In Defense of Community Organizers
Presidential Vice-Presidential Candidate Governor Palin and former Presidential candidate Rudolph Guiliani lampooned community organizers and the important work they do in their communities. Are they so out of touch that they do not realize that teachers, PTA members, football coaches and non-profit volunteers also have “actual responsibilities” too? Do they not realize - in their desire to smear - that these people have families as well? These people have love for their communities and strive to improve their own lives by improving the lives of others.
Well, community organizers across the country are upset at these snide attacks on them and their work and some have written on this issue. The Palin Campaign can continue to attack community volunteers and organizers at their own peril.
Community organizers across America, taken aback by a series of attacks from Republican leaders at the GOP convention in St. Paul, came together today to defend their work organizing Americans who have been left behind by unemployment, lack of health insurance and the national housing crisis. The organizers demanded an apology from Alaska Governor Sarah Palin for her statement that community organizers have no
Filed under: Community of Compassion
“You couldn
Her Majesty Queen Palin sure doesn’t seem to think so…
I wouldn’t have a problem with Obama’s experience as a community organizer being questioned. It is a valid point to bring up whether it is relevant for the office he’s running for, that’s fine.
However, ridiculing the position of community organizer was quite condescending. Mocking a volunteer is just poor taste.
Let me understand this… Sarah think that volunteer work is insignificant? Oh my god,tell me that she didn’t say that?
I would really like to know where Sarah( or maybe the person in charge of her campaign )she gets her info about volunteers not having life. Most volunteers have jobs. Even if they aren’t employed, it counts far as the them helping the people and them having some type of job experience from it.
So I guess Sarah has never volunteered for her kids and I guess that when the she and the McCains had that drive in helping Katrina victims that was about just looking good( and whether Sarah realizes it is’s a form of volunteer work. ). God! I can’t believe those words that came from her considering that she boasts about being a soccer mom.
Elitist( and perhaps ignorant) thoughts like those are one of many reasons that I cannot /will not support their party.
The thing about the modern day Republicans is everything they say is coded. The mockery of community organizers was to imply to their “base” that only people like Martin Luther King, Malcolm X who have gained leadership credentials by building a base from the ranks of disaffected can only be good at rallying those “other folks” to starting trouble for the establishment of power. This is why that line played so well with her base. It was an attempt to say that all those Blacks are good for is rabble rousing.
Never mind the fact that the neoconservatives have been organizing in country clubs, suburban churches for years when it came to issues from Roe v Wade to zionism in the interest of Israel.
Palin was merely redefining the term.
I think you guys are a bit off track.
Did Sarah say community organizers were insignificant? Where and under what circumstances.
I believe she is refering to OB’s community service as rather insignificant….check how long he was a community server and what he did, what were the circumstances and results….
Sarah was a cimmunity organizer in the PTA but I’d doubt she’d point to that saying it was significant at this job level.
OB has to mention his cs as his resume is so thin.
http://wcbstv.com/national/Barack.Obama.illinois.2.279854.html
To PatB, she stated:
“I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a community organizer, except that you have actual responsibilities.”
I don’t know how much clearer this comment can get PatB. It’s pretty obvious what she meant. And from your comment I’m assuming you probably didn’t watch the RNC
Honestly, it’s one of the most stupid putdowns I’ve heard in the political arena in quite some time. But than again, the McCain camp isn’t exactly stacked in the intelligence department judging by both the potential prez and VP’s rather lack luster academic careers.
And speaking of a lack of intelligence… Why would someone want to be the VP when they don’t even know what a VP does. This whole thing is rather bizarre. It’s kind of like me wanting to be an aerospace engineer. It sounds totally awesome but I have absolutely no idea what it is they do.
Anon,
You may not like it but what she said is true. A community organizer has no executive authority and his/her name is not on the bottom line, as is a Mayors or Governors….why do you find that difficult to grasp. How many tax dollars is a CO resp. for, how many budgets, zoning laws, police forces, emergency responders and down the line….get it?
The VP thing was a tongue in cheek joke turned gotcha by a blogger, do you guys research stuff or just regurgitate.
Oh, and the bridge to nowhere that Obama voted for
http://townhall.com/blog/g/3987f806-e398-4968-828b-68e129120082
Budget? Are you serious? As mayor she left a town of less than 10,000 people 20 million dollars in debt. If that is what we can expect from her experience, God help us.
Emergency responders? OK. The current president is a former governor, and we see how well the emergency responders under his watch took care of New Orleans. Fat lot of good all that “executive experience” he had did those folks who got hit by Katrina. Turns out that the “community organizers” did more to help those hit than the people with “actual responsibilities” did.
“The people of Wasilla approved bonding for a $15 million dollar sports complex and some road bonds at the end of Palin
I’m still trying to figure out why the debate is CO verses mayor? the man served in the IL state senate 8 years, taught consitutinal law for 20 years, graudated at the top of his class and was prez of the havard law review (this is not an affrimative action position) and a civil righst attoney, and now is his 3 year as senator.
McCain is much order and has been over 20 years iin the senate. he has never served on the local level at anything. he only got into then aval academy because of his father (affirmative action). he graduated 3rd from last of his class at the naval academy. he was almost kicked out of the naval academy 3 times and was saved because of his fathers possition in the navy. (elite status)
The man wrote a ethins bill and now is agaisnt it
he was agaisnt drilling but now is for it
he is agaisnt caps on emmisions. so i dont know how else he plans of getting companies to crub pollution. Saying pretty please will not work.. it hasnt worked so far.
was agasint toture but voted for the torture bill
he never talks about balancing the budget because he knows its impossible to do if he make bushes tax cuts for the rich permenate.
he refused to talk about social security because he claims talking about it during election time will only “politicize” the issue. WTH?
mr. “reformer” wont say a thing about those no-bid contracts
tech. i think if federal employees are forced to retire at 65 than congressman/ senators shouldnt serve pass 65 as well. Therefore, the president shouldnt be over 65 either unless he took office at 64.
Obama verse Palin is silly… she doesn’t have any expereince on the national stage.. and she is not running for president McCain is.. and he has yet to give us any evidence that his policy ideas are better than bushes. We can’t balance a budget with out pulling out of iraq to some large degree and rolling back some of these tax cuts to the most wealthy. If we can’t do that then inflation will continue to rise and oil will not drop to pre -iraq rates until we do so.. when he has the courage to come out and say that then i would vote for him. heck, i would have voted for him if he chose Powel, Condi, Ruth Ann Minner, Janet Napolitano, Linda Lingle, Judy Martz, etc..
and again, they both have outright lied on OB while he hasn’t returned the favor and that tells me more about them as people than anything else.
The fact that Obama could have written his ticket after graduating from Harvard and decided to involve himself as a community organizer says so much about his character and values.
He could had a job on Wall Street so quick it is not even funny. However, he chose to go back and help people on the Southside of Chicago.
Whereas, Palin a graduate of Iowa University cannot even begin to compete with Obama’s credentials.
Please do not try to say Obama used affirmative action because being editor of Harvard Law Review has nothing to do with affirmative action. Obama was obviously at the top of his class.
Salaam
Though I understand how someone could argue that the experience garnered as a community organizer isn’t traditionally what we look for in a presidential candidate, I do not think that should be seen as a negative.
Change comes from the ground up. Community organizers often have a larger stake in the affairs of the community in which they serve than either state and federal government.
It’s not negative. Almost every Pres. has been a community organizer at some time/place.
They rarely included the info in their resume though as they had much more depth to their resume’s.
That was the point…the lack of depth and it’s inclusion as key.
What he did was good as a CO, no one argues that.
And what are McCains creditials,.. he graduated 3rd from last in his class, he nearly was kicked out 3 times and was saved because of who his father was, he crashed 5 planes while he served.. to his credit he took his POW time like a man but so did a thousand others. He has since been in the senate. his career in the senate isn’t particulary any better than many other 20+ career senators at present.
The man is a major flip floper on just about everything or an outright liar. I’m just not down with people telling lies over and over again. if your platform is so strong why lie so much?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEtZlR3zp4c
Hijabiisoverrated,
I would have went with your choice of people that you would have picked out( Republican-wise) for the VP ticket. I may not agree with their Republican ideologies but at least that they are all experinced in our government and in World Affairs.
Anon,
That is the million dollar question? ..and a frightening thought to top it off.I remembered the last time of a certain man who was running in Sarah’s same position years ago and how much the world made fun of him because of his dim-witted understanding of politics.
PatB,
But she’s the one who brought up and jeered other community organizers for their volunteerism. It is only fair that if she going to jeer these people about their good service( and yes, she mocked them. Her words were clear and definite), then it’s only fair that her record of volunteerism be brought into foreplay. I don’t see anything wrong with that, though she think that it’s no big deal.
I think no one seems to be bold enough to come out and say that experience may be irrelevant.
Washington and Lincoln would have minimal experience by the standards being set up in the media. G W Bush had a hell of a lot of experience. Schwarzenegger had minimal experience beyond managing his own money, but he’s doing a fairly decent job in California.
Obama being a Harvard graduate shouldn’t be looked at too hard either. For me personally, its actually a negative, simply because there are too many Ivy Leaguers who have been in the upper echelons of power. Being from an Ivy League school isn’t a bad thing in itself, but when there’s a concentration of them in politics, its the equivalent of having an aristocracy. Our democracy is supposed to represent all of America, not just those who’ve got a brand name education.
There is a negative and positive for each aspect of the candidate. More experience in politics for example, means being more entrenched in the system.
“The VP thing was a tongue in cheek joke turned gotcha by a blogger, do you guys research stuff or just regurgitate.”
How exactly was what she stated tongue and cheek? I read the entire interview.
And K dude makes an important point. History has shown that experience really doesn’t matter in the long run. Lincoln apparently had less experience than Obama.
But I do however feel that intelligence is important, regardless of what school people attended, whether it be ivy league or a regular state school. I am completely unwilling to vote for a man who got into a school because of his daddy and graduated in the bottom 5 out of 900. Because that is totally pathetic no matter where you come from. (On a sidenote, Karl Rove, on the otherhand has brains. He should have thought about running for prez)
Likewise, I’m equally unwilling to vote for a nutcase jihadi who feels that the Iraq war is a messianic mission from God and who will in all likelihood become prez once the senile McCain dies.
Salaam alaikum,
“For Palin and Guiliani to mock their work was appalling.”
She mocked Obama’s work, not community activism as a whole. I think that’s still distasteful, but appalling or not, distasteful or not, the attacks on Obama in the speech seem to be working if the polls are any indication.
“The Palin Campaign can continue to attack community volunteers and organizers at their own peril.”
She’ll continue to attack Obama with snide remarks, since so far it’s worked brilliantly. I think generally people in the middle will take her remarks as attacks against Obama’s credentials specifically, not as against the local PTA.
K-Dude,
Good points. It’s about common sense. I think about George Bush Jr. He worked fas Governor of Texas and he was re-elected to the White House, but he screwed the world. He did have experience. Whether it’s McCain( which I hope it’s not) or Obama, I’m just hoping that our next president is has a lot of common sense and not take people for granted.
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