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Joshua Kahn Russell's Blog

Web Address: http://www.zcommunications.org/zspace/joshuakahnrussell
Bio:   Joshua Kahn Russell is an organizer working to bridge movements for ecological balance and racial justice. He is a strategy and non-violent direct action trainer with the Ruckus Societ... (More)

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Hating on Community Organizers

By Joshua Kahn Russell at Sep 06, 2008

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For the last week I've been on a wilderness canoe trip without any phone or computer or cars or humans other than my partner. It was the first time I've been without contact to the rest of society in...as long as I can remember. It's been a new attempt at finding balance in my life - something every organizer I know is desperately searching for, since organizing is a thankless endeavor that takes over your entire life, to the point where you eat, sleep, and breathe the work. The pressure of striving to do your best to have you work guided by deep accountability to the communities and folks you work with is a tremendous responsibility that doesn't seem to be in the lexicon of our elected officials.

I just stepped in to a canoe lodge on the Canadian/Minnesota border, and the first thing I hear about the outside world is a vice presidential candidate dissing community organizing. "I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a ‘community organizer,' except that you have actual responsibilities" ha ha ha. I've heard a lot of really foul things come out of the mouths of politicans from both major parties. Its expected. But this time I was just suprised more than anything else. Community organizing, whether on the Left or the Right is the lifeblood of this country and the engine of change. 

Jay Smooth from Illdoctrine put it best:

And as shared on racewire, Deepak Bhargava, Executive Director of the Center for Center for Community Change, said:

When Sarah Palin demeaned community organizing, she didn't attack another candidate. She attacked an American tradition —- one that has helped everyday Americans engage with the political process and make a difference in their lives and the lives of their neighbors.All across the country, in every state and every community, there are community organizers helping people find shared solutions to the shared problems they face. The candidates for President and Vice President should be working to solve our shared problems, too, rather than attack others who trying to do the same.

Yup. And as some friends of mine pointed out, we just saw what the Republicans really think of community organizing and peaceful protest, after turning the Twin Cities into what resembled a warzone, with tazers, mace, teargas, concussion grenades, mass arrests of bystanders and even media, rubber bullets, and the national guard. After that, snarky comments about organizers not shouldering responsibility don't seem so bad, eh?

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Re: Hating on Community Organizers

By Furcsik, Jarrod at Sep 25, 2008 11:28 AM

 

  I did feel that the tone Palin used seemed belittling regardless of who the comment was directed at or what the context was.  She seemed condescending in the way she used it.  She created the impression that she looks down on community organization with disdain.  Certainly the way CNN and Fox presented her only enhanced the effect.

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The Big \"Diss\"

By Lawson, Gael at Sep 20, 2008 08:05 AM
She wasn\'t dissing community organizers, she was dissing Barack\'s "community organizing" which consisted of illegal voter registration, criminal gifting in exchange for Democratic Party registration, gathering funds for public housing which never materialized (nor did any record of how the funding was used. Notice he himself does not talk about what he did as a community organizer; instead, he has blocked all access to all people and  records relating to that period in his life. Hmmmm.
She was responding to his dismissal of her job as a mayor and governor.  Get all the facts before you respond to media hype.  I can guarantee you that if you get your information from the BigMedia, you will get a highly skewed, if not totally  fabricated story - not news.  Witness all of the fallout from abc\'s careful editing of Charlie Gibson\'s interview with Gov Palin.  They moved her answer about neighborliness with Russia to his question about readiness and foreign policy.  (Newsbusters posted the entire transcript). Criminally negligent reporting, actually, but nevertheless leaving the impression (which was them exploited by SNL , and NEVER corrected by abc) that she had said her foreign policy experience consisted of seeing Russia from Alaska.  In fact, she structured a deal with Canada for a transalaskan pipeline that had been argued about for years with her predecessor.  And yes, BO lovers, that is actually international experience.  Although BO believes that there are 57 states, there are not and no, Canada is not one of them.
Btw, charles manson was also a community organizer. It isn’t enough to just claim the title, you have to describe what it is that you’re organizing for to validate it.

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