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Obama's "community organizer" phase was about political power, not soup kitchens
Windy Citizen ^ | July 28, 2008 | John Maki

Posted on 09/03/2008 10:42:24 PM PDT by bahblahbah

If you've heard the term, you likely learned about it through Barack Obama's memoir or one of his speeches where he talks about his time working in poor neighborhoods on Chicago's South Side in the 1980s. He refers to this time in his life a lot. Obama leans on it, hard, while stumping. But what does it mean?

What do community organizers actually do? How do they do it? And how has Obama's experience as a community organizer shaped his run for the presidency?

Since 2002, I have worked with several Chicago-based community organizers and even done some organizing myself. My experience has taught me to view Barack Obama, Chicago's most famous community organizer, in a different light than you will likely encounter from most political commentators.

Community organizing is old-fashioned, bare-knuckle politics for the little guy.

Were you picturing Obama in a soup kitchen instead? It is not your fault. When Obama talks about his time as a community organizer, he does not go beyond a vague and benign description of how he worked with unemployed steelworkers and their families to fight for change. Media coverage of Obama's days as a community organizer has not been much better. Most journalists tend either to repeat stories that Obama has told in his books, or merely interview people who worked with him at the time without giving you a clear idea of what community organizing entails.

(Excerpt) Read more at windycitizen.com ...


TOPICS: News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: news; obama
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To: bahblahbah
Here is a long but good article that tells exactly what Obama accomplished as a "community organizer" and as an IL state senator. There is a reason he doesn't talk about the details of his work there.

Grim proving ground for Obama's housing policy

21 posted on 09/03/2008 11:36:16 PM PDT by TigersEye (This is the age of the death of reason.)
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To: bahblahbah

Yep. Middle America is about to get an education on Alinsky’s “Community Organizers”.


22 posted on 09/03/2008 11:38:20 PM PDT by mabelkitty (Why does Obama hate pregnant women so much?)
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To: Nachoman

I don’t think you’re being fair to agitators. I doubt that they have ever done the damage Obama did to the community in Chicago. See article linked in #21.


23 posted on 09/03/2008 11:41:07 PM PDT by TigersEye (This is the age of the death of reason.)
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To: bahblahbah
Obama's "community organizer" phase was about political power, not soup kitchens

Like most of what Obama says, the term "Community Organizer" can be traced back to Saul Alinsky.

He defines the role. It is the job of the Community Organizer to spread discontent in a community and then play upon their diverse fears and weaknesses to galvanize them into providing the "Community Organizer" with a power base.

In other words, it is the recruiting and manipulation of "useful idiots"

24 posted on 09/03/2008 11:47:58 PM PDT by Wil H
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To: bahblahbah
Most journalists tend either to repeat stories that Obama has told in his books, ...

Stories from the two novels he wrote being passed off as autobiographies.

25 posted on 09/03/2008 11:50:25 PM PDT by Diver Dave
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To: Kellykoop

In Cleveland, Ward Captains serve the same purpose and it’s the Dennis Kucinich way.


26 posted on 09/03/2008 11:51:29 PM PDT by mabelkitty (Why does Obama hate pregnant women so much?)
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To: Wuli

I don’t think he accidentally married Michelle. She was very well-connected to the Chicago machine. Quite convenient for his Chicago career.


27 posted on 09/04/2008 12:10:35 AM PDT by mabelkitty (Why does Obama hate pregnant women so much?)
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Use the correct term:

Party Organizer.


28 posted on 09/04/2008 12:29:10 AM PDT by D-fendr (Deus non alligatur sacramentis sed nos alligamur.)
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To: NonValueAdded
Ward Heeler...
29 posted on 09/04/2008 12:49:46 AM PDT by TXnMA ("Allah": Satan's current alias...!!)
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To: skr

“Someone on a Hillary website mentioned that Hitler, Pol Pot and Stalin were all community organizers.”

Wow, lol


30 posted on 09/04/2008 12:53:21 AM PDT by angelsonmyside (Hollywood Hussein, Change you can believe in but you sure won't like.)
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To: bahblahbah

Basically, the civilian equivalent of the political commissar.


31 posted on 09/04/2008 12:57:32 AM PDT by denydenydeny ("[Obama acts] as if the very idea of permanent truth is passe, a form of bad taste"-Shelby Steele)
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To: bahblahbah

Read about Saul Alinsky’s Chicago Community organizers here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saul_Alinsky
...and Barack Obama

http://www.sovereignty.org.uk/features/activistinf/morality.html
THE 10 RULES OF THE ETHICS OF MEANS AND ENDS
Alinsky presents a set of “rules” on the ethics of means and ends.

http://www.answers.com/topic/saul-alinsky
Alinsky was a critic of a passive and ineffective mainstream liberalism. In Rules for Radicals, he argued that the most effective means are whatever will achieve the desired ends, and that an intermediate end for radicals should be democracy because of its relative ease to work within to achieve other ends of social justice.

The left is dominated by the old, Marxist, cum “radical” tactic of “the ends justifies the means” and that morality is simply a set of perceptions of the people, either as a weapon against the socialist, or a tool set for him to utilize. And the goal, mind you, is to control and manipulate the people in order to gain the power they need — in order to (funny part here) empower the people. Worked really well in Asia, last Century.

Strategy: Lie; pretend to be a democrat interested in freedom and the common principles of one’s milieu. Become messianic if you can to get power. Focus on the felt problems of the masses. But gain power however you can.


32 posted on 09/04/2008 1:42:29 AM PDT by unspun (Mike Huckabee: Government's job is "protect us, not have to provide for us.")
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