Enemies of the Open Society

¡Hola! Everybody...
Today, some idiots from the right wing are actually saying that the racial epithets used at tea party rallies proves racism is dead . One of these goobers is Bill Bennett, the “morals” crusader-cum-obsessive gambler once submitted that you could aborted every black baby and the crime rate would go down. This makes sense to some people, BTW. I am not making this up.

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-=[ The Open Society and its Enemies ]=-

A demagogue is one who preaches doctrines he knows to be untrue to men he knows to be idiots.

-- H.L. Mencken

The following rambles, but it makes a point (I think)...

Not too long ago, I walked by a “community garden” in one of Brooklyn’s less affluent neighborhood. It’s a garden full of beautiful plants and even tomatoes and some corn growing by one corner. You can hear the laughter of children as they play on the swings and the little carousel, or act out on the makeshift stage. Mothers with newborn children in their carriages stroll through... and I was reminded that when I first saw that small plot of land, it’s was an empty lot full if refuse, overrun by tall weeds, and the working space of a few local prostitutes.

I once knocked on almost all the doors of that run down city block (and several adjoining blocks), asking people about the rat-infested, dirty, dangerous empty lot. I listened to the countless stories of babies being bitten by the infestation of rats caused by the empty lot. How crack heads would gather there, and the countless times children were exposed to the open-air sex trade.

After listening, I asked each person who opened his or her door to me one question, “If you had the power, what would you do to fix that empty lot?”

I heard many solutions, very innovative -- from building affordable housing to making it into a park, etc. I would invite everyone I engaged to join a “group of concerned neighbors” who were doing something to change that lot and everything it represented.

Actually, I really didn’t have a group; it was part of my strategy.

Eventually, I would help bring together a small group of community residents organized around that empty lot. At first it was small -- maybe 7-9 people. One day, I was able to convince two mothers. You know the type if you were raised in any kind of community. These were the archetypal “universal mother” -- everyone’s mother. Leaders among their neighbors who nobody fucked with. With their help and the help of the rest of my rag-tag group of leaders, we were able to grow that community group to over 100 members. Many of those members were far from radical. Many were very conservative, in fact. Some were anti-choice devout churchgoers, others were more progressive. In short, these were working stiffs tired of that lot and everything it represented.

When I got enough people, I invited my group to attend a rally. During that rally, police needlessly manhandled a few of the church ladies. This changed everything! The church ladies didn’t understand why they were treated disrespectfully. After all, they were working people, they paid taxes, and followed rules, were law-abiding citizens!

They got the fever...

Eventually, this group (still in existence), took over that empty lot, and through a series of actions and negotiations, they made the city clean it and eventually it was given “park” status, meaning it was officially under the direction of the City’s Park Dept. They didn’t stop there. They took over several area abandoned buildings, made the city take over them and utilizing state/ city programs (sadly done away with as soon as Giuliani took over) created permanent affordable housing. That block was transformed, as well as some of the surrounding blocks, and while the neighborhood isn’t Park Avenue, it’s a far cry from what it used to be. Today, the Yuppies are taking over in droves as gentrification creeps up from the now unaffordable Williamsburg.

This post isn’t about me, so please, don’t emphasize that part. This post is about what it means to be a participant in the democratic process. I worked as a community organizer for a very short time. Too short. I left mostly because of philosophical differences with the organization. Still, that organization did a lot to help people like those hard-working church ladies of my group. They also did a lot to help millions vote.

Today, that organization doesn’t exist. It doesn’t exist because the right-wing focused their cross hairs on the group and took it down. They took tapes and edited them to make it look as if the workers of that organization were agreeing to agree to traffic in prostitution when in fact, they were doing the exact opposite (click here to view an exposé of this cowardice).

That organization was called ACORN and today it doesn’t exist because those who fear and loathe the democratic process wanted to take it down. They succeeded and today we’re less of a nation because of it.

Eddie