Sixteen years before he became the president, Barack Obama worked for Project Vote as a community organizer. I kind of understand that because I was a community organizer for Project Vote in 2004. Why have I always seen Obama as a true progressive? This is why:
I know what Obama saw and learned. I know why he organized an army of community organizers. I know that his greatest legacy to the country is going to be the organizers he trained. Maybe I had a privileged position. I did the same job he did. I learned the same lessons. What I knew for certain was that he could be trusted precisely because he had experiences that taught him about the underclass and what it would take to lift them up. He has provided subsidies for health care and has gone after the credit card companies, the payday lenders, and the check cashing joints with real aggression.
He has done what I knew he would.
This, for me, is why Obama is a great man who will be remembered as a truly great president. This is why I’ve long felt that I’d like to be half the man he is. Great leaders do not lead by ego. Great leaders are inspired by those they lead.
Thanks. Our President is a true leader accepting the position to lift others up, not feed his own ego.
BTW, Al Giordio has commented too – http://narcosphere.narconews.com/thefield
Thanks for the link. That was a great piece.
yeah, AL!!
Thank you. It’s so nice to see Al back at the Field. Really appreciated his reporting in 2008.
The Republicans tried to trivialize “community organizer” and make it sound like something to be embarrassed about, which summarizes basically why they continue to fail as a party. They lack the compassion and foresight to compell and create strategic ground games to win. You have to care deeply about what you are working for, and you have to understand the people you’re trying to motivate. And there are specific technical skills needed to put it all together.
I watched that video and saw the Barack Obama that no Republican would understand. I watched a man humbled by the devotion of his loyal and dedicated fans and friends, people who trust him to do what’s right, and for the right reasons. He is genuine, he is good, and I could not be more proud to call him my President.
I have noticed that also. The republicans prattle endlessly about personal responsibility, compassionate conservatism (well, they don’t bother with that one any more), faith-based charity, etc.
Then when you get someone who actually does help people help themselves, who helps communities organize themselves to better function and serve their populations, they sneer repeatedly and endlessly. I thought they wanted people to do that!
I will never forgive Palin for that. She sure didn’t write that RNC speech, but she gleefully and enthusiastically sneered at the concept of “community organizer” and encouraged others to do likewise.
I have questioned people in this same way when they refer to the President with contempt as “the community organizer.” The response without exception has been {{crickets}}
Who got the last laugh?
Imagine the response if that same derisive Palin-esque attitude was exhibited toward religious based efforts to improve people’s lives.
that video was wonderful
Exactly right.
Apologies for linking to myself, but after watching that video I wrote a piece for a Catholic magazine’s website (partly because the grant that funded Obama’s salary as an organizer came from the Catholic Campaign for Human Development, which has been for the past 40 years the single largest funder of community organizing in the country): http://www.commonwealmagazine.org/blog/?p=21780
Booman, you’re right that the Democratic Party “did something about it”. The daunting prospect Republicans now face is that Democrats had to spend 40 years in the wilderness before they got to the place they’ve arrived at now.
I watch that video and I cry as well. While some of us had issue with some of the compromises Obama made, especially health care, it is now apparent that Obama really had his eye on the ball all along. Just as with Social Security, the details when it was first enacted actually meant very little in the long run. Obama’s greatest achievement was to establish health care as a right, not a privilege of premium employment. My only regret now is that he has only four years left in office. Really great leaders are much too few and far between.
I’ve been thinking the same.
Am I the only one thinking about Obama’s reflections in 2008 on previous presidents and about which ones had been transformational?
One of Obama’s most consistent messages (and it has always been sincere) is that it is up to us and that he wants to see us empowered.
Working among nonprofits in Chicago in the 80s I got acquainted with Alinski and discussed his work among a number of like minded people. The Repubs tried to diminish the role and tactics of community organizing in 2008, but I ALWAYS knew they had met their match.
From early on (and one can go back to old Obama articles in the Chicago Reader) Obama showed interest and confidence in a community organizing model for political movements.
In my book he is a transformational president already. The numbers of trained Dem organizers that have grown in the last 5 year indicate that. Moving progressive ideas forward incrementally indicates that. How we work this transformation after Obama’s last term is still up to us. I hope Obama takes a role in that.