Gray Brechin Published in the Point Reyes Light

The Point Reyes Light published an article authored by Gray Brechin, the Living New Deal’s Project Scholar.  In the article, Gray discuses reviving the Civilian Conservation Corps in light of recent wildfires in California.  He notes that, “[D]uring its decade-long run, the corps employed three and a half million young men to plant over three billion trees.”  Read the full article here.

 

2 comments on “Gray Brechin Published in the Point Reyes Light

  1. Andrew Laverdiere

    That’s awesome to hear. Rep. Kaptur was the first congressperson to respond to our organizing by introducing the legislation to bring back the 1933 Glass Steagall act that terrified the crap out of the banksters.

  2. Elena Ion

    Ivar Nelson, March 18, 2018:
    Delighted to see Gray Brechin’s article promoting a contemporary CCC. It could be a solution to many of our challenges, if done right. The integration of the CCC camps was a noble experiment in fulfilling an American commitment to an equal society, but it did run up against entrenched biases in much of the country, and eventually was rescinded. One idea would be to reward CCC enrollees with a tuition free post-secondary school education, thereby creating an emergency response force (fires, hurricanes, quakes, drought) and a conservation force for our forests and rangelands while solving the financial roadblock for many young men and women to get education and/or training. Lessons learned from the CCC itself: use already existing institutions; make it open to all men and women; enroll cohorts from one area; allow enrollees to quit at any time; have a disciplined camp (military w/o guns and w/o military training); have lots of food, good shelter and clothing. One of FDR’s goals was to provide young men (at that time) with a renewed sense of hope and worth at a time of widespread personal depression. Use some of the funds already allocated to scholarships and tuition support, and to emergency response, to fund pilot programs to see if such an approach would work.

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