Time to Get Real About the ACORN "Controversy"--and Republican Double Standards
It's time to get real about the Republican distraction de jour - the great ACORN controversy.
The bottom line is this: if the same standard used to prevent ACORN from receiving federal contracts were applied to many large corporations -- Boeing, financial institutions like AIG and CitiCorp, not to speak of private military contractors like Blackwater -- they would all have been barred as federal contractors long ago. But instead of being blacklisted, many of them actually received billions of taxpayer dollars to bail them out.
ACORN has worked for decades to organize a nationwide grass roots community organization with a mission of empowering poor and moderate income people. ACORN has never been one of those outfits that seeks just to "represent" the interests of the poor. Since its inception it has been made up of poor and moderate income people themselves. Its members pay dues, elect their leadership and choose the battles that they fight. Its executives don't make huge salaries and - in my experience - most of its organizers and staff are true believers who really care about the battle for social justice.
The Right wing has always hated ACORN. Partially that's because the organization has been effective - especially when it comes to its battles for better housing and its campaigns to empower the poor the way we should do it in a democracy - registering people to vote. The Right wing hates it when poor people vote.
During last year's election campaign the Republicans did everything they could to discredit ACORN by exposing "irregularities" in some of its voter registration programs. They pointed to a number of instances when ACORN canvassers - who were being paid to register people to vote - registered non-existent voters like "Mickey Mouse".
It was absolutely wrong for some ACORN employees to fake registrations to meet their quotas and keep their jobs. And ACORN's voter registration operation should have caught these fake registrations with better quality control. But there was never any danger that there would be a parade of cartoon characters out of Disney World and "Mickey Mouse" or "Donald Duck" were going to show up at a polling place and cast a ballot. To hear the right wing media tell it, ACORN was engaged in a great voter fraud scheme. In reality, a handfull of its canvassers were defrauding the organization itself - and also creating a public relations nightmare.
The Republicans knew full well that there was no danger of "Mickey Mouse" voting. But they milked the "controversy" for every ounce of bad publicity they could deliver - and did their best to paint the former community organizer Barack Obama with the same brush.
Now we have a new controversy created when two aspiring Right Wing "journalists" posed as a pimp and a hooker and toured the country trying to coax an ACORN mortgage counselor to say something outrageous for their hidden camera. Their motive was not to expose any "bad advice" being doled out by the mortgage counselors. They admit it was to "bring down" ACORN. They failed in their quest at most ACORN offices. In one, the mortgage counselor actually called the police when they asked for help figuring out how to create a scheme to get tax deductions for fictitious underage prostitutes. But they finally hit the jackpot in Baltimore, where the local credit counselor gave them - and their camera -- unbelievably stupid advice.
As soon as the behavior of their employees came to light, ACORN fired the offending employees and soon thereafter closed ACORN counseling offices for several days of retraining to prevent a similar infraction in the future.
Bear in mind, as outrageous as the employee's conduct was, no one was injured, no money was stolen, no deal was fixed. There was no victim of their acts. No matter, within days the Right Wing noise machine went into full "fury" mode. Republicans used their procedural prerogatives in Congress to force votes cutting off any federal funding for ACORN. Enough Democrats went along, and the motions passed both Houses.
Compare that to what happened when Boeing was caught fixing bids for a giant tanker project, or AIG created the massive Credit Default Swap scheme that helped sink the entire financial system, or the greed of traders who received tens of millions in personal compensation caused millions of retirees to loose half of their 401K plans. Remember the hundreds of millions of dollars in overcharges for fuel in Iraq by KBR, the subsidiary of Haliburton. Or compare it to what happened to the security contractor Blackwater when its personnel opened fire and killed 14 civilians in Nisoor Square in Baghdad.
No Republican demanded that these firms be "defunded" by Congress. No, instead AIG and the banks that were "too big to fail" received billions in bail-out money. The brilliant traders who sunk AIG got multi-million dollar bonuses. KBR, Haliburton, Boeing and even Blackwater still have huge government contracts.
Think about it. An amateur Right Wing journalist finally finds an ACORN employee who provides him and his faux hooker cohort with some outrageous advice, and the Republicans get Congress to pass legislation cutting off funding in little more than a week. Blackwater employees kill 14 Iraqi civilians, endangering America's mission in Iraq and the Republicans don't utter a peep.
Then again, what do you expect from the political party that last week promoted a "values summit" and is lead by philanderers like former Speaker Newt Gingrich, Senator David Vitter, Governor Mark Sanford, and Senator John Ensign. The Republicans have always been the kings of the double standard.
Robert Creamer is a long-time political organizer and strategist, and author of the recent book: "Stand Up Straight: How Progressives Can Win," available on amazon.com.
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Why is ACORN the center of all things bad? Somehow the conservative media missed(?) this little voter registration fraud story. All brought to you by the CA GOP! Not condoning the actions of some ACORN employees but, like any private company would do, they have taken corrective action. Let's move on here!
http://www.bradblog.com/?p=7237
ACORN is connected to Obama in many people's small minds because he was a community organizer and taught one class for them. ACORN also did what it always does at election time and gets poor people out to vote. Poor people voting is to Republicans what garlic and the crucifix are to Dracula. They will do whatever they can to destroy the organization so that their political hack election officials (overwhelmingly old and Republican) can do their thing with impunity.
Republicans only need to get within 45% of the actual vote and their dirty tricks will make up the difference. Between state officials throwing out new registrations of people evicted from the homes in Michigan for "address inconsistencies" and other state's officials throwing out registrations from college dorms because of duplicate registrations at one address, Democrats have to win by landslides.
Did I mention that Obama is black?
I have been looking for an instance of government sanctions that could be comparable to the fervor against ACORN.
In 2003, MCI was banned from bidding on new governement contracts. The difference was that the MCI decision was based on the results of investigation which found specific problems within the structure of the company and widespread unethical business practices.
People may remember that MCI IS what is left of WorldCom, a company that broke countless accounting laws and defrauded investors, customers, and the government out of billions. Despite this, the MCI decision did not come until later and only after significant investigation and for specific reasons.
With ACORN we have the following. Several temporary workers broke the law and were turned in by ACORN. A handful of office workers did some really bad things and were immediately fired by ACORN and other office workers were re-trained. A couple of high up people were found to be embezzling and went to jail for it (this is actually the most troubling issue). For this people are calling for the entire organization to be shut down, or at least to never have a single governement penny ever go to them again.
By the way, MCI was only banned from bidding on new contracts. All their existing contracts remained in place (providing more than $1 Billion in revenue from the government anually).
The furor against ACORN (not the employees who broke the law) is hypocrisy at its finest.
If I could fan you twice, I would.
You're right, to a degree about the level of furor in the public eye, but I think that's less a matter of hypocrisy and more a matter of video - where there's juicy video, hype will follow. Think Rodney King - if not for the video, it's a local story in LA. Only because someone had video did the news media see fit to make it a national story. If the allegations against the ACORN employees were just word-of-mouth stories, rather than video, this story wouldn't even exist.
As for other instances, it's not as though the other entities with corruption scandals have gone unpunished. Creamer cites Boeing. Boeing's CEO was forced out, the CFO was indicted, and the company was banned for 20 months from bidding on rocket projects for the USAF. We can, of course, debate whether that is sufficient, but to read Mr Creamer's piece, you would think no punishment was levied at all.
Pfizer was not mentioned in the article, but recently suffered a scandal of their own and were fined a record fine - $2.3 billion, I think, but correct me if I misquote.
You may have a point about the video; however, the frenzy on the right predates the video. For months there have been countless blogs and articles about ACORN and claims that they are the most corrupt organization ever (I have seen that claim repeatedly).
The difference between situations like Boeing (and others) is that those companies were punished after investigations (Boeing was actually a settlement to avoid prosecution). ACORN is being punished before investigations are complete.
By the way, if I remember correctly, ACORN has been fined in the past when employees have turned in fraudulent applications. Those punishments were appropriate.
People must realize that anything that relates to organization receiving gov't funding and ESPECIALLY ESPECIALLY helps effectively THE POOR and PEOPLE OF COLOR (or a combination of both) will be raw meat for right wingers who have no care, compassion or concern for those groups. I'm sorry but it is what it is. It is unfair that ACORN has that stigma attached to them but they need to have learned their lesson from last year with the voter fraud drama to dot all I's, cross all T's and keep their noses clean!!! Ms. Bertha Lewis keeps saying the same tired talking points but it is all about training people properly and keeping in the clear, particularly with the leader of the free world having past ties to ACORN and again such red meat for arrogant, idiotic, self righteous, prejudice right wingers who prefer to keep the haves on top and the have nots fending for themselves.
I see so many comments here stating things like "two wrongs don't make a right" or "how can you trivialize what they did" or even "so you support chiId porn?". Seriously, if you people can't read any better than that, perhaps you should hold your opinions.
The article does not "trivialize" the actions. What the article does is condemn those actions clearly. It even puts some blame on the organization itself for not doing a better job to prevent some of those actions.
The point of the article is not to minimize ANY of the crimes that have occurred. The point is to show the extreme partisanship that is driving the pumped up outrage and to expose the manufactured outrage for what it is.
The writer could have given hundreds of examples of organizations and corporations that have employees guilty of FAR worse with little outcry about them "receiving government funds".
If you want to argue against that point, then fine, but don't act like the author was saying something else. If you aren't capable of following a simple line of reasoning, then you aren't to be taken seriously.
Thank you and well said! Fanned!
"The article does not "trivialize" the actions"
The article does indeed trivialize the actions - at a minimum, the writer does so by pretending that only one person in one office was involved. We all know that is not the case.
The writer is also incredibly partisan about the actions against ACORN. He blames Republicans for the cutoff of ACORN funding saying they "forced votes cutting off any federal funding for ACORN" and "Enough Democrats went along, and the motions passed both Houses". Enough Democrats? The Senate vote was 83-7. There are only 40 Repub senators. That means the majority of votes against ACORN were Dems. Had the Dems wanted to, they could have let ACORN off the hook. They chose not to, and wisely so - at least until the situation is cleared up. If an investigation shows ACORN is clear, and these were the actions of a few "bad apples", Congress can reinstate funding just as quickly as it took it away.
I will give you that the writer seems to imply it was a single person involved. He really shouldn't have done that. However, the point remains that some employees refused to help and one even called the police. In the end a handful of employees were found to have gone along with it .
Regarding the furor, it is very much being driven by the far right (I would not want to paint all Republicans based on the actions of the far right). The Democrats are just too chicken to call it what it is. A majority of Dems voted for the Iraq war too. They were too afraid of public opinion to do the right thing.
continued:
The ACORN hoopla really started last fall with Lindsey Graham. He is the one who came out and made the preposterous claim that half of the TARP money was going to ACORN. It was a silly and completely false claim, but it gave the operatives their boogeyman. Before that there was some behind the scenes infighting but that is when it went national.
Having never heard of ACORN, I started reading about it as soon as I heard Graham make the claim. I started with wiki, which had a nice description at the time. I spent several hours checking out links, investigating claims, and looking into old court cases. It was very enlightening. I went back and checked wiki the next day and it looked like ACORN was the most corrupt organization ever to exist. The smear campaign was in high gear.
What has happened now is that ACORN has been treated as if they are guilty until proven innocent, and it is based on innuendo and the actions of a few criminals. ACORN has not tried to sweep the crimes under the rug and they have fired every person involved. They have even closed offices for additional training. They really are not acting like an organization that is corrupt.
We don't have a problem with black and brown people voting. We simply want them to be legal...that's all, period.
Did you vote in the last election? Did anyone check your ID and match it with an address? How do you suppose Mickey Mouse got to be a vote? Perhaps he didn't. Maybe he was never more than a fraudulent "REGISTRATION" and there was never any intention for wrongdoing beyond making a quota for some college kid canvassing for ACORN. This hardly rises to the levels of the crimes mentioned in the piece and that is the point.
We have lost all sense of perspective and critical thinking since the 08 campaign. This is the direct result of the GOP's inability to take a loss and their lack of any moral compass in their political tactics. ACORN does a lot of good for some very poor people and now that will be curtailed or seriously cut back because the Republican party decided to make them a political football. Way to go guys. You proved once again you have no business ever regaining power.
Excellent article! Anyone with some measure of awareness can see through these trumped up charges against ACORN. The MSM salivates like Pavlov's dogs at faux scandals such as this. They seek to ride the bandwagon of the latest scandal (true or not) to a ratings windfall and cannot be counted on to do any real news reporting. With few exceptions, they have become the equivalent of TMZ for "news".
One thing I do not understand about this story is why ACORN is being held so harshly responsible for the actions of a few employees. The employees were rightly terminated if they did not abide by the set standards of the organization, correct? How is ACORN, the organization, in any way negligent in this regard? Does ACORN promote or condone this kind of behavior by it's employees? Is there a pattern of ACORN exhibiting lax standards in employee hiring and oversight?
I thought the article was full of distortions..right wing journalist"finally found an ACCORN employee"- my friend, there were "five cities" and mulitple employers. Doesn't concern you? Are you not concerned about child prostitution, tax and voter fraud? Are you not concerned with embezzlement? Approximately 15 states are investigating ACCORN. What is wrong with people in this country? American people want the truth when we are spending our money...I suppose you don't. And, we want justice just as bad you when corporations are milking us as well.
Does the term "Red Herring" mean anything to you.
Tolby
Great posting. You reasoning is needed on this site.
Does the term "entrapment" strike a familiar note??
Nicely said Tolby
Tolby,
Our tax paying dollars go to many of things that is wasterful spending and DEAD WRONG (are you forgetting our dollars going towards 2 wars). Speaking of which I also want to know the truth on why my tax paying dollars are going to things such as this with government contractors NOT doing their actually jobs.
Not just whistleblowing Dixie
Sept. 14: Rachel Maddow is joined by former U.S. government contractor Terry Pearson, who reported to the State Departement the alleged misconduct of U.S. contractors at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/vp/32850776#32850776
Yet I don't see Fox news as PO'd on this matter as you do about ACORN!!
The MSM hasn't salivated over this at all, they've tried their best to ignore it (eg: Charlie Gibson).
Anyway, I would invite you to look at the piece as a persuasive writing exercise, rather than just an op-ed.
The writer takes a very standard two-prong attack:
1) Minimize the facts (without actually lying) - he mentions to "an" ACORN employee on a tape while completely ignoring the other 4 videos he knows exist and the numerous recent investigations and convictions of ACORN employees. He also brings up the "Mickey Mouse" ballots because they make the other side sound silly, but let's not forget one thing - though "Mickey" didn't vote (as far as we know), ACORN ILLEGALLY imposed registration quotas on its employees, and the employees DISHONESTLY faked registrations. In other words, ACORN employees made up fake people - not exactly the kind of behavior we're looking for in an organization working on the Census.
2) Minimize the impact - Having admitted the limited wrongdoing above, the author now sets out to trivialize it. The easiest way to do that is by comparing it to something worse. In other words, never mind ACORN, go look at this other thing that has nothing to do with ACORN. Any criminal activity by Boeing, AIG, etc should, of course, be investigated, but that has no bearing whatsoever on ACORN activities.
Persuasive Writing 101 and you went right with it.
Nice job breaking it down so any common fool can understand it. Too bad the fools that we are faced with are not of the common variety. They aren't stupid, as they often claim the case is with people who disagree with them, but they posses a divine foolishness matched only by their sanctimony.
Thanks for the suggestion, I will take it under advisement. (end of sarcasm)
As the good book says: "Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he think himself wise in his own eyes..." -- So, here goes:
Rebuttal 1: Nothing you said spoke to the questions I put forward! Again -- Did ACORN, the organization, engage in any action that promoted, condoned, or otherwise provided cover for the behavior of any of the employees involved in this farce? Your statements accusing ACORN of illegally imposing registration quotas (an accusation still under litigation) and the dishonesty of some of their employees are red herring responses. BTW, It was ACORN's internal quality controls that intercepted, flagged and reported those bogus registration forms.
Rebuttal 2: The comparison the author was making was with regard to the harsh and swift action taken to address perceived ACORN abuses vs. similar or worse abuses. It was a clear and effective attempt to expose the political hypocrisy involved.
Reading Comprehension 101 -- and you completely missed it.
Soon it will be Bertha's turn to make a trip to washington and testify before Congress, under subpoena if necessary. Word is she is not being cooperative.
I have watched the video from the San Diego office. They are nothing but Fakes !
James O'keefe and Hannah Giles are going to be in big trouble. They intentionaly created videos
that show people discusing things like under age girls being smuggled into Mexico for prostitution.
It's clear that the discusion they have edits out things like rescuing the girls.
The Acorn worker clearly does not say or do anything that suggests he is going to help smuggle the girls into the U.S. Instead he says that he needs to find out where the girls are, and he will be working with the district attorney. James and Hannah intentionaly created and distributed these doctored videos to destroy peoples lives. the people that help Legal Immigrants become citizens.
That help them get an education, and better themselves.
I have downloaded the video and will show on my youtube channel exactly how they have done this with malice.
I'm sure Acorn is well aware and will be exposing these two frauds
I have several nice bridges in the San Diego area I'd like to see you.
Great price to a really unusual person.
The problem as I see with ACORN is that any group representing poor people and minorites better be clean as a 350 engine because they are a threat to the powers that be especially right- wingers and corporate power who hate that type of grass roots power. ACORN should have known after they got Obama elected and Color of Change went after Glenn Beck that Fox News and it's media and politcal organs would come after them like a bull in a china shop, ACORN as an organization should have cleaned up any messes however minor after last years election because they had a target on their backs.
Like Dr. King, Ralph Nader and other progressive organizations before them they always knew how they operated had to be above reproach and these people had the FBI, CIA and the KKK, white citizens group and the poltical powers that be looking to crush and destory their movments. I hope ACORN learns from this and keeps it's nose clean because these racist conservatives will come for their scalp again.
Acorn didn't get Obama elected.
I watched the NYC ACORN "sting" videos. What I saw was not the least bit criminal -- in fact, the ACORN counselor was offered advice on how to escape abusive pimps.
http://www.osborneink.com/2009/09/acorn-busted-for-offering-advice.html
Matt, even the so caller unedited versions are full of voice overs and videos ghppoed and pilled together like firewood.
I have made a clumsy attempt to show some of them, though i'm no film editor.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYg6dkqvtaE
So, you missed the part where advice was given on how to evade paying taxes by burying prostitution income in the yard? Or where an Acorn employee offers to help import women from Mexico?
I could go on.
To not see "anything the least bit criminal" implies that you feel that underage prostitution rings are legal. Care to retract that statement?
Wasn't blackwaters contract ended in July?
Nope. They changed the name, but are still getting your dollars. Congratulations.
The contract was terminated earlier this year and awarded to a co. called Triple Canopy.
http://www.propublica.org/feature/former-iraq-security-contractors-say-firm-bought-black-market-weapons-918
At last some body told the truth . Thank you for the well explained article . If I may add one thing here ; KBR killed (electrocuted) and injured several of our troops and also still have a contract racking in tax payer money .
Thank you. The bashers and sting video people have never been any value to the homeless or anyone else. Let them clean house and get back to their vital and important work. None of the loudmouths are going to do it. Rev. Bookburn - Radio Volta
Wrong. The right doesn't hate it when poor people vote. They hate it when the left uses promises of something for nothing to the poor people in order to buy their votes. And don't give me the corporations, blah, blah, buy their politicians' votes. The fact is that a corporation that employs 15,000 people who you all love to hate funds everything in this country. Both through their direct taxes and the taxes levied on the people who work there. And there's no more than a handful in any of those places making the really big bucks.
yeah right. I've worked for a big corporation before. First, they have professionals there who get them out of paying every single cent possible in taxes. Then they tell their employees they're barely making it, and don't give raises. Second, you've got a big statement to back up, saying only a handful makes big bucks. Baloney. I know someone who got 30,000 shares of stock just given to them.....the stock went to $30/share. You do the math!
I did not see one news organization point out how many times the fake journalists were turned away. None of the right wing mouth pieces ever mention it. Like anything Acorn has warts but they are far outshined by all the good work. The right wingers just hate it so much for helping those that the right wingers look down on that they will continue to throw their tantrums.
Maybe becuase there more concerned ( and rightly so) with the number of time they WERE NOT turned away. Those two kids also hinted that they have more tapes.
more faux "journalism". The right lives for gotcha moments, not anything of substance. I almost wish Acorn was done for awhile, to shut them up. Obama will win again, with or without Acorn.
Acorn is an iceberg of scandal that has been growing for along time. People on the left knew it was only a matter of time before it all came falling down. The fallout on Acorn is coming from the left who are tripping all over themselves trying to distance themselves from this RICO statute prosecuters dream.
Yeah, right, while the right-wing nu t jo bs are trying do distance themselves from:
FLORIDA, 2000
OHIO, 2004
Now you tell me what is more damaging to our country? Acorn or these two "jokes" called presidential elections.
Never forget.
agree with that. Some idiot working at an acorn office is worse, in their eyes, than a conservatively stacked supreme court that stopped counting votes of American citizens. Bush lost popular vote in 2000, and barely stole his victory by just 5 electoral votes. But, definitely, let's go after acorn!! That's the right wing for ya.
Don't forget Michigan and Colorado in 08. Don't get too specific though. You might have a "plane accident" if the GOP thinks you know too much.
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