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Portraits of a Young Idealist--"the best education I ever had"

amberglow's picture
Submitted by amberglow on Sun, 09/07/2008 - 2:39pm
Departments: 
Department of Now It All Makes Sense
Thread: 
Haves, Have Nots, and Have Mores
Tags: 
activism
Politics
rights
obama
chicago
community organizing
Alinsky
self-interest
idealism

Ever wonder what Obama actually did as a community activist? Whether he succeeded in actually helping people in Chicago? How an outsider without Chicago ties ended up a political insider? Why he left organizing for law school? Why so much of his language in the primaries was that of "bottom up" and "movements"? About all that Alinsky stuff? ...

John Judis: Creation Myth--What Barack Obama won't tell you about his community organizing past

and from 07, a long, but thorough account of those days: The Agitator--Barack Obama's unlikely political education

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Joe Bob's picture
Submitted by Joe Bob on

From the Judis article:

"But Obama was also worried about something else. He told Kellman that he feared community organizing would never allow him 'to make major changes in poverty or discrimination.' To do that, he said, 'you either had to be an elected official or be influential with elected officials.' In other words, Obama believed that his chosen profession was getting him nowhere, or at least not far enough. Personally, he might end up like his father; politically, he would fail to improve the lot of those he was trying to help.

"And so, Obama told Kellman, he had decided to leave community organizing and go to law school."

And the problem with this is what exactly?

gyrfalcon's picture
Submitted by gyrfalcon on

I thought the article was fascinating myself, and at least mildly reassuring that Obama appears to have had, at one point in his life, a genuine commitment to the problems of poverty.

But do read on in the article about the perennial debate within community organizing over the place of "charismatic leadership."

lambert's picture
Submitted by lambert on

... on Judis, and I don't know if I'd draw any strong conclusions from this article either way. Talking to people in the community, maybe.

[ ] Very tepidly voting for Obama [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.

gyrfalcon's picture
Submitted by gyrfalcon on

for their hour-long profile, rerun this weekend, to several people who were in the community when Obama was organizing, and to a person their eyes shine at the mention of him. They spoke particularly of how he gave them courage to speak up for themselves, all the good Alinsky stuff.

lambert's picture
Submitted by lambert on

but I'm not sure a search of Chicago sources would say the same thing. I hate to be too cynical, though I almost never am, but let's remember how the TX press behaved in 2000 -- because he was "their guy," never a word.

[ ] Very tepidly voting for Obama [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.

gyrfalcon's picture
Submitted by gyrfalcon on

I don't think it's really quiiiitte the same thing. However, their admiration of him says nothing much about his effectiveness.

I'm actually inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt on the community organizing. He really didn't have to take that on, and he surely knew it was not a glamorous job.

I think what probably happened was he got totally seduced by the "charismatic leadership" thing once he started getting into it and found out how many more endorphins he got from it than from the frustration of community organizing.

And now I'm going to stop with the amateur psychologizing...

But it does seem to me that we see a deliberate attempt to use both the core Alinsky and non-Alinsky principles-- he's taking on the "charismatic leader" role that Alinsky abhorred, but yet he talks (or talked in the primaries at least) endlessly about how politics and governing had to be a "bottom-up" process.

Isn't that part of what drove so many of us nuts, that he wouldn't campaign on specifics but on a vague sort of idea of "empowerment," where the people would decide what they wanted and force the politicians to do it?

So seems to me he's been trying to have it both ways, in Alinsky terms, and I sure do wonder what the old guy would think of that.