Embattled Community Organizers Gather for Online ‘Upgrade’

http://www.inthesetimes.com/working/entry/5031/embattled_community_organizers_gather_for_online_upgrade/

Friday October 9 2:02 pm

By Jeremy Gantz

Community organizers have had a very rough year.

First there were the derisive remarks by Republicans during last year's campaign (Sarah Palin: "a small-town mayor is sort of like a community organizer, except that you have actual responsibilities"). Then candidate John McCain and his party did their best to smear ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, by trumpeting reports of fraudulent voter registration cards filed by a handful of ACORN canvassers.



Last month, conservatives targeted the national organization again, releasing damning videos showing ACORN workers apparently encouraging prostitution and tax evasion. Congress sprang into action, denying federal funding to ACORN and its affiliates. (As Christopher Hayes of The Nation noted, during the last 15 years these organizations have received about $3.5 million per year, or about one-millionth of this year's budget.)

As Randy Shaw wrote Monday in an article surveying the impact of ACORN's de-funding and current troubles, "the entire progressive movement will be impacted by the potential loss of ACORN's role as one of the nation's leading entry points for young people seeking community organizing careers."

Enter Organizing Upgrade. The new online project, which launched October 1, aims to brings together established community organizers and progressive strategists from around the country to talk about the challenges facing their efforts to build a better world.

"We are creating a space for community organizers and activists to share ideas, analysis, and strategy across the U.S.," said Harmony Goldberg, who created Organizing Upgrade with Sushma Sheth, and Joseph Phelan. "e must move our values of honesty, transparency, and discourse to shape action and push back on the right's upsurge in recent times." (Goldberg is a co-founder of SOUL, School of Unity and Liberation; Sheth is a former Miami Workers Center organizer; Phelan is that center's communications coordinator.)

FULL story at link.