Community organizers are happy to defend themselves, anywhere, anytime, against Republican attacks.
Contact John Raskin, founder of Community Organizers of America, at 646-369-8093.
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Community Organizers Fight Back 
She knocked hard working people who care about
their communities and are deeply involved in making their lives better. She’s the elitist.
Thank you for starting this site. I am not a community organizer and have always lived in an area that is upper middle class. That being said, I (and my entire family) was deeply offended by the scurrilous attacks directed toward caring individuals such as yourself who are willing to help those less fortunate at all costs.
Please let me know of any developments.
Best Regards,
Frank M Salinger III
We were very offended at this remarks as well. Especially in the context that it is a part of Obama’s character, just like being a POW is part of McCain’s character. Neither qualify or disqualify them for the Presidency.
Our family was stunned at the RNC’s viscious attacks on the very people who are selflessly giving back to their hurting communities through Community outreach programs. After this disastrous administration’s policies decimating our economy and the lives of millions of hard working Americans, it took a lot of nerve to laugh at, and mock the very heroes who are keeping our citizens afloat. Remember this when you cast your vote for President this November. Our family won’t soon forget…..it’s unforgiveable.
Those patheic, self-rightous thugs making ugly comments about a whole world of talented, giving people who really do have family and community values. We can’t let this go unanswered!! Flaten them on November 4th!!
Keep it up. RAISE YOUR VOICES! This simply CANNOT STAND! Dont back down and dont be scared. You are the last line of defesne when America’s government (people like Sarah Palin) screw it up. Get the word out that 8 years of this is enough!
I don’t know if this email will reach anyone there at the campaign. But I am so disappointed this morning and I want to get this off my chest. I think you’ll see why.
I am a Republican woman, 46 years old, no college education, a litigation paralegal for 15+ years. I had decided at the start of this presidential election cycle to vote for Barack Obama, and so now am a registered Democrat in Texas. After hearing Giuliani and Palin’s speeches last night, I believe I’ll be keeping my party affiliation as Democrat from now on. No way do I want to be associated with a party that employs the kind of tactics that were on display last night at the Republican Convention. If I were a political cartoonist, I would have depicted Palin as Bella Lugosi with an up-do, complete with cape and fangs, holding up a vile of blood labeled Obama to a hungry mob with blood-dripping fangs and frenzied eyes and hands reaching toward the podium.
I just finished 2 years as Board President of a nonprofit early child education center in Austin, Texas that serves low-income, high-risk children and their families. Our parents are in the welfare-to-work program. I consider myself a community organizer. I had plenty of responsibility as Board President, and I will have plenty of responsibility now as Immediate Past President and as I continue to volunteer for my organization in the coming years. Our organization at one time had 5 locations. Funding, under a Republican administration both on a national and state level, started to dry up. Our organization now runs only 1 school and I have been fighting with tooth and nail over the last 2 years to change the strategic plan and lobby my Board to follow me in a new direction for our organization. I can say with pride that our Board has grown, our funding stream is now starting to increase, and we have placed ourself in a unique position within the nonprofit community where we are now looked at as the model by which both nonprofit and for profit early education centers should imitate.
I took to bed with me every night the fact that if I didn’t do all that I could, there were going to be children and families in our community devastated by the lack of our resources. I had the responsibility of overseeing the budget, managing the Executive Director, and leading the Board in unfamiliar territory. I had to balance my time between trial preparation at work, managing a home, and volunteering. But every night what I took to bed with me was the burden of knowing that the most disadvantaged children in our community were depending on me and depending on our leaders.
I am a community organizer and can tell you that I had “actual responsibilities.” I am highly offended that the Republican party would denigrate the honorable and noble community service of ANY community organizer for political purposes. I am convinced once and for all that the Republican Party is so out of touch, it’s almost laughable. Actually, it’s just very sad.
THANK YOU SO MUCH for your prompt and no nonsense response to this!!! Sarah Palin’s condescending and disrepectful tone towards hard working, caring community leaders is inexcusable! Please keep me posted on how I can help. This is what we stand to have running our country should this ticket get elected.
I have never seen such a mean-spirited spectacle as last night at the RNC. How dare anyone try to make a mockery of anyone else’s service to their country – whatever it might be. I am a middle class soccer mom and I guess after last night that is a whole lot different than being a hockey mom! I am very busy trying to keep my family afloat and raising my children so I am very thankful that there are community organizers and organizations out there to help people less fortunate than myself.
THANK YOU!
The fact that the Republicans are attacking community organizer just goes to show how out of touch they are with REAL people.
The work of community organizers is so important to the people that get left behind and forgotten.
Thank you for building this site and speaking out against even more of the same old Republican divisive politics.
This is a great idea! Thanks for doing it. Why not include a list of organizations people can contact if they want to get involved in helping their community.
I was deeply offended by Sarah Palin and Rudy Giuliani. Talk about out of touch. Community organizers are real, honest hard-working people.
Palin’s statement is ridiculous. Community organizing requires fighting with powerful interests but Palin obviously supports special interest group so she obviously wouldn’t understand . She thinks that working with other people and making their life better is useless. Getting few hundred votes and becoming mayor of few thousand people is not a big deal – it is comparable to being a board member of a large condominium association, you make some budgetary decision but the rest of things runs normally on their own.
I was so angry after hearing Gov. Palin’s comments last night. Political jabs are one thing but putting down the very organizations that keep our communities running is below low. Can we please have the Republicans keep this campaign out of the gutter. Thank you for all you do.
I once worked as a community organizer and was insulted when I heard their speeches. Thanks for opening this site. I will be e-mailing some of the media outlets about my disgust and maybe other are doing the same.
Way to go! I want to see an Ad put out addressing the same. Let the true elitists know that they have insulted not just Barack Obama, but all community organizers and the people they support. How sad that Republicans have to resort to laughing and real people who give of themselves to help their brothers and sisters.
If it weren’t for community organizers, the Gulf Coast would not have been rebuilt. It’s community members helping their neighbors that is getting the job done. I thought Republicans liked it when people find ways to help themselves, instead of relying on government. I thought Republicans liked churches, which are often the centers of community organization in their towns. Talk about out of touch!
Please let us know where we can send letters & make phone calls to bring attention to this insult and to demand apologies.
This is a first for my family–I’m donating to Obama’s campaign online and posting my first comment on any site. The speech showed Sara Palin mocking the “real people” of America who don’t rely on an unresponsive government to fix problems!!! They find creative solutions to help middle and lower class families as the Republican leaders pass tax cuts for the wealthy and big business–including big oil companies.
This is all we need to know–Sara Palin uses mockery to belittle the very people she says she comes from…
I am ashamed and embarrassed of the Republican Party. They have no idea what community organizers do, or how their work helps struggling families and neighborhoods. Here’s a newsflash for you Governor Palin: real change starts at home — it’s not just a campaign slogan.
Community-based organizations and the people that serve them–as staff, as volunteers–are vital to our nation. Nonprofit and community work is efficient, direct, and efficacious…far more efficient than a government or a corporation. Nonprofit activity represents almost 10% of our GDP, but consider the range of nonprofit work done in our nation…no one in our nation has not benefited from the work of nonprofit organizations. Consider this when one posits the question about responsibilities or accountability: if you are a nonprofit and you spend too much, or if you don’t meet your revenue goals, you go home and the organization is done. Governments and corporations do things like ‘write down’ debt and accept losses. Nonprofits, in the main, cannot do this. They have to be run much more tightly than any other entity, ALL THE WHILE their books are 100% transparent (all nonprofits have their tax returns open to the public, guidestar.org is a great resource). I cannot imagine a corporation or government consenting to this arrangement! It is a blow to community work, to all of those that are committed to building communities stronger when a candidate speaks ill of a sector that gives, and gives, and gives to our nation every day. If you know someone who works or volunteers for a nonprofit organization, please share this disappointing news. It’s important to reinforce the message that nonprofits are people and community powered, and that is vital to the health of our nation.
If people want to connect with organizations in their community, your local community foundation can help. check cof.org for these important conduits to what is happening in your nonprofit community!!
somewhere we can make a donation?
It is very sad that a woman proclaiming to be a Christian would mock community organizers. Jesus’ teachings told us to first and foremost take care of the poor. I have a Master’s Degree in Community Counseling and have worked for many organizations as a volunteer in my community. These unpaid positions have given me more satisfaction than any paid position EVER WILL! It is obvious Barack Obama thinks along the same lines. That’s why he chose community service over a Wall Street legal career when he graduated from Harvard Law. Thanks Sarah Palin for reminding me (through your snarky attacks) why I love Barack Obama. Can’t wait to cast my vote for Obama/Biden!
Community organizers are historically the most conscientious and effective people in America. Where would the Civil Rights Movement have been without these committed people? Republicans are really afraid of community organizers because it threatens their exclusive positions in American society. Finally and ironically, Ms. Palin would never even be on a stage as a vice presidential nominee, if it hadn’t been for the community organizing that has been done in support of equal rights in America.
Talk about having your cake and eating it too! Community organizers continue to fight back, if anyone can do it effectively you can.
Wow. get over it. You bunch of namby-pamby whiners. She contrasted her performance and responsibility against Barak Obama’s. She was a mayor, she is a governor. She did things. Barack Obama is a Senator. He talks about things.
And all you do is whine about things.
Community organizers have a long record in the United States. Because of them and their Utopian ideals we have accomplished many great things in this country. Community organizers have also unleashed some of the worst scourges of the 20th century and we are living with those results.
Community organizers brought us the organized crime we face today. (Think about it. The temperance movement fighting the scourge of alcoholism gave birth to prohibition and voila, organized crime and the Kennedy political dynasty.)
In addition, you might say the the KKK was founded by community organizers. (Were they to have won in the 20s, history would have been rewritten and they would be national heros)
So quit whining and realize that lots of people do not support you agenda
I have a community organizer in my county for almost 3 decades working with religious and clergy groups, special needs people, chairing and passing a sales tax increment that is providing professional mental health services for the poor and uninsured, working to establish and strengthen food banks, serving as an unpaid police chaplain for about 20 years. I would gladly pit my experience, capability and success against Barack Obama’s anytime.
Community service is great and our country thrives on it. That does not qualify me in any way to be President of the United States. Barack Obama is not qualified. Thank you.
A seasoned Community Organizer
Hi. I am so pleased that you guys have started this site. I was absolutely amazed last night to see these attacks by the Republicans on Community Organisers. What next? Will they be attacking teachers and nurses?
This is a huge gaffe from them and you MUST keep it in the media’s eye. Here are some ideas:
1. challenge Gov Palin to come and spend a day working with one of you, so she can see how hard and how vital is the work you do. If she says NO thats even better publicity!
2. Get people you have helped in your community to phone into talk shows and say how much you have improved their lives – especially if they have a chance to confront McCain and Palin surrogates directly on those shows.
3. Write lketters to every LOCAL newspaper in the country condeming them for their words
4. Make sure the film clips are played over and over again on ads, alonsgide TV pictuyres showing C.O’s at work, and testimonials from ordinary people who have been helped.
PLEASE keep this issue in the mind of the media. It will really have an impact on the minds of the independent voter and could make a huge difference in November.
When they make a gaffe we must exploit it!
Tell the Republicans that Jesus was the best known Community Organizer while Pontius Pilate was a Governor. The Republican have taken their side, which side would you rather be on–it’s up to you. We must fight back now!
Give ’em hell.
The republicans have reduced themselves to storm trooper tactics against those willing to give back to this country while remaining dedicated to pandering and support for anyone with self-centered mentality approaches to any function of the community or government.
No good can come from allowing our country to continue on the path we’ve allowed ourselves to travel upon over the last 8 years, and I’m afraid of seeing more of the same.
Is a revolution the only way of getting the changes our nation needs?
I am a community organizer. I have been working with low income families for last 5 years. What I do is – I go to public schools of low income communities- and teach them about air pollution. At times, we organize leadership training for free. People learn about different air pollutants and how these pollutants are affecting their lives. We have been very successful in whatever we are doing.
last night when I heard “Community Organizers” are nothing- I was shocked. I could not believe my ears that it was coming from a VP candidate. I am shocked as an American and I am ashamed as an American.
Philanthropy is the heart of America and volunteerism is the soul of America. America exists and has prospered all these years- because of community organizers. Do not tell me that it does not matter.
Hey Not a Yank,
You were eager to point out what you percieve as negative results of community organizing. Could you not think of even one good result of that activity? Let me help you.
Here’s some worries you no longer have because of community organizing:
Food
Medicines
Unsafe Living Conditions
Air Quality
Water Quality
Unsafe Cars
Unsafe Consumer Products
Child Labor Laws
Safe Working Conditions
This is only a small list of the issues community organizers have improved or accomplished for YOU. They did this for you and other like you in spite of your negative view of that work. Or would you prefer the good ol’ days of when these concerns were not addressed?
Goodness, thank you so much. I am not involved in community organizing myself right now but have increasingly looked at it as a wonderful and respectful civic engagement that I and many others should consider doing. If at the end of this, community organizing is put through the mud, we should all start defending the virtues of helping your fellow neighbor through means like this.
I don’t blog as much as I used to due to the fact that I have been working with the campaign as a volunteer organizer. I am going to start a page on Facebook for this website. There are so many people who are Obama field organizers. People who work hard to organize communities everyday. I was really upset last night and this morning, and I am still upset. So I will do all I can help fight back!!
I am happy that you have created this site, we all need to stand up to the disgrace of last night.
Donations? Can I help?
Thank you John and others who worked with you for starting this website and putting out this press release. Community Organizing is basic to the functioning of democracy. The Republicans are living on the moon.
Good for you.
I suggest getting a few community organizers in New Orleans to go public and invite Palin to spend a day or two in their shoes. McCain was willing to be photographed behind a stack of hurricane supplies, but is his team willing to roll up their sleeves and try to rebuild the mess Katrina + Bush left behind? I’m betting not.
Ditto Frank Salinger’s comments, and others!
It’s hardly cool to mock caring and being involved in one’s neighborhood.
I wrote this letter to the NY Times. See our webpage http://www.hunter.cuny.edu/socwork/ecco
Dear NY Times Editor:
Re Article: “Palin Assails Critics and Electrifies Party” September 4, 2008
Clearly Governor Palin and former Mayor Rudy Giuliani do not understand and do not respect the work of thousands of community organizers working in myriad urban neighborhoods and rural communities across this country. Their ridicule of this noble and honorable skilled profession that Barak Obama committed himself to after college is an affront to the millions of low income and working class people who are struggling to improve their conditions and better the lives of themselves and their neighbors. Community organizers have been unknown by much of the American public and now is the time to introduce the importance of their work to the American people. It is precisely because they work at the grassroots level behind the scenes that they are invisible to the media, many politicians and much of the public. Community organizers help bring ordinary people together to collectively problem-solve and strengthen their communities. Governors have the power and authority along with the responsibility to make decisions. Community organizers must be more skilled because they must persuade and influence others through democratic processes. They work across age, gender, racial and ethnicity and party lines with skill and dedication. They assist in improving housing, health care, schools, the environment, social services with the people. They build and support local leadership and help people create the kind of organizations that give invisible people a voice in the political process. Many community organizers receive training through organizations inside and outside academia that provide the knowledge, skills and strategies to make change. Schools of Social Work across this country like mine have been providing an education in this field to thousands of committed graduate students for almost a century. They work long hours with too low pay “in the trenches” to bring people out of poverty and despair, instill hope and opportunity, and create resources. They are the glue that keeps many communities from disintegrating and falling into despair and decay. To Sarah Palin, Rudy Giuliani, and John McCain, there are many ways to serve this country, to fight injustice and inequality, and to build a secure America. We should honor the work, dedication and competence of community organizers.
Professor Terry Mizrahi
Chair, Community Organizing, Planning and Development Program
Hunter College School of Social Work
Social workers please unite. Also go to http://www.naswdc.org for the National Association of Social Workers wonderful response.
I am a Community Organizer and I have the responsibility of improving the lives of the people I serve through leadership development, training and advocacy.
And I love my job!
Community organizers are republicans too.
We stand up in our communities. We create jobs. We help people find jobs – a hand UP, not a HANDOUT.
We volunteer on the PTA. We work in local civic organizations. We’re on the local crime watch. We sponsor the local Boy Scout/Girl Scout troops, we volunteer in churches, we keep an eye on our communities.
We know a scam when we see one, and that’s all Obama’s so-called “community organizing” really was – a way to scam money from the gullible.
And now we see this site, hiding its registration details and nothing but a front for DailyKOS/Obamaton smear attacks.
Shame on you. On behalf of the REAL community organizers who are concerned with our communities rather than accolades… SHAME ON YOU.
Obama’s putting “community organizer” on his RESUME mocks real community organizers far more than anything that was said at the Republican convention.
Well, well, well, isn’t it ironic that Palin’s own words are going to bite her in the butt?
I wish the organizers much success and will keep tabs on this website to help out as much as I can!
I was part of the VISTA CORPS in 1993-94 because, right out of college, I felt it was the right thing to do. I was sent to work in the low-income housing communities of Durham, NC where I had a stipend of about $3000 to live on for a full year. I lived off of credit cards which took me several more years to pay off and why? I wanted to help people to help themselves.
To have a woman who may possibly be a heartbeat away from the Presidency one day belittle my service was painful at first. But now I am just angry and more determined to make sure this woman never gains a place on the National stage.
I found it bitterly ironic to hear John McCain, a man who had my respect, tonight extol young Americans to stand up and do something to better our country.
I did Senator and your party mocks me for it.
Written “the morning after”
to friends
Friends –
I know I know too much politics, too many emails. But if you watched even a second of the RNC last night, you too may be feeling a similar outrage. After two minutes of hearing Mitt and Huck last night, among other things (like my blood boiling over) I walked over to the computer, and sent a donation to Obama’s campaign. Again.
Last night was like Lord of the Flies at the RNC – chaos with the conch! By the end of Giuliani’s speech alone – whether disguised or out right, he and the room (a “community” of sorts one might argue) out right laughed at community organizing and thus in essence – regular folks, the marginalized and minority groups alike – inspired chants of “drill now, drill now” and essentially cut off and slung insults at I dare say more than half the country’s population in one way or another! I am offended, to the core.
That was before Palin’s smug, sneering, self righteous person- even took the stage. She may be a woman, but she smells of old boys club, more than the old boy’s club locker room! Then, she too bashed the notion of community organizing as a legit practice, as if organizing and community and the people were not the very foundation that this country of America she wants to defend, was built on. And yet what of her special needs child that she paraded out last night? (Her family is your business when she says so!). How does Palin think children and families have gained policies, rights and assistance, if not through community organizing? How did women get the right to vote, if not by community organizing? What exactly does she think the PTA is or even Hockey Moms for that matter? News flash – communities, organized! How did the RNC gather ( sigh) those people last night, if not through community organizing?
The over all insult, the disgusting bash is that in one foul swoop, she insulted the history of this country, she insulted labor rights, she insulted the right of the voiceless to gather and fight through opaque politics. She insulted the meaning of the word they keep saying in vain – change! Sure, she insulted Barack, in the most pathetic examples, and mostly in response to criticisms the media has given her, not his campaign! However, and more importantly, she insulted the voice of the American people. She insulted the struggles and triumphs of millions of people through current life and history. What happened to a thousand points of light?
News Flash to Palin – one of your very party leaders in his inaugural address said this:
“I have spoken of a thousand points of light, of all the community organizations that are spread like stars throughout the Nation, doing good. We will work hand in hand, encouraging, sometimes leading, sometimes being led, rewarding. We will work on this in the White House, in the Cabinet agencies” (GB 1989)”
So, consider, a donation to the Obama’s campaign today, use your voice. Join a phone bank. Help someone register to vote. Vote.
My favorite critiques: http://wonkette.com/402518/liveblogging-famous-historical-war-leader-sarah-palin-at-the-rnc
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/9/4/02739/39108/335/585475
Your Pal
Deb
🙂
Thank you for setting up this website. I too found it extremely disturbing and insulting that there were so many remarks against community organizers at the convention. It surprises me that they would say such things since “community organizing” has been done throughout history and today to better people’s lives. Without it, there would be no civil rights, no women’s rights, no laws against child abuse and neglect, etc. It’s ridiculous to make fun of people working in such an honorable profession. We serve our country too, and sometimes community organizing is just as dangerous as a war zone. I believe the American people who do this – whether at churches, in schools, or on the streets – deserve respect for that.
Someone needs to do an ad showing your hard work and what the republicans said about it for political gain. We need theses ads run in every state until election.
Can I suggest you spruce up the website a bit? I love the idea, and I’m 100% behind you guys, but you need to do a bit more to make it look more professional and more influential. Perhaps:
– start a petition
– get a new design: it’s very plain right now
– get a domain name: organizersfightback.wordpress.com isn’t very catchy.
– get a “network” going: start an official group on Facebook, for example, and have links going from there to here.
– create a page dedicated to people voicing their opinions about the Palin comments etc. – in other words, allow people to submit a formal comment (perhaps with a picture) which can be posted on a dedicated page.
As a native of Chicago, out of college, I decided the best way to learn Spanish and help others at the same time was to become a community organizer, knocking on doors in an immigrant, working-class neighborhood and learning about their problems and concerns. Some of their problems I came to know: rival gang members, formerly miles apart, now living on the same block in our neighborhood because of gentrification in their old one. Cops routinely pulled out to cover for parades and special events downtown. A high school at 144% capacity, seeking to rent out store front space to house their freshmen. Day laborers who worked at the same place they had for years, able to be fired at a moment’s notice, and paid out of a machine that routinely cheated them. A predominately Latino neighborhood disempowered by its political boundaries separating it down the middle between one Ward (80% African-American) and another (80% white ethnic). Mall re-construction that used a 20-ton weight dropped repeatedly from a height of 90 feet, literally shaking the earth and cracking the foundations of the surrounding homes. Abandoned houses and predatory lending, bellwethers for the housing bubble that burst five years later. A lack of bilingual caseworkers to process state benefit claims, resulting in twice the caseload and delays of over a year for basic social services. And yes, like Senator Obama, inadequate job training (“dress for success” and “resume writing”) for those laid off or moving from welfare to work, who were forced to accept the first job offered to them, even low-skill, poverty-wage jobs, never given the opportunity to hold out for something better.
These are the kinds of complex problems that cut across the competing jurisdictions of local, state, and federal government and the non-profit social services designed to ameliorate them, and that we look to our elected officials to solve, because individuals cannot solve them on their own. I would hope that such a profession would not be necessary were our democracy functioning properly, but communities across the country, like the one I came to know, have to fight hundreds, if not thousands, of small citizen campaigns, because our large political campaigns can’t, or won’t, figure these issues out. While Governor Palin doesn’t seem to think that there are any “actual responsibilities” that come with this job, my actual responsibility was to build actual participatory democracy by everyday citizens in response to exploitative economic system and a dysfunctional government. Her comments completely denigrate those efforts.
My community leaders included an Italian hairdresser, a Greek shop owners, a Mexican immigrant homemaker, a Puerto Rican janitor, and a Latina financial analyst, and they all learned that they had more in themselves to improve their lives than they first realized or thought possible. I would think that Republicans would want to extol the virtues of a person whose job it is to help regular, middle-class citizens like these learn how to hold their public officials (in my case, overwhelmingly Democratic ones) accountable. I would expect that John McCain’s running mate would remember his own prior calls for national service, whether in the military or in the community. However, I am not surprised at what I heard, probably best characterized by the comment from former Governor George Pataki: “What in God’s name is a community organizer? I don’t even know if that’s a job.” The rhetoric of the speeches at the RNC attempted to show that they do understand and relate to the needs of working families and “white working-class voters,” similar to those whom I had the privilege of knowing. Their inability to comprehend the existence of such a profession, or understand its importance or even its very nature, demonstrates very clearly that they do not. Their mockery betrays how out of touch they actually are.
Great Video
Fighting Back Against Community Organizing Smear
Make It Viral!
Sarah Palin’s line item vetos— An attack aginst small community needs.
In a PDF at the Alaska OMB website is Sarah Palin’s line item veto record that shows that she not only ridicules “community organizing” but makes small community efforts for libraries, schools, hospitals and seniors a focus point of her budgetary axe. The hyperlink to the document is here: http://www.gov.state.ak.us/omb/09_omb/budget/index.htm And the veto PDF is attached to this e-mail.
Over 44 Community Organizations denied funding, over 62 schools denied funding, over 13 youth organizations denied funding while her home town recieved $12,000,000 in earmarks from the federal government and Alaska was awash in oil revenues. This document is solid proof that Sarah Palin is at war with small town needs and community values.
I’m spreading the word. Thank you for starting this blog.
Community organizing is the root of change. This is why the republicans are mocking Obama and those who get involved. Do you want 4 more years of an administration who makes decisions behind closed doors and tells us that they don’t need anything from us except blind faith? Obama asks us to get involved and take responsibility in our homes, our communities and our nation. Thats change.
An organizer’s dream, nothing like a good enemy to unite people . . . thank you Sarah Palin!
I worked for National People’s Action and National Training and Information Center as an organizer, locally in Chicago, reginally, and nationally. We would wake up every morning hoping for a really good foe to get people out of their homes and to the meeting…not we have one hopefully to get people out of ther homes and to the polls!
Rob
An organizer’s dream, nothing like a good enemy to unite people . . . thank you Sarah Palin!
I worked for National People’s Action and National Training and Information Center as an organizer, locally in Chicago, regionally, and nationally. We would wake up every morning hoping for a really good foe to get people out of their homes and to the meeting…now we have one hopefully to get people out of ther homes and to the polls!
Rob
as a steelworker i have worked with people ranging from the homeless to the elected and after spending years and tens of thousands of my own money its hard to put in words the frustration and how this angers me when those at the top are so out of touch with reality. this is why the steelworkers international supports obama for president and it is why i personally support him too.
Wow, a community of community organizers! Fantastic idea! Have you considered getting together with other communities of community organizers to form a community of communities of community organizers?
I want to literally PROTEST the republicans. As a community organizer for 30 years, I feel outraged at these “elitist” comments. Obviously, they DON’T GET IT! Quick, how can we organize to protest as a group? Can we sign something, go somewhere, do something? I think we should act quickly.
I just wanted to support community organizers everywhere and register my disgust for Palin and Guiliani and the RNC who perpetrated this pit bull political convention.
Mocking community organizing was a big mistake. I happen to be a doctoral candidate in the field of Community Economic Development which was born out of community organizing! How dare Republicans try to devalue one of the few resources available to micro-enterprise, small business and human service programs since their control of government has lead to a complete debacle in all catergories. How could poverty increase in America in the 21st Century? It’s ridiciulous and John McCain and Sarah Palin are definitely not the answer to what is evidently so wrong in our nation.
Angry Organizer to RNC: “Go To Hell!”
By John Delloro September 4, 2008
At the Republican National Convention, Palin and Giuliani mocked Obama’s experience as a community organizer and the attending crowd laughed in response.
Palin and McCain can wear whatever “outsider” mask they wish, nothing can hide the ugliness of their elitism. At the center of their ridicule of community organizing is disrespect for the potential power of the everyday person.
For me, its personal.
Having organized full-time for little over a decade, I have come to intimately know its challenges and responsibilities.
One particular early experience stays with me. Driving to pick up “Claudia,” a 21-year old undocumented immigrant woman for an organizing committee meeting, I worried about how her husband would feel about a young strange man taking his young wife to some meeting at night. When I knocked, a very large man opened the door and stared at me when I asked for Claudia. He turned his head and yelled, “You are not going out! You’re place is here!”
I took several steps back and thought to myself, “he is now about to kick my ass.”
Suddenly, another voice rang out, “I’m going out! I take care of the kids! I pay for the bills! You don’t even have a job! If you don’t like it, you can go!”
I was surprised because everyone told me that Claudia is passive and soft-spoken and would never stand up for herself. In front of my eyes, I saw her transform and exercise a leadership that rippled throughout her entire life.
To paraphrase legendary organizer Fred Ross, organizing helps people realize their potential and provides them the opportunity to fight for what they believe in.
Reformed laws can be ignored. Progressive electeds eventually compromise. Lessons learned from political education can be forgotten. Services can sometimes breed dependence. But organizing expands democracy and develops leaders.
The very nature of the work demands that organizers work longer hours and harder for less money than any elected official in the country. It is unglamorous, unapologetic and not polite. A local priest once remarked to me that only military service and clergy life share the same intensity and duration.
The sweat, blood and tears of organizers like the Civil Rights Movement’s Ella Baker or the Labor Movement’s Mother Jones helped ignite all of the major social movements in history.
It was grassroots organizing, not pretty speeches or messages of change or missteps of an opponent, that enabled a relatively young African American man with a “funny name” to win the all-white Iowa Democratic Primary and eventually become the first African American to lead a major national political party.
Central to organizing is the belief that everyday people have the power within themselves working together to create change and take control of their lives. True leadership develops more leaders.
As Barack Obama always said, “ I’m asking you to believe. Not just in my ability to bring about real change in Washington…I’m asking you to believe in yours.”
When the RNC mocked organizing, they not only disrespected organizers but people like Claudia and all of us.
I can only say to the RNC and all those who dismiss organizers…”Go to hell!”
I am so happy that you guys are fighting back. I am very angry to the point it bought tears to my eyes. My mother was a community organizer my entire life. She worked her butt off helping the people in our community. Please do some type of commercial because this needs to be addressed!
As a former community organizer, and someone who now works with many organizers in the South through the Institute for Southern Studies, THANK YOU for this website.
Organizing is about bringing people together to fulfill our country’s promise of democracy.
This Rovian tactic of attacking those who give their time and energy to make our communities better is not surprising, but it’s still outrageous.
Jesus was a community organizer. Pontius Pilate was a governor.
VICTORY IN STRUGGLE FOR TELEPHONE JUSTICE – Gov. Spitzer Ends Backdoor Tax! http://www.telephonejustice.org. As the Lead Organizer for the New York Campaign for Telephone Justice. I’d like to denounce Palin, Guiliani and the RNC and give a big SHOUT OUT to the thousands of families with people in prison who are paying less for receiving collect phone calls due to the HARD WORK and DEDICATION of the directly-affected family members who were sick and tired, and not gonna take it anymore . They organized thousands of supporters around the country who, once told of their circumstances, were appalled and moved to help affect change. We had a VICTORY on the ground, in the court and in the legislaure. That could not have been done without the countless COMMUNITY ORGANIZERS, organizational endorsements and supporters who made the STOP THE CONTRACT campaign victorious!
Peace, inside and out.
Marion Rodriguez
Steering Committee Member
FREE! Families Rally for Emancipation and Empowerment
http://www.prisonfamiliescommunity.org
I’m pursuing a masters degree in public health and my concentration is in Urban and Immigrant Health and Community Organizing. I was so shocked by what the GOP said because I think community organizing is one of the driving forces behind empowing people to improve their health and fight for their health care rights.
Everyone should write to their local newspaper and encourage parents to set the record straight on Community Organizing with their children. Don’t let the Republicans taint the positive attitudes of today’s youth!
check out this article by Leo Gerard president of the United Steelworkers.
http://blog.usw.org/2008/09/03/sarah-palin-explain-yourself-or-stop-using-the-usw-as-a-prop/
I am so pleased you have initiated this web site. I am not a community organizer, but I do teach in a community college, so I, like you see what the horrid policies and the unbelievable arrogance of the Republicans have done to huge numbers of Americans. The disenfranchised are fine people, and you, the organizers are fine people. I was totally appalled when I heard Palin’s snide, completely inappropriate mocking of Senator Obama’s distinguished service as a CO.
I urge you to speak out loud and strong from now through November 4 for the rest of America to hear. Thank you for what you do.
Keep up the outreach! Let supporters know this group is out here – create ads and tv spots….if you can get funding from Obama or MoveOn.org or other groups.
I have been involved in many community service projects – and though they take great effort and time committments, they have all made a difference in our communities here.
I know this might not be, exactly, like a community organizer, per se, but isn’t a PTA something very similar?? Did she just knock PTAs as well? I mean it is within a certain educational community, parents, teachers, students, that work to improve education & schools?? I found her & the repubs comments deeply offensive.
Barack Obama on the futility of community organizing:
But Obama was also worried about something else. He told Kellman that he feared community organizing would never allow him “to make major changes in poverty or discrimination.” To do that, he said, “you either had to be an elected official or be influential with elected officials.” In other words, Obama believed that his chosen profession was getting him nowhere, or at least not far enough. Personally, he might end up like his father; politically, he would fail to improve the lot of those he was trying to help.
And so, Obama told Kellman, he had decided to leave community organizing and go to law school. Kellman, who was already thinking of leaving organizing himself, found no reason to argue with him. “Organizing,” Kellman tells me, as we sit in a Chicago restaurant down the street from the Catholic church where he now works as a lay minister, “is always a lost cause.”
http://tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=2e0a7836-b897-4155-864c-25e791ff0f50
I am not an organizer but I just wanted to throw my support to you guys and let you know that I was enraged when I heard Palin say such a hurtful thing about people who are trying to make where they live a better place.
Community organizing is not a lost cause. But it does require time and patience. And you aren’t necessarily destined to stay in one place forever, especially when you are young. But think of Gandhi. His cause was not lost; ergo organizing is not ALWAYS a lost cause.
I am not a community organizer, however I have been a recipient of such services in a difficult period of my life.
If there is any I can do to help fight back, please email me.
Community organizing is the root of change. This is why the republicans are
mocking Obama and those who get involved. Do you want 4 more years of an
administration who makes decisions behind closed doors and tells us that they
don’t need anything from us except blind faith? Obama asks us to get involved
and take responsibility in our homes, our communities and our nation. Thats
change.
R Abrams
Seattle, WA
Community organizers are just volunteer lobbyists for the common people, not rich bigwigs & big businesses. They have a long & honorable history here in America & De Toqueville noted that their presence was one of the most original American advances in the political world at that time.
One of the first such groups in America was the “Sons of Liberty” who helped to defeat King George & his minions in 1776.
Where are the new “Sons & Daughters of Liberty” who will fight the new King George & HIS cronies in 2008?
Thank you for standing up for Community Organizers.
I am not a community organiser, but I completely support you all against Sarah Palin and the Republican attacks.
Palin and Guiliani’s snide, offensive remarks are divisive and deserve to be deplored.
John,
Great site you put up! I’ve added a link to you at http://www.community-organizer.com and communityorganizer.wordpress.com
Of all the trash-talking the Republicans did at their convention, for some reason it was their denigration of community organizers that hit me hardest, so I sat up that night after the speeches creating http://www.community-organizer.com just out of sheer frustration, and to do my little part to offer community organizers a place of respect on the web. It’s a pleasure to see others were thinking the same thing, too.
One of your commenters questioned whether you could add a list of places to go to get involved in the community. I haven’t yet done a search for something like a “community involvement clearinghouse,” but something tells me one or two already exist. If so, let’s find them and publicize them. If not, maybe we can help build one.
As I may have mentioned, I’m not by any means a community organizer, but I may just have to become one.
Peace, and keep up the great work!
proudoldlefty[at]community-organizer.com
Pingback: Ne « Community-Organizer.com
On September 11, 2008 ServiceNation will be holding a forum at which Senators Barack Obama and John McCain will participate in separate discussion. All Community Organizers from around the country or at least the tri-state area should show up with signs that say “I am Community Organizer and we are needed because 8 years are enough”.
Community organizers are doing the groundwork in the areas hardest hit by the hurricanes the republicans claimed to be so concerned about, just two days earlier. Because community organizers actually walk the talk, they will be wearing their American hats for weeks and years to come.
As a person who serves my community in many ways, I feel as though Sarah Palin as punched me in the stomach.
“Irritate the media; vote GOP” used to be a republican bumper sticker
I have started a facebook group called “irritate the GOP; volunteer in your community”
help me build it, help me irritate those that think its fine to mock community service.
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=27233663066
For what it’s worth, I was the person who coined the now ubiquitous phrase, “Jesus was a community organizer; Pontius Pilate was a governor.”
I wrote it as a comment on a Washington Post blog, the morning of September 4th, after Sarah Palin gave her sarcastic performance as her introduction to the American electorate. I didn’t come up with the first half of the phrase (“Jesus was a community organizer”; that’s been out there. I was the one who attached the “Pontius Pilate was a governor” corollary to it. For some reason, that made the phrase stick. Now it’s all over the world. (Amazingly, someone is actually already selling T-shirts with the phrase!)
I came up with it because I was deeply disturbed by how the Republicans, and Gov. Palin in particular, have picked on one aspect of Barack Obama’s many years of good work, which included great things of his own hard effort. And one of those things was working as a community organizer in Chicago right after finishing his bachelor’s degree in political science from Columbia University in 1983. As an Ivy League graduate, he could have done many things — many well-paying things — but instead he took a low-paying job with Developing Communities Project, a church-based community organization supported by several Catholic parishes in Chicago’s impoverished South Side.
Maybe some of you are familiar with such organizations?
As an atheist myself, I must say that I am. And I’ve always been very impressed with the work of the Catholic volunteers on behalf of the poor. In my mind — that of an “atheist Christian” if you will — it’s the most noble thing about Catholics, and I commend them for it.
So when Sarah Palin and Rudy Guiliani (who was a Catholic several marriages ago) mocked Barack Obama — and no mistaking it, they were mocking him and his vocation — they were in effect mocking community organizers and Catholic workers everywhere. And I didn’t like that. So I came up with the snappy little couplet and posted it.
It seems to have hit a nerve, both good and bad.
I like that it feeds into the outrage that people of all political and religious persuasions feel about the mocking tone in general of the post-Eisenhower Republican Party, and the mocking in particular of a very selfless act by a young man with many more lucrative options.
But what I now worry about is that, the Party of Snark, will attribute it to Barak Obama or his campaign. (I’ve already seen such mention.) And, that it will create a backlash in which, somehow, Barack Obama is comparing himself to Jesus.
No, he was acting in the manner of Jesus’ teaching: to help the poor, empower the disenfranchised. Even as an atheist, I get that. (I have been a volunteer for many years, and find that to be the most rewarding part of my life.)
What Republicans won’t recognize, I’m afraid, is my actual point in penning that phrase: that Pontius Pilate was a governor.
I’m not saying that Sarah Palin is a Pontius Pilate, or that if Jesus were to walk before her she would not mistake him for a target of belittlement. No, what I am saying is that the job does not make the person; the person makes the job, whether community organizer, mayor of a small town, sportscaster, civil rights lawyer, energy commissioner, senator, or governor.
I’ve been following Barack Obama since his 2004 keynote address to the Democratic National Convention. I read his incredible masterpiece, “Dreams from My Father,” which he wrote at the age of 34, before entering politics. (For all you community organizers out there, it is a must read!) And in getting to know him through these four years, I have been convinced without question that regardless of what particular jobs Barack Obama has held, I’ve never witnessed a more mature, level-headed, truly “Christian” person on the national scene. As an atheist, I would love to have a true Christian in the White House. (Jimmy Carter inspired me in my teen years, even when I was, as teenagers will be, militant in my atheism.)
By contrast, in the single short week that Sarah Palin has been on the national scene, I have been only deeply sickened by her un-Christian ways — that of, as she put it, “a pit bull with lipstick.”
I don’t know if Pontius Pilate wore lipstick, but I do know that Jesus organized communities.
I hope that this at least clears up any mystery of motivation behind the phrase.
Peace.
Terry Carroll
Oakland, California
terry@terryspictures.com
I’d be interested to talk to one of the leaders here about why you’re so anxious to spread the word against what you see as attacks, yet you stifle free speech of others that have another opinion on the issue. After this, I’m not so sure that I trust the benevolence of Community Organizers. Is it only an organization of left-leaning, free-speech hating, political ambitious folks, or do you accept everyone? I’m leaning towards the first based on the way you’ve treated me.
Nothing I said was out of line, nothing was a personal attack, it was simply me voicing my opinion about the issue. You say that the GOP was attacking community organizers, I say they were attacking Obama and his organization hellbent on voter fraud and money laundering.
On September 4th, Soledad Obrien reported that when Gov. Sarah Palin took office as the Governor of Alaska, that she cut spending for Individuals with Special Needs by a STAGGERING 60%. I am a mother of a six-year old son with Autism and have advocated for my sons rights to proper education and programs. She is the core of the Problem. Now this is where the irony is. Gov. Palin now has a infant Down Syndrome son, and looked us squarely in the eye at the Republican Convention and said that ” To all you parents with children with special needs children, you now have an advocate in the white house.” This woman is a hypocrit. It took you to walk in my shoes and let one of these special needs children knock on your door, for you to open it up. I despise this lying woman after I watched CNN. Thank goodness we have reporters and networks who dig the malicious acts that candidates really do. Shame on Gov. Palin. No parent or relative of a special needs child should vote for this ticket, this woman cut funding for our kids and turned her back on us, UNTIL IT HAPPENED TO HER!!!!!
Source: CNN news anchor Soledad Obrien reporting on September 4, 2008
sOUR
I am trying to sign your petition but can’t find it. Can you please post it??
THANK YOU FOR THE WORK YOU ARE DOING.
I also wrote a letter to Rudy Giuliani expressing my disgust. Most of this is aimed at Sarah Palin, as it should be, but as a New Yorker, he also needs to hear from us and be held accountable for his deplorable words.
As the Senior Political/Community Organizer for SEIU 1000 I was offended and outrage by the comments made by Republicans at their Convention. I have been a ploitical, labor and community organizer for over 35 years. I learned organizing fron Fred Ross Sr. and Cesar Chavez, the civil rights organizers during the most recent preiod of the civil rights movement 1955-1973 and from Black Power organizer.
Belittling organizers and organizing because you may not understand it or becuase you represent the wealthy and extremism and don’t feel you need a voice society is typical of Republicans.
It has been good people willing to organize and come together, to fight for their rights that have made positive changes in the society weather it was women fighting for the right to vote, working people fighting for fair wages and respect on the job or Blacks and other people of color and gays fighting to be included in a society they support and contribute to, it has been organizers that have been there in all these struggles, which have made America better.
Shame on Republicans. Many of the same people in that hall cherring narrow minded statement by Giuliani and Palin would have opposed a women right to vote, workers right and civil rights and if given the chance would turn back the clock. Let us not give them that chance. Fight back, fight on!
THANK YOU FOR STARTING THIS WEBSITE. I am a teacher in training and have been involved in my community for my entire life. The Republican convention was a parade of liars and criminals who have no right to blast hard-working Americans who make a difference in the lives of children across the U.S. every single day. How dare they. Please continue to fight them with every ounce of your energy! Make them pay for their ignorance! Palin needs to apologize for her hypocritical and naive comments!
This whole development is just ridiculous, and is the product of Rovian strategy to go after strength and tear it down viciously. Rudy Giuliani was just SICK as he laughed. I almost threw up. What kind of depraved person would mock this kind of tireless work for the poor and disadvantaged? It is certainly not Christian. It must end.
I became sick to my stomach when I heard Sarah Palin’s venomous words degrading the role of community organizers. I grew up in the shadow of the very steel mills where Senator Obama fought for the workers. My 87 year old mother continues to live in a section of that neighborhood to this day. I am a white, 56 years young woman who feels a deep connection to Senator Obama because of what he did for my childhood neighbors. He could have done anything he wanted when he finished Columbia University. He chose to serve the least of his brothers. He follows the examples of Christ on a daily basis. I will do everything in my power to see that he is elected. Even if I have to make the 1 hour and 45 minute drive down to my mom’s to take her to the polls, I’ll gladly do it. I have never felt so strongly about a presidential election in my life. And, I want to thank you all, the community organizers, for gifting us with such a wonderful candidate. Keep up the good work.
you guys are the best! community organizers work to change society one person at a time and in the most sustainable manner. politicians (especially republicans) will say anything to diss their opponent.
There is one important issue that still needs to be addressed: red baiting. Community organizers tend to be progressive politically. Obama and others were trained by the “heirs “of Saul Alinsky, a 1930s community organizer in Chicago. He too was constantly the target of accusations, labeled a communist.
Get a petition and tell me where to sign….I was disgusted and incensed at their “elitist” comments and their condescending, out-of-touch attitudes. These folks DEFINITELY will send us into hell if they get into office, especially when they don’t realize that the COMMUNITIES are what is being directly impacted by the last 8 years. SOMEBODY has to help them! I will support whatever you folks are trying to do…..I want a better USA than this!!!!
I seriously considered becoming a community organizer when I graduated from high school, but the Vietnam war was over by then.
Thank you, thank you. But seriously: What did The One accomplish as a community organizer? He keeps harping about it, but never says exactly what he did. Can anyone out there in the fever swamp provide some illumination?
What is the differnce between Bush and Palin? Lip stick! No matter how you cut it the attack against Senator Obama is a racist approach. It you understand that you will understand the nature of the Republican approach to this campaign.
The community based organization has a partnership with my school and they provide excellent services to the parents and students. What can we do take this discussion to the national level and shine a light on Republican elitism and mockery against ordinary people trying to make a positive difference in their communities?
I was not an Obama supporter until some members of the democratic party began to use racial overtones during the primaries.
Today, the republican party’s assault on the human integrity of not only of Obama but all people of color, takes me to urge all our community organizers colleagues support Obama.
But, let’s make certain that we don’t let him or the democratic party off the hook of their obligation to resolve the socio-economic conditions that affect many of our communities.
I’d suggest that Community of Organizers of America organize a national campaign to hold the federal government accountable to the needs of our communities. This cannot be done if we don’t take our streets back.
In order to make democracy have any weigh, it needs to be participatory. So, knock-off the gatekeepers and the bystanders from pimping our communities on behalf of greed and not of its citizens.
Let’s Reclaim American Democracy in our own terms!
Thanks for putting this site up.
Peace,
Eduardo
Thank you for defending community organizers. My first job as a young person was a community organizer in the West Los Angeles neighborhood in the late 1960’s! Devasted from years of neglect and police abuse the community established a community center to begin organizing efforts to improve their neighborhood.
The Chicano nation has many community organizer’s shoulders to stand on, including Cesar E. Chavez, Burt Corona, Rosalinda Montez Palacios, and Jose Montoya, Eva Royal, Tina Flores, Celia Rodriquez. Obama does not stand alone. We are united in our past and present efforts to clean-up and organize for justice in communities that are being devasted by corporation’s greed. They leave behind toxic waste, abandoned warehouse’s, polluted water streams and rivers, ans your know the rest. It is the community organizer that cleans up the soical injustice epidemic to make communities healthy place’s to live.
Viva los organizadores de la communidad!
I am a Army Wife , My husband just deployed & the same day they left was the same day McCain & Palin were about 15 min away compaining.
The talk so much about the troops & bad about community organizers, Then people have the nerve to laugh at the RNC about community organizers. Well when the toops are away and the families need emergency assistance the community organizers are the ones who get out & find the people to help the families, they find the money to help us. If community Organizers are such a joke then maybe Palin or McCain should out of their out pocket pay for calling cards for Soldiers like my husband to call home.
Community Oragnizers are the ones that get the free phone cards for the soldiers, they get the community together to send care packages.
So while they talk so much about the troops They lie! they do not care about them or their families. Thank You so much all of you!
I know that community organizers would stopped their campain and gave the deploying troops 1hr of their time especially if they were 15 min away. As a matter of fact community volunteers are the ones who sent our Soldiers off with goodie bags.
I am so grateful to community organizers without you during deployment I would lose my mind when things go wrong.
I and other Army Wives will be voting for community organizers, Because they are the ones who are there for us when our Soldiers are deployed.
Everyone who thought those comments those ppl made were funny are just as ignorant & immature as the people that made the comments.
People need to think before they vote this year.
Because if you vote wrong the community organizers they are laughing at will be greatly needed.
The rebublican president is the reason why we need so many community organizers now!
I don’t think that I need to reiterate the general concensus of disgust with the right-wing neo-con assault on our democracy. But I will point out that this particular attack is, ofcourse, predictable. Afterall, it is “community organization” that is at the very heart of any democracy.
Thank you for your work, thank you for standing up so quickly on this issue, and thank you for doing your part to save our democracy. I will gladly and eagerly help in any way that I can.
Thank you,
Scott Eedelen in Bisbee, AZ.
p.s. Good move appearing on Democracy Now!
The fact that the McCain campaign and most Republicans think that “Community Organizing” is a negative highlight on a resume, that community organizers don’t “have real responsibilities” is exactly why we don’t want them running the country, and absolutely the reason Barack can bring fresh change and perspective to the Presidential office.
The fact that Obama was a community organizer demostrates that he is much more anti big-corporation than McCain could ever dream of being. Fantastic job, community organizers, at pulling together and, well…organizing yourselves to form a website. Additionally, the grassroots organizing element in the Barack Obama campaign is one of the reasons he has the chance to win. It shows as a sign that he is hip to the times and to we the people. Barack has experience organizing groups of people who want change, and that is us, now, in this country. Willingness to be involved on that level of the campaign, using the internet and UTube, phone calls, emails are even more impactful than “knocking on doors”; more people can be reached. Barack also shows this level of involvement in his speech writing. We need someone willing to come down to the level of the people and speak our language. Communuty organizing speaks that language too, and is part of the important structure that will make this election possible for Obama, in addition to supporting the myriad of important social causes that you do. Keep up the excellent work that you do; you – community organizers – are the ultimate grassroots and solid foundation of this country — we the people – you are our vehicle for change!
It’s fairly obvious that when a Rebubican attacks an opponent, it is their strong point they are trying to assasinate. This is the fundament mechanism in the Rove machine. It only means that as an “Organizer’ Barack Obama poses a great threat to them. The abilty of Barrack Obama to “Organize” the entire nation before McCain could even declare his intention to run is a major threat to them.
The fate of the Republican Party is literaly in the hands of a community organizer.
RIP GOP
Thanks for all of your hard work!
im not sure if this line of attack is resonating with voters, but as an organizer, im sorta flattered by the republican scorn.
Hey Not A Yank, Mike, Josh and the others in the minority (who think the GOP rocks, NOT!!)!! I read all your BS you posted, which fits perfectly on blogs put out by Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Jonah Goldberg and other yo-yos from the far-far right. I’m an independent conservative (notice I didn’t say Republican) who is tired of the Iraq war and wants desperate change, but I’ve always had a heart for people involved in community organizing and volunteer work. Not A Yank, you call us namby-pamby whiners; well, you make us all sick and moreover, you’re ticking us off when you spew venom in favor of these GOP politicians who mock community organizing and volunteer work. I’m tired of you, pal!! Go rant to your dreamgirl Ann “Queen of Mean Bee-otches” Coulter, whose books you probably sleep with every night. To Mike, the guy who thinks Obama was a pseudo-community organizer, I’m an Eagle Scout & Boy Scout Asst Scoutmaster, and I totally resent your remarks of Republicans being the only real community organizers. BTW, Mike, believe it or not, there were Republicans in addition to Democrats and Independents who were outraged by Palin, Giuliani et al’s mockery of Obama’s duties as a community organizer, so you don’t know JS (guess what that means, dude) about what community organizing is all about, punk, even if you are involved w/Boy Scouts. Your remarks are totally irresponsible, and you came to the wrong website. You’re outnumbered here, extremely, so I’d get out of here while I can if I were you. And Josh, your name says it all; you’re a joke!! Why are you here, to attack us more, gloat, then rub it in? Y’all have no clue why we’re even here. We’re mad as hell and we ain’t gonna take it anymore!! And yes, Joke, er Josh, these are attacks, unwarranted attacks. And BTW, I don’t cater to the right or left-wing. I’m independent. Besides, this isn’t about the left or right-wing; it’s more about people on both sides coming together as one to fight the real enemy, people we now know as bullies, namely McCain, Palin, Giuliani, Pataki and all the other motormouth GOP politicians who cannot back their words. Just like you, Josh, I’m using the 1st to free my mind and give these politicians a piece of mind. As volunteers, we are uniting as one, and that is to denounce & quash goons like you and the other two knuckleheads (I addressed in this post) who think McCain, Palin, Giuliani et al are studmuffins. You wanna make something of it? I say bring it on!! Quoting McCain’s toupee wearing hillbilly GOP Senate buddy (and RNC speaker) Lindsey Graham “we’ll clean your clock!!”
the unmitigated gall of those troglodites! i am bone weary with outrage…did they think themselves cute? i have had all i can take of these neo-thugs that embrace a culture of trailer trashiness so profound that i am surprised john mccain’s bus isn’t a doublewide. but then i remember that the ignorant plebian masses are always stirred by sneering at anything they do not understand or cannot attain…the erudite nobility of giving of oneself for the betterment of all.
I found the site when I heard about it on democracy now. I feel that the comments made by several Republicans were tasteless and rude. If they would leave their 7 houses once in a while and not hang out with so many lobbysts, they would see the important contributions made by community organizers.
From ASIAN WEEK:
In Praise of Community Organizers
By: Vu Duc Vuong, Sep 10, 2008
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Tags: Giang Ho, Opinion |
Watching the Republican National Convention last week was like time travel back to the past. The shots of the nearly all-white delegates brought back memories of Philadelphia in 1776, when the founding fathers-no mothers, please-were all white; blacks were counted as three-fifths; Native Americans were shunted and hunted; and Latinos and Asians did not register in the 13 original colonies. Today, according to the Census Bureau, we’re only 34 years away from another USA where the majority of the population will be non-white. It is an open question how the GOP will deal with the current demographics.
The convention was also a display of willful ignorance, fear mongering and disparagement of one of the noblest endeavors on Earth.
Throughout history, society has not changed by edicts from authorities. Invariably, it is organizers who see the injustice and decide to do something about it. And only when it becomes a movement do people in power co-opt it, or they are forced to accept it.
It was the organizers in 1776 that gave birth to this nation. It was the organizers of the underground railroad that freed the slaves and ignited the emancipation movement. It was the Suffragists who gained the vote for women in this country. And it was the union organizers that brought us the 40-hour week, better pay, benefits, and dignity in the workplace.
On a December 1956 evening, Rosa Parks did not act on the spur of the moment to take that forbidden seat behind the bus driver; it was an organizing campaign by the NAACP that prepared her for that gambit. Martin Luther King, Jr. did not only give eloquent speeches but also labored with his team in organizing the civil-rights community that brought us the Civil Rights Act of 1964. In 1980, having lost her 13-year-old daughter to a drunken hit-and-run driver, Candice Lightner organized MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Driving) that changed our driving culture.
To that list, one can add the likes of Mother Jones, Jane Addams, Saul Alinsky, Ralph Nader, Rachel Carson, Cesar Chavez, the Peace Corps, National Organization for Women (NOW), Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund (MALDEF) or Teach for America, to name a few.
Abroad, Mahatma Gandhi brought down the British empire, not with guns or violence, but with his organizing the common people to stand up for their own rights. Nelson Mandela gained freedom for black South Africans not with executive decisions but with the African National Congress’ organizing. Come to think of it, wasn’t that young man named Jesus also an organizer?
So, Governor Palin, John McCain, Karl Rove, Rudy Giuliani and all the Republican strategists, don’t tell us that community organizing is a job without responsibility or lasting consequences. It only shows your utter ignorance of how changes happen and insults the memory of those who have made this world a better place.
Vu-Duc Vuong is a teacher and writer in the Bay Area. He was a community organizer working with Southeast Asian refugees from 1975 to 1997. (vuduc.vuong@gmail.com)
so how do we organize our selves to make a difference?
giving money is important but what is our organizing strategy to make sure mac/palin do not get in?
i am there
an old tokyo organizer
sarajean
Organizing strategy? Create an account at http://my.barackobama.com/
Then, join up with others or start your own team to organize in your neighborhood for votes for Obama, to make sure McPalin does not get in.
If you’re not already working with an Obama community team, do so now! Organize neighborhood canvassing, phone banks, teach-in meetings. That’s the best way.
http://www.community-organizer.com
Geezer Butler, legendary bassist from British heavy metal immortals Black Sabbath, couldn’t have said it any better about Palin. She’s just another “hypocritical politician”. And in the words of Geezer, “I respect people’s freedom of religion, but I absolutely abhor hypocrites.” I still think this remark will eventually haunt her in the end even if McCain barely squeaks past Obama. Then we’ll use this quote against Palin when she runs for pres in 2012. Why are Evangelicals siding w/McCain especially after he dissed them a few years ago? Just because Palin is a conservative Christian doesn’t mean the Christian community should support her. If Evangelicals had any guilt or passion, they’d turn their back on McCain and go to Obama, but there’s just one technicality, their stances on abortion. McCain is pro-life & Obama supports abortion rights. Wish there was a way we could defeat McPalin. If McCain gets into the White House, things are gonna get very ugly in Washington. We can’t afford 4 more years!!
Your organization is mentioned in this article over at CampusProgress.org.
http://campusprogress.org/opinions/3194/no-laughing-matter
Check out this project from UCLA students designed to raise awareness of community organizing. The cool thing is that anyone can upload a photo! Great shirt.
http://www.wearecommunityorganizers.com/
We are organizing a Meet and Greet for ChangeMakers/ChangeBloggers to launch the Philadelphia initiative.
If there are any community organizers and activists in the Philadelphia area who are interested in joining in our effort, please go to:
http://changemakerphilly.eventbrite.com/
This event is hosted by
The Diversity Projekt.
Dorie Morgan
Seth Horwitz from NetSquared Philadelphia