Article

2008-09-08 Home Front: Culture Wars

Archived material is restricted to Rantburg regulars and members. If you need access email fred.pruitt=at=gmail.com with your nick to be added to the members list. There is no charge to join Rantburg as a member.

Posted by Mike 2008-09-08 09:28|| || Front Page|| [4 views ] Top

#1 Harold Washington was mayor in 1985.

I'm from greater Chicagoland......

So why did Altgeld need Obama?

Posted by anonymous2u 2008-09-08 10:47|| 2008-09-08 10:47|| Front Page Top

#2 Do read it all, but carefully note the ending:

When he left for law school, Obama wondered what he had accomplished as an organizer. He certainly had some achievements, but he did not perhaps could not concede that there might be something wrong with his approach to Chicagos problems. Instead of questioning his own premises, he concluded that he simply needed more power to get the job done. So he made plans to run for political office. And in each successive office, he has concluded that he did not have enough power to get the job done, so now he is running for the most powerful office in the land.

And what if he gets it? Hell be the biggest, strongest organizer in the world. Hell dazzle the country with his message of hope and possibility. But we shouldnt expect much to actually get done.

Posted by Sherry">Sherry 2008-09-08 12:53|| 2008-09-08 12:53|| Front Page Top

#3 Change in the White House, where Reagan and his minions were carrying on their dirty deeds.

Change like winning the Cold War and defeating the Soviet Union without ever firing a shot?

Or like securing the release of the Iran hostages?

How about getting this country's economy back on its feet after the four years of Jimmuh Carter malaise?

Or reestablishing our country's pride and sense of purpose after the hopped up, divisive years of Vietnam and Watergate?

That kind of change?

Sorry. That's about as far as I could get with this article. That and wondering why these poor, oppressed people can't seem to get off their butts and do anything at all for themselves.

Posted by Ebbang Uluque6305 2008-09-08 18:05|| 2008-09-08 18:05|| Front Page Top

#4 Just in case you think this article is biased, here's last week's New Republic:

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. Kellman, who was already thinking of leaving organizing himself, found no reason to argue with him. "Organizing," Kellman tells me, as we sit in a Chicago restaurant down the street from the Catholic church where he now works as a lay minister, "is always a lost cause." Obama, circa late 1987, might or might not have put it quite that strongly. But he had clearly developed serious doubts about the career he was pursuing.

...

Indeed, during his three years in South Chicago, Obama was constantly having to scale back his objectives as one project after another faltered. First, he got community members to demand a job center that would provide job referrals, but there were few jobs to distribute. Then, he tried to create what he called a "second-level consumer economy" in Roseland consisting of shops, restaurants, and theaters. This, too, went nowhere. At that point, Kellman advised Obama to move elsewhere. "Stay here, and you are bound to fail," he told him.

Creation Myth

Posted by KBK 2008-09-08 21:53|| 2008-09-08 21:53|| Front Page Top

23:52 CrazyFool
23:46 CrazyFool
23:46 JosephMendiola
23:38 Silentbrick
23:30 Silentbrick
23:28 JosephMendiola
23:20 FOTSGreg
23:12 Procopius2k
23:11 Pappy
23:10 JosephMendiola
22:55 Betty Grating2215
22:49 3dc
22:48 mhw
22:47 Barbara Skolaut
22:45 Barbara Skolaut
22:43 IG-88
22:41 3dc
22:39 3dc
22:39 ed
22:38 mojo
22:37 ed
22:33 MoreScotch4Me
22:31 3dc
22:28 bigjim-ky