[Marxism] Organizers In -- And Beyond -- the Obama Campaign

["Hunter Gray" <hunterbadbear@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

The faithful Portside -- the left-focused and non-sectarian Net media outlet -- 
posted yesterday an interesting piece, "The New Organizers: What's Really 
Behind Obama's Ground Game." See Portside at http://www.portside.org/

Essentially it's a paean of praise for the -- admittedly quite impressive -- 
networking structure built by the Obama campaign with its balance of paid field 
organizers and grassroots volunteers.  A number of obviously worthy individuals 
and their observations and reflections are given due space in the piece.

All well and good -- but I have some obvious questions and a few additional 
thoughts:

The Obama campaign is super heavily funded -- almost beyond one's 
comprehension. And it's operating as a reform crusade in a nation facing one of 
the gravest economic/political/social crises in its history.  It has almost 
unprecedented widespread and "respectable" backing from the American political 
and economic mainstream.

And Barack Obama himself is -- in sharp contrast to his adversaries -- a 
singularly attractive individual with the gift of true oratory.

But no organizing campaign -- at least none in the world of bona fide social 
justice-seeking -- has ever had anything even remotely close to a modest 
fraction of the spending funds of the Obama campaign -- nor its broad and 
respectable stratospheric backing.  Most grassroots organizing, always heavily 
dependent on altruistic and courageous volunteers, with hopefully some 
professional organizers, is a low-budget affair -- "nickels and dimes."  The 
salaries of the professional organizers -- true and committed -- are 
consistently modest.  Social justice campaigns are, far more often than not, 
opposed vigorously -- even virulently -- by the respectables.  [After all, the 
justice campaigns are out to take power from the top and return it to the local 
folk.]

And, while some of the people involved at all levels in the fights for justice 
are genuinely charismatic, most fall short of that -- like "me and thee."  

And all of those in conventional organizing campaigns have to scrabble hard for 
even a modicum of decent media coverage.

An obvious and fast on-coming question is, "What will happen when Obama [and 
the Democrats] win?"

Will this vast grassroots network -- founded, frankly, as an electoral empire 
-- survive in at least good measure over the longer pull? And, if so, will it 
do good works: e.g., force, via enduring grassroots pressure, all of the 
Democrats [and others] to carry out their vast myriad of good promises -- and, 
conversely, block the bad ones [e.g., expanding the obviously highly 
questionable and clearly unwinnable Afghanistan War]?

Will the high idealism that shines in the faces of the millions of Obama 
supporters and emanates in a great glow from the ever-larger crowds be able to 
transcend the limitations of Obama and the Democrats -- and go further, and 
ever further, into building an enduring trail toward the Big Rock Candy 
Mountain?

Last winter I wrote this -- voicing, I'm sure, that which a great many of us on 
the general Left were -- and are -- thinking:

"Long after this campaign has run its course -- for relative "better" or worse 
-- the fact remains that for the first time in decades vast numbers of younger 
people -- and many oldsters as well -- will have been sparked and stoked into 
good fire. Some will fade away -- but a great many will remain in an least some 
sort of activist mode. If what constitutes an "American Left" ignores this, it 
runs the great risk of a retreat into meaningless monasticism. People have to 
make their own decisions -- e.g., Obama or "third party" or otherwise -- but 
don't ignore or attack the tremendous phenomenon presently underway, and 
building." -- A FEW THOUGHTS ON AN EARLY SNAKE RIVER COUNTRY MORNING  [HUNTER 
BEAR - FEBRUARY 3 2008]

The true social justice organizer -- whether professional or volunteer -- is 
always a Long Distance Runner.

Even if their dinero is always slim.

Just a few thoughts on a rather cool October morn in the Snake River country.

Solidarity,

Hunter [Hunter Bear]


HUNTER GRAY [HUNTER BEAR/JOHN R SALTER JR] Mi'kmaq /St. Francis

Abenaki/St. Regis Mohawk
Protected by Na´shdo´i´ba´i´
and Ohkwari'

Check out our Hunterbear website Directory http://hunterbear.org/directory.htm
[The site is dedicated to our one-half Bobcat, Cloudy Gray:
http://hunterbear.org/cloudy_gray.htm

See our Community Organizing Course [With new material]
http://hunterbear.org/my_combined_community_organizing.htm

See http://hunterbear.org/outlaw_trail1.htm

And see http://hunterbear.org/forces_and_faces_along_the_trail.htm

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