What Did Obama Accomplish In Chicago? Plenty.
… how does Obama explain his failure to achieve any real accomplishments as a community organizer?
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The revealing point about community service here is that many people engage in it despite its fruitlessness. Why? Perhaps they want to do “something” even if that amounts to nothing. But I suspect the answer really is that community service is a social-status indicator among a certain class of people. Being “involved” is a way to indicate that they are a certain type of person (generally, “liberal with leisure time”) with a certain attitudinal disposition (basically, “full of caring”). In short, what community service accomplishes has very little to do with those who are allegedly being helped. Instead, the real beneficiaries are the do-gooders who get to feel good about themselves, meet potential mates of their own social class, and brag to friends about the good they are doing.
I agree with the central contention of this post, but I take issue with the title. Obama accomplished a lot in Chicago, just not as a community organizer.
Grim proving ground for Obama’s housing policy
”The candidate endorsed subsidies for private entrepreneurs to build low-income units. But, while he garnered support from developers, many projects in his former district have fallen into disrepair.”
Boston Globe
Translation: During his tenure as an Illinois State Senator, BO funnelled millions in subsidies to corrupt land developers to build slums in his district. These developers (Valerie Jarrett, Tony Rezko, Allison Davis, Cecil Butler, Daniel Levin, etc.) then raised and contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars to his campaigns.
BO sold his most vulnerable constituents one-way tickets on the Hope train to Changeville, and he and his buddies laughed all the way to the bank.
- Hale
