We're Getting There

Barack Obama was asked about the persistent attacks on community organizing at the RNC last night, and he eventually gets to a good response.



I thought the open was a bit defensive ("I've done a lot of things!") but then he found the nut:

I would argue that doing work in the community, to try to create jobs, to bring people together, to rejeuvenate communities that have fallen on hard times, to set up job training programs in areas that have been hard-hit when the steel plants close, that that's relevant only in understanding where I'm coming from, who I believe in, who I'm fighting for, and why I'm in this race. And the question I have for them is, why would that kind of work be ridiculous? Who are they fighting for? What are they advocating for? Do they think that the lives of those folks who are struggling each and every day, that working with them to try to improve their lives is somehow not relevant to the Presidency? I think maybe that's the problem. That's part of why they're out of touch and they don't get it, because they haven't spent much time working on behalf of those folks.

You combine this with an uproar over the "uppity" remarks, and we have the makings of a hissy fit.

I should remind you that John McCain, who talks about serving a cause greater than himself, today cancelled a Habitat for Humanity event because, I guess, that sight of people actually helping their communities would be too blinding for him. Either that or he just wanted to offer up one of his 12 homes instead of doing the work of building one, I don't know.

...Credo gets it. From their email:

In her acceptance speech last night at the Republican National Convention, Vice Presidential nominee and Alaska Governor Sarah Palin said, "I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a `community organizer,' except that you have actual responsibilities."

Nominally, her words were an assault on Barack Obama's early career as a community organizer on Chicago's south side. But the impact reaches farther than that and is a direct affront to the thousands who have dedicated their lives to making America great.

Community organizing is the heart and soul of American democracy. We are privileged to live in a country where people with the energy and passion to dream of a better world can put in the sweat and shoe leather to build social movements from the ground up. Indeed, if it weren't for the sacrifice of organizers, we wouldn't have many of the opportunities we take for granted today — from the 40-hour work week and the minimum wage to protections for a woman's right to choose and the right of African Americans to vote.

This is ridiculous. Tell Governor Palin to quit bashing community organizers.

UPDATE: Some great responses here. My favorite:

Community Organizers of America: The last thing we need is for Republican officials to mock us on television when we’re trying to rebuild the neighborhoods they have destroyed. Maybe if everyone had more houses than they can count, we wouldn’t need community organizers. But I work with people who are getting evicted from their only home. If John McCain and the Republicans understood that, maybe they wouldn’t be so quick to make fun of community organizers like me.

I would also accept Chris Hayes' take:

But this kind of hits me where I live, since my dad is a community organizer, so lemme spell this out: the difference between a community organizer and a politician is that a community organizer can't tell anyone what to do. They have to listen. So they can't order books banned from a library to indulge their own religious sensibilities. They can't fire someone because they didn't follow orders to fire an estranged family member. They can't ram through a $15 million dollar sports complex that leaves their local town groaning underneath the debt. Unlike politicians, they don't have any power other than the power of people who want to see something changed.

Decades ago, before the ADA and a raft of other legislation, schools had essentially no requirements to provide decent education for special needs children. Then a movement of parents, engaging in - gasp - community organizing changed that. And they continue to fight day in and day out for educational equity for children like Sarah Palin's.

Too bad Sarah Palin just spit in their faces.