Posted on 03/19/2009 7:18:41 AM PDT by Tolik
A sitting President of the United States is "organizing a political organization loyal to him, bound by a pledge, outside the government and existing party apparatus. The historical precedents are ominous."
What is so ominous about an organization? Americans, Alexis de Tocqueville famously observed, "constantly form associations.... If it is proposed to inculcate some truth or to foster some feeling by the encouragement of a great example, they form a society."
Certainly, thousands of organizations seek to influence the political debate. There's Newt Gingrich's American Solutions or the left-wing People for the American Way, for instance.
Political parties are another example of an association, of course. Before, during and after political campaigns, the Democrats and Republicans promote their agendas. As legal entities, they have their own constitutions, their rules of business, their chairmen and officers. They have to be accountable to both the government and their members.
But there is a new organization on the political scene -- "Organizing for America," announced by President Barack Obama in late January but officially unfurled last weekend.
Obama describes OFA as a "grass-roots movement" but OFA is a "project" of the Democratic National Committee.
As Politico reported, OFA will take the 10 million person database built up by the Obama campaign "to mobilize support for the president's legislative agenda."
A visit to the OFA website reveals that supporters are not simply asked to sign up, they are asked to take a pledge. A pledge to support -- not the flag, not the constitution, not the country, not even the Democratic Party, but Obama and his "bold plan." OFA does not use the Democratic Party logo but the "O"-shaped logo of the Obama campaign in which the red white and blue of the flag are abstracted to soft pastel colors.
(Celebrities like Ashton Kuchner and Demi Moore did not wait until the official launch to "pledge to be of service" to Barack Obama, of course.)
You will not find any mention of OFA`s governing structure, their budget, their bylaws, or their officers at the OFA website. Donations to the website go to the DNC, but OFA is managed out of the White House. If you click on the comments button, you are taken to a link to the White House email.
Those who take the pledge are asked to "talk with people about the President's plan" and to "ask them to sign their names to the pledge" in support of Obama's policies.
So we have a Movement -- this is their term, not mine -- organized by, and loyal to, a sitting President. Pledge canvassers, armed with your name, will ask you to pledge loyalty to the President too. A president whose term has already become a permanent campaign, is signing up ground forces in a mass organization pledged to personal loyalty to their Leader.
Does anyone know of any historical precedents for this in the United States?
Did Mitch Stewart, youthful director of OFA, who asks Obama's acolytes to organize "neighborhood by neighborhood" study anything at school about Mao's "Red Guards?
How about Fidel Castro's "widespread system of neighborhood informers"?
Or Hugo Chavez's use of "neighborhood committees"?
Did Stewart learn anything about democracy at all?
Do any of Obama's pledged servants understand why a sitting president has no business creating and deploying his own supporters to help organize their neighbors?
Keep in mind that these acolytes have renounced any thought of questioning the actual policies of the maximum leader. Whatever he says, they are for it. They have given their word.
And they are coming to have a talk with you.
As Thomas Lifson wrote, "This is not the way a democracy is supposed to operate."
I thought that was Bill Ayers who dedicated a book to satan - he also mentioned every person in the United States who had killed a policeman. Ayers is an unrepentant terrorists. If you find out differently, let me know.
I read that book so long ago, all I can remember is the name, Putzi Hanfstaengl
OFA.. Obama f-—ing America
OMG!
Bump
Reread it...it is timely!
doing a little googling I find that they are starting this program on FACEBOOK and every state has a “delegate” or contactee thru FACEBOOK :( i doubt we’ll see any real doorknockers here in Vermont.
The house has reportedly now APPROVED Obama’s manditory “volunteer” program.
http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=92288
After his appearance on Leno, the swooning done in Costa Mesa and LB, and LA, and the fact that he and the Dems will have to bail out the banks and companies that they are demonizing, does not give me much faith in the common sense of the American voter. Unless the GOP conservs can chip away at the Dem House in 2010, Obama will have a clear field to do what he wants and force the rest of us to love it. Sorry, but I am 70 and have seen a lot politically and this dumbed down public is very reminiscent of brainwashing done in tyrannical states. The fact that in off year elections without BHO on the ballot, does give the Pubs some hope in 2010 to pick up seats. I pray so.
WE CAN ALL SIGN OUR NAMES AS JOHN OR JOAN GALT
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