New Orleans Nothing about the Cameron government “Big Society” initiative to insert community organizers into poor areas around the United Kingdom seemed very organic or likely to succeed once the real deal started to crystallize. Going from a 5000 organizer initiative over four years would mean producing an average of only 125 per year. Ostensibly, …
Category: International
The Curious Contradictions of Community Organizing and the United Kingdom – Part I
New Orleans Another day of rioting in the United Kingdom finds more police on the street, more protestations from conservative Prime Minister David Cameron about “criminality,” and little relief or recognition of the crises stripped bare by the mess and mayhem. Given the rise of community organizing in the UK and the reported government efforts …
When Hope is not Enough, Riots Eventually Follow
New Orleans Headlines blaring that Britain’s leaders were “caught unprepared” at the outbreak of riots throughout metropolitan London and now spreading to Birmingham were surprising to me. Persistent, structural unemployment, marginalized housing and living conditions, no prospects for the future, severe and draconian austerity cutbacks in social services and family support, are all coming together …