Community Organizers Fight Back Against GOP Attacks

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
September 4, 2008

Contact: John Raskin, Community Organizer
646-369-8093 (cell)

Community Organizers Fight Back Against GOP Attacks

Organizers demand apology from Alaska governor, say "we're working to
clean up your mess!"

New York, NY-Community organizers across America, taken aback by a
series of attacks from Republican leaders at the GOP convention in St.
Paul, came together today to defend their work organizing Americans
who have been left behind by unemployment, lack of health insurance
and the national housing crisis. The organizers demanded an apology
from Alaska Governor Sarah Palin for her statement that community
organizers have no "actual responsibilities" and launched a web site,
http://organizersfightback.wordpress.com, to defend themselves against
Republican attacks.

"Community organizers work in neighborhoods that have been hit hardest
by the failing economy," said John Raskin, founder of Community
Organizers of America and a community organizer on the West Side of
Manhattan. "The last thing we need is for Republican officials to
mock us on television when we're trying to rebuild the neighborhoods
they have destroyed. Maybe if everyone had more houses than they can
count, we wouldn't need community organizers. But I work with people
who are getting evicted from their only home. If John McCain and the
Republicans understood that, maybe they wouldn't be so quick to make
fun of community organizers like me."

Though many people are unfamiliar with community organizing, the job
is both straightforward and vital: community organizers work with
families who are struggling-because of low wages, poor health
coverage, unaffordable housing, and other community problems-so that
collectively, they can fix those problems and make government respond
to their day-to-day concerns. Organizers knock on doors, attend
community meetings, visit churches and synagogues and mosques, and
work with unions and civic groups and block associations to help
ordinary people build power and counter the influence of
self-interested insiders and highly paid lobbyists at all levels of
government.

Scorn for community organizers has been a prominent feature of this
week's Republican convention. On Wednesday, three Republican leaders
mocked community organizers:

-Former Governor George Pataki said: "[Barack Obama] was a community
organizer. What in God's name is a community organizer? I don't even
know if that's a job."

-Former Mayor Rudy Giuliani said: "On the other hand, you have a
resume from a gifted man with an Ivy League education. He worked as a
community organizer. What? [Laughter].I said, OK, OK, maybe this is
the first problem on the resume."

-Governor Sarah Palin said: "I guess a small-town mayor is sort of
like a community organizer, except that you have actual
responsibilities."

Community organizers were quick to fire back.

"I have 'actual responsibilities,'" said Jacqueline del Valle, a
community organizer in the Bronx. "If Mayor Giuliani and President
Bush cared more about working people instead of just people who can
hire high-powered lobbyists, maybe I wouldn't have so much
responsibility. Maybe working people would have an easier time in
America today. But that's not our reality, and they don't have to
mock us while we're trying to clean up their mess."

The community organizers launched a new web site,
http://organizersfightback.wordpress.com, to defend themselves against
Republican attacks. They emphasize that their work will be necessary
as long as lobbyists have undue influence over American government and
the economy continues to fail people who work hard and still struggle
to provide for themselves and their families.

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