Community Organizing

Commitment To Others (Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama) Vs. Commitment To One’s Own Wealth Acquisition (Mitt Romney)!

Two former Democratic Presidents—Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton—have devoted their post Presidential lives to a commitment to help others, through the Carter Center and the Clinton Initiative.

They have both stood out for their efforts to promote peace, fight hunger and disease, improve the lives of others, rather than set out to add to their own wealth acquisition.

At the same time, Barack Obama seems likely to follow the same pursuits, because, after all, he devoted his early adult life to being a community organizer in the toughest neighborhoods of Chicago, dealing with poverty, hunger, and family problems of many Chicago residents. He has been ridiculed by the right wing of the Republican Party for doing so, but then the right wing of the GOP has also shown a lack of respect and deference toward both Carter and Clinton with their retirement years commitment to doing good for others!

Meanwhile, Mitt Romney has devoted his entire adult life simply to the acquisition of wealth for the sake of wealth, not concerning himself with the closing down of businesses by Bain Capital, and the loss of jobs by many thousands of workers. He also likes to flaunt wealth, as with the car elevator at his one of many homes in California, and his refusal to release his tax returns, because it would reveal just how manipulative and deceitful he has been, a man who has no ethics or morals when it comes to the making of money!

Of course, it is said that Mitt Romney gives to “charity”, but that “charity” is almost completely to his Mormon Church, which requires a tithe of ten percent from its membership. So that is not all voluntary, and in any case, giving “charity” solely to one’s church is not true charity, in the sense that he has shown no interest, with his vast wealth, to support good causes, as has Carter and Clinton, both far less wealthy than Romney.

And it is predictable that if Romney loses the Presidency, he will devote his life to his church and to the constant acquisition of wealth, as this is the trend of his life, not devoting time and effort to good causes, as Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton have done, and assuredly, that Barack Obama will do in his post Presidency!

The Clashing Value Systems Of Mitt Romney And Barack Obama

Last night, after proclaiming victory in five Middle Atlantic and New England state primaries, Mitt Romney declared that a person’s success in the business world, as he has had, should be respected, but also applauded as something to admire and praise.

This is Mitt Romney’s whole life, the acquisition of wealth for its own sake, no matter how it is gained, and it has shaped Romney’s value system of what is important in one’s life, economic success. And he wants us to tell him how impressed we are with his gaining of wealth!

Barack Obama, on the other hand, did not know what wealth was until he made money from books he wrote, an intellectual challenge not connected with the business world. He was a community organizer in Chicago, helping poor people in unpleasant urban environments to cope with a difficult world, and used his intellectual nature to be an adjunct professor of constitutional law at the University of Chicago. Along the way, he and his wife Michele borrowed money on student loans to make it through college and law school, and held comparatively low paying jobs where he was helping others, and educating others. And then he ran for public office with a commitment to the advancement of others.

One has devoted his life to profits and being admired and applauded for materialism, which he loves to brag about, while the other devoted his life to service to others, concern about others, struggling to pay off student loans, and wishing to make a difference to the masses of people who are not born to wealth, or become wealthy.

These different value systems and mind sets are the crux of the election that is coming up in November!

What kind of President do we want? A President interested in his own constant acquisition of wealth and constant glorification of his accomplishments and success? Or a President who wishes to leave a legacy of making life better for those less fortunate, those who are the backbone of what America is all about, the every day citizen who just wants to have a better life and a sense of security for his children and for his or her old age?

This is a battle for the soul of America in 2012, a crucial turning point in American history!