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Ezra points out that the constant mockery of Obama’s time spent community organizing is a racial dogwhistle, which sounds about right. He spent time digging around in the surefire pool of racial resentment that is any group of black people larger than three that aren’t wearing sports uniforms, meaning, of course, that he was avoiding Real Work and probably smoking his crack rock or working on his recipe for chitlins.
Although I’m not surprised, I am a bit impressed at how easy it is for Republicans to take anything and turn it into a mockable “other”. It’s not that community organizing is an incredibly common act which is so far removed from the act of governing that someone mentioning it gives you a reason to scratch your head and cock your eyebrow (like, say, your membership in the PTA). It’s that it’s an inherently alien and strange act that normal people just don’t do, and is codeword for effete ghetto liberalism - a concept which probably didn’t exist before right now, but seems as good as any to explain the way that Republicans are playing the culture card on Obama. Think Brewster’s Millions, except that halfway through the film Richard Pryor collaborates with a balding ex-terrorist and a puffy-faced pastor who threaten the downfall of America until John Candy drops a bucket of water on their heads, then they sputter off and go slip on a banana peel.
I love director’s cuts.
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Posted by
Jesse Taylor on 05:54 PM •
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The forgot to mention Obama was a community organizer twenty years ago, while Palin was a mayor of a bumfuck town in 2006.
I also get a twinge of implied socialism/Marxism/etc. with that phraseology, as well as a hint of DFH…
Republicans sure do it nasty…
35 years later and we still have the same racial conflicts the Blazin’ Saddles made fun of.
Of course! I understand that the conviction rate of ACORN staff is lower than average among various community organizing groups.
DFH? Dogfish Head Beer? Joe Biden would be proud.
Well its certainly lower than among Alaskan politicans
Brewster’s Millions? I had to review that thing during the 15 minutes of my life I was a movie critic, and I thought I’d repressed it. Thanks for bringing it back again. [shudder]
As for community organizing, I think Jesse nailed it. All right-thinking Americans know that community organizing is just a way for a lot of lazy, shiftless black folks to demand a handout from Whitey.
I think it’s also an attack on Obama’s authenticity, which is also a subtext in the “elite” attacks. American discourse really does seem to have a master narrative in which the authentic community is something like the idealized small city - think Bedford Falls. Hard-working, heterosexual, nuclear family-oriented, self-reliant - minorities and cultural outliers may be part of the community, if “cute,” in their place and not in anyone’s face or in positions of authority. Perhaps this reflects the setting so much of this discourse developed in - it would be interesting to compare & contrast how it works in other cultures - but it’s also something which the Rs have intentionally reinforced. (cf. Nixonland)
The fact that it’s a highly generalized narrative structure helps expand its scope - church attendance is an element, but unspecified, so Dominionists and Catholics can both identify with it, even if the former reject the latter as a matter of ideology. It also helps that it’s an assumed narrative, as it can be denied even as it is being used, and it acts as the default setting for the MSM.
For members of a community which accepts a master narrative like this, material failure to conform is evidence that the nonconformist is either acting in bad faith, or deliberately dissembling. The former is at best a major character weakness, while the latter is a sign of possible evil.
Assuming you don’t want to openly attack your opponent as evil, this is where mockery comes in. While I’ve seen this practiced by experts - including in my own family - my favorite recent demonstration comes from Mad Men.
If you watch the show, you may recall an episode where office queen bee Joan Holliday, who is being mildly confronted by mildly boho account executive Paul Kinsey for insulting Paul’s girlfriend - because the girl friend was black, and at a party at Paul’s place - turns the tables by mocking his beard, his pipe, his music preferences and his attitudes in general, as affectations. Whether they are or not, he’s screwed - self-defense can be mocked as whining or bad faith (or both), and if he doesn’t say anything it can be construed as a tacit admission.
This only works because Paul accepts (we see that Paul accepts) that Joan is right. In the period of the show, beards, good jazz, a pipe and especially a black girlfriend for a white man are deviations from the master narrative. (Which, by the way, the series demonstrates quite nicely by indirection - advertising is a rich mine of the allusions.) If Paul didn’t share Joan’s master narrative - if he were able to speak and act from a more current version, which for many of us includes beards, pipes, jazz and interracial relationships, he could have called her out without sounding whiny.
Is Sarah Palin being Joan? Well, Karl Rove sure is, and there’s a solid line of Joans enforcing the master narrative for the Rs. To the extent that the Rs can push out the acceptance of their master narrative, they lay the groundwork for most of the rest of their weaponry. To the extent we can supersede theirs with one that “authenticates” Obama and the Ds, we lay the groundwork not only for electoral success, but for the kind of long-term policy shifts which require deep public support.
So what’s our master narrative?
Although I’m not surprised, I am a bit impressed at how easy it is for Republicans to take anything and turn it into a mockable “other”.
There’s nothing surprising about it, they just use the conservative media - by which I mean Fox, Limbaugh, CNN, and the New York Times - to repeat the phrase “community organizing” in a sneering voice until shallow pseudo-liberals nationwide start falling all over themselves to denounce it.
“Community organizer” in Chicago equals just another ward heeler in the Chicago Dem machine.
Poor and middle-class people have community organizers. Rich people and corporations have consultants, public-relations firms, lobbyists and think tanks.
Isn’t PTA volunteering “community organizing”? Or does that not count, since “Busybody who spends too much time on local minutia” was taken. Either taking the orange slices to the hockey games matters or it doesn’t, but either way it’s all part of “community” and “organizing”. If she brought snacks with corn syrup, she’s depleting natural resources and helping Venezuela and Iran.
I’ve already learned that my living in Tucson makes me eligible to be Secretary of State (it’s near a border, doncha know,) but I’m not sure what the rules are in regard to “community organizer” status.
I have a friend on a homeowners association board up in Scottsdale. I can’t decide under the new rules whether this is a bad or good thing, but with home prices where they are I’m sure it’s all her fault somehow. Anyhow, I’ll be glad to use the “Sorry, I can’t afford to be labeled as a community organizer” excuse the next time my children’s schools need someone to give a ride for a field trip or need some extra copy paper.
Will someone ask this woman what the appropriate punishment should be for procuring a murderous abortion and end her reign of nonsense once and for all? She’s a liar and a good speaker, but somehow I don’t think she’ll be prepared for this with anything other than the usual bullshit and some nonsense about it being an attack on her family. But with her policy and her party’s platform, it’s a just attack.
Hey Jesse,
Careful here, dude. Community organzier is becoming a familiar term in rural areas too. Local food networks, cottage industries, etc. It’ s not just an urban gig anymore.
Help me out here. I’d like to donate online to Obama but I still get paranoid making transactions over the internet. How do you know which is the official site?
Careful here, dude. Community organzier is becoming a familiar term in rural areas too. Local food networks, cottage industries, etc. It’ s not just an urban gig anymore.
...What do I need to be careful about? Describing what the Republicans are doing?
My cracker mother-in-law and hardcore Obama supporter:
“I just love my new apartment building. It’s so diverse. We’ve got gay people, black people and even a bunch of regular people.”
It runs that deep.
felegund, count your blessings. I wish my dad had evolved that far. Even my MIL is on board the Obama Express, but my dad is too poisoned by talk radio and Faux News to see the light…
My father will vote for Obama and the last time he voted for a Democrat was in 1976 for Carter.
And he really, REALLY hates Sarah Palin.
A group called Catholic Democrats has denounced Gov. Palin’s remarks about community organizing.
A Christian political action group has also condemned Palin’s acceptance speech and her attacks on Obama. They’re currently circulating a petition calling on her and McCain to act more like the Christians they say they are.
Matthew 25 Petition Link
Thanks for that, Rachel. One of the signatories is Douglas Kmiec, former head of the office of legal counsel under republican presidents, and a noted Constitutional scholar.
Of course! I understand that the conviction rate of ACORN staff is lower than average among various community organizing groups.
Convictions for what? Voter fraud?
Here’s a typical conviction from the Department of Justice Ballot Access and Voting Integrity Initiative Fact Sheet from July 26, 2006 (first pop on google).:
In New Hampshire, the former New England Regional Director of the Republican National Committee was convicted by a jury of telephone harassment charges in connection with a scheme to prevent voters from getting to the polls
So, more RNC directors are being convicted of voting fraud than ACORN members.
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The forgot to mention Obama was a community organizer twenty years ago, while Palin was a mayor of a bumfuck town in 2006.