Organizing for America (OFA), the current incarnation of the amazing Obama political machine, staged an event in Ventura on Saturday afternoon, May 9th. This event was part of what is being billed as “California Listening Tour Events,” which are mirrored across the nation. The amibiguity of the title, suggesting as it does that the Obama administration is listening to us the people, was soon apparent: We were there primarily to listen to them and to propose ways in which we could support their agenda. The OFA faithful are of course the same organizers who were so spectacularly successful in electing Barack Obama to the presidency. Although there was mention of a connection to the Democratic National Committee, it looked a whole lot more like the separate political party it seems to be.
Event participants were divided into discussion groups, which is the stylized format for this sort of ersatz grass roots oganizing, and told to talk about how “to take action locally in support of OFA’s mission,” to “think creatively about how we can illustrate and support our national organizing campaigns,” and to offer up the resources we “have in our community to assist our goals as OFA volunteers.”
Although, as with the Borg, resistance is futile, some of the discussion participants proffered notions about ways in which the Obama administration might honor his campaign promises. The OFA faithful, however, did their best to quash such suggestions. Any outbursts about such subjects as single-payer health care were sternly dealt with by reiterating that we were there to support the OFA mission, not to suggest what it should be. An inventor who had brought schematics for clean energy devices was told to put them away because we were there to support the OFA mission. A genuine community organizer who had years of experience with programs providing low-cost housing and shelters for the homeless and the mentally ill suggested that one approach might be for the current administration to support existing community programs, but this bit of common sense did not qualify as support of the OFA mission.
These Obamania events are certainly interesting phenomena, but they are also vaguely disquieting in their similarities to other paths taken by the zealous, and where they have lead.
