21 thoughts on “Defending “Community Organizers””

  2. Pontius Pilate got a bad rap: see Bulgakov’s brilliant “Master Margarita” (or “The Master and Margarita” in the anglicized title) for a better take than that in the 2000-year-old piece of speculative fiction popularly known as the Bible.

  3. see Bulgakov’s brilliant “Master Margarita” (or “The Master and Margarita” in the anglicized title) for a better take than that in the 2000-year-old piece of speculative fiction popularly known as the Bible.

    Yes, obviously a 20th Century novelist would have better knowledge of events than people who were actually there. Much as modern politicians have a better understanding of the Constitution than the people who wrote it.

    (Eyeballs rolling.)

    Most modern historians argue that the Gospels let Pilate off too lightly, if anything.

  4. The great mayor of Wasilla, conservative Heroine:
    From the Wall Street Journal, that left-wing rag:

    “The biggest project that Sarah Palin undertook as mayor of this small town was an indoor sports complex, where locals played hockey, soccer, and basketball, especially during the long, dark Alaskan winters.

    The only catch was that the city began building roads and installing utilities for the project before it had unchallenged title to the land. The misstep led to years of litigation and at least $1.3 million in extra costs for a small municipality with a small budget. What was to be Ms. Palin’s legacy has turned into a financial mess that continues to plague Wasilla.

    “It’s too bad that the city of Wasilla didn’t do their homework and secure the land before they began construction,” said Kathy Wells, a longtime activist here. “She was not your ceremonial mayor; she was in charge of running the city. So it was her job to make sure things were done correctly.” (…)

    Last year, the arbitrator ordered the city to pay $836,378 for the 80-acre parcel, far more than the $126,000 Wasilla originally thought it would pay for a piece of land 65 acres larger. The arbitrator also determined that the city owed Mr. Lundgren [the owner] $336,000 in interest. Wasilla’s legal bill since the eminent domain action has come to roughly $250,000 so far, according to Mr. Klinkner, the city attorney.

    Mr. Lundgren has appealed the decision, arguing that the arbitrator should have awarded him more interest. “It has been 10 years; it’s just insane,” said Mr. Lundgren, who now lives in Panama. “All [Ms. Palin] had to do was close the transaction.””

    And more to come..including the financial mess $20 million dollar long term debt she left as a legacy when she jumped ship.

    This is Change We Can Believe In?

  5. Edward Wright argues that “most modern historians argue that the Gospels let Pilate off too lightly” and talks about people who were actually there. Of course, there is just about zero evidence that Jesus of Nazereth actually existed at all, much less did anything that was attributed to him in the Gospels that are generally thought to be far, far from first hand accounts, written decades after the supposed “fact”.

    I’m not really trying to pillory Christianity here (tempting as it is), just trying to show the absurdity in the first comment by Anonymous. Some people appear to have no sense of humor, especially when it comes to religion . . .

  6. Yes, obviously a 20th Century novelist would have better knowledge of events than people who were actually there. Much as modern politicians have a better understanding of the Constitution than the people who wrote it.

    Sorry, Edward, but that’s a stream of non sequitur. It’s not that hard for a novelist to be as knowledgeable as the people who wrote the Bible. The key is that the people who copied the works of the Bible weren’t there either. Even though some of the books of the Bible were originally written by people who might have been there, they have since been elaborated on by parties who had no real knowledge of the events outside of the stories they altered.

    The Constitution has changed and a couple hundred years of bureaucracy, judicial interpretation, and custom has grown up around the Constitution. So yes, a modern politician can indeed know more about the Constitution than the founders.

  7. Cthulu, even if Jesus was a fictional character, he lived a fictional life admired by billions of people. Just as it is irrelevant whether Washington really cut down a cherry tree when considering the virtues of honesty, it is irrelevant whether Jesus existed when considering the virtues of being a community organizer.

  8. Pilate,” was evidently a middle class Roman with military and administrative expereince who in in AD 26 was appointed to the office of procurator in Judea. ..appointed high priest, controlled temple funds. Philo describes him as a harsh spiteful, and brutal man, According to Josephus,he antagonized the Jews almost as soon as he was appointed. . .Planned to use money from the temple treasury to finance the building of an aqueduct (that sounds like takings right there). . .final plunder was to seize a group of samaritans who assembled on Mt. Gezirim, . . .they were executed , he was called home,. . .committed suicide” (Rowdon in Eerdman’s Guide to the Bible, pg 510)

    The point is he’s much more like whoever Putin has chosen as his flunky in Chechnya, one of the junior Vichy officials who signed off on the SS roundups (like Papon or Bousquet). He was cruel, but he was essentially trying to quell one of the uprising in his bailiwick. If putting Jesus to death to satisfy the Sanhedrin and the Pharisees would do it ; he’d follow through. If sparing him, would solve the problem; he’d do that to.

    To try to associate Palin with this, is epic overreaching of the Godwin’s law, and consequently epic fail. So Sibelius or Gregoire are also in this category.

  9. “Anonymous wrote:
    Jesus was a community organizer. Pontius Pilate was a governor.”

    And Satan is a community organizer, a President (of Hell), and, oh yes,…..a lawyer. Probably went to Harvard, too.

  12. It’s amazing to me how some of you take a post about satire from Iowahawk and hijack the comments. If you want to talk about other things, go start your own blogs. What you do is rude and shows how cheap you are by using up someone else’s bandwidth.

  14. It is quite strange that McCain’s speech pushed the theme of service, service, service to the country, and yet,

    Palin’s speech was so full of bitter sarcasm about community organizing. One sarcastic %%%%% in my opinion.

    I thought conservatives were all for people power from the bottom up?

    What gives?

    Palin sounds like a top down type from the Politburo is just fine by her.

  15. Okay… so you are saying that a “Community Organizer” is a honorable profession…

    From your description, it sounds like it is a person who:

    1) Decides that they know better than everyone else what is the right goal.
    2) Can’t get anyone to agree with them that their goal is the right goal.
    3) Don’t have any power given them by the governed to bring about their goal.

    So, they then go on to attempt to force the goal through anyway, using the old boys network (and that company will train you in getting aboard the old boy’s network).

    I can see how that would be appealing for a liberal, and anathema to a conservative….

  16. “Mike James wrote:

    A little more information about “community organizers”:

    Responisibilities Of A Community Organizer”

    Touching. Really touching. It’s nice to know that all the left-wing indoctrinated college kids at Camp Wellstone are looking out for me, morning, noon, and night. I’ll sleep much easier.

    “It is quite strange that McCain’s speech pushed the theme of service, service, service to the country, and yet, Palin’s speech was so full of bitter sarcasm about community organizing. One sarcastic %%%%% in my opinion. I thought conservatives were all for people power from the bottom up?

    What gives?”

    What gives? Indeed. Let’s get right down to it. I live in a pretty typical middle-class white neighborhood. We all have responsible jobs, and (for the most part) pay our bills, pay our taxes, and obey the law. We repair our own houses, pick up our own yards, look out for suspicious people. If we need something, we buy it for ourselves. If we can’t afford it, we do without. We don’t have any community organizers. We don’t need any.

    However, neighborhoods that do have community organizers are characterized by crime, dereliction, decrepitude, and sloth. These places, usually inner-city hell-holes, are euphemistically called “communities”, as if by calling them that, they all of a sudden become akin to Athens in the age of Pericles. Certain busy-bodies see a need (and in Obama’s case, an opportunity for himself) to interject themselves into other peoples problems, and do for them what they ought to do for themselves – at our expense, of course.

    Most regular, everyday working people – by which I mean those who support themselves through their own work, not those for whom work is an occasional diversion between prison or job training programs – despise social workers, community organizers, and all their ilk as parasites. If you had not realized this, then let me be the first to welcome you to the surface, after emerging from the hole in the ground you’ve called home these past forty years.

  17. Mike, when I followed the link, I found that we had someone boasting about how many hours a community organizer worked and nothing about the “responsibilities” of a community organizer. After all, a community organizer is more than someone who works a lot right?

  18. Bob wrote:

    Cthulu, even if Jesus was a fictional character, he lived a fictional life admired by billions of people. Just as it is irrelevant whether Washington really cut down a cherry tree when considering the virtues of honesty, it is irrelevant whether Jesus existed when considering the virtues of being a community organizer.

    You mean an imaginary community organizer. The real world ones might not have those virtues. And it really doesn’t matter if billions of people admire myths, if reality doesn’t fit those myths. It just means billions of people are wrong, which is already a common occurance. The strength of honesty isn’t based on a colorful work of fiction. It’s based on the collective benefit to be had in the absence of deception.

  19. Martin, Karl, I put the link up because I thought it fair to give the “community organizers” a chance to make a case without prior comment from me.

    I figured most would read that page and think, “Now, that there is 90% refined, weapons-grade nuthin’, subject to control by international agreements.”

  20. ” Mike James wrote:

    I figured most would read that page and think, “Now, that there is 90% refined, weapons-grade nuthin’, subject to control by international agreements.””

    Or to paraphrase, you were doing a little community organizing for community organizers.

  21. Martin – I don’t know where you live, but I live in the 43rd richest county in the country and we have “community organizers” here. Read this (links at my blog – click above to go there):

    I am past president of the Rotary Club of Darien IL. My group of about 30 members raised last year $45,000 for charity, and the membership personall donated approximately $18,000 for the Rotary Foundation. (That number puts us in the top 100 clubs in the world on a per-capita basis for Foundation giving). So we know charity.

    Darien is a city in DuPage county, one of the wealthiest counties in the country. You wouldn’t think we have poor people here.

    We do. One charitable organization my group helps fund is the Humanitarian Service Project. Through this group, we have “adopted” two senior citizens, providing bulk food, and provide birthday parties for nine children (at $54 each) in Darien. Yes, Virginia, there are poor people in Darien. The Humanitarian Service Project has a budget of $1.4 million, 90% of which comes from private donors.

    Another group I just learned about is the People’s Resource Center. Based in Wheaton, the DuPage county seat, this organization has a $2 million budget (89% private donation) and uses 860 volunteers to provide job training, food and rent assistance to over 22,000 individuals.

    What do both these organizations have in common? Well, they are ran by “community organizers.” Somebody has to wrangle volunteers, answer the phone, apply for grants and file taxes (yes, Virginia, non-profits file tax returns too). That’s what a community organizer does.

    Obama was a community organizer working for the Catholic church in the mid-1980s. He was, I dare say, doing the Lord’s work (see Matthew 25 verse 34-45). I make no claim that being a community organizer is qualification for President. But how can one call oneself a Christian and mock the entire profession?

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