Submitted by Betsy Muse on Wed, 01/23/2008 - 11:16am.
I just renewed my subscription based on that front page. I absolutely couldn't believe it and cheered all the way back up my driveway b/c the CO is delivered throughout upstate South Carolina. Woo Freaking Hoo!!
*************************** Vote Democratic, the ass you save may be your own.
Edwards seemed buoyed by last night's debate. A lot of the pundit class said he did will and some focus groups among independent voters showed they liked Edwards' message more than Sens. Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama.
...
"Money is not and will not be the issue," Edwards said. Rather, he said, the hard part was breaking through on television, newspapers and other free media. "The key for his is for me to be heard."
...
As for substance, the news bullet from the call was Edwards saying that Congress should not cooperate with President Bush on crafting an economic stimulus packages. The president's proposed tax cuts, he said, were the wrong way to go and Congress should resist.
"They ought to send him the right kind of stimulus package and then dare him to veto it," he said.
>
One of the pitfalls of childhood is that one doesn't have to understand something to feel it. - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
Jesus Swept ticked me off. Too short. I loved the characters and then POOF it was over.
-me
Submitted by MTBinDurham on Wed, 01/23/2008 - 5:26pm.
But Adam B. on DailyKos, longtime Obama supporter, put up a diary today that goes into Obama's background as a community organizer. His view of the role of community organization in politics is central to why I'm supporting him. I've been meaning to write this for a while, but this diary does a better job than I would, I think.
I'm putting this largely as a counter to charges that Obama supporters aren't true progressives, love Reagan, or that Obama is "all talk" or hasn't done anything. I firmly believe that local community organization is absolutely central to a new wave of progressivism, whether Obama is the guy to get us there or not.
Submitted by Blue South on Wed, 01/23/2008 - 6:15pm.
I wont question the progressiveness of Obama's supporters. Obama's stated positions and rhetoric? Yes. I will often question how progressive that is. But those are different things. Dont worry, I dont doubt that you and I have the same "liberal tendencies" haha.
As for Adam B, he is a hack, and I dont trust him at all.
On the issue of community organizing, I think Obama's past is probably his strongest asset. One of the big reasons I support John is his ability to explain what lessons he learned from his father, his family and his youth. Obama's past makes me think that he also remembers what its like to look into someone's face and see the pain and fear caused by job loss. The difference for me is that I often have trouble believing him when the subject comes up. What I mean is that for someone who is so talented rhetorically, he does horribly (from my perspective) at explaining the lessons he learned. I think the difference is that it is obvious to me how personally John takes his past, and how personal the fight for a better life is for him. On the other hand, I dont see the same empathy in Obama.
But that is a long winded way for me to say that I agree, community organizations could be an essential part to a new wave of progressivism (as you put it), and I can see that as a great reason to support Obama.
Submitted by MTBinDurham on Thu, 01/24/2008 - 10:51am.
While I appreciate the benefit of the doubt, the "I'm sure you're a nice enough guy, but..." can be pretty frustrating.
I'm starting to think that the fundamental difference, at least on this site, and possibly more widely, between Edwards and Obama supporters is not superficial preferences of which guy sounds the best, but a true, very deep divide in philosophy for the direction of progressive politics. Regardless of what happens, I have a fair amount of faith we'll all be able to pull together when the general rolls around, but I think the divide is worth plumbing further.
I realize that you're intending to agree with me in the following:
But that is a long winded way for me to say that I agree, community organizations could be an essential part to a new wave of progressivism (as you put it), and I can see that as a great reason to support Obama.
But my first response to that is, no, community organizing is not an essential part of a new wave of progressivism, it should be the essential organizing factor. Herein lies all the difference, I think. Perhaps this is the best way to say it: Obama is a leftist and a progressive, very profoundly, but he's not a liberal, in the late 20th century sense of the word.
I've gotten into this before, but this goes back to Saul Alinsky, the great community organizer from Chicago, founder of the Industrial Areas Foundation, and some also call him the founder of modern community organizing. The IAF's central principle in all of its organizing is something I was just introduced to in the past couple of weeks, when it appeared at the bottom of the Durham CAN! newsletter (the local IAF affiliate), and truly shocked me at a core philosophical level. They call it the Iron Rule, and it goes like this:
Never do for others what they can do for themselves. Never.
To be utterly clear here, this isn't saying that the government has no role, or that we shouldn't help each other, or anything else like that. But there are things that we as citizens CAN do for ourselves (different for every person), and things that we can't. Alinksyite organizing focuses on finding ways to allow people to work together to do great things, rather than getting the government, or the wealthy, or whomever to do them instead. The goals are ultimately the same as liberalism -- in shorthand, progressive change -- but the methods are completely different.
The difference here is most dramatic between Obama and Clinton, at a very observable level. Clinton wrote her masters thesis on Saul Alinksy, ultimately concluding that he was a fascinating case, but deciding that community organizing simply wasn't a viable model for progressive change. Obama, on the other hand, cut his teeth in the IAF's work right there in Chicago. If there's a more profound statement of difference between the two candidates, I don't know what it is.
To bring Edwards into it, this perhaps illustrates my differences with him best. I keep going back to that "man in the arena" diary. Edwards has sold himself as a true champion of the working poor, the man to stand up and be the hero for the less fortunate. And, perhaps this is why some of you don't like him as much, but Obama offers no such promise. His focus, rather, is on organizing the working poor into a force that can advocate together for their own interests, rather than relying on someone else to do it. Those interests may very well include protecting Social Security, providing unemployment insurance, and so on, but you let the people, in their own capacities as organized bodies, as you work with them as equals, not deciding for them.
I confess, a lot of this still makes me uncomfortable, and I'm very open to hearing criticism and counterpoints to it. And yes, it is not terribly liberal in the traditional sense. It his, however, quite leftist, quite radical, and quite progressive, at a very fundamental level.
Submitted by Blue South on Thu, 01/24/2008 - 11:13am.
Im not sure of the core differences in that respect. Have you read "Ending Poverty in America"?
I think the difference arises from how one views the nature of our government. If you believe that our government will always favor the rich over the poor, and will always neglect communities of color (and lord knows there are enough examples to justify that) then your view of community organizing makes a lot of sense. But if the government was the advocate for everyone that it should be, then the government would be much more effective than any individual community could be. The view that Edwards has is that we can use the government to give the poor the necessary tools, things like job training for instance, but that we are prevented from doing so by specific forces that are currently in charge.
My problem with Obama's method of community organizing, ultimately, lies at what I see as a simple time restraint. When we say working poor what we really mean are people who are struggling every day just to pay the bills. And while "free time" might seem pretty tangential, its free time that allows us to advocate for ourselves. Now obviously there is a lot of community organizing going on right now amongst the working poor across this country, and much of it is succesful. But much of it is not.
For instance, look at school reassignments in Wake County. There has been some huge fights in the past few years. Most of this fight has been one of organizing and advocating. It has been a fight with a school system that has goals for economic distribution (no school above 40% of Free and standardized lunches and no school below 10%). Time and again, the fight over which kids get bused has been won by parents from upper middle class familes, who have the time to not only organize but go to meetings and yell and scream. The result has been that most of the kids who are bused come from poor families. When we are also advocating for more parental involvement in the schools, an hour and a half round trip isnt really an option for most working poor parents.
I think that situation is a micro-example of the larger problem we see in our government. And I think the fundamental question becomes do we solve that solely with more organizing within the community or do we instead focus on leveling the playing field and assume that the community will then organize itself to advocate on its own behalf?
Submitted by MTBinDurham on Thu, 01/24/2008 - 12:45pm.
Here's where I see the new progressivism picking up where Roosevelt-Truman-Kennedy-Johnson liberalism stumbled. I can completely agree with you that the government should be an advocate for everyone, but on what basis does the government act that way? Our system of government means that the government is at least in part a product of a political process, so what happens to that government safety net when Goldwater-Reagan-Bush Republicanism comes along and guts it?
One could say that community organizing is a political principle which can act as a buffer against those changes, but with the way progressives were organized in the 80s and 90s, this always came in the form of Washington-based organizations sending out scary fundraising letters to support them in their lobbying efforts. It constructed the system we still see today, where I get 10 letters a month telling me breathlessly about the impending doom of some cherished piece of our national heritage. One can blame the Bush administration, but they've been consistent from Reagan through Clinton and forward. It means people feel dissociated from our political process, and fall for stupid gambits like "compassionate conservatism."
If those policies which cause the government to be an advocate for the poor come instead from the people themselves, it not only reinforces the safety net, but causes people to feel empowered and involved, not to mention making the policies better.
The question about who exactly has the time to be organized is a good one, but that's where IAF's methods come in. Rather than forming a new group out of whole cloth, IAF focuses on bringing people together where they've already self-organized, in Congregations, Associations, and Neighborhoods (which is what the CAN in Durham CAN stands for). Durham CAN sees itself as effectively a caucus or council formed of all its member organizations, so every church has a representative team that goes to the greater organizational meetings. The church whose team I'm on, First Presbyterian, happens to be home to some folks who've done quite well for themselves, and frequently have tried to do well for Durham, but sometimes with disastrous consequences because they didn't understand what was going on. The point of Durham CAN is that in this regard, the well off enter the IAF model on the same footing and with the same leverage as the Latinos joining us from Immaculate Conception and the African-Americans from Church of God of Prophesy, so that we all pool our political effectiveness, but we decide on our course of actions together.
As to your final question, the difference here is that yes, "the community" will organize itself on its own behalf, but only if we see ourselves as every bit a part of the community, and realize it's time to get out and do some organizing! :) And rather than wait for a level playing field, this is how we go out and level it.
Submitted by Blue South on Wed, 01/23/2008 - 6:20pm.
If you dont read the Politico's dual blogs from Ben Smith and Johnathan Martin, you probably should. If for nothing else than amusing one-liners like this:
And the New Hampshire recount is over, and it turns out we'll need to blame Hillary's New Hampshire victory on the voters.
Submitted by Robert P. on Thu, 01/24/2008 - 12:30pm.
“Edwards, meanwhile, has had his second good day since the Monday night CNN debate, in which he delivered a strong performance. He hit 19% support on Tuesday alone and then 27% support on Wednesday alone. And, on Wednesday alone, he pulled ahead of Clinton overall. He has pulled ahead among whites. Could he pull ahead of Clinton and finish in second place? Even with a strong showing here, where does he go next to take advantage of the momentum?
Where does he go? Places like South Carolina that will vault him into the race again. On February 5th he can focus on Alabama , Alaska, Georgia, Idaho, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Utah while Obama and Clinton blow their $100 Million in California and New York. Then after picking up wins and delegates, the real race can begin, with more than 40% of the total delegates still undecided at that point. That weekend the campaigns go to Louisiana, Washington, Maine, and Nebraska. All of those seem like good states for Edwards. Especially Louisiana, Maine, and Nebraska.
One of the pitfalls of childhood is that one doesn't have to understand something to feel it. - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
Jesus Swept ticked me off. Too short. I loved the characters and then POOF it was over.
-me
"There is a huge concern over the response of our government to the three movements that have declared war on our nation and which seek to destroy us from within or without, illegal immigration, Islamo-fascism and global socialism."
And his Christmas pictures were SOOO cute. He had his nephews playing chess in brand new pajamas and everything.
Out today
I'm on the road today doing real work to pay for my out-of-control blogging habit.
:)
Ya'll have fun!
be safe, work hard.
Come back in good blogging shape. Things go a little nuts when you're not here, for some reason.
Be the change you wish to see in the world. --Gandhi
A supporter-generated graphic that rocks.
One of the pitfalls of childhood is that one doesn't have to understand something to feel it. - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
Jesus Swept ticked me off. Too short. I loved the characters and then POOF it was over.
-me
Front page of Charlotte Freaking Observer
I just renewed my subscription based on that front page. I absolutely couldn't believe it and cheered all the way back up my driveway b/c the CO is delivered throughout upstate South Carolina. Woo Freaking Hoo!!
***************************
Vote Democratic, the ass you save may be your own.
Wait, what was on the front page?
Can someone send a link to the front page?
One of the pitfalls of childhood is that one doesn't have to understand something to feel it. - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
Jesus Swept ticked me off. Too short. I loved the characters and then POOF it was over.
-me
http://www.realcities.com/mul
http://www.realcities.com/multimedia/charlotte/KRT_packages/archive/fron...
Here is the front page. Not sure what's there?
AHA!! It's Tuesday's front
AHA!! It's Tuesday's front page.
Correction, then.
I thought someone had made this, but it must be running in McClatchy papers everywhere?
http://www.realcities.com/multimedia/charlotte/KRT_packages/archive/fron...
The person I got it from is in CA.
One of the pitfalls of childhood is that one doesn't have to understand something to feel it. - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
Jesus Swept ticked me off. Too short. I loved the characters and then POOF it was over.
-me
Binker on the Edwards Phone Call....
Takes awhile to load, and wasn't edited, tsk, tsk!
>
One of the pitfalls of childhood is that one doesn't have to understand something to feel it. - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
Jesus Swept ticked me off. Too short. I loved the characters and then POOF it was over.
-me
Leadership
damn right.
Be the change you wish to see in the world. --Gandhi
McCain Thinks that Putin is the President of Germany
McCain Thinks that Putin is the President of Germany
But on the bright side, it ought to decrease the chance he'll give the elected leader of Germany an inappropriate back rub.
- - - - -
The GOP will try to suppress the vote in 2008.
- - - - -
http://twitter.com/Jerimee
Romney Defends Himself Against Allegations Of Tolerance
Mitt Romney Defends Himself Against Allegations Of Tolerance
- - - - -
The GOP will try to suppress the vote in 2008.
- - - - -
http://twitter.com/Jerimee
Not to start primary wars...
But Adam B. on DailyKos, longtime Obama supporter, put up a diary today that goes into Obama's background as a community organizer. His view of the role of community organization in politics is central to why I'm supporting him. I've been meaning to write this for a while, but this diary does a better job than I would, I think.
I'm putting this largely as a counter to charges that Obama supporters aren't true progressives, love Reagan, or that Obama is "all talk" or hasn't done anything. I firmly believe that local community organization is absolutely central to a new wave of progressivism, whether Obama is the guy to get us there or not.
couple things
I wont question the progressiveness of Obama's supporters. Obama's stated positions and rhetoric? Yes. I will often question how progressive that is. But those are different things. Dont worry, I dont doubt that you and I have the same "liberal tendencies" haha.
As for Adam B, he is a hack, and I dont trust him at all.
On the issue of community organizing, I think Obama's past is probably his strongest asset. One of the big reasons I support John is his ability to explain what lessons he learned from his father, his family and his youth. Obama's past makes me think that he also remembers what its like to look into someone's face and see the pain and fear caused by job loss. The difference for me is that I often have trouble believing him when the subject comes up. What I mean is that for someone who is so talented rhetorically, he does horribly (from my perspective) at explaining the lessons he learned. I think the difference is that it is obvious to me how personally John takes his past, and how personal the fight for a better life is for him. On the other hand, I dont see the same empathy in Obama.
But that is a long winded way for me to say that I agree, community organizations could be an essential part to a new wave of progressivism (as you put it), and I can see that as a great reason to support Obama.
"Keep the Faith"
"Keep the Faith"
Argh...
While I appreciate the benefit of the doubt, the "I'm sure you're a nice enough guy, but..." can be pretty frustrating.
I'm starting to think that the fundamental difference, at least on this site, and possibly more widely, between Edwards and Obama supporters is not superficial preferences of which guy sounds the best, but a true, very deep divide in philosophy for the direction of progressive politics. Regardless of what happens, I have a fair amount of faith we'll all be able to pull together when the general rolls around, but I think the divide is worth plumbing further.
I realize that you're intending to agree with me in the following:
But my first response to that is, no, community organizing is not an essential part of a new wave of progressivism, it should be the essential organizing factor. Herein lies all the difference, I think. Perhaps this is the best way to say it: Obama is a leftist and a progressive, very profoundly, but he's not a liberal, in the late 20th century sense of the word.
I've gotten into this before, but this goes back to Saul Alinsky, the great community organizer from Chicago, founder of the Industrial Areas Foundation, and some also call him the founder of modern community organizing. The IAF's central principle in all of its organizing is something I was just introduced to in the past couple of weeks, when it appeared at the bottom of the Durham CAN! newsletter (the local IAF affiliate), and truly shocked me at a core philosophical level. They call it the Iron Rule, and it goes like this:
To be utterly clear here, this isn't saying that the government has no role, or that we shouldn't help each other, or anything else like that. But there are things that we as citizens CAN do for ourselves (different for every person), and things that we can't. Alinksyite organizing focuses on finding ways to allow people to work together to do great things, rather than getting the government, or the wealthy, or whomever to do them instead. The goals are ultimately the same as liberalism -- in shorthand, progressive change -- but the methods are completely different.
The difference here is most dramatic between Obama and Clinton, at a very observable level. Clinton wrote her masters thesis on Saul Alinksy, ultimately concluding that he was a fascinating case, but deciding that community organizing simply wasn't a viable model for progressive change. Obama, on the other hand, cut his teeth in the IAF's work right there in Chicago. If there's a more profound statement of difference between the two candidates, I don't know what it is.
To bring Edwards into it, this perhaps illustrates my differences with him best. I keep going back to that "man in the arena" diary. Edwards has sold himself as a true champion of the working poor, the man to stand up and be the hero for the less fortunate. And, perhaps this is why some of you don't like him as much, but Obama offers no such promise. His focus, rather, is on organizing the working poor into a force that can advocate together for their own interests, rather than relying on someone else to do it. Those interests may very well include protecting Social Security, providing unemployment insurance, and so on, but you let the people, in their own capacities as organized bodies, as you work with them as equals, not deciding for them.
I confess, a lot of this still makes me uncomfortable, and I'm very open to hearing criticism and counterpoints to it. And yes, it is not terribly liberal in the traditional sense. It his, however, quite leftist, quite radical, and quite progressive, at a very fundamental level.
Differences
Im not sure of the core differences in that respect. Have you read "Ending Poverty in America"?
I think the difference arises from how one views the nature of our government. If you believe that our government will always favor the rich over the poor, and will always neglect communities of color (and lord knows there are enough examples to justify that) then your view of community organizing makes a lot of sense. But if the government was the advocate for everyone that it should be, then the government would be much more effective than any individual community could be. The view that Edwards has is that we can use the government to give the poor the necessary tools, things like job training for instance, but that we are prevented from doing so by specific forces that are currently in charge.
My problem with Obama's method of community organizing, ultimately, lies at what I see as a simple time restraint. When we say working poor what we really mean are people who are struggling every day just to pay the bills. And while "free time" might seem pretty tangential, its free time that allows us to advocate for ourselves. Now obviously there is a lot of community organizing going on right now amongst the working poor across this country, and much of it is succesful. But much of it is not.
For instance, look at school reassignments in Wake County. There has been some huge fights in the past few years. Most of this fight has been one of organizing and advocating. It has been a fight with a school system that has goals for economic distribution (no school above 40% of Free and standardized lunches and no school below 10%). Time and again, the fight over which kids get bused has been won by parents from upper middle class familes, who have the time to not only organize but go to meetings and yell and scream. The result has been that most of the kids who are bused come from poor families. When we are also advocating for more parental involvement in the schools, an hour and a half round trip isnt really an option for most working poor parents.
I think that situation is a micro-example of the larger problem we see in our government. And I think the fundamental question becomes do we solve that solely with more organizing within the community or do we instead focus on leveling the playing field and assume that the community will then organize itself to advocate on its own behalf?
"Keep the Faith"
"Keep the Faith"
Role of government
Here's where I see the new progressivism picking up where Roosevelt-Truman-Kennedy-Johnson liberalism stumbled. I can completely agree with you that the government should be an advocate for everyone, but on what basis does the government act that way? Our system of government means that the government is at least in part a product of a political process, so what happens to that government safety net when Goldwater-Reagan-Bush Republicanism comes along and guts it?
One could say that community organizing is a political principle which can act as a buffer against those changes, but with the way progressives were organized in the 80s and 90s, this always came in the form of Washington-based organizations sending out scary fundraising letters to support them in their lobbying efforts. It constructed the system we still see today, where I get 10 letters a month telling me breathlessly about the impending doom of some cherished piece of our national heritage. One can blame the Bush administration, but they've been consistent from Reagan through Clinton and forward. It means people feel dissociated from our political process, and fall for stupid gambits like "compassionate conservatism."
If those policies which cause the government to be an advocate for the poor come instead from the people themselves, it not only reinforces the safety net, but causes people to feel empowered and involved, not to mention making the policies better.
The question about who exactly has the time to be organized is a good one, but that's where IAF's methods come in. Rather than forming a new group out of whole cloth, IAF focuses on bringing people together where they've already self-organized, in Congregations, Associations, and Neighborhoods (which is what the CAN in Durham CAN stands for). Durham CAN sees itself as effectively a caucus or council formed of all its member organizations, so every church has a representative team that goes to the greater organizational meetings. The church whose team I'm on, First Presbyterian, happens to be home to some folks who've done quite well for themselves, and frequently have tried to do well for Durham, but sometimes with disastrous consequences because they didn't understand what was going on. The point of Durham CAN is that in this regard, the well off enter the IAF model on the same footing and with the same leverage as the Latinos joining us from Immaculate Conception and the African-Americans from Church of God of Prophesy, so that we all pool our political effectiveness, but we decide on our course of actions together.
As to your final question, the difference here is that yes, "the community" will organize itself on its own behalf, but only if we see ourselves as every bit a part of the community, and realize it's time to get out and do some organizing! :) And rather than wait for a level playing field, this is how we go out and level it.
If you dont
If you dont read the Politico's dual blogs from Ben Smith and Johnathan Martin, you probably should. If for nothing else than amusing one-liners like this:
"Keep the Faith"
"Keep the Faith"
John Hood
has a good analysis of the voting population in North Carolina.
Edwards tries to get heard.
Get through the horse-race minutiae, good stuff begins at 2minutes.
One of the pitfalls of childhood is that one doesn't have to understand something to feel it. - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
Jesus Swept ticked me off. Too short. I loved the characters and then POOF it was over.
-me
Edwards on CNN, "By many respects, you won the debate..."
One of the pitfalls of childhood is that one doesn't have to understand something to feel it. - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
Jesus Swept ticked me off. Too short. I loved the characters and then POOF it was over.
-me
Answering John Zogby's Question.
Where does he go? Places like South Carolina that will vault him into the race again. On February 5th he can focus on Alabama , Alaska, Georgia, Idaho, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Utah while Obama and Clinton blow their $100 Million in California and New York. Then after picking up wins and delegates, the real race can begin, with more than 40% of the total delegates still undecided at that point. That weekend the campaigns go to Louisiana, Washington, Maine, and Nebraska. All of those seem like good states for Edwards. Especially Louisiana, Maine, and Nebraska.
One of the pitfalls of childhood is that one doesn't have to understand something to feel it. - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
Jesus Swept ticked me off. Too short. I loved the characters and then POOF it was over.
-me
Bertie County Blog
I found this nice county blog. It seems like a blend of a personal diary and an account of civic life in Bertie County:
http://bertiecounty.blogspot.com/
Anyone know anything about the blogger himself? (forgive my ignorance)
- - - - -
The GOP will try to suppress the vote in 2008.
- - - - -
http://twitter.com/Jerimee
oops
He's a rabid right-winger. But very ambitious, he seems to have like 6 blogs, all with their own set of content . . .
- - - - -
The GOP will try to suppress the vote in 2008.
- - - - -
http://twitter.com/Jerimee
double oops!
Oh! And he's running for Congress!
http://www.deanstephens.com/
"There is a huge concern over the response of our government to the three movements that have declared war on our nation and which seek to destroy us from within or without, illegal immigration, Islamo-fascism and global socialism."
And his Christmas pictures were SOOO cute. He had his nephews playing chess in brand new pajamas and everything.
- - - - -
The GOP will try to suppress the vote in 2008.
- - - - -
http://twitter.com/Jerimee
You crack me up
Robin Hayes lied. Nobody died, but thousands of folks lost their jobs.
***************************
Vote Democratic, the ass you save may be your own.