Community Organizers and the RNC

I said I wouldn't write much about politics, but it's so entertaining these days, and, on top of that, the RNC couldn't stop talking about community organizers yesterday!

After last night's RNC speeches, a friend suggested I create a Facebook group "Community Organizers for Barack Obama." I probably will not do that -- especially because I'm not yet a community organizer (but hopefully will be one soon). I will say that, as someone who asked the very question Rudy Giuliani asked last night, "What is it that community organizers actually do?" I can attest to the absurdities in the way both Rudy and Palin regarded them.

Everyone, on both sides, seems to be obsessed with how working class their roots are. The less privilege the better. No one will admit to having money, even though everyone we're seeing up there lives more comfortably than the vast majority of Americans. The RNC happened last night, in the midst of this blue-collar one-upmanship contest. There is talk about reform, about accountability, about the American people deciding the fate of the country, about Washington politicians being out of touch with the rest of the country, and about the need to change all that. Funnily enough, the Republicans, the incumbents, spent the majority of the night last night talking about reform, quietly acknowledging the failures of their own party. But that's another subject.

Back to the "Well my great uncle's friend once took a tour of a farm and then drank beer with the guys and shot a gun" contest. It seems to me that if there is anyone dealing with politics on a local level, if there is anyone trying to get more people into the political process to make change in their lives, it is the community organizer. That is the basic idea -- constructing a unified voice where there is none. This work goes on overwhelmingly in areas without other, more traditional forms of voice (or power); moderate and low income areas. Without money, people must organize to influence local, city, and state representatives. These ideas -- standing up to cronyism and 'old guard' types and being in touch with the 'ordinary American' -- seem to be themes Republicans can't get enough of. So, again, Republicans are against something when it happens to be on 'the other side,' whether we're talking about Obama's organizing or about the Vet-cong's torture (they said it) of John McCain. Yet they try to tout the same experiences and values the organizer stands for. Yet they have enabled similar, if not worse acts to be committed in our nation's name.

But this is a long post for something silly. After all, as A.A. Milne said, "Organizing is what you do before you do something, so that when you do it, it is not all mixed up."

Here's another post about this.