President Barack Obama is organizing to gain American support to bring the change his administration seeks in the White House. OFA, or “Organizing for America,” is Obama’s new grass-roots movement, which will help bring his policies on energy, healthcare and education about.
Obama is the first president to use new media technology to reach and recruit support from the American people. By utilizing the Internet, e-mail and social networks, the president has gained support from a wide audience. The OFA campaign is taking this to the next level; it is bringing its agenda to doorsteps.
OFA will “map out and identify support” across America using its 13-million e-mail database for recruiting citizens. Supporters may pledge financially, make phone calls, knock on doors and forward e-mails to fulfill goals Obama has set.
An OFA training video stated the goal of the recruiter is to get people to commit. Workers are encouraged to “make sure to obtain important information such as e-mails” if the person has neglected to put it down.
Though the project sounds like a good strategy in garnering nationwide support for the president’s policies, one may wonder what kind of commitment the president is truly seeking and why he would obtain it in this fashion?
After a disagreement with an Obama campaign worker during the election, a Texas woman was visited by the FBI, which claimed she allegedly made death threats against Obama. Jessica Hughes told the Lufkin Daily News she never made such remarks and was phoned by the recruiter, who asked if she supported Obama.
“No, I don’t support him,” Hughes said. “Your guy is a socialist who voted four times in the state Senate to let little babies die in hospital closets.”
The recruiter reported Hughes stated that Obama would “end up dead on a hospital floor.” Though a misunderstanding was possible, an intentional act of retribution by the recruiter is also likely.
Because OFA will map out support, it is possible it will also map out individuals that do not agree with the president’s policies. The movement may create distrust of those who voice opinions viewed as constraining social progress.
In an article from American Thinker, writer Lona Manning stated that OFA uses tactics similar to China, where the Red Guard swore to uphold and protect the agenda of Mao Tse-Tung.
She compared OFA to Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez’s “neighborhood committees” and Cuban dictator Fidel Castro’s “neighborhood informers,” which allowed the government to know the identities and other personal information of potential dissenters.
Manning stated the pledge OFA members take is odd and that members seem to follow blindly, having “renounced any thought of questioning the actual policies.”
“[Supporters take] a pledge to support — not the flag, not the Constitution, not the country, not even the Democratic Party, but Obama and his ‘bold plan,'” Manning wrote.
Obama won support in the election from an overwhelming majority, but to use citizens as recruiters to “organize” their neighbors’ political convictions isn’t necessary. The manner in which followers take a pledge to “commit” to Obama’s agenda while gathering detailed personal information is suspicious. The entire movement is undemocratic and seems a little strange.
Becky Yeh is a junior journalism major and a contributing writer for the Daily Forty-Niner.
what’s the deal with airline peanuts?
liberals!
Great article! I hope you used an alias, though, because, Becky, you may be the next person who supposedly made threats against the president.