Community Organizing - A no responsibility position says Palin

Since when did civic participation and service mean little more than a punchline of a joke? Since Sarah Palin and Rudy Giuliani made crude remarks in their speeches at the Republican National Convention about the insignificance of community organizing.

This line from Sarah Palin's convention speech has infuriated many in the civic engagement field:

"I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a 'community organizer,' except that you have actual responsibilities."

Community organizers serve their their states by organizing members in neighborhoods for improved housing, healthcare, education, and other social services. For a Republican to say that only those who work for the government and get paid by tax dollars "have responsibilities" is to deny their entire heritage of saying that the private sector is an important part of American society. As Peter Levine recently said in his blog post "there was a time when Republicans prided themselves on recognizing the power and responsibility of the private sector. But apparently they are so zealous to retain control of Washington power that they are willing to disparage active citizenship."

Yet one of the greatest traditions in the United States has been the decentralized system of creating change- whether it be the Women's Rights movement, the Civil Rights Movement, the Labor Movement, etc.

There is a reason why many are cynical of politics- election campaigns are themselves a joke- rather than talking about the policy issues, we hear countless ad hominem attacks, people are turned off by it. For this reason, community organizing, the grassroots method for changing policy, is a preferred route for civic engagement. Instead of choosing between politicians, individuals get to choose to support an issue. But perhaps Sarah Palin and Rudy Giuliani have more important things to do than listen to the issues important to the communities they are supposedly serving.