Posted on 07/31/2008 7:28:59 PM PDT by Free ThinkerNY
Hyde Park, Chicago, Ill. —
"Community organizer."
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?
"One of my fundamental beliefs from my days as a community organizer is that real change comes from the bottom up ... And there's no more powerful tool for grassroots organizing than the Internet."
-Barack Obama
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.
The words "community organizing" themselves probably present the biggest problem.
(Excerpt) Read more at windycitizen.com ...
“Community Organizer” is code for Communist, comrade.
Why is this part of the story missing? Again. It is obviously relevant.
Congressman Billybob
Ninth in the ten-part series, "The Owner's Manual (Part 9) -- The Bill of Rights"
Obama has spent as much time in soup kitchens as Lenin and Stalin did.
Go explore some of his “roles” - he was one of 27 directors of a foundation with a $450,000 annual budget and 13 - yes, 13 - staff.
But this is the experience to lead the nation!
More proof that Obama-lama-ding-dong isn't the coldest beer in the fridge.
Change comes from whoever writes the biggest check.
The O’bomber should “channel” alinsky for a quick phone call. Bet he would hear flames in the background!
I am reminded of an episode of the Bob Newhart show. An old school friend calls him “Mooner”. Bob tells Emily “that’s because I liked the Moon Mullins comic strip.”
“Obama has spent as much time in soup kitchens as Lenin and Stalin did.”
He spent almost as much time in soup kitchens as he did in military hospitals...
Watch out Republicans - this is going to be a banner year for Dems register dead voters, illegals, homeless, double-voting, etc.... Congress just gave ACORN and LA RAZA $40 million dollars.
What do you think they are going to do with that money?
April 19th-20th, 2002
Chicago Illini Union
828 S. Wolcott
This conference is part of the Center's mission of helping to create a more engaged civil society, working towards social change, fostering coalitions between theorists and activists, and combating anti-intellectualism in contemporary culture. It will be both a celebration of ideas and a rigorous examination of the roles and responsibilities that intellectuals play in society.
I. Why Do Ideas Matter? (a keynote panel)
We introduce the “meta” theme of the conference by hearing “success stories” from diverse voices discussing their experiences intervening intellectually.
Timuel Black, Chicago activist; Prof. Emeritus, City Colleges of Chicago
Lonnie Bunch, President, Chicago Historical Society
Bernardine Dohrn, Northwestern University Law School, Children and Family Justice Center
Gerald Graff, UIC, College of Liberal Arts & Sciences
Richard Rorty, Stanford University, Philosophy
III. Lunch and Public Encounters
Alternative breakout tours led by Chicago activists. Tours of Bronzeville and other communities, and visits to organizations that are working on partnering theorists with activists.
IV. Intellectuals in Times of Crisis
Experiences and applications of intellectual work in urgent situations.
William Ayers, UIC, College of Education; author of Fugitive Days
Douglass Cassel, Northwestern University, Center for International Human Rights
Cathy Cohen, University of Chicago, Political Science
Salim Muwakkil, Chicago Tribune; In These Times
Barack Obama, Illinois State Senator
Barbara Ransby, UIC, African-American Studies (moderator)
The Center for Public Intellectuals
University of Illinois-Chicago (UIC):
http://www.uic.edu/classes/las/las400/conferencealt.htm
"In July 1969, [Bernardine] Dohrn, Eleanor Raskin, Dianne Donghi, Peter Clapp, David Millstone and Diana Oughton, all representing 'Weatherman', as Dohrn's faction was now called, traveled to Cuba and met with representatives of the North Vietnamese and Cuban governments."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernardine_Dohrn
From David Horowitz's FrontPageMag.com/DiscoverTheNetworks.org:
"FBI files from 1976, recently made public under the Freedom of Information Act, confirm the connections between Weatherman, Havana, and Moscow. Weatherman leaders like Mark Rudd traveled illegally to Havana in 1968 to engage in terrorist training. There, camps set up by Soviet KGB Colonel Vadim Kotchergine were educating Westerners both in Marxist philosophy and urban warfare."
http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=6808
Weather Underground Organization linked to North Vietnamese and Cuban governments, KGB
Source: FBI, via Freedom of Information Act [420 pages in all on pdf] :
"the example of the Cuban revolution became the guide for the emerging American student revolutionary. With an increasing number of trips to Havana where the youthful revolutionary could learn at first hand how to create revolution, the influence of Cuba on the developing WUO [Weather Underground Organization] was enormous."
http://foia.fbi.gov/foiaindex/weather.htm
From Sept 11, 2001, New York Times article/interview with Obama associate and friend, William/Bill Ayers.
Article title: "No Regrets for a Love Of Explosives; In a Memoir of Sorts, a War Protester Talks of Life With the Weathermen"
"Mr. Ayers, who in 1970 was said to have summed up the Weatherman philosophy as:
'Kill all the rich people. Break up their cars and apartments. Bring the revolution home, kill your parents, that's where it's really at,' is today distinguished professor of education at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
New York Times, September 11, 2001: "No Regrets for a Love Of Explosives; In a Memoir of Sorts, a War Protester Talks of Life With the Weathermen"
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F02E1DE1438F932A2575AC0A9679C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=1
Allies in War
By David Horowitz
FrontPageMagazine.com | Monday, September 17, 2001:
ON THE MORNING OF THE ATTACKS on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, along with a million other readers of the New York Times including many who would never be able to read the paper again, I opened its pages to be confronted by a color photo showing a middle-aged couple holding hands and affecting a defiant look at the camera. The article was headlined in an irony that could not have been more poignant, "No Regrets For A Love Of Explosives."
The couple pictured were Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn, former leaders of the 1960s’ Weather Underground, America’s first terrorist cult. One of their bombing targets, as it happened, was the Pentagon.
"I don’t regret setting bombs," Ayers was quoted in the opening line of the Times profile; "I feel we didn’t do enough."
In 1969, Ayers and his wife convened a "War Council" in Flint Michigan, whose purpose was to launch a military front inside the United States with the purpose of helping Third World revolutionaries conquer and destroy it.
Taking charge of the podium, dressed in high-heeled boots and a leather mini-skirt – her signature uniform – Dorhn incited the assembled radicals to join the war against "Amerikkka" and create chaos and destruction in the "belly of the beast."
Her voice rising to a fevered pitch, Dohrn raised three fingers in a "fork salute" to mass murderer Charles Manson whom she proposed as a symbol to her troops. Referring to the helpless victims of the Manson Family as the "Tate Eight" (the most famous was actress Sharon Tate) Dohrn shouted:
"Dig It. First they killed those pigs, then they ate dinner in the same room with them, they even shoved a fork into a victim’s stomach! Wild!"
(big snip)
Today William Ayers is not merely an author favored by the New York Times, but a Distinguished Professor of Education at the University of Illinois, Chicago.
His Lady Macbeth [Bernardine Dohrn] is not merely a lawyer, but a member of the American Bar Association’s governing elite, as well as the director of Northwestern University’s Children and Family Justice Center.
[it's true! see: http://www.law.northwestern.edu/aclu/]
Article: Allies in War -by David Horowitz
FrontPageMagazine.com | Monday, September 17, 2001
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=63512670-BF7C-42A0-B41D-5D0FB9E09C09
"It was at the Chicago home of [Bill] Ayers and [Bernardine] Dohrn that Obama, then an up-and-coming 'community organizer,' had his political coming out party in 1995. Not content with this rite of passage in Lefty World — where unrepentant terrorists are regarded as progressive luminaries, still working 'only to educate' — both Obamas tended to the relationship with the Ayers."
Article: The Company He Keeps:
Meet Obama’s circle: The same old America-hating Left
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=YThjYTU1ZDBjNmQ2YzcwNzU1MmYwN2JiMWY0ZGI0NDA=&w=MA==
From WorldNetDaily:
Obama was a director of the Woods Fund board from 1999 to Dec. 11, 2002, according to the Fund's website. Obama served on the board with [Bill] Ayers, who was a Weathermen leader and has written about his involvement with the group's bombings of the New York City Police headquarters in 1970, the Capitol in 1971 and the Pentagon in 1972.
Article: Obama worked with terrorist
Senator helped fund organization that rejects 'racist' Israel's existence:
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=57231
Bill Ayers TODAY (April 6, 2008), from his own red communist star-headed website, begging to debate communism vs capitalism with Sean Hannity and STILL calling for revolution!
"Imperialism. I’m against it, and if Sean Hannity and others were honest, this is the ground they would fight me on. Capitalism played its role historically and is exhausted as a force for progress: built on exploitation, theft, conquest, war, and racism, capitalism and imperialism must be defeated and a world revolution—a revolution against war and racism and materialism, a revolution based on human solidarity and love, cooperation and the common good —must win.
We begin by releasing our most hopeful dreams and our most radical imaginations: a better world is both possible and necessary.
Source: http://billayers.wordpress.com/2008/04/page/2/
'Guilty as hell, free as a bird—America is a great country,' he [Ayers] said."
August 2001, Chicago Magazine (article: No Regrets)
http://www.chicagomag.com/Chicago-Magazine/August-2001/No-Regrets/
What changes did he accomplish? Hello?
Now that is a scam. What was the name of it? How does it rank on Charity Navigator? The % going to overhead is probably a public record. I'd bet it's pretty ugly.
It's not what you think you know about political manipulators like Obama... It's what you know that ain't so, that hurts you! (apologies to Will Rogers who said it first)
Director, Developing Communities Project, 1985-1988.
As empty a job as Obama is a suit. He was one of 27 directors on a small-time Christian organization on the South Side of Chicago. A budget smaller than what his wife Michelle earns, and up to 13 staff. Think about it - 27 directors for 13 people, that's over 2 "executives" per staff person!
Illinois Project Vote, 1992.
For SIX MONTHS he was one of four directors of a 10 person staff (which includes the four directors). He actually had "executive" experience over one, maybe two people! And he managed to keep up that grueling schedule for a whole SIX MONTHS.
Public Allies Chicago, 1992-1993
Yes, his time at Public Allies, where they downplay his role; in actuality his wife had MUCH more to do with them per their own press release.
At best, Barack has a year sitting on a 27 person board, meeting a few times a year to discuss a budget smaller than what his wife earns, and a staff of 13.
And anyone who's actually sat on a board knows that it does not qualify as executive experience. Boards deal with bigger picture generalities, not the day-to-day issues, or even the quarter-to-quarter issues.
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