On Organizing

It is an old saw by now - a community organizer has no position to whine when others organize.

However, one thing neither side can claim purity when trying to claim their supporters spontaneously organize. THIS is not to say such movements are illegitimate quite the contrary.

If I were to come to you and propose we support legilation proposing to provide Iron Maidens for Tots, would you go the Town Hall to support it? If I spent, 50 million bucks do you think I could get people to descend upon their legislators to demand passage? Or do you suppose it would be easier to organize an opposition?

Now with respect to the health care debate. Yes, there is organized opposition to the bill, just as there is organized support. I do not take the fact that supporters or opponents are organized to mean they are stooges of the organizers -- they are people working together to support their cause.

Now, opponents of health care reform are being dismissed as Republicans, paid insurance stooges, or plain old astro-turfers. Does it matter? It seems proponents are Democrats, unionists, or plain old astro-turfers.

I join groups on a voluntary basis groups that support MY point of view, and lets face it, none of those groups pay me to join. I receive communications from those groups and it is up to me to act on or ignore their requests. I suspect most people on both sides of this debate act in a similar fashion.

I suspect the proponents of the health care wrecking legislation (and you can report me to Linda Douglass for that impertinence) are fewer and less enthusiastic than the opponents. I suspect that proponents have been trying to turn out support but have not been as successful as opponents. I have seen a number of calls being put out by the unions and we'll see what happens, but from what I have heard the unions are already out for this one.

Obama's use of the euphemism "community organizer" was very clever, what is the plain language for community organizer? Politician.