I really wanted to come away filled with hope and positivity from this moment of Barack Obama and John McCain visiting Columbia University for a “conversation” on public service as part of the ServiceNation Summit. I wanted to rush home, hit my computer, and write a great big gushing post spreading all that hope and positivity. In general, I try to take that approach—to push solutions over criticism, positive action over negative degradation. The trouble is, I feel I have some bones I have to pick. Maybe I can say them in a nice way. Pretend I am smiling and bouncing up and down with happy and delight as I type this.

Well, okay, not all was sour for me, lest I suggest it was. After all the garbage that was dumped on it in the last few weeks, it was kind of nice for the term “community organizer” to become a good thing again. I did enjoy watching the ever uncomfortable McCain shift uncomfortably in his seat when he was taken to task for Palin’s belittlement at the convention. Though, it would have been tremendous had it been Giuliani (who is officially dead to me after what he said about community organizers at the convention, that scoffing snuffle, that mocking laugh) who had to save face and admit that community organizers are in fact important and do in fact have great responsibility.

I guess the trouble began for me about a week ago. The school announced the event, and immediately I contacted the appropriate Columbia people to see about a press pass for The Morningside Post. They gave us an email address and a phone number for a media relations company in charge of press credentials. We emailed our official request. Never heard back. Ever. We followed up with a phone call. Turns out, it was a wrong number. Then, the day before the event, I find the online form for media credentials. Translation:  Columbia was given bad info. Translation:  this media relations company gave bad info. Public service or lip service?

So, TMP didn’t get a press pass. But we did get a one line email response to our online request that said, “Thank you for your interest in ServiceNation, however, at this time we will not be able to accommodate your request for credentials.” Aren’t one line emails the pinnacle of polite? Especially when they don’t even say “I’m sorry?”

It is troubling to me that we got shut out given that we are part of the graduate School of International and Public Affairs, a school highly devoted to the very issues these two men were there to discuss. Fifty-three percent of the school went on to work in the
public and nonprofit sector last year. Our students include government officials and ministers, journalists, directors, human rights advocates, community organizers, leaders of all kinds of social and political change from around the world. We should ABSOLUTELY have gotten into this. I would like to send a great big warm heartfelt thank you to our friends at the media relations company.

Not all was lost, however. At least Columbia was kind enough to set up a big screen TV in the middle of campus, where I was able to watch with my fellow students outside. That’s certainly a public service.

What really struck me about this event was how many times the words “Peace” and “Corps” were uttered together. It was like the candidates were trying to say that Peace Corps was important to them. Every time they needed to list a series of government organizations providing not just service to our country, but service we can all be proud of, there was Peace Corps.

Now, maybe Peace Corps IS important to them. Maybe. But as a returned Peace Corps Volunteer, I have yet to see any real commitment from any of our politicians promising big things for the organization. When I was there, I watched the program grow in size, but the budget stay the same. So, our thinly spread resources were only thinned even more. And where was all this Peace Corps talk the day before the “conversation,” or during the conventions? Yeah, it pops up every now and then. But only when it is convenient. And so far, I have seen an exponentially greater commitment by our government to our War Corps than to our Peace Corps. In ’04, we spent $400 billion on the former, $4 billion on the latter. You see where our priorities are.

I was very happy to hear talk in this “conversation” of the tremendous barrier to service that student loan debt can be. Obama even went so far as to suggest a system in which students go to college, take on debt, graduate, go into public service, and have some form of debt relief.

Then I think to myself:  Huh, I joined Peace Corps in 2004, relinquishing any sort of earning I was going to do for two years. Then, I applied to graduate school to improve upon that public service work I had started in Peace Corps. I chose Columbia because it was the school that would give me the best tools for my particular career path. Of course, having not been able to save up any money in Peace Corps, I had to take out loans for the full two years, which will leave me shackled to a good $150K of debt. And, in all probability, I will take a job in the nonprofit field, which tends not to be where student loans are quickly repaid. All in the name of public service, and not lip service.

I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve overheard people saying in my school, “How can I possibly do nonprofit work with all of this debt? I’m going to have to go into the private sector just to pay it off.” The areas of the world with the most need, and the jobs that attempt to address that need, tend to attract salaries that price some of our best and brightest out of those jobs. That is completely contrary to this idea of public service. Moreover, we should consider the implications. With all of the conflict that is spilling across borders, all of the technologies used to facilitate violent movements, and all of the resources that are being used in ways that do more damage than good, now it is paramount that we heed the call, and make it easier for our best and brightest to go where they are most needed. It should be no surprise that Afghanistan was the HQ of the event that we were to remember on this day of September 11th—it is our radiant example of what happens when war and development (or lack thereof) go wrong for so long, when problems are not addressed appropriately, when we ignore things that didn’t seem important at the time.

I don’t mean to whine here about my own situation. I made this choice, and I am extremely happy with it. I just haven’t seen much reason to get too excited about candidates voicing their big ideas about creating incentives toward public service. I’ll believe it when I see it.

McCain said he’d never force companies to offer leave to people who wanted to take time off for public service, like Timberland, though he did say he would certainly encourage it. John, if you really mean this, you know what you have to do to encourage a business—tax incentives for granting this kind of leave—not just say you’d like them to do it. Otherwise, this too starts to sound like lip service.

Another topic that came up again and again was the GI bill. This is supposed to be a program that pays for a college education for people who go into military service, if they so desire. Yet, I lived with someone last year who served his country proudly, and years later, still has a balance on his college account because the government is burying in bureaucracy his request for it to live up to its promise. This does not sound like such an uncommon story. And now, like many, he is too trapped by debt to serve the public.

Obama and McCain spoke about Columbia not allowing ROTC on campus. Then the point was made that this was the same campus that let President Ahmadinejad stop by. This whole conversation really bothered me. First, there is an implication that Columbia students don’t have ample resources to access information on ROTC, or the wherewithal to find it, if interested. It was as if Columbia had barricaded all avenues for students to join the ROTC. Second, there was a total disregard of our military, in general, carnivorously targeting kids from poorer and minority communities. Just ask my wife who works in a nonprofit that assists these sorts of kids in their quest to finish high school and go on to college. They are constantly having to break this reality to the kids that the military does not always back up its promises.

Then I find out the next day the reason ROTC isn’t allowed on campus is because of the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy, which promotes the idea that homosexuality is bad for our military, and should just stay in the closet. I also find out that anyone at Columbia who is a member of ROTC, and receives benefits from it, can still do so on Columbia’s campus, because those benefits go straight to the individual and not the school. They just have to go elsewhere to find a recruiter.

Obama and McCain both made statements that we need to expand our military. Hogwash. Of all the money spent in the world on military budgets, by every single country combined, the US government accounts for roughly 50% of that total budget. If the problem is that we don’t have enough troops, then the solution is not to expand, but to shift resources. If 50% is not enough to lift us out of constant threat, 60% won’t be either.

And why was this whole event called a “conversation” in this first place? Was this really a conversation? I have to take McCain’s side here and say, yeah, maybe it would have been better if they’d had the two candidates on the stage together, talking. Why the heck didn’t they? Again and again we heard about how they were putting down partisanship in the name of public service. Sorry, not achieved. Had they been on the stage together, talking through these issues face to face, in a way that showed real teamwork and bipartisanship, then I would have bought it. This element of the evening was a farce.

Where does this leave us? Clearly I’m a bit bummed out by our government leaders, as are 84% of us, according to a number that came up again and again at this “conversation.” But really, I’m not bummed. Yeah, I’m frustrated with the aspects of this event that smelled of charade (sorry, I can’t help but question the commitment of that media relationship company to the student media outlets at Columbia that are trying to serve the public), and that feeling that I have heard all of these words before, that familiar stillness of actions not taken.

I’m also a bit concerned by something someone in front of me said—that having a national service day can make people feel like doing service on that day is all they really need to do for the year. Or, like the cause ribbon stickers that people buy for a dollar—yeah, really all they are saying is that they were willing to spend just one more dollar than someone who didn’t.

This event did seem a little like something that might not be sustained beyond that one day. That the net result could have just been paying (what was that term again?) to the idea of public service. But, I don’t want to take away from the effort. ServiceNation, and all of the people who spoke at this event, are trying to make a difference. No matter how flawed or perfect the event, at least they tried. For this I commend them exuberantly. And I am very grateful for the chance to have Obama and McCain come to Columbia.

The truth is, I’m hopeful. I’m fired up! All the energy and cheering on that campus when Obama appeared on the big screen. All the hope and inspiration in his voice. All that I have seen people accomplish in their quest to make the world a better place. I felt this as I watched the Orange Revolution first hand. All it takes is a spark. And maybe another spark. And a commitment to keep sparking until there is fire. Once there is fire, sure, people will try to dump bucket after bucket of water on that fire (see:  the Republican playbook, Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, George Bush, Dick Cheney, man, the list is endless). The key is to give them a great big smile, open up your Zippo, and go right back at the flint.