GOP Goes After... Community Organizers?

You know what's fun? Sitting in a room with thousands of people who run the country and listening to them unleash their full fury at how unfairly they're been treated. It's like listening to Caligula whine.

But I digress. Like pretty much everyone, I think Sarah Palin proved herself an adept and talented politician last night. I also think. and have thought since she was named, that she's a distraction. a "rabbit" as Tom Schaller wrote, that the GOP is hoping Democrats chase.

But one of the (many) attacks Palin leveled last night was part of a broader GOP push against Obama's years as a community organizer. I even heard Newt Gingrich on Fox the other day claiming that Obama was "wandering around the south side." You know, like a homeless person, or something.

I suppose it's not surprising that Republican politicians aren't enthused about community organizers since often they're the ones who are getting their ass kicked by them. (Just ask Rudy.) Also, I'm assuming they didn't read The Nation's forum on just this topic in the last issue.

But this kind of hits me where I live, since my dad is a community organizer, so lemme spell this out: the difference between a community organizer and a politician is that a community organizer can't tell anyone what to do. They have to listen. So they can't order books banned from a library to indulge their own religious sensibilities. They can't fire someone because they didn't follow orders to fire an estranged family member. They can't ram through a $15 million dollar sports complex that leaves their local town groaning underneath the debt. Unlike politicians, they don't have any power other than the power of people who want to see something changed.

Decades ago, before the ADA and a raft of other legislation, schools had essentially no requirements to provide decent education for special needs children. Then a movement of parents, engaging in - gasp - community organizing changed that. And they continue to fight day in and day out for educational equity for children like Sarah Palin's.

Too bad Sarah Palin just spit in their faces.

Comments (13)

1. Well a comunity organizer definitely doesn't push for a "sports" arena that the community will in debt over. Most likely, the organizer will be posing the questions regarding the benefits to the community other than the million-dollar debt. There is no dilemma. Most people aren't fixated on Sharpton or Jackson. When I think of a community organiser, those two do not come to mind. I think of the citizens getting together to form their own city and winning. I think of people who try to engage people in the political process by registering them to vote. I think of people empowering citizens to come together on issues that directly affect and who otherwise aren't being heard. Also the organizer is working for free.

   Posted by k330k at 09/04/2008 @ 12:10pm

2. The content of Palin's speech last night was as reckless as her selection for running mate. The adolescent sarcasm may have amused the nut jobs in the GOP but the party will soon find itself backpedaling from her comments. Belittling the work of community organizers is particularly unwise given the role they play in society. Jesus was one of the most influential community organizers of all time and we know his importance to the GOP base. Jesus was neither a mayor nor a governor. In fact his community organization was aimed at ending their abuse and corruption, the very type of activity in which Palin has engaged. The core work done by most clergy today is community organization. And as stated above these are the skills we most need in Washington. The GOP continues to demonstrate they are clueless about America's needs and have nothing to offer voters.

   Posted by E_Pluribus at 09/04/2008 @ 12:44pm

3. Partisanship rarrr!

   Posted by Cccomfo1 at 09/04/2008 @ 12:59pm

4. Now that braggin is out of the way, how many of us `politically involved' readers/bloggers, were/are mayors????? Does anybody need me to explain further? Posted by 2HAPPY at 09/04/2008 @ 12:45pm

   She does it badly at that. Did you know due to the budget she set for her little town in Wassila by the time she left office they were 25 million dollars in debt? I guess no one wants to mention that.

   Posted by Cccomfo1 at 09/04/2008 @ 1:06pm

5. Some time ago, I worked as a volunteer community organizer (for 4 years or so) and got to know plenty of professional organizers. In hindsight, I find them--and myself at the time--to have been very problematic folks, characterized by both stunning naiveté as well as corrosive cynicism; by radical far-left political, social, and cultural views largely disconnected from reality; by a hypocritical eagerness to make shameful compromises with corrupt municipal and county governments (since they were Democrat controlled), and even with a corporation at one point; by a complete lack of humor and overall lack of perspective, especially about ourselves; by a odd, selective, secularist puritanism that was unbearable even at the time; various degrees of condescension and occasionally half-hidden contempt for the "little people" being helped by us cognoscenti; by seething, disproportionate hatred for all opponents; and, last but not least, by ineffectiveness. Most of us probably needed a good shrink. Try getting involved in community organizing and see if I'm wrong. I am not.

   There are far better ways to help people and make this brutal, broken world a better place than by becoming an ACORN nut or an IAF wackjob. Try being a Big Brother/Big Sister or putting on a Salvation Army uniform or becoming a teacher, for example.

   Please pardon the disillusionment that comes with experience.

   Ultimately, the problem is that everyone thinks about changing the world, but no one ever thinks about changing him/herself.

   Posted by feinfein at 09/04/2008 @ 1:13pm

6. "…jingoism, racism, fear, religious fundamentalism: these are the ways of appealing to people if you're trying to organize a mass base of support for policies that are really intended to crush them."

   FACTS - TRUTH '08

   Ain't You Got Kids?

   Posted by frosty zoom at 09/04/2008 @ 1:58pm

7. "What did Obama organise in the community? What did Jesus organise in the community? Would Jesus oraginise in Rev Wrights church of love? Or would he have torn the place asunder?"

   Actually, I would think Jesus would organize in Reverend Wright's church. Jesus understood that wrong is wrong: he defined hypocrisy as those who hold one set of standards for themselves and another for others. This is exactly what Reverend Wright was saying. If he said the same things about Iraq, there would be no issue. However, because he held the same standard conservatives/Romans do about Iraq to the United States, he suddenly was bad.

   Not quite a crucifixion, but that might only be because we frown upon such things if not done in Abu Gharaib.

   As to tearing places asunder, my memory has it that Jesus threw the money changers out of the temple...I believe they were making money from money, which is pretty much the basis of capitalism. I guess ignoring this is how conservative Chirstians effectively exclaim, "Goddamn Jesus!"

   Posted by onthehelm at 09/04/2008 @ 3:43pm

8. "What did Obama organise in the community? What did Jesus organise in the community? Would Jesus oraginise in Rev Wrights church of love? Or would he have torn the place asunder?"

   Actually, I would think Jesus would organize in Reverend Wright's church. Jesus understood that wrong is wrong: he defined hypocrisy as those who hold one set of standards for themselves and another for others. This is exactly what Reverend Wright was saying. If he said the same things about Iraq, there would be no issue. However, because he held the same standard conservatives/Romans do about Iraq to the United States, he suddenly was bad.

   Not quite a crucifixion, but that might only be because we frown upon such things if not done in Abu Gharaib.

   As to tearing places asunder, my memory has it that Jesus threw the money changers out of the temple...I believe they were making money from money, which is pretty much the basis of capitalism. I guess ignoring this is how conservative Chirstians effectively exclaim, "Goddamn Jesus!"

   Posted by onthehelm at 09/04/2008 @ 3:43pm

9. Geesh...

   I am a small business owner in a rural community where there is 10% unemployment 30% of the 12,000 families in the county receive disability and I don't know what the reliance on food stamps, welfare or medicaid is...

   I have worked as a Community Development project manager [in Kansas City and Newark, NJ], including organizing and education efforts. I have been involved with empowering Family Self Sufficient (FSS) efforts that have resulted in folks that did change themselves- they were able to turn they live around with effort and education as to fiscal management so that they ultimately qualified (these were 80% of median programs) for market rate loans [back when employment income and savings deposits were required to be documented and proven...] and purchase of their homes- new homes built in areas that had been decimated by economic a social disinvestment...

   I did not experience cynicism, but rather, I reaped reward of respect of the folks I helped... I was paid below the median and raised my own family... ironically I do not own my own home... I rent.

   By the way, the performance of mortgages let for targeted, qualified families have experienced fewer foreclosures than the whole market average rate... Organizing and empowering... help folks sense dignity... even if they (I) can't afford the luxury of a dentist.

   Posted by darbrownlee at 09/04/2008 @ 4:08pm

10. Ultimately, the problem is that everyone thinks about changing the world, but no one ever thinks about changing him/herself.

    Posted by feinfein at 09/04/2008 @ 1:13pm

    Although I fear you've painted too bleak a picture in general, I recognize some of what you related in the main body of your e-mail in some of the activists, community organizers, labor organizers, volunteers and non-profit service providers (which is closer to what HAPPY does) I have known over the years (they aren't all the same thing, by the way).

    But your statement at the end is just not true at all! Did you live through the 70's, when so many people decided that in order to change the world, you had to change yourself first? Have you ever read any New Age magazines? Sure, there might be some stuff about fixing Mother Earth or saving the animals, but the overwhelming focus is on "personal growth." My God, have you ever watched Oprah? The whole self-help industry focuses on individual change instead of fixing structural problems. Ditto so much of the consumerism folks engage in, whether it's buying Green or Christian.

    I am sick to death of reading BS like "real change only occurs as an accumulation of small victories and personal change." Tell that to the abolitionists and union organizers of the past, or to the American, French and Russian Revolutionaries. Imperfect though the results might have been, enormous change was only made possible by tremendous, earth-shattering action.

    Posted by cka2nd at 09/04/2008 @ 4:37pm

11. I posted a civics lesson for Sarah Palin on community organizing at the CA NOW blog: http://www.canow.org/canoworg/2008/09/a-civics-lesson.html

    Posted by canow at 09/04/2008 @ 5:47pm

12. Obama worked for and with ACORN in the 90's. ACORN of course is a paradigm of virtue in community organizing. They excel at voter registration activities. Very few of their efforts result in actual convictions and prison sentences like in Washington State.

    Posted by sntauri at 09/04/2008 @ 5:54pm

13. Dear "Sntauri,"

    Care to guess how the number of ACORN convicts compares to the number of Republican convicts?

    Posted by JakobFabian at 09/04/2008 @ 9:53pm