Has the GOP awakened "a sleeping giant"?

ColbertWatcher

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Thu Sep-04-08 06:52 PM
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Has the GOP awakened "a sleeping giant"?

This thread is about two related issues: the GOP attack on community organizers and how the GOP wants to control who gets government contracts and grant money.

I just read the Daily Kos diary that was referred to in this post by DUer malaise about community organizers that the GOP should know about.

It's a beautiful piece, and I agree with the people who left comments saying it would make a great ad.

But, we need to keep the GOP's words about community organizers in our faces everyday as a constant reminder of what we're up against:

Rudy 9iu11ani:

He worked as a community organizer. (Laughter) What?...Barack Obama has never led anything, nothing, nada.

Sarah Palin:

This world of threats and dangers, it's not just a community and it doesn't just need an organizer. (Laughter.)

Sure, the GOP are known for lying, fighting dirty and doing whatever it takes to ~~win~~ stay in power, but I don't think they know what they're in for. They always assume that their attacks would go without a response because they always fall into the trap of believing their own press and mentally set their opponent up as a straw man, unable to refute their wonderfully crafted argument.

What is so powerful about the argument made in the Daily Kos diary is that it merely hints at how unready the GOP will be be for the backlash they will face for their flippant comment. The diary is not a straw man, and neither are community organizers.

As for the strange GOP habit of insuring only their donors will receive government funding, here's a quote from the name at the top of the GOP ticket, the man the GOP-controlled media seems to be ignoring, John McCain:

John McCain:

(a faith-based group) "...should not be required to hire someone that they don’t want to hire in my view. (...) I think the president’s faith-based organization has been successful and I support what he has done"

It is the threat to the monopoly the GOP has created for organizations favorable to their ideology that the GOP are really angry about. This is the evangelical-coded language that always seems to make its way into every GOP politician's speeches.

In the eyes of the GOP, community organizers are taking money that the GOP believe rightfully belongs to their churches. Community organizers are the people who are going out into the places the churches have abandoned and the GOP cannot see this as "helping those in need"; the GOP sees it as an invasion of their "turf".

Obama responded to their insults today by focusing the conversation:

"And the question I have for them is? Why would that kind of work be ridiculous? Who are they fighting for? Who are they advocating for?

"Maybe that's the problem," Obama said. "Maybe that part of why they are out of touch and don't get it because they haven't spent much time working for those kind of folks."

--Swamp Politics, The Chicago Tribune's Washington Bureau

And he's right, the GOP does no work for these communities; for the GOP, they are nothing more than obstacles to government money. It is no different than the abstinence-only conditions the Bush Administration put on African nations desperate for AIDS funding: recipient countries have to emphasize abstinence over condoms in order to receive the GOP's largess. It is important to note that Bush considers his AIDS program in Africa to be the program that will define his legacy.

Nor is it any different than the no-bid contracts that has kept Halliburton and Blackwater in Iraq and swimming in billions and billions of dollars.

Community organizers are not just a threat to the GOP's image of itself as the "compassionate conservatives", but it threatens their bottom line. For every dollar community organizers get into the hands of people who need it, it is one less dollar for churches more likely to proselytize GOP values and push their congregations to vote GOP.

It's high time the GOP learn a bit about history. Starting with any and every battle where the attacker underestimates his targets and maybe they'll understand why Iraq wasn't all flowers and candy and they might not be so surprised when they wake up November 4th to find communities all over America organized against their divisiveness and hatred.

To belittle people who work to better their communities is not a good strategy and it is my hope that the GOP survives just long enough regret it.