The Mad Rants of an Unconventional Soccer Mom

On Wednesday, Sept. 3, 2008, Palin the Wolf Slayer and Rudy Giuliani dismissed the work of all community activists by ridiculing the contributions of Barack Obama in his younger days on the South Side of Chicago.

They were truly some of the most arrogant, anti-reformist statements I have ever heard. Do all of these people, including my own family running with this latest talking point, even know what it is that they are all snaring at? Do they know what role community organizers have played in the history of this country?

Let’s start out by explaining just what it was that Barack chose to do as a twenty four year old – the thing that is soooo mockable to the GOP. Barack left a job on Wall Street to come to Chicago to work for Developing Communities Project, a church-based community organization on the South Side. During his three years as the director he set up a job training program, a college preparatory tutoring program, and a tenants' rights organization which fought with the City of Chicago to get Chicago Public Schools and housing developments cleaned of asbestos. He had thirteen employees working for him and a budget of nearly half a million dollars. So in his early twenties he was successfully LEADING. But he knew he could only do so much in the position he was in, so he returned to school. When he graduated from Harvard at the top of his class he returned to Chicago. He became a Civil Rights Attorney at a small law firm specializing in civil rights litigation and neighborhood economic development. He was still fighting for the underprivileged.

Please explain to me how the work he did helping the disadvantaged was not honorable? He could have continued making big bucks on Wall Street; he could have became a corporate lawyer. Instead he decided that he would rather actually do something to improve the lives of those facing discrimination and hard times.

In the history of this country there have been others that had chosen to be community organizers. Here a just a couple examples, but where would we be without their contributions to society:

Susan B. Anthony organized the fight to guarantee women's suffrage in the United States by giving public speeches and uniting with fellow advocates of change.

Martin Luther King Jr. organized to end racial segregation and discrimination by inspiring this nation to come together.

Dorothy Day organized the Catholic Worker movement to help the poor and homeless, and promote social justice.

Hell, the founding fathers of this country were community organizers. John and Samuel Adams organized their communities and made the case for Independence.

It was community organizers who created this country. And it has been community organizers, throughout this country's history, that have been responsible for progressive change -- the change that allows Wolf Slayer to be the first GOP female VP candidate, albeit spouting brainless venom.

So I'll take the first community organizer as President ANY DAY over some person with so-called "executive experience" who remains ignorant and clueless about one of the most honorable professions, in my view, we have in this country.