Today, I attended an Organizing for America economic recovery house meeting in Swarthmore, PA. As a former Obama campaign volunteer who actually managed to bring himself to knock on doors, I want to be involved in continuing the momentum of the grass-roots movement.
I am interested in learning how the community organizing model works to get things done. I saw it work in the general election to accomplish the task of getting Obama into the White House, and OFA seems to be an experiment of using these same principles to actually govern the United States. Won't it be nice to have a government for the people, by the people again?
And now, off to the meeting:
The house meeting was attended by about 20 people with a diversity of age, race, and overall background. We introduced ourselves, watched the Tim Kaine-narrated video, and then broke up into two smaller discussion groups.
We started the discourse by telling stories about how the economic downturn has affected us. A grandmother told of how she has been unable to find work for the past two years and that she has no health insurance. A young man who owns a small landscaping business conveyed his distress of trying to keep his company afloat. He wants to create jobs but cannot afford to hire any workers, nor can he even provide himself with health insurance.
The discussion then turned towards the actual stimulus package itself. Some people thought there were too many tax cuts. Others were wary about the relevance to job-creation of some of the spending in the bill, including "spending money on bees." A woman who has been heavily involved in the arts advocated for spending on art education in schools as a means of giving students an extra motivation to actually stay in school.
We then reconvened both groups to discuss next steps. The notes that were taken from both discussion groups will be submitted to OFA as feedback. We also discussed how to keep the conversation going in our community. The Organizing for America website has fact sheets for each state describing how the stimulus plan will help that state, including how many jobs will be created. These sheets can easily be sent to family and friends, who can in turn send it to their family and friends, and so on and so forth.
Someone pointed out that part of continuing the discussion also means engaging our Republican friends and asking them what their perceptions are and what they hear from their friends and preferred media sources. This was met with a few pained faces from our seemingly all-Democrat group who were fed up with Republican obstruction in Congress, but they still agreed that this was a good idea.
My conclusion is that these house meetings, among other activities, are necessary for maintaining a government for the people and by the people. The economic stimulus package and other bills will need to be able to withstand public scrutiny. The OFA movement not only serves to garner support for Obama's initiatives, but also spurs debate which is necessary to actually formulate the policies themselves.
I'm interested in hearing your stories about house meetings that you have attended. Delaware County folks, feel free to link up with me. Everyone else across the country, I am, of course, interested in hearing from you as well.