Daniel Larison is, unsurprisingly, against the McCain-Palin ticket because he believes that the GOP ticket would represent little if any substantive change from the Bush administration, at least in the areas that most concern those he identifies as "dissident conservatives." He's probably right about that, alas. What I found especially interesting about his post was this reflection about conservative disdain for "community organizers":
Another reason why so many conservatives seem to react to the phrase "community organizer" with such bafflement and amusement is that so many of the people engaged in the work of conservation, historic preservation and local community life are not self-styled, much less movement-oriented, conservatives.[snip]
No doubt there are some, indeed many, community organizers who are co-opted by parties and are turned into GOTV agents for politicians, and I can understand not being sympathetic to this kind of activist, but at some point there ought to be some recognition that these people are engaged to some extent in local self-government, which is something that we are supposed to consider important and vital to our political system. I can understand the critique of Obama here on the grounds that, by his own admission, his time as a community organizer was largely a flop, but surely the point here would be that Obama was not successful at what he tried to do rather than that the sort of work he was attempting was inherently worthless.
This is true, and I thank Daniel for pointing this out.
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I'm a rather conservative guy, and I worked as a community organizer in the late 1970s in rural eastern Montana. I worked with a coalition of farmers, ranchers and enviros trying to protect the traditional agriculural communities from the ravages of coal strip mining and coal-fired power plants. Most of our members were very, very traditional, conservative Montana folk. Anyone who knows Eastern Montana knows that the folk there are profoundly extremely conservative. My job was to organize them so that they would have some power in dealing with mega-corporations and the federal government. Our miniscule salaries came from a variety of sources, including the Catholic Church. Often, our paychecks were weeks late and we depended upon the generosity of our rancher and farmer constituents to make ends meet.
The organization I worked for (Northern Plains Resource Council) is still a force in Montana. Now their efforts are aimed at helping ranchers and farmers stand up to the meat packing conglomerates, etc. NPRC organizers advocate for country of origin labeling for beef, for competition in the livestock industry, against globalization, against NAFTA, etc. Any true conservative would identify with those stands.
Even though some of our organizing theory came from Alinsky and ACORN, we put it to use on behalf of traditional communities and traditional values.
People who tar all community organizers with the "wild-eyed liberal" brush are unfair. In some cases, community organizing is fully consistent with traditional, even conservative, values. I traveled from ranch to ranch, living with conservative ranch folk, listening to their complaints about government and industry, and then teaching them how to make their views known through the bureaucracies. I see that as completely consistent with Christian ethics.
This is not to say that I would embrace every person who calls themself a community organizer. I met Wade Rathke of ACORN once, and was repelled by him and his style. When I was a community organizer, my hero was William Jennings Bryan, not Wade Rathke or Saul Alinsky. My point is simply this: don't overgeneralize when addressing the issue of community organizing.
Erin;
My questions were genuine, and came from a place of real curiosity. In general, I refrain from getting too nit-picky about sources when people make soft claims, i.e. "I think that..." or "I've observed that..."
The quotes of yours that I posted were examples of unsubstantiated "hard claims." If requests for substantiation are a "game posters play," then by all means, don't cite them. Seriously, though, why the great fear? You've posted other links on this site. How are my requests suddenly different?
It's great that you've read numerous books and articles and heard stories from your Mom about what community organizing has done to communities in Chicago and elsewhere. I just think that before your opinion settles into stone, you should hear the stories and read the books from the other side. Try Ed Chambers "Roots for Radicals" and check out http://www.swopchicago.org/home.aspx, a community organizing organization on Chicago's south side that has done tremendous work in the area. Better yet, talk to a community organizer from a smaller organization (ONE, SWOP and LSNA in Chicago are all great places to start). Really. Try it.
For a fascinating, balanced (and Church-related) perspective on the subject, see the writing of Anthony Mansueto.
But back to my original beef. For example, you state that "CCHD, which has been exposed before for "organizing" Catholic parishes into political entities which then lobby for the left-wing cause du jour at City Hall and elsewhere," is belittling and reductionist. Stating that CCHD funds community organizations that hire community organizers is valid. The rest of your claim is tendentious. Using the word "exposed" indicates some sort of cover-up. Putting "organizing" in quotation marks suggests the practice is somehow illegitimate or underhanded. Failing to specify what you mean by "left-wing causes du jour" is unhelpful and misleading (can the reader pick a left-wing cause du jour and assume it's being pushed by the parish?). The entire phrase "'organizing' Catholic parishes into political entities" leads the reader to believe some sort of hostile takeover has occurred, leaving a lobbying machine in the shell of what was once a sacred space.
Your overarching opinion of community organizing is clear--your just a little short on the details. And the links to Marxism are a tad dated.
My background with community organizing is that I've worked with organizers through my work as a teacher at an employment training program in Brooklyn, a volunteer in a shantytown in Santiago, Chile, and a citizenship exam teacher and accredited immigration representative in Chicago, and my experience has been almost uniformly positive. The organizers I've met have shown a passion for and dedication to the communities they serve unlike any I've seen before. I'm sorry your experience with organizers has been less than positive, but I wonder if it has been a more mediated exposure than mine. This would likely explain a lot of our divergent opinions about organizers.
Above all, I would stress keeping an open mind about organizing. It is a broad subject, and an evolving practice. Like I stated in a previous post, I think organizing in its purest form can be a wonderful agent for community-initiated and community-centered change. For my part, I'll keep an open mind about the intersection of organizing and its impact on the Catholic Church. Maybe you can give me a few places to inform myself as you have.
In the light of morning, I realize my post may have come off snide. Apologies. I think that, for better or worse, US society compartmentalizes itself along ideological, cultural and political lines, both in geography and in forums for real-life interaction. Community organizing is an issue of emerging interest to the greater public, and I think that reasonable people of different opinions can bring much-needed perspective to the either/or depictions of organizing. I'm probably more eager that people understand organizing from my perspective than understanding it from theirs. I'll try harder.
Erin:
Looks like my response got swallowed by the blog review monster. Here it is again, paraphrased:
My questions were genuine, and came from a place of real curiosity. In general, I refrain from getting too nit-picky about sources when people make soft claims, i.e. "I think that..." or "I've observed that..."
The quotes of yours that I posted were examples of unsubstantiated "hard claims." If requests for substantiation are a "game posters play," then by all means, don't cite them. Seriously, though, why the great fear? You've posted other links on this site. How are my requests suddenly different?
It's great that you've read numerous books and articles and heard stories from your Mom about what community organizing has done to communities in Chicago and elsewhere. I just think that before your opinion settles into stone, you should hear the stories and read the books from the other side. Try Ed Chambers "Roots for Radicals" and check out http://www.swopchicago.org/home.aspx, a community organizing organization on Chicago's south side that has done tremendous work in the area. Better yet, talk to a community organizer. Really. Try it. Check out SWOP, LSNA and ONE in Chicago.
But back to my original beef. For example, you state that "CCHD, which has been exposed before for "organizing" Catholic parishes into political entities which then lobby for the left-wing cause du jour at City Hall and elsewhere," is belittling and reductionist. Stating that CCHD funds community organizations that hire community organizers is valid. The rest of your claim is tendentious. Using the word "exposed" indicates some sort of cover-up. Putting "organizing" in quotation marks suggests the practice is somehow illegitimate or underhanded. Failing to specify what you mean by "left-wing causes du jour" is unhelpful and misleading (can the reader pick a left-wing cause du jour and assume it's being pushed by the parish?). The entire phrase "'organizing' Catholic parishes into political entities" leads the reader to believe some sort of hostile takeover has occurred, leaving a lobbying machine in the shell of what was once a sacred space.
Your overarching opinion of community organizing is clear--your just a little short on the details. And the links to Marxism are a tad dated.
My background with community organizing is that I've worked with organizers through my work as a teacher at an employment training program in Brooklyn, a volunteer in a shantytown in Santiago, Chile, and a citizenship exam teacher and accredited immigration representative in Chicago, and my experience has been almost uniformly positive. The organizers I've met have shown a passion for and dedication to the communities they serve unlike any I've seen before.
I realize my questions may have come off snide. I apologize. I'm trying to understand how people would have a problem with community organizing in the theoretical, but I understand that people have had issues with organizers in the practical sense. Hopefully, we can reach an understanding about the other's point of view.
Bill,
I think you are describing something distinct from Sen. Obama's activities. (With the caveat that the details of the situation are unknown to me). In the first case, the activities of mining companies create 'externalities' with a negative impact on the material well-being of those of the surrounding community. You are actually helping a productive population to assert its interests in a circumstance where a market failure is occuring.
In the second instance, you appear to be organizing producers to press for an administered restraint of trade.
The Senator was not organizing a producing population in the capacity of its members as producers (and, in fact, I suspect you would find that an abnormal share of the South Side's population had checked-out of the labor market). Neither was he organizing producers to press for public policies that might be injurious to consumers.
Art Wrote: "The Senator was not organizing a producing population in the capacity of its members as producers..."
You're exactly right. He was organizing citizens. It's a shame that in the eyes of some we are important only insofar as we produce or consume. Take a look through any American newspaper and magazine. Count the number of times you read the word "consumers". Then count the number of times you read the word "citizen". Very sad.
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