What is Acorn? And Why Progressives Need to Support It
By now most Americans have heard of the group, ACORN. It is so unique the mainstream press, especially the Washington Post, CNN, and other television networks are ill prepared to explain what it really is. The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now is a nation-wide anti-poverty group that has, through community organizing, pressured powerful banks to provide home ownership opportunities for working people. It has fought to raise workers' wages, get traffic lights at dangerous intersections, increase police protection in low-income neighborhoods, and help families avoid foreclosures.
The group has improved the lives of millions of working families and strengthened America's democracy through its voter registration efforts. ACORN helped lift low-waged poor out of poverty by building the "living wage" and minimum wage movement, perhaps the most successful poor people's campaign during the past two decades. Coordinated and inspired by ACORN's Living Wage Resource Center, what began as a series of local efforts in the late 1990s, led to a national boost in the minimum wage in 2007, an increase signed by George Bush.
Unlike any other anti-poverty group, ACORN is a national organization with thousands of dues paying members, mostly black and Hispanic Americans, in cities around the country, many of whom participate in direct action and elect their local leaders. ACORN does not depend on one famous charismatic leader. It leaders, nurtured in local chapters across the country, are ordinary people who often do extraordinary things. To many of the poor and moderate-income families living in the Flatbush section of Brooklyn, South Central Los Angeles, the Ninth Ward of New Orleans and the hundreds of other neighborhoods where ACORN organizes, these unpaid neighbors are heroes.
Anticipating the subprime loans pushing people into mortgage foreclosure, ACORN campaigned in the late 1990s against the financial giant Household Finance Company's use of predatory, high interest, deceitful mortgage loans. Through a successful lawsuit and collaboration with 50 state attorneys general, ACORN obtained over $500 million dollars in compensation for injured families. Had the nation's political and financial leaders followed ACORN's lead, America would have avoided the epidemic of foreclosures that has engulfed the country. Since Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, ACORN's local chapter has saved thousands of homes through a volunteer home restoration project and built the Lower Ninth Ward's first new homes after the storm.
In Paterson, New Jersey, where I ran a legal services program, I watched ACORN members and their children, armed with black garbage bags, gardening gloves, and shovels, clean up Roberto Clemente Park removing newspapers, broken glass, and beer bottles, turning a neighborhood eyesore into a community asset. ACORN also organized a campaign to prevent lead poisoning in young children. I observed ACORN workers providing advice to families filling out tax returns, carefully showing eligible families how to obtain the Earned Income Tax Credit, a federal tax credit for the working poor, whose benefits were expanded by both Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton.
Since 2000 ACORN's effort to register millions of poor, minority voters, a time-honored way of bringing disenfranchised people into the American democratic process, put it squarely in the crosshairs of the Republican Party. Determined to destroy ACORN as a threat to the GOP, White House political director Karl Rove led an effort to get U.S. attorneys to file bogus "voter fraud" charges against the community group. When one of them, a Republican, David Iglesias, the U.S. attorney for New Mexico refused, Bush's Attorney General, Alberto Gonzalez, fired him - an abuse of power that cost Gonzalez his job once his brazen behavior became public. This month, the House Judiciary Committee released over 5,000 pages of White House and Republican National Committee e-mails, with transcripts of closed-door testimony by Karl Rove and former White House Counsel Harriet Miers. The documents reveal that Rove directed the sacking of U.S. Attorneys who found no evidence to indict ACORN.
ACORN has also long faced harassment from right-wingers, including Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and the Wall Street Journal editors, who attack ACORN for ideological reasons. While they call ACORN "socialist" and "left-wing," what they are really worried about is how ACORN effectively challenges big business and its conservative political allies on behalf of America's working families. They understand that ACORN's success dispels the conservative myth that we can only help the poor through private charity and an unfettered free market.
Like all large organizations made up of human beings ACORN is not without flaws. It has recruiting and oversight weaknesses, which were made worse over the last decade, when in response to the growing needs of the poor for a voice, ACORN grew too quickly -- from 50 organizers, 22 offices 80,000 members in 1999 to 300 organizers, 102 offices 400,000 members in 2008 -- and tried to do too much.
But it has a long history of quickly responding to its weaknesses. After the videotape prank by two young right-wing activists, ACORN's CEO Bertha Lewis quickly dismissed the offending employees caught on those videotapes giving tax advice and homeownership advice to a young man and woman pretending to be a pimp and prostitute. Although no tax or loan documents were prepared or filed and ACORN's management oversight mitigated any further harm from taking place, Lewis worked with ACORN's advisory council, a group of eminent progressives, including Maryland's former Lt. Governor Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, John Podesta and Andy Stern. The group appointed an outside auditor who will help recommend and implement necessary internal reforms. This week, a former Massachusetts Attorney General Scott Harshbarger was named to oversee the internal review.
Meanwhile Fox news broadcast these "gotcha" videos on a virtual round-the-clock basis, causing a controversy far out of proportion to its news value. We now know the hidden tapes were doctored, in some cases taken illegally, and that contrary to the filmmaker's claims that they were never rebuffed by any ACORN office they visited, eyewitnesses and two police reports reveal they had been turned away from several ACORN offices. Also, the filmmakers' own transcripts disclose some ACORN staff being duped by a bogus story about the filmmakers trying to protect a prostitute and immigrant girls from a violent pimp.
Moreover, the mainstream press failed to inform it readers that the video maker was guided by Andrew Breitbart, the founder of the conservative Web site Big Government, and a protégé of inflammatory Matt Drudge, who initially aired the offending ACORN videos. CNN and other members of the so called "liberal press," failed to introduce the story with the fact that this was part of a long conservative campaign to smear and vilify a group using any means necessary including lying and exaggeration, and tie their deceit to the Democratic president.
The mainstream media also neglected to inform the public that every scholar who has conducted a recent evaluation of ACORN found that it was a force for good in our communities. In a cynical age, when 24 hour cable news demands one sensational story after another, ACORN instills in its members a belief that the future can be a better day and that individuals, working together, have the power to shape their own destiny.
The effectiveness of the right wing echo chamber's attacks has damaged ACORN's reputation and led to cut off of federal funds. The capitulation of some on the left and some Democratic Party leaders to the attacks against ACORN is partly understandable. They want to avoid a public distraction from their efforts to pass national health care and Wall Street regulatory reforms. But surrendering to the right only empowers the Glenn Becks and the Republican leadership. First it was MoveOn.org, Planned Parenthood, and Van Jones, then ACORN, now they are going after SEIU and the Center for American Progress.
The right goes after the left's most effective groups. Because ACORN does not rely on government funds, but like a union and the NRA, has members' dues, the organization will survive the orchestrated attacks by the right. But if it's to restore its strength as the most effective national poor people's organization it will need the support of the progressive community. As one tenant activist in New Jersey, who is not a member of ACORN said to me, "ACORN is devoted to organizing poor people, mainly people of color, to fight for their rights in housing, education, etc. They are -- horror of horrors -- community activists. The progressive community should be rallying around them."
John Atlas is president of the Montclair based National Housing Institute, which produces Shelterforce magazine. His book on the history of ACORN, Seeds of Hope, published by Vanderbilt University Press, will be out in 2010.
Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now - Wikipedia ...
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ACORN grew to big, too fast and without appropriate administrative and executive controls. This has happened to many organizations; for profit and non profit, alike, and generally with the same result. I like the audit panel they have assembled to sort through the organizational issues and clean things up; I think conservative and progressives, alike, agree that this needs to be done. If laws have been broken, the resolution will come through the courts and not this discussion board. I support what ACORN was designed to do and the good that they produced; I will not condone illegal acts by any party, no matter the "intentions", however, I will let this be determined in the various courts of law now charged with the task. Taking a partisan view of this matter and slinging accusations serves absolutely no constructive purpose.
The fact is that we must have grass roots, community organizations to provide services to the poor that are not otherwise available. The alternative is to establish government agencies to take up the slack for the services that would be lost. without them. Since I doubt any of us really want MORE GOVERNMENT agencies, we should agree that charitable organizations providing voter registration, housing/loan information, tax preparation and the like are necessary; with clear and regular public reporting and unbiased, bipartisan oversight.
If you wish to abolish ACORN, what is your method to provide needed services to the underpriviledged, sufficient to afford them their inalienable rights under our constitution?
If you say it does not depend on government funds, Why did Barack Obama sign a 5.2 BILLION to them on January 27, 2009 go look it up I did
5.2bill? You've lost it.
Another Old Lie:
http://www.factcheck.org/2009/02/the-stimulus-bill-and-acorn/
OK, I've looked it up and can't find it. I find a couple of stories that claim some of the money in the stimulus package was for ACORN, but then the same writers go on to describe the measures as providing the funds for other organizations -- not specifically for ACORN (well, OK, that's what one of the headlines said, but the story contradicted it).
If you think this story is true it's incumbent on you to provide a link to it.
my link above disproves it. It's evil spin.
its time to bring back the fairness doctrine so that the independent investigations of Acorn would be required to be aired on Faux Noise, they create a lie and repeat it so many times that the MSM gobbles it up without questions
Support it with your money, not with taxpayer dollars.
yeah, defund em: KBR, Haliburton, Blackwater, and most large corporations the world, since they have been convicted of far worse.
I'm with you 100%. I bet Glen Beck isn't, but who knows? I especially want to see KBR de-funded; those leeches have been cheating the Pentagon since Vietnam. That was before Halliburton bought then up, and before they sold them off again. Let's get Halliburton, too. There are dozens of the bustards.
My response to all of the nonsense was to donate $36.50 to ACORN, and I suggest that anyone who can should. Can't let the right tear down what decent people have put so much labor into to create.
We have to fight back, or the right will land us in even more of a catastrophe than they already have.
I did the same thing!
I think that ACORN is clearly one of the reasons that the Democratic Party has done so well in serving the needs of the inner city community. Yes, mamam.
ACORN has done a lot of good for the Republican Party as well, for example Dale Rathke, the brother of ACORN's founder Wade Rathke, embezzled almost $1Million back in 1999 and 2000, but he was never prosecuted. Over the years, ACORN has funneled money donated to the organization to affiliates that used the money for political purposes, which is illegal. The most recent woes with voter registration fraud and the prostitute/pimp videos just add fuel to the fire
Where was it posted?
Try one more time to post...Well in a lawsuit both sides get to "discover" what the facts are in the case. Through the process of discovery both sides must supply all the files, records and pertinent data that might be involved in any way with the case. The discovery of ACORN will turn up some very interesting facts about the complete lack of any accounting in the entire ACORN organization. I think that the ACORN board with Mr John Podesta will regret ever filing this lawsuit. The world will roll when the discovery makes the news with what ACORN has done with the $53,000,000 in taxpayer money over the last fifteen years. And the great part will be watching the democrats in both houses explain why they voted for ACORN to be eligible for $8,500,000,000 of grants under the STIMULOUS Plan. That will be an nice talking point come next november for the Congressional midterms.
Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-atlas/what-is-acorn-and-why-pro_b_300087.html
Well in a lawsuit both sides get to "discover" what the facts are in the case. Through the process of discovery both sides must supply all the files, records and pertinent data that might be involved in any way with the case. The discovery of ACORN will turn up some very interesting facts about the complete lack of any accounting in the entire ACORN organization. I think that the ACORN board with Mr John Podesta will regret ever filing this lawsuit. The world will roll when the discovery makes the news with what ACORN has done with the $53,000,000 in taxpayer money over the last fifteen years. And the great part will be watching the democrats in both houses explain why they voted for ACORN to be eligible for $8,500,000,000 of grants under the STIMULOUS Plan. That will be an nice talking point come next november for the Congressional midterms.
Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-atlas/what-is-acorn-and-why-pro_b_300087.html
The link that you have twice posted goes to the same article that is on this thread! So how did you manage to do that? LOL.
Thanks for listing all the good they do. All I knew about ACORN before is that they were being used as the scapegoat / red-herring of the right wing for the last election cycle, and for some reason they refused to let go. I had always known they were obviously innocent of all of the slanderous accusations levied against them, but I wasn't aware until know of the breadth and depth of the good they do.
One of the most distressing thing about the attacks on ACORN is the failure of MSM to sift through what is truth and what is propaganda in undermining an organizations that has been effective in empowering the dispossessed to have a voice in their government. Equally distressing, is the failure of schools to train citizens to understand the lessons of history. A popular expression, I hear quite often is: "history repeats itself." Obviously, in the context of specific events, the statement is false. For example: events that took place in 1865-1876 cannot be repeated exactly in 2009. However, as George Santayana, taught: "Those who refuse to learn from history are condemned to repeat it." I think what is happening with the unrelenting right wing attacks on the President, and now the unrelenting attacks on ACORN, an organization that serves "the least of these," demonstrates the failure of Americans-especially the media- to learn from history; particularly the history of the Reconstruction period after the Civil War. It seems to me that tactics (revised to fit the times) used to overthrow Reconstruction and restore white supremacy have been adopted to ensure that the first African American President fails. Ensuring his failure is intended to demonstrate the folly of electing any one who is not a white male President of the United States. As Rep. Steve King loudly demonstrated, in his speech in the HR, attacks on ACORN were really aimed at attacking President Obama.
How many of the voters registered by ACORN would be judged to be ‘informed’ voters.
Republicans and Democrats have always been interested in fighting poverty yet after all the money that has been spent on it, the problem is growing. Why? Perhaps becasue there isn't enough interest in promoting personal responsibility.
Is a massive drive to register ‘uninformed’ voters, who will blindly vote for ANY Democrat as they are encouraged to do, a good thing?
Is it only Republicans that are trying to gain political edge? Isn’t ACORN doing that exact thing?
Are Republicans wrong for trying to combat the philosophy and policies that have spent hundreds of millions on poverty without getting the results we need?
Did some of ACORN’s activities regarding housing discrimination, actually contribute to the issuance of risky loans, irresponsible borrowing and lending and the resultant mortgage foreclosue crisis?
It be interesting to know how many, high risk, adjustable rate mortgages ACORN encouraged or pressed people into. How often did ACORN press lenders into offering risky loans for the sole purpose of increasing “affordable” housing; even for people who should never have qualified to receive them? How many risky loans did ACORN stop from happening? How many risky ‘ACORN blessed’ loans resulted in foreclosure? ACORN may have helped some people, but how many did they hurt. Was their contribution to the health of our economy positive or negative?
Oh puleeze....... PULEEZE!
A return to only those who own property having the right to vote perhaps? A benign dictatorship of the rich to decide what's best for the proletariat perhaps? The problem is growing because the available capital is being concentrated in few and fewer hands and if you haven't figured out something that simple and quantifiable then you have excluded yourself from the informed voters group. I'd also like to know what evidence you have for the Republican Party wishing to lift anyone out of poverty or ever enacting any legislation which would further that aim.
Great post. ACORN might have done some good for their community thirty years ago, but once the Democratic Party discovered that they could use ACORN to give them footsoldiers to help them maintain their one party dominance of the Black community they were rapidly transformed into an organization that pushed corruption and helped destroy the very community they were supposedly serving. A corrupt embarassment to every real common man democrat in America. The Progressives have gone too far when they tie themselves to this group in the public eye. Good luck with spinning thate lie that two young video journalists are somehow slandering ACORN. Not even your usefull idiots will be able to swallow that one.
There are few things more amusing to me than those who actually think they are in some way superior while at the same time displaying the intellectual heft of a gerbil.
ACORN and other groups have had very positive and empowering impacts on communities. If you would involve yourself in these projects with your church or community group, you would know this.
Do you and Nickel1951 seriously think that the teabag voters are "informed"??? I watched the protest. The answer given the most by the teabaggers was "I didn't know THAT"
I think you would be VERY surprised to learn how well informed some low income people are. Rather than visiting their offices dressed in Halloween type pimp and prostitute costumes, like they were going trick or treating (what a stereotypical insult!), the "filmmakers" should have asked the workers some "real" questions--visited barbershops, talked to cab drivers, and clerks, they'd have learned something.
Maybe they could have reported that they are not "low information" voters. ACORN and other groups are informing them of their rights, and believe me, poor people study the law because they are faced with it so often. ACORN has turned millions of low information voters into informed citizens.
Actually, Congress defunding ACORN right after those videos were seen on FOX, adds to ACORN's case for damages in their lawsuit. It helps prove the case.
Please go through with the law suit ACORN. I'm sure the whole world would love to know what you did and hear about it first hand through the trials. I'm sure that's the type of publicity you want.
Actually, it's unconstitutional for Congress to defund just one organization, so that bill is likely to get thrown out. If it passes, the bill would have to apply to all organizations accepting government funds, so it would mean that all kinds of military contractors would also be defunded since they have done much worse things than ACORN ever thought of, like murder and other atrocities.
Shirley you cant be serious
It's true, it's just like when one congressman commits a crime, they can't just arrest one of them....ALL of them must go to jail.....???
No, they can take away money from corrupt organizations.
Keep defending ACORN, you are playing right into the GOP's hands.
Nonpartay is absolutely right. Congress CANNOT write a bill that only applies to one person, group or organization, without applying it to all other similar organizations. There is the question of whether the bill defunding ACORN is a Bill of Attainder--i.e., a bill that punishes them without bothering to give them an opportunity for a trial.
The bill that defunded ACORN, written by a group of Republicans, SPECIFICALLY NAMED, and applied ONLY to ACORN and SPECIFICALLY said that ACORN had been "Indicted", not "convicted"
Nonpartay is right. And I hope Acorn and their other defenders will fight this to the Supreme Court if necessary.
Well in a lawsuit both sides get to "discover" what the facts are in the case. Through the process of discovery both sides must supply all the files, records and pertinent data that might be involved in any way with the case.
The discovery of ACORN will turn up some very interesting facts about the complete lack of any accounting in the entire ACORN organization. I think that the ACORN board with Mr John Podesta will regret ever filing this lawsuit.
The world will roll when the discovery makes the news with what ACORN has done with the $53,000,000 in taxpayer money over the last fifteen years. And the great part will be watching the democrats in both houses explain why they voted for ACORN to be eligible for $8,500,000,000 of grants under the STIMULOUS Plan.
That will be an nice talking point come next november for the Congressional midterms.
And you know this HOW??? Listening to Glenn Beck? He doesn't know anymore than you do.
Look it's an organization representing the poor and working class. It actively attempts to get those groups to register as voters and to form groups to oppose corporate interests.
If they don't think that those interests are going to use all the tools at their disposal to nullify them then they haven't been paying attention. If you seek to represent the poor then you cannot operate by the same slack, criminal standards that corporations follow, you cannot lie, cheat, poison and bribe as they do. You have to be cleaner than clean or they'll use it as a stick to beat you into submission with. It's the way it is, its a double standard but it's a fact. If they wanted to avoid this they should get some religious paraphernalia as that also pretty much excludes you from censure in the U.S.
Of course, if the corporations don't have any "facts' they just make stuff up. Which is pretty much what's happened to ACORN, especially with regard to the voting.
No one has been able to show that 1 (one), not 1 (one) fraudulent vote has been cast. It's one thing to find people fudging on voter registration forms. But go to the polls and try to vote as Mickey Mouse. How many times can you pull that off? Probably, not once.
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