“Community Organizer” is another way of saying “Outside Agitator" !

Make no mistake -- the repeated reference to Barack Obama as a "community organizer" was a dog whistle to the Republican base, reinforcing the notion that he's a secret Black radical. Just a couple of months ago, Fox News was repeatedly referring to him as a former "street organizer." (When they weren't busy pondering the "terrorist fist jab," that is.)

Make no mistake -- the repeated reference to Barack Obama as a "community organizer" was a dog whistle to the Republican base, reinforcing the notion that he's a secret Black radical. Just a couple of months ago, Fox News was repeatedly referring to him as a former "street organizer." (When they weren't busy pondering the "terrorist fist jab," that is.)

Plouffe framed it exactly this way in an email to supporters today:

Let's clarify something for them right now.

Community organizing is how ordinary people respond to out-of-touch politicians and their failed policies.

Here's the curious part to me: For years, haven’t conservatives been lecturing us about how social justice, economic empowerment and all-around good works are not and cannot be delivered by politicians and government officials? Instead it has to come from concerned citizens working directly with people in neighborhoods and communities (“armies of compassion”, “thousand points of light”, etc.?)

Plouffe framed it exactly this way in an email to supporters today:

"Let's clarify something for them right now. Community organizing is how ordinary people respond to out-of-touch politicians and their failed policies."

Here's the curious part to me: For years, haven’t conservatives been lecturing us about how social justice, economic empowerment and all-around good works are not and cannot be delivered by politicians and government officials? Instead it has to come from concerned citizens working directly with people in neighborhoods and communities (“armies of compassion”, “thousand points of light”, etc.?)

How many times did McCain vote against MLK Day?

People like Sarah Palin defacate upon our communities while people Barack Obama go around with a pooper scooper picking up their shit.

The community-organizer dig was one of the uglier barbs in an otherwise ugly speech. I hope people go to town on McCain/Palin for it because it goes against a key part of the American tradition. And it was a Catholic charity Obama was working form, to boot. So much for faith-based initiatives!

MLK believed in the classic ideal of a color-blind society, that is, full legal and social equality. Most of today's community organizers and other radical fringe haters, whether black or white or brown, push a politically correct multiculturalist nightmare that means de facto systemic privileging of certain in-groups based on race (and corrupt private connections) and de facto systemic discrimination against those who’ve committed the crime of being white.

MLK, we need your message today!

Some organizers (not including me; I'm not an organizer, tho' I admire them) have already put up a site responding to the bizarre attacks on them at the R's convention:

http://organizersfightback.wordpress.com/

...the repeated reference to Barack Obama as a "community organizer" was a dog whistle to the Republican base, reinforcing the notion that he's a secret Black radical.

True....and TRUE. Obama was, and is, a black radical. So was MLK. Now, you might be fine with a black radical, but he is what he is. That's what black radicals do.....community organization.

I would love to see the Obama campaign put together an ad with several "real" Americans--moms, dads, oldsters, kids--talking about how community organizers helped them, and saying, "Shame on you, Gov Palin, for mocking what you don't understand." Even better if the people in the ad are Alaskans.

Jesus Christ was a community organizer and it was a governor that had him arrested and crucified.

I am actually willing to bet that Palin, not a member of the university in-bred liberal elite, just thinks that "Governor" trumps "community organizer" on the "executive experience" line. Carly Fiorina, "Chief Executive Officer," seems to think so.

The Obama campaign's knee-jerk response was to diss her experience. I guess Obama remembered Hilliary's campaign against him (who can forget) and had second thoughts about that.

Also, let's reconsider Obama's "community organizing" experience for a moment, shall we? Ever since the 60s, careerists "on the left" have made it hip, more or less a part of consumer culture. (cf., see Todd Gitlin). Leagues of little rich spoiled brats put the "community organizing" line on their resumes en route to careers in non-profit, paid for by the same financiers who look to screw the moose eaters.

So, it all depends on what frame you put around it.

Obama has slopped around in the mud a lot *longer* and in more significant pig pens.

I'll grant you that.

I worry that many folks have no idea what a community organizer does and fear the worst -- some kind of scary leftist agitator. Obama needs to say, with one or two well-chosen examples, "I tried to make folks' lives better by fighting for..." Otherwise being a community organizer becomes a negative.

Statement from ACORN on this kerfuffle.

http://www.acorn.org/index.php?id=12439&tx_ttnews[tt_news]=22314&tx_ttnews[backPid]=12387&cHash=2adbf6d900

ACORN (the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) President Maude Hurd issued the following statement after presumptive Republican V.P nominee Sara Palin and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani made disparaging remarks about community organizing at the Republican National Convention Wednesday night.

“ACORN members, leaders and staff are extremely disappointed that Republican leaders would make such condescending remarks on the great work community organizers accomplish in cities throughout this country.

The fact that they marginalize our success in empowering low- and moderate-income people to improve their communities further illustrates their lack of touch with ordinary people. Through community organizing, people are empowered to take action to solve their own problems, develop leadership skills and make decisions that improve their lives and their communities."

ACORN has been building organizations and developing leadership among

low- and moderate- income residents in neighborhoods throughout the United States for 38 years. During that time, ACORN chapters have worked individually and collectively to organize innovative grassroots campaigns on a number of critical issues. As the nation’s largest grassroots community organization with more than 400,000 member families, ACORN employs 400 organizers that carry a huge responsibility of helping disenfranchised people in their communities.

In the past 10 years, ACORN has helped more than 30 million American families through our various organizing campaigns: better schools, financial justice, living wages, community improvement, immigration, healthcare, predatory lending, voter engagement and utilities.

The total monetary value of recent victorious ACORN campaigns was quantified in a 2006 report entitled, “ACORN Wins”. Over the last decade, ACORN’s victories amount to $15 billion, an average of $1.5 billion per year going directly into low- and moderate-income communities to help strengthen working families. (For a copy go to http://www.acorn.org/fileadmin/Reports/ACORN_Wins_Report.pdf)

Nonsense.

"Community organizer" in the Chicago political machine means registering voters for the benefit of that political machine.

The machine returns the favor when it's your own turn to run for office.

Has nothing to do with being Black.

Grow the f*ck up.

Republicans tell us that we can't turn to government to help us with our problems, because that's not what government is for.

Republicans tell us that we can't organizer our fellow citizens to better our conditions or even to try to get the government to do its job, because that's radical, weird, suspicious, and somehow elitist.

So when we have problems we should neither come together as government to address them, nor voluntarily band together or help organize people together to address them.

Each and every person must simply try to solve every problem alone & isolated, and if that fails, too bad, the culture war demands your sacrifice so that some Republican, somewhere, feels that things have remained Normal.