28 year old political idealogies and talking points don't help people like Gary.  Community organizers and visionary leaders do.

The irony is that she would have been shredded to pieces if she had denigrated any form of church organizations that worked within the community, but since she went after a non-religious organization it's OK to trash them as having "no responsibilities".  Pretty nasty.

I was waiting for this diary. Truly and outrageous and disgusting speech by Gov.Palin.

highly rec'd and thank you for all you do.

it is organizing that is going to defeat them.   They will feel the full power of bottom-up on November 4.

takes this as a call to arms. I know I have. I want to see them crushed.

I don't want to beat them. I want to wipe the floor with them and I want Palin to know that she energized every one of us.

In her mind and in the mind of her audience, the only kind of community organizer is a left wingnut. It's a way of saying he's a radical. Of course this means the legislative experience is gone as if it never was. Just like McCain's. And the two ethics bills, one in ILL and one in the Senate never existed either since she is the only ethics warrior other than McCain.

I said somewhere else that she had to be careful in what she says and does because the church base they are looking for her to deliver has its own views on many of these things, including the diarist and she could have been in politics so long that she has forgotten that those conservative social views include her care of her family, and things like community organizers, which many of them have a lot of and would like more of.

In her mind and in the mind of her audience, the only kind of community organizer is a left wingnut. It's a way of saying he's a radical. Of course this means the legislative experience is gone as if it never was. Just like McCain's. And the two ethics bills, one in ILL and one in the Senate never existed either since she is the only ethics warrior other than McCain.

I said somewhere else that she had to be careful in what she says and does because the church base they are looking for her to deliver has its own views on many of these things, including the diarist and she could have been in politics so long that she has forgotten that those conservative social views include her care of her family, and things like community organizers, which many of them have a lot of and would like more of.

an organizer and a Chief Executive is that in the first case you need to work with others and in the second, if you so choose, you do not.

As Chief Executive for a town you can simply fire everyone and hire people who will listen to you.  As Chief Executive for a state you can do the same.  This is easier than as Chief Executive for a company because it is harder to immediately run out of money, and with a tax hike here and an oil boom there you can say you are saving when you are in fact spending more. (and yes, these are direct Palin parallels)

Chief Executives in businesses that are not wallowing in cash (and smart ones, even in those that are) find that they need to, um, organize their people.  To gather input, conceed some points and lead their people to believe in others.

We don't need another arbitrarily acting Chief Executive of this country.  We need a CEO who will help us organize, who will conceed in the face of actual necessity and lead us to believe in our capacity for greater achievements.

-chris

...an alien outlook to me.  The community service background was one of the things that really made me look more thoroughly into Obama.  I was thinking "finally, somebody who thinks at least a little bit like us."

The idea of making a pejorative out of that, done by people who frankly have seen very little of the things in this world for which we need community organizers, is contemptuous and contemptible.

Prog

All hands on deck, Governor Palin is anti-community!

Seriously, it's as if the republicans got together and said "What's the most selfless thing that Obama's ever done?" and then tried to make fun of it.
"Hey, he helped people on the South Side of Chicago petition their government! What a wacko!"
What's next? "Hey, he plays basketball so he must be really black!" Oh wait, they tried that one.
How about, "He has two DAUGHTERS so he's not really a MAN! Hey Obama, what's wrong with having a SON?"

Obama brought that on himself. He didn't have to mock his opponent's experience as a mayor.

He should defend himself by explaining exactly what he did as a "community organizer".

Susan B Anthony
Carrie Chapman Catt
Harriet Tubman
John Lewis (one of McCain's heroes, supposedly)
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Caesar Chavez
Dolores Huerta

From the millions of Union organizers working for higher wages (supposedly the Palins belonged to a union)...
To the millions of community organizers fighting for families across the US...

Community organizers continue to fight for a more perfect Union, and I proud to do my part to contribute to that legacy as an organizer as well!

They are really pushing the Tammany Hall view of community organizers.  I think many exurbanits look at Chicago politics as a corupt machine and community organizers as merchants of hope in exchange for maintaining power in the city.  

They argue that Chicago, as one of the largest democratic strongholds which has been running the city for much of the last century, has not brought the change the city needs.  While some benefits have increased the people have not lived in an environment where they can flurish on their own merit.

For a suburbanite both stories are compelling.

As my tag would suggest, I am sure we have some clashing ideas on how best to help all people in need, but I think we would agree that those in the most need deserve it from our country.  I admire your service to your fellow man and support anyone with your selfless devotion.  

Judging from this reaction Palin appears to have hit a nerve.

Yes, to most liberals and progressives community organizing is a good thing. But to Republicans, independents and even some Democrats it is kinda weird where PTA and Mayor are normal. Community organizers help the powerless get power, that is an uncomfortable concept for people who have some power, like PTA members.

It's the politics of resentment, it is how Republicans have been winning for decades. Ads about how great community organizers are won't change that.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obam a

After four years in New York City, Obama moved to Chicago to work as a community organizer for three years from June 1985 to May 1988 as director of the Developing Communities Project (DCP), a church-based community organization originally comprising eight Catholic parishes in Greater Roseland (Roseland, West Pullman, and Riverdale) on Chicago's far South Side.[12][14] During his three years as the DCP's director, its staff grew from 1 to 13 and its annual budget grew from $70,000 to $400,000, with accomplishments including helping set up a job training program, a college preparatory tutoring program, and a tenants' rights organization in Altgeld Gardens.[15] Obama also worked as a consultant and instructor for the Gamaliel Foundation, a community organizing institute

[snip]

Obama directed Illinois Project Vote from April to October 1992, a voter registration drive with a staff of 10 and 700 volunteers that achieved its goal of registering 150,000 of 400,000 unregistered African Americans in the state, leading Crain's Chicago Business to name Obama to its 1993 list of "40 under Forty" powers to be.[22][23]

[snip]

In 1993 Obama joined Davis, Miner, Barnhill & Galland, a 12-attorney law firm specializing in civil rights litigation and neighborhood economic development, where he was an associate for three years from 1993 to 1996, then of counsel from 1996 to 2004, with his law license becoming inactive in 2002.[12][25]

[snip]

Obama was a founding member of the board of directors of Public Allies in 1992, resigning before his wife, Michelle, became the founding executive director of Public Allies Chicago in early 1993.[12][26] He served on the board of directors of the Woods Fund of Chicago, which in 1985 had been the first foundation to fund Obama's DCP, from 1993-2002, and served on the board of directors of The Joyce Foundation from 1994-2002.[12] Obama served on the board of directors of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge from 1995-2002, as founding president and chairman of the board of directors from 1995-1999.[12] He also served on the board of directors of the Chicago Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, the Center for Neighborhood Technology, and the Lugenia Burns Hope Center.[12]

I love you. Thank You.

for ten years, here's my perspective

1. Kudos, thank yous and I love yous to the diarist.  A great way to start my day!

2. It's early morning so I can't say for sure, but I suspect Palin made a serious error last night in PISSING OFF ORGANIZERS.  It's demoralizing, often degrading, incredibly hard work with most organizers  staying at it out of sheer will to make a difference.  Good job on pissing us all off, Sarah.  Thanks for the big shot in the arm.  Seven weeks?  Yeah, this pissed should keep us going at least that long.  The road to public humiliation and defeat is littered with the carcasses of official fuck dumb enough to piss off an organizer!

3.  Here's a thought -- Obama did not seem to make a lasting difference in south Chicago because the PROBLEMS ARE SO MANY, SO PERVASIVE AND SO HUGE.  DUH.  oh!  the band got new uniforms in Wasilla!  Yay!  That was challenging!  Where IS that phone number for Dewie's Stop and Shop?  They'll sponsor a float, FER SURE.
Now try chipping away at the despondency and disempowerment of a lifetime spent in abject poverty caring for your adult child blinded by a drive-by shooter.  (real person I organized...Sarah and friends... who can BITE ME)

4. I would love, I am going to strongly recommemd and not shut up about it that someone -- SEIU, MOVE-ON, the Obama Campaign, the DNC -- do an ad campaign on exactly the fucking what organizers do.  Hit these assholes in the face with a pie so big and full of American apples they choke on them.  

5. To reiterate from above -- the best pastors, preachers and priests are community organizers.  Many of the great unsung organizing heroines out there are NUNS.  School systems, cities, communities are transformed EVERY FU"CKING DAY by community organizing to get rid of crack houses and abandoned buildings, to conduct neighbor watch programs, to care for shut ins and clean up parks, to stop polluters.  Ever signed a petition?  That was an organizer.  Ever got a knock on your door about a problem in your community? that was an organizer.  ever seen your local government respond to a previously ignored problem?  that was an organizer.  Ever wondered where environmental groups get the bulk of their funding?  that was an organizer.  

wondering why you have weekends off, a paid vacation and an eight hour work day?  That was a union organizer.  Ever wonder why there are no children working in sweatshops in America?  that was a union organizer.  Do you know where OSHA came from or the minimum wage?  That was a union organizer.

pft!  
I could go on for hours here.  Anyway, thanks for the diary again.  I'm going to spend today emailing my folks pictures of Sarah Palin to hang on the office walls.  

When Sarah Palin came out saying that she was a PTA member she was mocked and ridiculed. When it was pointed out that she was the mayor of a small town she was mocked and ridiculed. When it was pointed out that she was a Governor of a small state she was mocked and ridiculed. NOW when she elevates mayoral duties over community organizers it because the most important and valued of jobs?

Please explain where the defense of PTA members (Which are also community organizers) was 2 days ago. If this were about issues Republicans wouldn't even be close but it's about who can smear who and belittle who most.

Enough already

From what I've read in the blogs, and my wife's reaction to the speech, I see a consistent pattern that the dripping sarcasm soured the viewers. One lady in a Nevada focus group called the speech "snippy."

That Obama chose to work in his community instead of accepting a plush job out of college is a testament to where he's been and, more importantly, where he wants to lead us.

I am sorry but Obama can put that away now.   I have been sick of the community organizer bit for a long time.  I understand he needed one last time at the convention to round out his bio, but we get it, we've heard it, we know.

Obama has to move to the next stage, engage McCain and prove either that he would be a better Commander in Chief than McCain, or that McCain is simply unfit to be Commander-in Chief.

Based on past elections, I think we hold the upper hand this time and can use the GOP playbook against them.  I think we can frag McCain a lot easier than trying to convince undecideds of Obama abilites.   Undecideds are hard to convince and are a fickle bunch.   Just nuke McCain and make him acceptable the way Bush did Kerry, and Kennedy did Goldwater.

Thanks for this.  Obama's background as a community organizer was what got me invested in his campaign in the first place.