# Glenn Beck blasts Americorps **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [August 31, 2009, 12:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/glenn-beck-blasts-americorps/508297 "2009-08-31T00:12:34Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Kyla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/eada6e/32.png) [@Kyla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kyla)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2009, 12:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/glenn-beck-blasts-americorps/508297/61 "2009-09-01T12:37:29Z")
> [@Ravenman](#): > > How political bombthrowers can say Peace Corps volunteers are actually Gestapo is a disgusting exercise of yellow journalism and selective quotation. Has anyone actually said that? Americorps and Peace Corps are two totally different agencies. Just curious, cause I’m a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer and I am intrigued to know if Glenn Beck thinks I was destroying American values or something by teaching English in to elementary school kids. ---
**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2009, 12:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/glenn-beck-blasts-americorps/508297/62 "2009-09-01T12:46:41Z")
> [@Kyla](#): > > Has anyone actually said that? Americorps and Peace Corps are two totally different agencies. Just curious, cause I’m a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer and I am intrigued to know if Glenn Beck thinks I was destroying American values or something by teaching English in to elementary school kids. In the actual words of a hell of a lot of [nutjobs](http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27655039/), “civilian national security corps” = Gestapo, SS, KGB, whatever. Obama was talking about more money for diplomats and Peace Corps volunteers. Fringe elements then go crazy and say Obama’s ordering brownshirts. Those crazies ought to know who they are insulting when they go off the deep end: people trying to keep our country safe and help starving, uneducated children living in poor countries. ---
**Author:** ![cosmosdan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@cosmosdan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cosmosdan)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2009, 1:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/glenn-beck-blasts-americorps/508297/63 "2009-09-01T13:21:27Z")
> [@Ravenman](#): > > In the actual words of a hell of a lot of [nutjobs](http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27655039/), “civilian national security corps” = Gestapo, SS, KGB, whatever. > > Obama was talking about more money for diplomats and Peace Corps volunteers. Fringe elements then go crazy and say Obama’s ordering brownshirts. Those crazies ought to know who they are insulting when they go off the deep end: people trying to keep our country safe and help starving, uneducated children living in poor countries. It is both amusing and enraging the way Beck keeps saying “I’m not saying this is true, I’m only asking questions” as he shows selectively edited clips of Black Panthers and Farrakhan. His guest says I’m not comparing the president to Hitler or Hussein" and then describes what they did and Beck says “Oh but you are comparing them because there are similarities” There are serious issues to examine and discuss and these jackasses aren’t helping. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2009, 1:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/glenn-beck-blasts-americorps/508297/64 "2009-09-01T13:28:44Z")
> [@Ravenman](#): > > In the actual words of a hell of a lot of [nutjobs](http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27655039/), “civilian national security corps” = Gestapo, SS, KGB, whatever. Click on that link and you find that the nutob in question is a member of Congress! :eek: Michelle Bachmann should have got us used to the idea by now, but, **still!** :eek::eek: ---
**Author:** ![Michael\_Ellis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/977dab/32.png) [@Michael\_Ellis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Michael_Ellis)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2009, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/glenn-beck-blasts-americorps/508297/65 "2009-09-01T14:49:46Z")
I really want to punch that face. I bet he’d cry. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2009, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/glenn-beck-blasts-americorps/508297/66 "2009-09-01T15:08:07Z")
> [@Ravenman](#): > > How political bombthrowers can say Peace Corps volunteers are actually Gestapo is a disgusting exercise of yellow journalism and selective quotation. Of course, not. The Peace Corps is CIA, not Gestapo. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2009, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/glenn-beck-blasts-americorps/508297/67 "2009-09-01T16:33:16Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > 😃 It isn’t? Since when? 😕 > **[Hongkong Lotto](https://multinationalmonitor.org/hyper/issues/1986/09/smith.html)** > [@](#): > > A controversy arose when Reagan nominated Thomas Pauken, a former Army intelligence operative in Vietnam, to be director of ACTION in 1981. The Peace Corps still fell under the auspices of ACTION at that time and Ruppe opposed the nomination, claiming the intelligence connection would damage the Corps’ credibility abroad. The Senate confirmed Pauken, but shortly thereafter legislation was approved separating ACTION from the Peace Corps. > > Although President Kennedy ordered the CIA not to use the Peace Corps as cover, former Corps director Sam Brown once stated that he had been “assured” by the CIA that it had not used Peace Corps for cover since 1975. This was the only official admission that the agency had ever done so. > > Louis Wolf, editor of Covert Action Information Bulletin, said there had been discussions in Congress recently over proposals to include the Peace Corps among organizations that could be used as cover by the CIA. Ruppe strongly opposed this proposal, as did longterm congressional supporters of the Corps. In the end the Peace Corps was exempted from the list. Oh, apparently since 1975. Maybe. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2009, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/glenn-beck-blasts-americorps/508297/68 "2009-09-01T16:35:56Z")
The fact that the CIA has used it for cover does not make it a front for the CIA; most spies are in diplomatic service, but you wouldn’t call the State Department a CIA patsy. ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2009, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/glenn-beck-blasts-americorps/508297/69 "2009-09-01T16:44:19Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > The fact that the CIA has used it for cover does not make it a front for the CIA; most spies are in diplomatic service, but you wouldn’t call the State Department a CIA patsy. Perhaps not all of the time, but it casts a shadow over everybody else. **Kyla** , during your service did anybody suggest you worked for the CIA? ---
**Author:** ![ladyfoxfyre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ad7895/32.png) [@ladyfoxfyre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ladyfoxfyre)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2009, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/glenn-beck-blasts-americorps/508297/70 "2009-09-01T22:42:21Z")
The associations between the Peace Corps and the CIA are very dangerous ones to continue to suggest. Volunteers have been kidnapped and killed under suspicion of such connections. When I was interviewing, they went a long way during the interview process to ensure neither you nor your family has ties to it, as it would be incredibly damaging to the Peace Corps to return to the suspicion that it’s a cover for the CIA. ---
**Author:** ![Morgyn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/morgyn/32/3041_2.png) [@Morgyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morgyn)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2009, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/glenn-beck-blasts-americorps/508297/71 "2009-09-01T22:56:59Z")
I offer this as a flip side to what **ladyfoxfyre** said. When I was in college, I had a summer intern job with the CIA as a file clerk and (occasional) junior secretary. When I was offered the job, they were VERY clear that if I accepted, I could never, _ **ever** _ apply to the Peace Corps. My recollection is that the job was pretty damned boring, and since it was over 25 years ago asking me questions about it is likely to get you an answer of, “I really don’t remember”. And unlike certain former AGs, this would be the truth. Half the time, I don’t recall what I had for dinner night before last. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2009, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/glenn-beck-blasts-americorps/508297/72 "2009-09-01T23:44:53Z")
> [@Kyla](#): > > Has anyone actually said that? Americorps and Peace Corps are two totally different agencies. Just curious, cause I’m a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer and I am intrigued to know if Glenn Beck thinks I was destroying American values or something by teaching English in to elementary school kids. You were making furriners smarter. Why do you hate America? 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Kyla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/eada6e/32.png) [@Kyla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kyla)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2009, 10:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/glenn-beck-blasts-americorps/508297/73 "2009-09-02T10:06:15Z")
> [@dropzone](#): > > **Kyla** , during your service did anybody suggest you worked for the CIA? Nope, not once. One volunteer I knew claimed that someone had suggested that he was a spy, but he was one of those storyteller types, and he was always going on and on about how shitty his village was and how crazy the people there were and this was just one example, so I don’t know how seriously to take him. From what I hear, there are a lot of suspicions about Peace Corps’ motivations in Latin America, specifically, but I served in Eastern Europe and it wasn’t an issue. They were mostly just baffled as to why I would leave ~_~America~_~ to work in Bulgaria. Like **ladyfoxfyre** says, Peace Corps goes to quite extensive lengths to disassociate itself from intelligence agencies. During my staging (a three day orientation my group had in DC before we left for Bulgaria), we had little exercises about how we needed to avoid all contact with intelligence workers. One I recall was “you’ve started dating a host country national, and a few months into the relationship, you discover that s/he is an informant for an intelligence agency. What do you do?” The correct answer was “break off all contact with him/her immediately.” ---
**Author:** ![gigi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a587f6/32.png) [@gigi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gigi)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2009, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/glenn-beck-blasts-americorps/508297/74 "2009-09-04T18:30:15Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > I was never told to refrain from political activities, by the way, but politics never came up on the job. You didn’t have to take that pledge at the end of orientation, which included lines about not engaging in protests, etc.? It did creep me out a little. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2009, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/glenn-beck-blasts-americorps/508297/75 "2009-09-04T18:41:33Z")
If I took a pledge at all, I don’t remember it. ---
**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2009, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/glenn-beck-blasts-americorps/508297/76 "2009-09-04T18:52:59Z")
> [@gigi](#): > > You didn’t have to take that pledge at the end of orientation, which included lines about not engaging in protests, etc.? It did creep me out a little. Is this the one? > [@](#): > > ``` > The AmeriCorps Pledge > > I will get things done for America - > to make our people safer, > smarter, and healthier. > > I will bring Americans together > to strengthen our communities. > > Faced with apathy, > I will take action. > > Faced with conflict, > I will seek common ground. > > Faced with adversity, > I will persevere. > > I will carry this commitment > with me this year and beyond. > > I am an AmeriCorps member, > and I will get things done. > > ``` ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2009, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/glenn-beck-blasts-americorps/508297/77 "2009-09-04T18:59:11Z")
That one rings a bell. “Getting things done” was a slogan that got used a lot. ---
**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2009, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/glenn-beck-blasts-americorps/508297/78 "2009-09-04T19:01:32Z")
Volunteerism, brought to you by Larry the Cable Guy. ---
**Author:** ![gigi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a587f6/32.png) [@gigi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gigi)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2009, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/glenn-beck-blasts-americorps/508297/79 "2009-09-04T19:21:54Z")
I forgot, it was still VISTA when I was in it. This more like the pledge we had to take I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; That I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; That I take this obligation freely without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; And that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God. [http://governor.mt.gov/speeches/ltgov/speeches.asp?ID=119](http://governor.mt.gov/speeches/ltgov/speeches.asp?ID=119) ETA: Obviously it doesn’t mention no protesting, lobbying, etc., but during orientation these were mentioned as not allowed. I was discomfitted because I had joined a private volunteer agency but they got the stipends through us signing up with VISTA so it was a level of patriotism I wasn’t aware of till I got there. ---
**Author:** ![Mississippienne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d2c977/32.png) [@Mississippienne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mississippienne)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2009, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/glenn-beck-blasts-americorps/508297/80 "2009-09-04T19:35:31Z")
> [@gigi](#): > > You didn’t have to take that pledge at the end of orientation, which included lines about not engaging in protests, etc.? It did creep me out a little. I am a two-time member of Americorps NCCC – Perry Point, Class X, 2004 and Perry Point, Class XV, 2009. And the only pledge we make is the Americorps pledge given by **Ravenman**. It is true that you cannot participate in protests _while you are in uniform_ but you can certainly do so on your own time so long as you do not wear anything identifying you as a member of Americorps. I’ve participated in the March for Women’s Lives (pro-choice) in DC, an anti-police brutality demonstration in Philadelphia, and a gay rights march, also in Philadelphia. I just wore my own clothes and went on my off-hours. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/glenn-beck-blasts-americorps/508297.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/glenn-beck-blasts-americorps/508297.md?page=5)