Our Founding Fathers, the Nation's First Community Activists

There are several justified reasons to
criticize the current president (and all
the others as well), but his history of
community activism, scornfully mentioned
by his opponents in 2008, is not one of
them. Those same strident voices often
profess to be patriotic, yet fail miserably:
ignorant of our founding history, they don't
realize what made us great--our FIRST patriots,
Benjamin Franklin, 2nd President John Adams
and other Founders from the 1700s WERE
community activists, our first.

Being political and being community-active
are related, of course, but there are subtle
differences. It is possible to be political
without attempting to politically activate
the general populace, for example. Founders
Franklin, Adams and others had actual clubs
like the Junto which were intellectual
cross-fertilizations of political thought
without which we would not have these United
States. A large part of those recurring agendas
was devoted to deciding methods to try to
arouse their fellow British subjects.

The next time anyone hears Saul Alinsky and
Barack Obama denigrated as rabble rousers
or "community activists", please remember
(and remonstrate):

Our Founders were community activists and
organizers too.