once noticed seem trivial, may carry consequences that endure long after the latest front-page crisis has passed. They may, in fact, signal fundamental changes in Washington’s priorities and policies that could even face opposition, if only we paid attention.

Take the current case of an unprecedented, unkind, under-the-radar cut in the State Department’s budget for the Fulbright Program, the venerable 68-year-old operation that annually arranges for thousands of educators, students and researchers to be exchanged between the United States and at least 155 other countries. As Washington increasingly comes to rely on the “forward projection” of military force to maintain its global position, the Fulbright Program may be the last vestige of an earlier, more democratic, equitable and generous America that enjoyed a certain moral and intellectual standing in the world. Yet, long advertised by the US government as “the flagship international educational exchange program” of American cultural diplomacy, it is now in the path of the State Department’s torpedoes.

Right now, all over the world, former Fulbright scholars like me (Norway, 2012) are raising the alarm, trying to persuade Congress to stand by one of its best creations, passed by unanimous bipartisan consent of the Senate and signed into law by President Truman in 1946. Alumni of the Fulbright Program number more than 325,000, including more than 123,000 Americans. Among Fulbright alums are fifty-three from thirteen different countries who have won a Nobel Prize, twenty-eight MacArthur Foundation fellows, eighty winners of the Pulitzer Prize, twenty-nine who have served as the head of state or government, and at least one, lunar geologist Harrison Schmitt (Norway, 1957), who walked on the moon—not to mention the hundreds of thousands who returned to their countries with greater understanding and respect for others and a desire to get along. Check the roster of any institution working for peace around the world and you’re almost certain to find Fulbright alums whose career choices were shaped by international exchange. What’s not to admire about such a program?

[Demo_Chris]

1. kick

[snot]

2. I think the answer is, Yes.

Wake up, America.

It might not be too late?

[mnhtnbb]

3. My youngest son has been in Berlin since last September on a Fulbright

and will come home in July. It has been an amazing experience for him.

[djean111]

4. Does it help anyone in the 99%? If so - yes.

[dotymed]

5. This govt. and its corporate

cronies are too busy stealing all of Americas wealth and, basically destroying Democracy and anything beneficial to the non-elite, that they could care less.

[JEB]

10. I call it picking the carcass

of the dying empire.

[The Wizard]

6. Anything having to do with

education and enlightenment is an anathema to Republican dogma.

[n2doc]

7. The Fulbrights are everything the 'modern' GOP abhors

Education, outreach, learning about other countries and vice versa in a non-violent way. Yep. Can't have that

[Doctor_J]

8. And turd way/dinos

[ProSense]

9. That's what happens

"Will the State Department Torpedo Its Last Great Program?"

...when people demonize foreign aid and the State Department.

Kerry 2013:

<...>

We value education, promoting programs like the Fulbright exchanges managed by the Department of State. They enable the most talented citizens to share their devotion to diplomacy and peace, their hopes, their friendships, and the belief that all of the Earth’s sons and daughters ought to have the opportunity to lift themselves up. Today these exchanges bring hundreds of thousands of students to America from other countries, and vice versa. In the last year alone, more than 10,000 citizens of foreign countries participated in the State Department’s academic, youth, professional and cultural exchange programs right here in Virginia. Virginians also studied abroad through State Department programs. Senator Fulbright, at whose hearings I had the privilege of testifying as a young veteran returning from Vietnam, he knew that the value of sharing our proudest values bore fruit in the long run, in the future. He said, “Having people who understand your thought,” he said, “is much greater security than another submarine.”

Let me be very clear. Foreign assistance is not a giveaway. It’s not charity. It is an investment in a strong America and in a free world. Foreign assistance lifts other people up and then reinforces their willingness to link arms with us in common endeavors. And when we help others crack down on corruption, that makes it easier for our own compliance against corruption, and it makes it easier for our companies to do business as well.

- more-

http://www.state.gov/secretary/remarks/2013/02/205021.htm