Here's What a "Community Organizer" Does

There's been a great deal of debate over the role of community organizer in one's resume. In most cases, I assumed it was the role of volunteering to tutor in reading with the local library, coaching children's sports teams or doing something such as leading a Scout troop. But evidently, I couldn't be more wrong because in some cases "community organizing" means setting up programs to indoctrinate young people into the PC mode of performance. Here's a quote from the article linked below. I would warn you, if this is what is meant by the activation of America on the part of the Left, then we are in huge trouble here.
Full story here
Excerpts:
"Our alumni are more than twice as likely as 18-34 year olds to . . . engage in protest activities," Public Allies boasts in a document found with its tax filings. It has already deployed an army of 2,200 community organizers like Obama to agitate for "justice" and "equality" in his hometown of Chicago and other U.S. cities, including Cincinnati, Los Angeles, Milwaukee, New York, Phoenix, Pittsburgh and Washington. "I get to practice being an activist," and get paid for it, gushed Cincinnati recruit Amy Vincent..."

"..."If you commit to serving your community," he pledged in his Denver acceptance speech, "we will make sure you can afford a college education." So, go through government to go to college, and then go back into government..."

"...Not all the recruits appreciate the PC indoctrination. "It was too touchy-feely," said Nelly Nieblas, 29, of the 2005 Los Angeles class. "It's a lot of talk about race, a lot of talk about sexism, a lot of talk about homophobia, talk about -isms and phobias."

One of those -isms is "heterosexism," which a Public Allies training seminar in Chicago describes as a negative byproduct of "capitalism, white supremacy, patriarchy and male-dominated privilege...."

Now tell me again how the role of a community organizer is beneficial in the role of president. Tell how a "community organizer" will govern. Is this not an attitude of imposing ones individual socio-economic and political views onto someone else using the pressure of the office? And why are more people not concerned about the prospect of a very real erosion of the freedoms we hold? Right now, I know people who will not publicly state their personal conservative views for fear of retribution. And the Left says conservatives are fascists? I hate to be a gloom and doom deathsayer, but if Obama wins, watch the courts flood with cases of alleged discrimination based on the most tenuous evidence. While real racism should be rooted out and destroyed, too many people will see this as a chance to get a free paycheck on the taxpayers dole. And that along with all the other freebies Obama is promising should warn you off immediately.

While you are at it, you may also want to ponder where a young Barak Obama got the funding to attend Harvard. Here's a link that illuminates that aspect of his past and should make you wonder a little bit about the types of international alliances he would forge. It should also make you curious about where his campaign money originates and how it is being handled.

Story here.

Obama is Just Scary

And just what, pray tell Mr. Obama, is the mission of the "civilian force" you propose? Are you going to enforce your socialist liberal values upon those who chose to oppose you? Will knocks at the door in the night signal your opponents precipitous demise? Frankly, having read history, this sounds like a little group that terrorized German Jews in the 1930's. So is that the kind of starry future you propose? I used to think at least that you were reasonable, but it has become obvious that the hubris from public acclaim and the money of those who want to control the United States from behind the scenes has led to into a very dark place indeed. Be afraid, America, be VERY afraid.

Everything You Know Is Wrong.

It's funny how politicians predicate their fortunes on what they perceive as a stable and unchanging economic fortunes. They assume that the poor folks they champion today will always be poor, and that the rich folks they villainize will always be rich. Well that's not exactly true. It seems that of men born in the bottom 25% of income, 32% of them end up in the top 25% of income. And vice versa. The Romans used to have a goddess called Fortuna, who was to be appeased for her flippant ways. Perhaps politicians would do well to recall that those they help now, may curse them down the road for punitive taxes.
Story here.
Excerpt-or how to be a high income wage earner:
"1. High-income households are not likely to consist of one person earning a very high income (as is often assumed); rather, they are likely to have two or more income earners:
-In 2006, a whopping 81.4 percent of families in the top income quintile had two or more people working, and only 2.2 percent had no one working.
-By contrast, only 12.6 percent of families in the bottom quintile had two or more people working; 39.2 percent had no one working.
(This is Important)-
The average number of earners per family for the top group was 2.16, almost three times the 0.76 average for the bottom.

2. Census data show a large difference in full-time work and in the number of weeks worked in a year.
-Less than one-third of families in the lowest quintile had a head of household working full-time; in the top quintile, more than three-fourths of families did.
-Thus, average families in the top group have many more weeks of work than those in the bottom and, in the late 1970s, the 12-to-1 total income ratio shrunk to only 2-to-1 per week of work, according to one analysis.

3. Workers tend to start out at a low income, increase their earnings with experience, and then have lower incomes late in their careers or in retirement. For example, peak earnings typically occur in the 35-to-54 age group. However:
-In the bottom income quintile, only one-third of households are headed by someone 35 to 54; whereas, in the top quintile, more than half of household heads are in that age range.
(I want you to consider seriously the large number of single parent families in certain demographic groups AND the much earlier age of first pregnancy for those single mothers-THIS more than anything is a predictor of poverty.)
-The bottom group also has a much larger proportion of household heads more than 75 years of age — 11.5 percent versus 2.3 percent for the top group.
(This is also the result of drug/alcohol abuse that has left many grandparents in charge of raising grandchildren. So the sex and drug revolution did produce some casualties.)
-The bottom also has more young heads of households ages 15 to 24 — 10 percent

So, if you want to be wealthy, get an education, don't do drugs or alcohol, and don't have babies out of wedlock. Gee, where have I heard this all before?

Our Demanding Society

The basic laws of economics centers around the
concept known as "supply and demand".

For example, let's say you really like Chocolate donuts, and in fact everyone you know likes Chocolate donuts. If there is only one donut shop in town (which in fact would be a local monopoly) they could charge five bucks a donut if they wanted, because there was no other way to get scrumptious, delicious, warm chocolate donuts. Now let's imagine if in this same town, a SECOND donut shop opened up. They could set their price at four dollars, which would still be high, but lower than the existing shop. The other shop would lose business and be forced to LOWER their prices in order to stay competitive.

Later on down the road, a corporate bakery makes donuts by the dozen, lowering prices because now chocolate donuts were plentiful and even though the local donuts were more expensive and probably tasted better, people were willing to take a lower quality product to save a few bucks, just so long as they had the appearance of being people who could afford chocolate donuts. The local stores would downsize or close due to the overabundance of donuts, allowing the corporate bakery to make ALL the donuts for the area. But with rising costs of retirement, insurance and disability, the corporation found itself top-heavy with overpaid management and overpaid line employees. So to save the brand at all costs, the company would fire domestic employees and move the entire factory overseas-where the managers would still get hefty incomes, but the line works were paid in dollars per week instead of dollars per day. The citizens still wanted to have those desirable chocolate donuts, but now in order to keep a profit for stockholders, the company has eliminated jobs that allow money to return to the economy.

On top of that, let's assume that Congress, concerned about the increasing girth of its citizens, decides to limit the number of yummy chocolate donuts that can be made in this country. Now imagine that a factory in Indonesia makes really cheap chocolate donuts. They could sell them for a dollar a DOZEN. That would drive out the local shops and corner the business with lower grade, cheaper quality chocolate donuts. Add that the dollars would only flow OUT of the country, creating an economic vacuum. They would outsell the American corporation, buy them out and before you know it, the only thing Americans have to show for their trouble is way too much of a belly from gorging on chocolate donuts. The only solution to save the economy is to permit chocolate donut shops to open and produce the SUPPLY that the public DEMANDS.

Now let's talk about gasoline. It comes from oil. A barrel of oil yields just about 17 gallons of gas. And that's before the spa style additives demanded by certain states. Believe it or not, we have oil resources in our national territory, but we can't access it. We can't even think about accessing it. And furthermore, if you read the web, we should feel virtuous for not allowing American countries to access American resources for the benefit of the American public. Who is running this show anyway and who is in their back pocket?

While I do think that corporate honchos are getting far too much compensation for what they actually do, and while there are probably layers of management that could disappear tomorrow without ill effects, the key issue to gas prices is SUPPLY AND DEMAND. Corporate profits have remained steady. You hear the astronomical numbers of gross income, but not the facts regarding the increased cost of everything from exploration to transport. Our economy demands oil and gas. And whether you like it or not, that's not going to change very soon. For all of the pie in the sky promises, there are few meaningful alternatives right now. You can talk electric hybrids, but there are still questions about the environmental impact of the batteries, and you can talk electric cars, but if you charge a car using conventional power sources, you are using coal or natural gas-both questionable sources in terms of the environment. We can't build nuclear, we can't harness enough wind or water power, we simply don't have a viable delivery system for biodiesel or other sources. In short, we are left stranded by the same Congressional do-gooders who claim to have our best interests at heart. Our Congress has patted themselves on the back for limiting exploration off of Florida, off of the West Coast, the East Coast and Alaska. Never mind that Castro and his friends are there pumping away to have oil that will be refined in Venezuela. There comes a point in time where you have to put aside your petty bickering to look at the greater good. What good comes of $4.00 per gallon gasoline? What good does it do other than make those who struggle even less able to survive. If you answer that it makes people use mass transit, then you are a self-centered boob. While it may allow some to consider those options, how many more will it limit in terms of their ability to hold a job, go to school or get medical services? It's time to be big boys and girls and allow limited drilling in ANWR, and on the coasts. And it's time to remind those folks in Washington, who's boss.

Whatever Happened to Class?

Class
" Velma: Whatever happened to fair dealing?
And pure ethics?
And nice manners?
Why is it everyone now is a pain in the a**?
Whatever happened to class?"
You must listen to the lyrics to get the irony of the song. Here are two women of dubious integrity, bemoaning the fate of manners and breeding. I see this type of whining every day. We hear about stars that are upset that their lack of circumspection in regard to their personal behavior is displayed by the paparazzi for all the world to see. And these two situations are very similar. It used to be thought that using foul language, innuendo or "cuss words" were an example of low class behavior. Yet words that would have gotten a movie banned even fifteen years ago are common every day fare for some parts of our culture. When I was a child, my parents told me that cussing was an example of someone who was too ignorant to express themselves in any other way. It was declasse. I am aware that kids cuss, and there was a period in my life when I thought I was cool by doing so because I found out that such words had the power to excite someone to action. But I outgrew that, as I like to think that most people do.

Well, sadly, most people these days don't. My kids all work in the retail and service sector. They are well mannered, they are intelligent and they understand the scope of their jobs. So why then do grown up people, thirty,forty and fifty year olds, think that it's appropriate to cuss out a kid or anyone else for a relatively minor complaint? In one case, an order was wrong, but before my son could change it, the person threw all the food at him and started cussing him out. This order included drinks that were thrown. Likewise, when a sale coupon could not be honored for a purchase in a department store, the lady in question not only cussed the staff out, but cut up her card and threw the scissors at one of the girls working. To my mind, that's assault and the police should be called. Is this rational behavior? Is this acceptable? Is this what passes for normal these days?

I ask this because I think we have all become navel gazers to a certain degree. It's all about serving "me". "Me" is the most important person in the room, the hotel, the store the hospital. "Me"s needs supersede everyone else's. Like the guy at DFW, who would not wait two minutes for my sister in law to get in the open door of the car so he could park (terminal C last night by the way)and then blocked our egress with his open door. While I could understand his wanting to get the space, was it really necessary to be so rude? We would have gladly held the space for him.

I guess I just don't get it. But then I also don't understand why please and thank you have become an issue for some folks. I hold doors open and help people when they are in need, but some segments of our society barely register appreciation as if their mere presence should entitle them to special services from any stranger who passes. Can we all grow up a little and use some common sense and common courtesy? And by the way, can some of you parents start demanding of your kids as well? Part of the reason my kids weren't allowed to watch The Simpsons until middle school is that I found his rhetoric appalling. Yet I see kids as young as kindergarten spouting off such Bart-isms to the seeming rapture of their doting parents. What may appear cute, but isn't, at five or six, can become a serious attitude issue at 14 or 15. Chew on that a minute. See the future. Take action now.

Now, Can We Drill?

I want you to consider the amount of damage that has been perpetrated in the name of environmentalism. Thanks to the China Syndrome, we stopped building nuclear power plants. And the last ones built were so challenged in the courts that their costs were three times the original plan. Thanks to other environmental programs, we can't drill off of the coasts of Florida-where one of the potentially richest oil fields is currently being illegally tapped by Cuba. We can't drill in ANWR in Alaska for fear of a dwindling caribou population. We are pushed by a Congress with eyes on rural votes to have corn ethanol in our fuel. We haven't built a refinery in 29 years. We can't use coal because of acid rain. So what are we to do?

The Ivory Tower advocates for clean air like to point to things such as hybrid cars, expensive fixes for homes and ethanol from corn-which not only reduced fuel efficiency but causes the price of gas at the pump to spike due to the necessary purging of fuel lines in order to have it added. The same people who so elegantly point to rows of cars don't stop to consider that average people cannot afford these things. And with the rising cost of fuel, everything is going to rise in cost from food to energy. It's funny how the same folks who push these ideas don't understand that those of us who work for a living can't just trash our old clunkers and spend $400 a month paying for a new car. And what's worse, they don't really seem to care.

There is the laissez-faire attitude that we "little people" can simply walk to work or turn off the air conditioning. What about the elderly, the infirm or the very young? I guess it's easy to do without air conditioning when you live in a climate were it's only needed a few weeks per year, but what are you going to tell folks in Houston, Dallas, Flagstaff, New Orleans, Phoenix or El Paso? Should we simply close shop and leave town from May until September? Should we wander around like previous generations of the Dust Bowl era?

And it goes farther than that. There's no question that the war in the Middle East has to do with national security in as much as oil is necessary to our livelihood. With Saddam in power and exercising control of the region, we would have been his virtual economic slaves. Right now, environmentalist are limiting our abilities to produce domestic fuel in so many ways, and yet they refuse to realize that these goals have forced our hand internationally. Oil is reaching record purchasing amounts, and the government makes money off of every gallon. We have reserves, we have potential sites for exploration and drilling, but the same folks who seem to be blind to the needs of everyday people are keeping us from progressing. It's the same attitude that helped Marie Antoinette lose her head. At estimated costs to the consumer of $4.00 a gallon coming soon to a neighborhood near you, isn't it time for us to stop this wasteful navel gazing nonsense and begin to use what resources we have available to tide us through until the next great wave of transportation technology comes along? Most midwives and obstetricians will tell you that an induced birth is more painful for the mother and the child. What organized environmentalism is doing to our nation now is the energy equivalent of a pitocin drip. So for the last time, NOW CAN WE DRILL?

A Sad Day

I was very sorry to hear that Fred Thompson withdrew from the campaign trail. What a sad thing that the only consistent conservative in this campaign was left out of the main campaign largely by a mainstream media that would rather choose for us by only showing some candidates and not all. As for me, I honestly don't know who to support. I know that after reading some very offensive and taunting posts spammed on the Thompson blog, that Ron Paul will NOT be in my short list. Right now, Mitt Romney is looking the most fitting. I honestly cannot stomach Mike Huckabee-I don't trust him. And Rudy Giuliani is simply not going to make much headway outside of his strongholds. As for McCain, he might as well be a weathervane because he, like Hillary Clinton, seems to move in whatever direction the wind blows. Perhaps this is what the media wants, a clear shot to get Barak Obama and his socialist elite friends in office to gut our republic and make us into just another cooperative like the EU. What a sad day. There is still no candidate out there that represents the vast middle of America. We are represented instead by radical ideologues. It's a shame.

Read this first:

" The following editorial appeared in Saturday’s Washington Post:

There was a time when many people in Oakland, Calif., admired Your Black Muslim Bakery, a neighborhood enterprise founded in 1968 by a charismatic African American known as Yusuf Bey. Community members, politicians and the local media hailed the bakery as an example of black self-help in an otherwise dispiriting environment of urban poverty.

For years, they tended to ignore or play down reports about the more violent side of Bey’s operation, or about such disturbing events as a political rally at which Bey remarked that Jews “are not worthy of being hated.”

Among the many who were a bit soft on the bakery was a reporter for the Oakland Tribune, Chauncey Bailey, who doubled as news director for a television channel that Bey paid to broadcast his sermons.

But in 2002, the East Bay Express, a local alternative newspaper that had praised the bakery, ran a penetrating series of articles on the activities of Bey’s minions, including the alleged torture of a Nigerian immigrant. That series earned reporter Chris Thompson threats from Bey’s group.

Bey’s arrest in 2003 on 27 counts of raping four girls further damaged both Bey’s image and that of his organization, though most of the charges were dropped and he died before his trial.

Bailey began to take a second journalistic look at Your Black Muslim Bakery. Having become editor of the Oakland Post, a small weekly newspaper focused on the African American community, Bailey probed the bakery’s murky finances — until the morning of Aug. 2, when a masked man approached and fired a shotgun at his head.

According to police, a 19-year-old employee of the bakery has confessed to the murder, saying he carried it out because of Bailey’s reporting. The suspect denies he confessed and claims he is innocent.

Job-related murders of journalists are extremely rare in the United States: The last one took place in 1993, and there have been only 13 since 1976 (including Bailey’s), according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. Yet this murder is a reminder of the need for reporting by professional journalists, even in an era when amateur video of war zones can be had at the click of a mouse. Aggressive journalism is still a vital part of every community’s defenses against corruption and crime. It can save lives.

Chauncey Bailey died doing his duty as a reporter. That duty is not only indispensable in a democratic society; it’s also risky. Now that the police have raided the bakery, confiscating weapons and arresting six people in addition to Bailey’s alleged assassin, there is some hope for a safer Oakland. That would be the most fitting memorial for Chauncey Bailey."

Now-We live in a nation where we are blessed with freedom to say and write what we want. Not all nations have that privilege. In fact many nations subject those who dare to question authority, demonstrate a lack of religious conformity such as carrying a Bible, or refusing to bow to social limitations such a wearing a hajib or purdah to jail, to beatings, to whippings or worse. As a free nation, writers are able to express their opinions in what used to be news. But I question the wisdom of adhering to politically correct imagery on certain ethnic groups while overlooking more sinister and serious issues. In this case, the writer did a fluff piece on the main character showing his positive side. But when the same writer found out about major criminal activity associate with this same person, the writer was killed. That's not supposed to happen in the United States. But it does happen in many of the nations whose egregious behavior is being whitewashed by a media that seeks to control the vote through only the most politically correct presentation of groups that seek to do us harm. You can see it with certain radical elements within domestic Islamic beliefs, you can see it with the refusal to site the resident status of known offenders, you can see it in the way they show people involved in a crime based more upon their perceived minority or ethnic status rather than on the heinousness of the offense. This cannot stand. We can't allow people to corrupt us from within. Somewhere there must be judges and juries who are not blinded by the polling of an issue. I think the location of this event also is telling since that area of California is one of the most willing to accept people precisely because they oppose the concepts that make the United States what is it today. Please consider this issue and discuss it with your kids. They need to know what they are up against.