The Real Reason They Want ACORN to Fail
There's been a lot of hoopla about secret hidden-camera videos of low-level employees of the anti-poverty group ACORN lately -- some of them quite embarrassing. I haven't seen any video yet from "real reporters" James O'Keefe or Hannah Giles of an ACORN employee who works in the agency's Charlotte, N.C., office by the name of Hector Vaca. And don't hold your breath waiting for Vaca to appear on the Fox News Channel anytime soon, because he doesn't fit the story line.
Vaca was one of eight ACORN employees in North Carolina who was just laid off because of funding problems -- problems closely related to the recent exposes by the right-wing media. His work had nothing to do with what millions of folks with the time and the money to be sitting on a couch watching TV at 5 p.m. when Glenn Beck comes around think ACORN mainly does, i.e., advising garishly dressed prostitutes and pimps.
Vaca was actually helping folks in Charlotte who are battling the worst economic crisis in our lifetime and fighting for them to stay in their houses, a project so "radical" that Citigroup and Bank of America (just the kind of folks you'd expect to partner with ACORN in its vast "socialist" conspiracy) are backing it. It is work that is so important that Vaca is continuing to do it now, even without a paycheck:
In Charlotte, head organizer Hector Vaca spent time this week driving through neighborhoods, visiting homeowners who are struggling with their mortgage payments. The program, in partnership with Citi, aims to offer free advice to residents who could be facing foreclosure. Vaca, 35, said he hands out fliers and will offer his cell phone, too, to homeowners who want to call for free assistance right away.
Vaca, who said he grew up poor as the child of an immigrant, has been an ACORN organizer for three years."I love my job," he said. "I get to help people who have never been able to get the help they need."
This, in a (pardon the awful pun), nutshell, is what the ACORN scandal is really all about. Forget the videos, forget the "pimp." The reason that Hector Vaca loves what he does is the reason that Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and their dittoheads hate what Hector Vaca does. He is helping people who have never been able to get the help they need -- before he pulled up to their driveway.
Even in a media world where 24 hours of daily cable blather is so rarely tethered to the real-world concerns of Americans, the ACORN saga stands out as a story that everyone is talking about but no one is stepping back to even try and comprehend or place into any kind of rational perspective. The conservative dwellers of Glennbeckistan who've been flooding newsrooms across America -- including here at the Philadelphia Daily News where I work -- with calls complaining that we're not covering the ACORN story know next to nothing about the anti-poverty group other than their belief that it single-handedly elected Barack Obama as the 44th president of the United States (it didn't) and that it receives billions of dollars in taxpayer money (it doesn't).
At the same time, I would encourage the handful of fellow progressives who see the story solely as a Fox News witch hunt to acknowledge this part of the bigger picture: That ACORN is a large non-profit that is very poorly run, and in need of some major reform. It would be good, in a way, if that's what this story were really about -- making things work better. But conservatives don't want to reform ACORN, nor do they want another, better-run outfit to come along and do some of the things it does -- helping the urban poor find better housing or increasing voter registration. They want to destroy ACORN and the things it does. Period.
I'm not not going to bog this down with a long history of ACORN, which grew out of 1960s' activism working with welfare recipients in the nation's battered cities -- you can learn a little more about it here. The group has had a number of successes in areas that matter in American life, including fair-housing issues, voter registration (it was a key backer of the Motor Voter law), helping Hurricane Katrina victims and even fighting for Vietnam veterans during a time when that was not a popular issue. So why is it poorly run? Well, the videos now in heavy rotation on Fox show that some of its lower level workers are either under-trained or unethical or both, while ACORN has also been rocked by wrongdoing at the top of the organization. So have a number of well-known non-profits that aren't under regular assault from the right-wing media -- but that still doesn't make it right.
Beyond that, there is evidence of major structural flaws within ACORN -- generally, a group that has both an advocacy side and a political side that supports candidates is a recipe for trouble. Then there is the serial wrongdoing by workers that ACORN hired to do voter registration, the episodes that are regularly described as a "voter fraud scandal." But no actual voter fraud -- that is, people who were unlawfully registered casting real ballots and influencing the outcome of election (as happened in this case, for example) -- took place. In fact, it was ACORN itself that was defrauded by hiring workers who tried to get paid extra money by signing fake names like "Mickey Mouse," which may explain why it was ACORN officials who reported these crimes to the authorities. The significance of this scandal -- which is really more like embezzlement than voter fraud -- points back to the notion that ACORN needs to be better run -- a lot better.
Yet this reality -- that ACORN is an established group with worthy goals and some success but also poor management -- is not what's driving the story. The folks who are spearheading this investigation of ACORN -- O'Keefe, Giles, Beck, and all the others -- aren't reporting this story because they want corrupt employees and bad managers weeded out, so that the taxpayers are getting the best return on the relatively minuscule amount of money -- just $53 million over the last 15 years -- that it's received from the feds. Nor will the "fair and balanced" network ever tell you that other ACORN employees turned away the bogus pimp and prostitute -- most notably right here in Philadelphia, where employees called the cops on O'Keefe -- or bother to explain the real work of ACORN, as done by decent people like Hector Vaca.
The real reason they are after ACORN is that they don't like its core mission -- siding with beleaguered homeowners over banks, and trying to register inner-city residents to vote at the same rates as the suburbanites who've dominated American politics since the 1980s. Taking down the group's mission of urban empowerment won't strengthen America, just the Republican Party. And you don't need a Ph.D. in social work or journalism to figure this out, since O'Keefe has made it clear that ACORN's success -- and not its corruption -- is what prompted him to launch his investigation. Here's what he told the Washington Post:
Though O'Keefe described himself as a progressive radical, not a conservative, he said he targeted ACORN for the same reasons that the political right does: its massive voter registration drives that turn out poor African Americans and Latinos against Republicans.
"Politicians are getting elected single-handedly due to this organization," he said. "No one was holding this organization accountable. No one in the media is putting pressure on them. We wanted to do a stunt and see what we could find."
But O'Keefe didn't go after the voter registration unit of ACORN. Maybe that's because real investigative journalism is hard work, but more likely it's because powerful people like U.S. Attorneys, who didn't even have to dress up like pimps because they have subpoena power, already tried that angle and didn't find one single bogus vote cast. Instead, the two young filmmakers and the deep-pocketed FNC are taking down ACORN through the back door, and if what has already happened in North Carolina is any indication, they will succeed.
You know, this is all so much like the "debate" over health care. No one disagrees that the medical system here is a mess, but one party, the Republicans, offers no serious plan whatsoever -- gambling for the raw political edge they might gain by a liberal-centrist failure to pass any bill. Likewise, there is no interest here whatsoever in ending housing discrimination, stopping predatory lending, or coming as close as possible to 100 percent participation on Election Day -- the kind of things that all Americans should be inclined to support, regardless of party or ideology.
James O'Keefe's America is one where powerful banks can continue to walk all over the working poor, and where demoralized urbanites don't bother to vote. The right-wing's attitude toward fighting poverty is exactly the same as Rush Limbaugh's attitude toward Barack Obama before he had yet served one day in the White House.
They want them to fail.
Follow Will Bunch on Twitter: www.twitter.com/Will_Bunch
John Atlas: What is Acorn? And Why Progressives Need to Support It
The right goes after the left's most effective groups. Because ACORN does not rely on government funds the organization will survive the orchestrated attacks against it. But if it's to restore its strength, it needs progressive support.
Senate Votes to Cut Off ACORN Housing Funding - Political News ...
House passes amendment to cut government funding for ACORN - CNN.com
GOP seizes on ACORN funding - John Bresnahan and Michael Falcone ...
Loading comments…
Want to reply to a comment? Hint: Click "Reply" at the bottom of the comment; after being approved your comment will appear directly underneath the comment you replied to
Speaking about Acorn. If you have not heard yet, (IT IS COMING) Apollo Alliance in NY is similar to Acorn in that they also have attained our money in fraudlent fashions. This organization's Director is a radicle...Jeff Jones who along with Bill Ayers..(remember him?) were part of the Weatherman Underground in the 60's. Mr Jones was on the run for 11 years before FBI caught up with him. Also He and his group wrote out the lovely Stimulous Bill...remember the 1,000 pages that nobody read and passed overwhelmingly by Democrats? Even Senator Harry Reid has praised Apollo in public documents....This group involved with Extreme Environmental Groups, Unions, and other powerful figures....Outrageous....This is what the former Barry Sotero aka Barack H. Obama ( per public documents of Los Angeles Times) now surrounds himself.. As I said, there will soon be more of this coming publically. Wake up America...
what? this blogger thinks we didn't know the real reason why they want ACORN taken down? we may be a little slow..but not that slow.
Another scare tactic by the GOP and the scared of how the face of America is not going to their liking. They look at ACORN like its some subversive organization but in reality they just help poor people try to even the playing field against the myriad of blood sucking individuals and corprations that prey on their existence. i seen how the lack of integrity and greed has played out in minority areas. I see the businesses that pop up in predominately minority communities who take the money out yet don't live anywhere near the area. The GOP is always trying to divide and conquer. Blustering,hollering and being obstructionists will not work this time. Quietly advocates of change are working without fanfare or media publicity. Watch and see what happens.
No actually I agree with OOOOOMY and his analysis. Most Americans don't want to think that an organization like ACORN is going to receive tens of millions of more dollars of taxpayer money. And especially those citizens that are having a hard time and have maybe lost their job or their house are going to be very attentive to who in Congress thinks giving an organization with as many questionable activities is getting any taxpayer money. This is especially true since according to all accounts ACORN doesn't really have an accounting system so that it can even account for the $53,000,000 in taxpayer funds it already has been given from the taxpayers. If I were John Podesta I would be figuring out how to extricate the Obama administration from any connection with this organization before the FBI begins it's RICO investigation for organized racketeering. Not too many congressmen or senators that will be singing Kumbayah with the ACORN street thugs this election day.
Acorn is slated to receive $8.5 BILLION fromt he stimulus package.
Those damned Wingnuts just can't stomach the wonderful work Acorn does, like going to jail in Seattle for fraudulant voter registration...
Great article. I want to support your analysis. I too think the real journalists have ignored this story totally. Perhaps now they will be motivated to get involved and bring the light of main stream journalism to this worthy cause.
I am not a conservative. I was active in the environmental movement before most Huffington readers were born. I volunteer with Amnesty. I've built houses with Habitat. I help raise funds for our local umbrella homeless organization. I also believe that ACORN is improperly using other peoples' money for partisan ends. It is dishonest, probably corrupt. There are organizations that do what ACORN claims to do, without misusing funds and misrepresenting their actions. In supporting this organization, liberals have shown just how far they have fallen off the cliff. If we want to help OBAMA, we need to clean up our act. Now.
Nice try. Good luck with that "non partisan" line. I've heard it often and it never seems to ring true. I wonder where all these folks were when the Red Cross was going through its scandals and management problems. I do remember that its CEO left to become a GOP senator.
Let's do the right thing and give the organization a hand up and get it moving in the right direction. We might need their help one day.
Not buying it.
"I also believe that ACORN is improperly using other peoples' money"
And you believe this based on what?
The IRS deciding to investigate it's status as a recipient of taxpayer funds. The decision of the US Census bureau to decide to sever all ties with ACORN. The testimony of several ACORN managers and a series of very damaging videos done in five of the ACORN offices with ACORN personell advising a supposed procurer and a prostitute how to set up a brothel and avoid income taxes. Aside from that I am 100% right with them.
Going to jail in Seattle for fraudulant voter registration and being investigated in 20 states on the same charge.
ACORN needs to be cleaned up--not trashed.
ACORN refuses to make public their books and records so they have no intention of cleaning up. With people in very very high places backing them up they have nothing to worry about.
post Link where ACORN has refused to let the public view their books.
All the government has to do is call ACORN something else and start a new agency. We won didn't we?
It's not a government agency, brainiac.
Obam thinks they are. In fact that might have been one of Obama's staffers giving that last comment "hope for you"? Sounds like the he might be part of the Hope and Changey thingy.
Its really simple. America elected a black president and Glenn Beck and his racist ilk are bent on that not happening again. So, Acorn is the perfect target. Look, I'm white and yes a liberal, but I live in the South. People here say it out loud, with anger and pride. They hate Obama. He's their worst nightmare. The man is black and brilliant and he's running this country and after 8 years of incompetence and fear mongering the world might just become a better place. America is in tough straits but not because of Obama. He is the solution. He's not perfect and at the end of the day he's still a politician, but the man wants to fix the things that have long been neglected. Ironically, the people who hate him most, will probably benefit the most.
Like Obama said recently on the David Letterman show "he was black even before the election" . I think maybe America is well aware that they elected a black president, just not sure if he is red.
"The 1965 Voting Rights Act was among the crowning achievements of the civil rights era, and a defining moment for social justice and equality. The stories of the men and women who were willing to lay down their lives for the full rights of citizenship, including first and foremost the right to vote, are the stuff of history."
O'Keefe and Giles are the poster boy and girl for modern day Jim Crow era voter suppression.
Acorn is not our only resource for helping the poor, African-American and Latino population vote. This is what hatred will do to you. It will make you so blind to reality that you cut off your nose to spite your face. There are other organizaitions that can and will accomplish the many good works of Acorn provided for the poor, African American and Latino communities.
We will not be moved or stopped by those who wish to hold us back.
ACORN workers seemed more than happy to help white Americans set up brothels using underage Latino girls.
"Though O'Keefe described himself as a progressive radical, not a conservative, he said he targeted ACORN for the same reasons that the political right does: its massive voter registration drives that turn out poor African Americans and Latinos against Republicans."
Well, well Mr. O'keef'e aka Huggie Bear does not have his pluse on the poor, Black and Latino community. With all the daily hate talk coming from the right against Latino's, poor people and Blacks the Republican party can forget about us. Nothing about the Republican party is appealing to me, and most poor, African Americans and Latino's. You don't want us and we certainly don't want you.
I think must reasonable people would agree that Acorn is corrupt. It may have started out with no one would deny very fine intentions, but there begins to evolve into something more insidious and now with all the connections/associations one would and should be a little suspicious. It was Glenn Beck who presented this to the public....It was Glenn Beck and backed by Fox News placed for any who wanted to see a very fact and documented highly suspicious scenario that has led to Congressional Investigations. These 'facts' have never been challenged rather, they have been attacked.Why? With all that has happened and what we knew and now know..with this administration and President...What is wrong with asking questions? For again, they have never been challenged? Rather they have led to resignations. To me, this in itself is suspicious. Rather they have led to resignations. and congressional investigation by FBI, IRS and Both Dem/Rep in Congress.
You are so funny.
So, how much do you get paid to post again? I want your job; it's so easy to tell tall tales.
You say "must reasonable people would agree that Acorn is corrupt."
I assume you mean "most" and you are incorrect.
Most reasonable people would agree that Acorn is being targeted and defamed based on bias and the class warfare being waged by the elite and the minions they've duped into helping them against their own self interests.
ACORN's detractors don't want poor urbanites getting "uppity" and thinking they can vote or own their own home or be in anyway empowered in our society.
Umm, no. ACORN is not corrupt. Period. It is a very useful non-partisan organization who not only help a number of low income people, they employ the as well.
Because they employ people at the bottom of the economic food chain, there are people with nothing who aren't as rigidly moral as others and engage in unethical and illegal behaviors. These people are disciplined and fired.
For you I ask, was Scooter Libby fired. Hvae Dick Cheney or Rumsfeld or Bush sttod trial for war crimes? Please be consistent in your morality.
What irritates me is not so much the investigation of ACORN because organizations that have served and fought for the poor and disenfranchised are always the target of the well to do or those who feel their power threatened by the newly empowered. The US congress and Obama have been given an unpredented opportunity to do something to make this nation better and they have failed to act. This WH and majority dem congress have the power. It's own inability to act is what is stopping real change and allowing the LOSERS-birthers, deathers, beckers and status quo GOPers to succeed at their harassmet of organizations like ACORN. The conservadems are not democrats, they are conveniently blue, not steeped in political philosophy that separates the parties, but the political opportunism. Every time "the losers" hurt a progressive, they win and are emboldened to get more outrageous in their conduct and meanspirited rhetoric. OBAMA and congress have successes, the GOPers LOse big time.
This is why I stand up for Acorn. Acorn has not EVER supported child prostituion, tax evasion or tax fraud. Only the non intelligent can't distinquish the difference between rouge employees and an entire organization.
"ACORN is an established group with worthy goals and some success but also poor management -- is not what's driving the story. The folks who are spearheading this investigation of ACORN -- O'Keefe, Giles, Beck, and all the others -- aren't reporting this story because they want corrupt employees and bad managers weeded out, so that the taxpayers are getting the best return on the relatively minuscule amount of money -- just $53 million over the last 15 years -- that it's received from the feds. Nor will the "fair and balanced" network ever tell you that other ACORN employees turned away the bogus pimp and prostitute -- most notably right here in Philadelphia, where employees called the cops on O'Keefe -- or bother to explain the real work of ACORN, as done by decent people like Hector Vaca."
Right. We don't even know if some or all of the "rouge employees" were actually plants by the right / paid off by the fright wing to discredit th organization they oppose.
Good observation.
It's no secret why conservatives hate ACORN and other groups like it. For one, these groups are trying to aid the less fortunate in society and of course conservatives hate that. It's in their DNA; they are the spawn of Ebenezer Scrooge and the poor are simply Tiny Tim's who need to be ground under or at least exploited until no longer of use. But mostly they fear these groups because they try to empower these people to stand up to the powers that be and fight back by registering to vote and use the one power the rich and powerful can't take away from the; the right to vote. If millions of poor people exercised this right, they could lose their power and that's what conservatives fear most.
You must be logged in to comment. Log in or connect with
