GOV. PALIN: THIS IS HOW DEMOCRACY WORKS!
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| Also listed in: Appalachian Populists | Interfaith Peace Coalition | Licking County Pro-Active Citizens (www.licopac.org) | Ohio 12th Congressional District | Ohio 18th Congressional District | Perry County Democratic Forum |
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Categories: Consumer and Worker Protection, Economic Fairness and Security, Honest and Ethical Government, Social Justice, Front Page
Categories: Consumer and Worker Protection, Economic Fairness and Security, Honest and Ethical Government, Social Justice, Front Page
I'm not crazy enough, as a 67-year-old grandfather, to put my toe into the political whirlpool stirred up by Sarah Palin about the responsibilities of motherhood. But there was one thing she said last night having nothing to do with parenting which really stuck in my craw:
"I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a community organizer except that you have actual responsibilities."
In this, of course, Palin as John McCain's pit bull and running mate was comparing -- to her advantage -- her tenure as one-time mayor of the small Alaskan town of Wasilla to Obama's work in the late 1980s as a community organizer in Chicago. (He was director of the Developing Communities Project, a South Side church-based community organization. According to Daily Kos, DCP under Obama grew from one to 13 staff members and a budget of $400,000 a year, with a focus on tenants' rights, job training and college preparatory tutoring.)
Now, Obama is a big boy and certainly capable of responding to this and other political buckshot sprayed his way this week by Palin and other GOP convention speakers. But somebody needs to also defend "community organizers" who do great work for little or no pay to keep people and communities from sinking into ruin and despair, especially in these hard times.
And it's personal, because my father was a union community organizer in northeast Ohio and across the Midwest in the early 1930s during a period when you could get beaten or killed for promoting worker rights.
Just who are these community organizers that Palin dismisses so casually?
Aside from labor organizers like my dad, Martin Luther King comes to mind in terms of civil rights as does Susan B. Anthony. Probably the most famous community organizer in history was Jesus, something which probably hasn't occurred to Palin and her fellow maxi-Christians.
And what do these "community organizers" do?
They light fires under small town mayors and governors like Palin and even Presidents to do the jobs they were hired to do. You see, governor, mayors do have "actual responsibilities" but they don't always live up to them. And when the politicians and bureaucrats fail to take responsibility, it's up to us, as volunteers and community organizers, to pressure them or depose them.
When Palin put these activists down, I immediately thought of the famous Chicago writer, Studs Terkel, who spent much of his life profiling the courage and tenacity of everyday people in dire situations and the community organizers who fought for them against often impossible odds.
In his 2003 book, Hope Dies Last, Terkel quotes Roberta Lynch, a Chicago labor organizer, about her role:
"It's about action," she said. "You feel that things can happen, the possibility, the hope. You feel ordinary people can do extraordinary things. Something comes along unexpectely, something no one could have predicted...people can surprise you."
And here's how Elaine Jones of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund explains in the same book (pp 144) why we need community organizers, even if we have mayors and governors and judges and presidents:
"Now the basic question is, how much can the law alone do? I still believe in the power of law. We can't ignore the courts. We have to fight. But you have to have community pressure and involvement . There must be public pressure to make people respond. There has to be mobilization. Grassroots....I believe the system can change, but it's only if those of us who understand these issues stay involved in them. That's the only way change comes."
"I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a community organizer except that you have actual responsibilities."
In this, of course, Palin as John McCain's pit bull and running mate was comparing -- to her advantage -- her tenure as one-time mayor of the small Alaskan town of Wasilla to Obama's work in the late 1980s as a community organizer in Chicago. (He was director of the Developing Communities Project, a South Side church-based community organization. According to Daily Kos, DCP under Obama grew from one to 13 staff members and a budget of $400,000 a year, with a focus on tenants' rights, job training and college preparatory tutoring.)
Now, Obama is a big boy and certainly capable of responding to this and other political buckshot sprayed his way this week by Palin and other GOP convention speakers. But somebody needs to also defend "community organizers" who do great work for little or no pay to keep people and communities from sinking into ruin and despair, especially in these hard times.
And it's personal, because my father was a union community organizer in northeast Ohio and across the Midwest in the early 1930s during a period when you could get beaten or killed for promoting worker rights.
Just who are these community organizers that Palin dismisses so casually?
Aside from labor organizers like my dad, Martin Luther King comes to mind in terms of civil rights as does Susan B. Anthony. Probably the most famous community organizer in history was Jesus, something which probably hasn't occurred to Palin and her fellow maxi-Christians.
And what do these "community organizers" do?
They light fires under small town mayors and governors like Palin and even Presidents to do the jobs they were hired to do. You see, governor, mayors do have "actual responsibilities" but they don't always live up to them. And when the politicians and bureaucrats fail to take responsibility, it's up to us, as volunteers and community organizers, to pressure them or depose them.
When Palin put these activists down, I immediately thought of the famous Chicago writer, Studs Terkel, who spent much of his life profiling the courage and tenacity of everyday people in dire situations and the community organizers who fought for them against often impossible odds.
In his 2003 book, Hope Dies Last, Terkel quotes Roberta Lynch, a Chicago labor organizer, about her role:
"It's about action," she said. "You feel that things can happen, the possibility, the hope. You feel ordinary people can do extraordinary things. Something comes along unexpectely, something no one could have predicted...people can surprise you."
And here's how Elaine Jones of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund explains in the same book (pp 144) why we need community organizers, even if we have mayors and governors and judges and presidents:
"Now the basic question is, how much can the law alone do? I still believe in the power of law. We can't ignore the courts. We have to fight. But you have to have community pressure and involvement . There must be public pressure to make people respond. There has to be mobilization. Grassroots....I believe the system can change, but it's only if those of us who understand these issues stay involved in them. That's the only way change comes."
