What to do when you hate both candidates? - Page 3 - Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community

SecretMethod70 · 09-30-2008, 09:36 PM

Nope, and I'm actually against eliminating the electoral college. We can fix the major issues in our elections by changing how we count the votes, while still maintaining the federal nature of the process through the electoral college. Not to mention the issues of voter efficacy and geographical influences. Look at any situation where the electoral college "got it wrong" and the root of the problem is the fact the states don't use a good voting method. If Florida, in 2000, used a Condorcet method, Gore would have easily won Florida's electoral votes.

ratbastid · 10-01-2008, 04:57 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SecretMethod70

...while still maintaining the federal nature of the process through the electoral college.

I'm unclear on the benefit of that, though, Smeth. Seems to me a national election should be, well, national, and that federalism in this case is an antiquated formalism. Care to edumucate me on this?

smooth · 10-07-2008, 08:57 AM

Pan, I'm surprised that no one answered your question of what a community organizer does.
Community organizers get people from different, usually oppositional sections of communities and gets them to discuss their problems until they can figure out their common interests and what can be done to meet them.

So in Chicago, you have a pretty dire situation in that many traditional ways of controlling behavior have broken down.
The political system is notoriously riddled with corruption, legitimate job market is decimated, shops are boarded up, huge levels of gang violence, reduced funding for police, churches that can't keep their parishioners safe, fed, or clothed, addicts that can't get medical treatment, schools that can't teach effectively due to lack of funding, violence, and students who believe they have better chances running drugs than attending.

Then you take someone who believes he or she can make a difference.
That person has to figure out how to get police chiefs, politicians, health practitioners, gang leaders, church leaders, business leaders, union workers, and addicts to all sit down in one room and talk to one another about what they think their problems are and what kinds of solutions they can think of and then from there how to practically implement them.

A community organizer has to be able to talk to each of those groups and facilitate them talking TO (rather than AT) one another, and I would think that you more than most here would understand that a lot of people from those groups can smell an imposter from a mile away so it's not very likely you can do that for very long and maintain respect and authority among them without being genuine.

A lot of reasons for this, but Chicago has an incredibly rich history of community organization. Do you respect the work of people like Chavez or Jane Addams? I'm pretty sure you have a deep appreciation for Ralph Nader and MLK. They were all community organizers, Pan.

pan6467 · 10-17-2008, 10:56 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by smooth

Pan, I'm surprised that no one answered your question of what a community organizer does.
Community organizers get people from different, usually oppositional sections of communities and gets them to discuss their problems until they can figure out their common interests and what can be done to meet them.

So in Chicago, you have a pretty dire situation in that many traditional ways of controlling behavior have broken down.
The political system is notoriously riddled with corruption, legitimate job market is decimated, shops are boarded up, huge levels of gang violence, reduced funding for police, churches that can't keep their parishioners safe, fed, or clothed, addicts that can't get medical treatment, schools that can't teach effectively due to lack of funding, violence, and students who believe they have better chances running drugs than attending.

Then you take someone who believes he or she can make a difference.
That person has to figure out how to get police chiefs, politicians, health practitioners, gang leaders, church leaders, business leaders, union workers, and addicts to all sit down in one room and talk to one another about what they think their problems are and what kinds of solutions they can think of and then from there how to practically implement them.

A community organizer has to be able to talk to each of those groups and facilitate them talking TO (rather than AT) one another, and I would think that you more than most here would understand that a lot of people from those groups can smell an imposter from a mile away so it's not very likely you can do that for very long and maintain respect and authority among them without being genuine.

A lot of reasons for this, but Chicago has an incredibly rich history of community organization. Do you respect the work of people like Chavez or Jane Addams? I'm pretty sure you have a deep appreciation for Ralph Nader and MLK. They were all community organizers, Pan.

I do have a deep appreciation of what Nader once was.

And I appreciate what you are saying.... the true community organizers do great work. But there are others that allow power and greed to corrupt their message.

I just find it interesting people cannot point to what Obama did as a community organizer. Where are all the people his community organizing helped?

Instead of telling us McCain is more of the same..... why not hit us with ads of how Obama the community organizer helped someone better their life?

MLK could, Nader could, Chavez, and so on. Why doesn't Obama?

dc_dux · 10-17-2008, 11:08 AM

pan....read this profile in The Nation

Obama's Community Roots

Obama, only 24, struck board members as "awesome" and "extremely impressive," and they quickly hired him, at $13,000 a year, plus $2,000 for a car--a beat-up blue Honda Civic, which Obama drove for the next three years organizing more than twenty congregations to change their neighborhoods....

...He honed his talent for listening, learned pragmatic strategy, practiced bringing varied people together...

...virtually everyone described him in glowing terms, including dedicated, hard-working, dependable, intelligent, inspiring, a good listener, confident but self-effacing. They expressed admiration for him as an organizer who trained strong community leaders while keeping himself in the background and as a strategist who could turn general problems into specific, winnable issues....

...Obama's organizing history may give few clues about what policies he would pursue as President, but Obama the presidential candidate still shows his roots--a faith in ordinary citizens, a quest for common ground and a pragmatic inclination toward defining issues in winnable ways....

Although, I wont be surprised if you find a way to twist it....to somehow imply that he took that $13,000 /yr job as part of a long term plan to gain power through greed and corruption.

smooth · 10-17-2008, 02:11 PM

I don't know what kinds of ads are circulating in Ohio. I suspect that the ads over in California are different from the ones you are seeing. Over here, we are shown Obama standing among citizens and speaking about his own policies and beliefs, and then ending with him personally approving the message. The only ads I've seen about McCain are on Fox News or MSNBC where they are followed with political commentary. They are shown within the context of hourly news shows, not as paid for advertisements.

I suspect that over in Ohio you are receiving them as ads themselves (perhaps in addition to the news clips commenting about them). Maybe this is done to target specific demographics, and perhaps due to it being a swing state, but over in metro areas and probably even more likely in Chicago where people have knowledge of specific groups of people, the kinds of ads you are curious about seem to be running. Of course, this was 20 years ago so I'm not sure where the specific people he worked with are located.

I'm not voting against McCain, however, so ads about him just roll of my back like water off a duck. I don't pay attention to them because he's not relevant to who I want representing me. I would have voted Green party if not for Obama.

pan6467 · 10-17-2008, 09:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dc_dux

pan....read this profile in The Nation

Obama's Community Roots

Obama, only 24, struck board members as "awesome" and "extremely impressive," and they quickly hired him, at $13,000 a year, plus $2,000 for a car--a beat-up blue Honda Civic, which Obama drove for the next three years organizing more than twenty congregations to change their neighborhoods....

...He honed his talent for listening, learned pragmatic strategy, practiced bringing varied people together...

...virtually everyone described him in glowing terms, including dedicated, hard-working, dependable, intelligent, inspiring, a good listener, confident but self-effacing. They expressed admiration for him as an organizer who trained strong community leaders while keeping himself in the background and as a strategist who could turn general problems into specific, winnable issues....

...Obama's organizing history may give few clues about what policies he would pursue as President, but Obama the presidential candidate still shows his roots--a faith in ordinary citizens, a quest for common ground and a pragmatic inclination toward defining issues in winnable ways....

Although, I wont be surprised if you find a way to twist it....to somehow imply that he took that $13,000 /yr job as part of a long term plan to gain power through greed and corruption.

Ye of little faith.

I appreciate that reply. It is nice to see what he did do. IF he would capitalize on his past more instead of letting associations be brought more to the surface, maybe it'd benefit him.

To me right now, it's hard to know what to believe anymore.... and I am past the point of caring. I know who I am voting for and why and the cons in doing so.... but this election is definitely not a choice of 2 great leaders, it is more likely to go down as one of the worst {and not necessarily by the winner's making}. But time and history will tell.

I do wish the winner luck and will stand behind the man elected as President and respect him as much as I can.

09-30-2008, 09:36 PM	#81 (permalink)
SecretMethod70 Human Administrator Location: Chicago	Nope, and I'm actually against eliminating the electoral college. We can fix the major issues in our elections by changing how we count the votes, while still maintaining the federal nature of the process through the electoral college. Not to mention the issues of voter efficacy and geographical influences. Look at any situation where the electoral college "got it wrong" and the root of the problem is the fact the states don't use a good voting method. If Florida, in 2000, used a Condorcet method, Gore would have easily won Florida's electoral votes. __________________ Le temps détruit tout "Musicians are the carriers and communicators of spirit in the most immediate sense." - Kurt Elling

10-07-2008, 08:57 AM	#83 (permalink)
smooth Junkie Location: Right here	Pan, I'm surprised that no one answered your question of what a community organizer does. Community organizers get people from different, usually oppositional sections of communities and gets them to discuss their problems until they can figure out their common interests and what can be done to meet them. So in Chicago, you have a pretty dire situation in that many traditional ways of controlling behavior have broken down. The political system is notoriously riddled with corruption, legitimate job market is decimated, shops are boarded up, huge levels of gang violence, reduced funding for police, churches that can't keep their parishioners safe, fed, or clothed, addicts that can't get medical treatment, schools that can't teach effectively due to lack of funding, violence, and students who believe they have better chances running drugs than attending. Then you take someone who believes he or she can make a difference. That person has to figure out how to get police chiefs, politicians, health practitioners, gang leaders, church leaders, business leaders, union workers, and addicts to all sit down in one room and talk to one another about what they think their problems are and what kinds of solutions they can think of and then from there how to practically implement them. A community organizer has to be able to talk to each of those groups and facilitate them talking TO (rather than AT) one another, and I would think that you more than most here would understand that a lot of people from those groups can smell an imposter from a mile away so it's not very likely you can do that for very long and maintain respect and authority among them without being genuine. A lot of reasons for this, but Chicago has an incredibly rich history of community organization. Do you respect the work of people like Chavez or Jane Addams? I'm pretty sure you have a deep appreciation for Ralph Nader and MLK. They were all community organizers, Pan. __________________ "The theory of a free press is that truth will emerge from free discussion, not that it will be presented perfectly and instantly in any one account." -- Walter Lippmann "You measure democracy by the freedom it gives its dissidents, not the freedom it gives its assimilated conformists." -- Abbie Hoffman

10-17-2008, 11:08 AM	#85 (permalink)
dc_dux Location: Washington DC	pan....read this profile in The Nation Obama's Community Roots Obama, only 24, struck board members as "awesome" and "extremely impressive," and they quickly hired him, at $13,000 a year, plus $2,000 for a car--a beat-up blue Honda Civic, which Obama drove for the next three years organizing more than twenty congregations to change their neighborhoods.... ...He honed his talent for listening, learned pragmatic strategy, practiced bringing varied people together... ...virtually everyone described him in glowing terms, including dedicated, hard-working, dependable, intelligent, inspiring, a good listener, confident but self-effacing. They expressed admiration for him as an organizer who trained strong community leaders while keeping himself in the background and as a strategist who could turn general problems into specific, winnable issues.... ...Obama's organizing history may give few clues about what policies he would pursue as President, but Obama the presidential candidate still shows his roots--a faith in ordinary citizens, a quest for common ground and a pragmatic inclination toward defining issues in winnable ways.... Although, I wont be surprised if you find a way to twist it....to somehow imply that he took that $13,000 /yr job as part of a long term plan to gain power through greed and corruption. __________________ "The perfect is the enemy of the good." ~ Voltaire Last edited by dc_dux; 10-17-2008 at 11:23 AM..

10-17-2008, 02:11 PM	#86 (permalink)
smooth Junkie Location: Right here	I don't know what kinds of ads are circulating in Ohio. I suspect that the ads over in California are different from the ones you are seeing. Over here, we are shown Obama standing among citizens and speaking about his own policies and beliefs, and then ending with him personally approving the message. The only ads I've seen about McCain are on Fox News or MSNBC where they are followed with political commentary. They are shown within the context of hourly news shows, not as paid for advertisements. I suspect that over in Ohio you are receiving them as ads themselves (perhaps in addition to the news clips commenting about them). Maybe this is done to target specific demographics, and perhaps due to it being a swing state, but over in metro areas and probably even more likely in Chicago where people have knowledge of specific groups of people, the kinds of ads you are curious about seem to be running. Of course, this was 20 years ago so I'm not sure where the specific people he worked with are located. I'm not voting against McCain, however, so ads about him just roll of my back like water off a duck. I don't pay attention to them because he's not relevant to who I want representing me. I would have voted Green party if not for Obama. __________________ "The theory of a free press is that truth will emerge from free discussion, not that it will be presented perfectly and instantly in any one account." -- Walter Lippmann "You measure democracy by the freedom it gives its dissidents, not the freedom it gives its assimilated conformists." -- Abbie Hoffman