V-Gram 37

February 14, 1997

Compulsory voluntarism

Ever since the announcement, some weeks ago, of President Clinton's "Voluntarism" project, something has been stirring in the back of my mind. Finally, it hit me. The Peace Bonds! - I realized with a start. Beginning in 1949, the year of the Stalinist takeover in Hungary, pairs of Communist party agitators went around each year to suggest that people "volunteer" 10% of their pitiful income to purchase "Peace Bonds" with which to "strike a blow against the American Imperialists."

People who refused were listed on various bulletin boards under the heading, "Those who are on Truman's bandwagon." Nevertheless, three years into the project, the story got around that an old man showed agitators the door, saying: "I and my money beat up on those wretched Imperialists three years in a row! They must be reeling. This year, I'm buying myself some new socks."

If I do understand accurately, President Clinton's "voluntarism" project calls on corporations to pay out large sums for the "right causes." A kind of Peace Bond which, in this case, will buy them peace. (In the old days, they called it protection.) What I do not - cannot? - understand accurately is the number of prominent Republicans (former and aspiring Presidents among them) who have added their good name to directives from the White House and acquiesced in calling it "voluntarism."