Wade Rathke is the founder of ACORN International where he was chief organizer for 39 years. He is also founder and chief organizer of the Service Employees International Union Local 100, and publisher and editor of Social Policy, a quarterly magazine for scholars and activists, and the author of Citizen Wealth: Winning the Campaign to Save Working Families and The Battle for the Ninth Ward: ACORN, Rebuilding New Orleans, and the Lessons of Disaster. At his blog Chief Organizer, he writes: Obama is wrong about social movements and activists:
President Obama is on his farewell tour. Speaking to a young, university audience in London while trying to drum up some support for Britain to stay in the European Union, he offered what has to be seen as totally gratuitous advice to them – and of course all of the rest of us – about what he sees as the proper, underline “proper,” role for social movements and activists. And, not surprisingly, he is totally wrong, but here was what he had to offer:
“The value of social movements and activism is to get you at the table, get you in the room, and then to start trying to figure out how is this problem going to be solved. You then have a responsibility to prepare an agenda that is achievable, that can institutionalize the changes you seek, and to engage the other side, and occasionally to take half a loaf that will advance the gains that you seek, understanding that there’s going to be more work to do, but this is what is achievable at this moment.”
In The New York Times story about his remarks, they predictably added that something that they felt, equally gratuitously, would help give an extra dose of credibility or street cred to the President of the United States, arguably—and temporarily—one of the powerful people in the world. They offered that,
Mr. Obama began his career as a community organizer working on local initiatives in poor neighborhoods in Chicago. Sometimes, he said, solving a problem means accepting a series of partial solutions.
Now, certainly if you are a big whoop, or the biggest whoop of them all you, want the rowdies out there to get the message that if you lean down from your perch and deign to listen to them for a hot minute, they are supposed to understand that they are supposed to behave, thank you, and then go and shut the heck up. But, as Obama surely must really know, regardless of the claptrap he’s selling right now, the role of social movements, and many activists, is exactly the opposite. The role of social movements in fact is to speak “truth to power,” not to make the deals and settle for the incremental changes, but to chant, “more, more, more,” keep the heat on that continues to create the pressure and push to create the space for the deal-makers to do their thing to get closer and closer to the mark, and not stop until the job is done.
Obama knows from his time in Chicago that an organization has to accept “half a loaf” frequently to deliver to its members. Good organizations get more, and weaker organizations get less, but it’s a social movement’s job to continue to raise the banner for truth, justice, and the whole loaf. There’s a different between seeking power and putting on the pressure.
The Alinsky tradition, that Obama shared, was always uncomfortable with social movements because they were too easily appeased by applause, rather than being thankful that social movements enlarged the space to allow organizations to win even greater victories. Sadly, but once again not surprisingly, Obama knew this seven years ago when he challenged activists to push him – and the country – if they wanted more change, but now that he’s more worried about his past legacy, than his future accomplishments, he sitting too comfortably on the throne.
It’s worth respecting his position, but for the sake of all of us working for change, when it comes to social movements, we need to adamantly decline to follow his advice.
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At Daily Kos on this date in 2003—Liars:
The anti-war movement made two key points in the lead-up to GW II: 1) the Bush Administration was overstating the case against Saddam, and 2) by doing so, it was putting our troops and civilians in harm's way.
Iraq fought back harder than many expected, but luckily for everyone its regulars laid down arms before a truly bloody confrontation in Baghdad. Still, we suffered 600 dead and wounded, and thousands of Iraqi soldiers and innocent civilians lost their lives in the war. Thus, #2 came to pass. Thousands died.
So it's important to see whether their lives were given in vain, or whether their ultimate sacrifice was indeed in pursuit of our national security.
So it's with genuine horror that it's clear that we naysayers were right. Administration officials are now admitting they overstated the thread of Iraqi WMDs, and invaded Iraq simply to "make a point." […]
So Powell told the world that Iraq had thousands of tons of chemical weapons. The administration now admits that they won't find that much, and may not find any at all. And it's not a lie???? It's a "matter of emphasis"?
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On today’s Kagro in the Morning show: Gearing up for tomorrow’s primaries. CT looks tightest. Will guns make the difference? Tamir Rice settlement. Former Sen. Harris Wofford to wed. Escalation against ISIS. Just your average in-church shooting. The endorsement game gets tricky: PA & MD-SEN.
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