community organizing and the GOP convention

Sat Sep 6 20:18:01 CDT 2008

[ed: Here are today's contributions.  Thanks to Amy, Kathy, K., and 
Larry.  A bit from me below.]

From: "Amy S. Mondloch" <amy at grassrootsleadershipcollege.org>

Hi all--

I guess my first reaction to Palin's remarks was that of hurt and anger.
How dare she insult such a long standing vocation (I say this rather than
profession because historically most organizers have been the unpaid folks
gathering others around their kitchen table) and how dare she insult me and
my work! 

I still think her comments were ignorant in the sense that she clearly
doesn't realize that it is community organizers who are working to get her
elected.  I still think it's worthy to put some energy into defending the
profession.  However, I wonder what amount of energy should go there.  I
wonder if we aren't being pulled into the same trap we have been over and
over again.  That is the trap of defending ourselves against false threats
rather than taking our strength and moving toward our desired world.

Presidential campaigns have become, in my mind, generally a disgrace to
democracy.  Too much time is spent insulting on both sides, too much time
giving some sort of vague promises about fixing some problem, too much time
talking about taxes (I wonder how much time the average person would spend
thinking about taxes if they weren't told in every election that its an
issue they really care about). The other side of course is no where near
enough time is spent talking about what is the world we want to see? What
steps can we take together, the presidential hopeful and other members of
the democracy, to seeing that world into creation?

Our democracy has become a house with a leaky roof where we at worst just
grumble about the raindrops that are hitting us on the head and the leaks
that are ruining the structure, and at best put out buckets to catch some of
the drips while everything else continues to mold and crumble.  Sure the
buckets help a little, but it's time to replace the whole roof folks.

Peace,
Amy S. Mondloch

Everyone A Learner, Everyone A Teacher, Everyone A Leader

Celebrate 5 Years of Leadership Development with a donation at
www.grassrootsleadershipcollege.org

Amy S Mondloch
Executive Director
Grassroots Leadership College
1321 E. Mifflin St. Suite 201
Madison, WI
53703
phone: 608-441-0085
fax:  608-204-0835
amy at grassrootsleadershipcollege.org
www.grassrootsleadershipcollege.org

****************************

From: Kathy Partridge <interfaithfunders at yahoo.com>

Dear colleagues,

When GOP leaders Palin and Guiliani misrepresent community organizing at 
the RNC, an organized community responds - in the press, on blogs and 
list servs, and yes, in the streets and congregations of our country!  
As informed advocates of community organizing, Interfaith Funders is 
pleased to compile an online resource directory of recent news and 
views.  Please link to our website resource portal at 
www.interfaithfunders.org for articles from Center for Community Change, 
the New York Times, USA TODAY, Huffington Post, Essence, voices of 
community organizers, and more.

We'll be updating our resource directory as stories come in, so bookmark 
this website and visit often, and forward us your stories.

Kathy Partridge
Executive Director
Interfaith Funders
www.interfaithfunders.org
2719 Denver Ave.
Longmont, CO  80503
Voice 720-494-9011
Fax 708-585-6434  Cell 303-594-6434

***************************

From: K GRUENEICHCAREY <kgrueneichcarey at hotmail.com>

   Community organizers are volunteer lobbyists on behalf of the common 
people & not for rich bigwigs or big businesses.
They have a long & honorable history here in the USA & De Toqueville 
noted that their presence was one of the best American contributions to 
political life at that time.

   One of the first such groups were the "Sons of Liberty", who helped 
to defeat King George & his minions in 1776.

   Where are the new "Sons & Daughters of Liberty" who will help defeat 
this new King George & HIS cronies in 2008?

************************

From: Larry Yates <lamaryates at igc.org>

To some extent, we should look at this the same way any other group 
would. More accurately, we should approach this situation in the same 
way we would advise any other group to approach a similar situation, 
whether it was a union, a national issue group, or an ethnic or 
geographic group.

Some fairly basic rules:

1) Don't take it personally, or put energy into expressing personal 
emotions or obvious "tit for that" insults. Use your legitimate outrage 
to fuel the fight, but respond in a way that is strategic, and that does 
not buy into or legitimate, but uses the immediate "he said - she said" 
news cycle to take folks to more real and deeper stuff. The fact that 
you and I are mad because we were insulted is not news anyone can really 
use, except for those in the media and politics who feed on superficial 
personality bullcrap.

2) We have lots of resources. We must use them. One example is the 13 
years of papers on the comm-org site, which we should all direct 
journalists to. Another is the National Oranizers Alliance. (Hello!) 
Others include the websites of our favorite local organizations doing 
CO. And perhaps the best resources are the individuals who at one point 
had no idea what CO was, and now are willing to say it changed their 
lives. We don't need to create new resources, we need to link to them. 
(Electronically and otherwise.)

3) Play to our strengths.  As organizers, we don't have have permanent 
friends or permanent enemies. We have a permanent commitment to 
democracy, justice,  struggle and empowerment, wherever they go. We need 
to keep that front and center, because it is very powerful.

When I was at the Center for Health, Environment and Justice, I helped 
people to organize against environmental wickedness in almost every 
state, no matter what their ethnicity or class or occupation, and no 
matter who the environmental culprit was, or from what party. In every 
case where it was seriously tried, organizing worked. Every politician 
with a brain knows that it does work -- but they also know that millions 
of US people don't know it. Let's use this opportunity to change that. 
We will almost always win this squabble when people know who we are and 
who is attacking us. My experience suggests 80% of the people in this 
country would trust a locally organized democratic group with a serious 
local issue over almost any politician.

4) Think carefully about who steps forward, what face we present. This 
is an especially important time for our Board members to speak up for 
the organizers they supervise. Those of us who are organizing staff are 
accountable to our Board members, and they have chosen the hard role of 
being responsible for organizations in which considerable hope rests. 
These Board members have made a very serious commitment, and done so for 
no pay and despite many other demands on their time. (I'm not blowing 
smoke here -- I have been on Boards and on staff.)

In my opinion, this kerfuffle is even more an attack on Board members 
and leaders than it is on organizers. Organizers get paid to do this 
work, and get told what to do, or at least what the goals and methods 
are. If we organizers are as useless and irrelevant as these politicians 
suggest, shame on us. But what does the attack say about those who come 
night after night to meetings, who grapple with budgets and personnel 
issues and put their reputations in the community on the line for 
community organizations and statewide and national networks? Are they 
dupes or fools to do this? Or do they see a real effort for grassroots 
power that often succeeds?

I hope Board members will be front and center in the response. Then 
let's see if anybody from any party dares to take them on. Considered as 
a population, the Boards of all the organzing efforts across the USA are 
an incredibly diverse and dedicated (and currently mostly invisible) 
group of volunteers from every sector of U.S. society, a group with very 
strong representation from faith communities, and with clear historic 
links to the civil rights movement and other feared and respected 
movements. If this little media blip helped to get them visibility with 
a few million of our compatriots, it would be a big win, in my opinion. 
But if all that is heard is that organizers don't like it when people 
say mean things about them, we lose.

Hope this helps.

Larry

Larry Yates
VOP Valley Organizer
P.O. Box 245
Maurertown VA 22644
540 436 3432
llyates at shentel.net
www.virginia-organizing.org

Check out http://www.healthcare-now.org/

****************************

[ed:  I can't help but wonder if this is a sneering gauntlet laid down 
by Republicans in the belief that community organizers really are 
ineffective and they are going to show just how ineffective by winning 
this election.   The conservatives seem very confident in themselves, 
and picking on the people who are in the best position to beat them 
strikes me as one of those ultimate acts of self-confidence.  So I think 
the question is that, if organizing is really as powerful as we hope it 
is, this challenge is easy to meet.  If, on the other hand, they win, 
then maybe they are right that organizing--at least the brand of 
organizing that motivates most of us--doesn't matter. Thoughts?]