Comments on: A Few Words About Community Organization

By: Joel Rosenberg

Joel Rosenberg — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 22:34:57 +0000

No, I’m not kidding, and in fact, there’s whole bunch of manager folks I know who got their start managing stuff doing conventions.

By: Mark Draughn

Mark Draughn — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 20:40:59 +0000

I don’t know if you’re kidding, but I think organizing a major convention like you describe is a pretty good example of leadership. I’ll bet some of those people are also local leaders—organizing blood drives, protesting zoning changes, stuff like that. It doesn’t mean they could be president, but it’s a start.

By: Joel Rosenberg

Joel Rosenberg — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 20:22:17 +0000

Me, I’m thinking that it’d be better to elect Mark or Priscilla Olson or Ben Yallow. You may or may not know the names, but they’ve run World Science Fiction conventions successfully — and done it solely by leadership, with an all-volunteer staff that not only doesn’t get paid, but pays its own way.

That said, whatever virtues Obama has, he was a (largely privately, apparently) self-confessed failure as a community organizer.

In some respects, I think that’s to his credit — he never did, as far as I know, come close to adopting the shakedown methodology of Jesse Jackson or, worse, Al Sharpton. But it’s hardly a record of success.

I hope he does a lot better in his new gig. Although, of course, I’m hoping he meets the same lack of success in some areas.

By: Will

Will — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 12:01:58 +0000

Giuliani’s comment was amazingly dishonest too. He had many run-ins with ACORN and other community organizing groups as Mayor. He knows very well what they do and he hates it. He hates the idea of poor people having power over what happens in their own neighborhood. He thinks that power belongs to the bankers and property owners who make decisions about inner city neighborhoods before they drive home to their mansion in the suburbs at the end of the day. He thinks decisions should be made at the country club and golf course, not by a bunch of rowdy protesters and community organizers who don’t even wear suits. His disgust over community organizing is at the heart of what separates liberals from conservatives.