Atlantic correspondent Wendy Kaminer has a fairly scathing piece noting that ACORN has had problems for a long time--and that its defenders have always responded by dismissing any problems as "minor" and complaining that partisan interests are harming all the fine work it does. Are the people who go after it partisan? Undoubtedly, as were the people who exposed problems at Halliburton, etc. But when your workers are caught on tape offering to help you smuggle your illegal underage prostitutes across the border, impugning the motives of the tapers hardly suffices.
I don't see how ACORN survives at this point; the IRS is the latest to pile on, severing ties with ACORN, and slapping a tax lien for unpaid payroll taxes on top of that blow. The lawsuit seems like an even worse attempt--less of a Hail-Mary Pass than an own-goal. At best, it keeps this distressing story in the news, more firmly impressing it into peoples' consciousnesses and making it therefore more difficult for Democrats to quietly let the organization back on the government gravy train at some future date. At worst, the lawsuit opens up ACORN to discovery, during which the defense can plunder their records. ACORN appears to be trying to avoid this fate by suing for intentional infliction of emotional distress rather than defamation (for which truth is an absolute defense). But that just makes it more likely that the case will be removed to federal court and dismissed. When that happens, the public mind will not make fine distinctions about legal doctrine. They'll just remember that a judge thought ACORN was in the wrong.
Liberals have legitimate reason to be mournful--they think ACORN does good work. But no organization is irreplaceable. Voters can be registered, tax advice proffered, and federal monies disbursed without ACORN's dubious help.
Copyright © 2009 by The Atlantic Monthly Group. All rights reserved.
The animating spirit of ACORN was, from the beginning, contemptuous of law, property, democracy and decency. They have always been a Leftist extortion gang, a facilitator and provider of rented mobs. Good riddance.
I don't know about decency, but here's what they said about a program they did in at least the 80s: This required the forceful and illegal (though logical and moral) seizing of the properties - squatting. For some reason their opponents don't harp on things like that.
"But when your workers are caught on tape offering to help you smuggle your illegal underage prostitutes ..."
This sentence might be improved by removing the "you" and second "your". They weren't ACORN's prostitutes. :-)
The organization can't possibly be suing for IIED, given that an organization has no emotions. And that's a heck of a weak claim for the individuals; conduct has to be pretty outrageous or extreme, and posting truthful videos doesn't seem all that outrageous. I thought it was about statutory damages for violating MD's strict wiretapping laws, which the filmmakers should have checked more carefully.
If they stick strictly to the wiretapping claims, discovery won't be as much of a gold mine as one might hope. They'll be able to block the most embarrassing stuff as irrelevant.
The organization can't possibly be suing for IIED, given that an organization has no emotions.
Especially if a liberal victory in the Supreme Court means that the legal personhood of corporate bodies is no longer equivalent to that of actual people.
It never was. I struggle to understand why this is a persistent liberal bugbear.
Well, we know corporations get votes like people(hence how Big [Industry] keeps stealing elections), they are never any more regulated than individuals are, and the sheer number of corporations in line for government health insurance and employment insurance beggars imagination. I don't know man, are you sure corporate persons aren't the same as natural persons?
I'd call it hard-left rather than liberal, but I'm with you on the incomprehensibility. I can only come up with the idea that smashing the limited liability corporation is a way to push us back to the stone age, where we won't hurt Gaia too much.
"posting truthful videos doesn't seem all that outrageous"
This reminds me of Van Jones, who complained that he'd been the target of a smear campaign because Glenn Beck and others kept quoting him and playing videos of his past speeches.
"I don't see how ACORN survives at this point"
Change the name to ANORC or CRANO, lay low for a few...then business as usual. If John Edwards can make a comeback after what he did, anything is possible.
...oh...and Bertha Lewis may need to go.
"Undoubtedly, as were the people who exposed problems at Halliburton, etc."
I must have missed Congress swiftly moving to cut off all of Halliburton's no-bid contracts after all those nasty leftist partisans "exposed" its "problems."
Blackwater murdered people. No one in Congress gives a shit.
KBR locked a woman in a shipping container for days to prevent her from bringing claims that she had been gang-raped by fellow employees, and then had the temerity to claim that it was a simple employment dispute that should be handled in binding arbitration. No one in Congress gives a shit.
As the saying goes, "IOKIYAAR."
Haliburton didn't get cut off because there was nobody else who could do what Haliburton was doing. ACORN is just a patronage organization - they can be set up in a few weeks, and they're not designed with efficiency or productivity in mind.
Blackwater was ejected from Iraq. I believe they ended up reorganizing under a different name, which is all ACORN is going to do.
The KBR rape story is full of holes. We don't know what went on there, and it could be that, instead of nobody in Congress giving a shit they might be waiting for the investigation to finish. In any event that's one incident, which is a little bit different than an organization that had people arrested in 15 states for fraud.
The nobody else could do what they do simply isn't true for KBR. The other firms that can do it aren't as well connected politically. As far as the rape story goes, how many rapes are ok with you? 5? 10? 20?
Given that corporations are rather ill-equipped for rape, I'd suggest we might just decide to prosecute the individuals involved instead.
As I understand it Haliburton was literally the only oil services company with the resources to do what they were asked to do.
And the problem with the rape story is it may not be true at all.
Partisan bias of the exposers is one equivalence. Here's where the ACORN and Halliburton cases are not equivalent:
The amount of money that ACORN has received in the past 20 years altogether is roughly equal to what the taxpayer paid to Halliburton each day during the war in Iraq.
...and of course there's the fact that Halliburton, for good or ill, provides a tangible, measurable work product and is only one of a handful of entities in the world which can provide that product (which makes replacing them problematic), as opposed to ACORN with is voter recruitment for a single party, a service which any number of entities can and do provide (and I'm guessing without as much legal advice to theoretical pimps).
If anyone wants to shut up those who scream "HALLIBURTON", mention what happened after Katrina. Connected contractors hired subcontractors who then hired illegal labor. That was supported not just by Bush but by the Dems. When the local Dems complained (as at the link), they were silenced (remember the backlash against Nagin's remarks? That was part of the campaign). That had huge costs in a wide variety of ways, but somehow the chips in "liberal" brains won't let them mention that.
I think Halliburton should buy out ACORN. Don't our troops deserve underage prostitutes?
Yes, but Haliburton actually does something for the money.
You wanna know how ACORN survives, two words. GEORGE SOROS. ACORN gets most of it's money from private donors.
I'm guessing that they expect to lose and are setting themselves up for victim status.
Yes, it does seem worse than a Hail Mary.
First, your post states that "Wendy Kaminer has a fairly scathing piece noting that ACORN has had problems for a long time." Actually, the post is about one problem -- alleged embezzlement by one individual -- and the coverup of that problem. Not exactly a series of distrinct problems as your sentence so clearly implies. You need to edit that post so that you're not misleading your readers.
Second, as Dameon noted in a comment to your post on no villains in financial crises, your position seems to be that the misconduct of several employees of a large organization called Acorn deservedly means the end of that organization, while the people that run the banks that resulted in the near collapse of the global economy are not actually at fault for what their banks did despite, you know, being in charge of those banks. That is an extraordinary double standard.
Third, combining points one and two, are we to conclude that because you write a post that mischaracterized Kaminer's post (making it seem like there was a series of distinct problems instead of one issue of embezzlement), that the Atlantic must come to its demise (your Acorn theory)? Or are we to assume that even if (I say "if," for this question is tongue in cheek) the editors of the Atlantic intentionally employ deficient fact checking in order to save money and don't care if they recklessly mislead readers, that they're still not to blame for the Atlantic having a reputation problem (your bankers theory)?
The difference is banks were not getting public money (until the TARP fiasco). ACORN exists on public money (although a previous poster says most donations are private I am not sure) so the point is if they exist on public money then they are finished.
Also, there is another distinction. So far at least no one has done anything actually illegal at the banks (to clarify no one has been charged with anything illegal). So if you agree with Megan and others that it was mostly rampant stupidity (and not fraud) then that is a huge distinction. Stupidity does not equal underage prostitution which is actually a crime.
Points well taken, but my understanding of Megan's posts are that she's focusing on culpability. She's not saying ACORN received public money, banks didn't, or what ACORN did was illegal, what the banks did wasn't. She's talking about culpability, and she seems to me to apply a double standard. Don't get me wrong, I don't think it's some nonsense like she's a conservative, she loves bankers, she hates community organizers, etc. I think that for whatever reason she just saw them differently initially, probably without even recognizing the similarties of the circumstances, and the result is a double standard that she isn't concedeing or, alternatively, explaining why it actually doesn't exist.
Also, while banks might not necessarily have taken government money, most agree they were thriving off of implicit government guarantees (the Greenspan put). As for illegality, many of the banks eventually bought mortgage lenders, brokers, etc to make the loans that the banks then bought and securitized, and many of these lenders, brokers, etc at a minimum engaged in the worst of the reckless and shoddy behavior, and likely engaged in at least some predatory lending.
Janice,
I think there is a distinction between public and private organizations. I think Megan was getting at that also in terms of culpability (Megan can correct me if I'm wrong).
As for the Greenspan put that is not illegal so it doesn't further this discussion.
If you want to say banks made stupid loans you wont get an argument from me. The government stupidly pushed for more home ownership. People stupidly bought homes they couldn't afford. The fed kept rates low for far too long and the ratings agencies screwed up as well.
If there was predatory lending (I would bet at least some loans were made this way) then let them bring charges.
Stupidity does not equal underage prostitution which is actually a crime.
In that case the employee called the cops and then played along to try and keep them there until the police arrived. You know, a fairly smart response to the situation at hand. Don't let the facts get in your way though.
Didnt this occur at multiple locations something like 5? And only one called the police?
If the people called the police then why were they summarily fired by Acorn? Nothing like the facts I guess.
Piecing together ACORN's story, one out of ten organizations called the cops, well after Giles and O'Keefe had left. Three did nothing. Six offered to help.
Wow. Where did you get that from? Have you been following the story? Go to biggovernment.com, see all the videos, read the lies that the ACORN people have told at each stage as they tried to nip each stage in the bud. If you are interested in the truth, it's pretty obvious what was going on.
And this thing about "the employee called the cops and then played along to try and keep them there until the police arrived" is entirely invented, something that ACORN is pushing just now. They have no credibility in this story. Eventually that video will come out too, and I predict that it quite possibly will not look much better than the others.
"Don't let the facts get in your way though." I find this statement kind of sad. Do you care about the truth? [Maybe you have been misled by your news sources, in which case I withdraw my complaint, and suggest you stop reading them.]
That piece only covers one of the problems. See my comment below for discussion and links to NLRB and IWW and other reports of how ACORN employs illegal union-busting (firing employees who attempt to organize), shirks overtime laws, cuts paychecks late, and pays workers less than minimum wage.
There was a series of distinct problems. That one article just doesn't discuss them all.
Is there a way we can bring George Soros up on charges for aiding and abetting?
God, this schtick is getting old. How about we do a turnabout: 'Conservatives have legitimate reason to be mournful--racism doesn't play with the average voter the way it did in the 50's and 60's.'
I'm sure that neither Megan nor her devoted followers will object to that, will they? How could they? Megan's already used the same form, and they didn't object then.
SoV, what are you talking about? Are you delusional? Megan is acknowledging the good-faith concerns that liberals might have if ACORN goes under: namely, that an essential service to the poor might go unprovided. How is that an attack? For you to do a "turnabout" like that is deeply unserious and rather infantile. The correct "turnabout" would be something like this: "conservatives have legitimate reason to be mournful--they think limited government is the best path to general prosperity."
In any event, regarding ACORN's replaceability: Speaking from my own experience with NGOs (both domestic and international), back when I was a sanctimonious world-saving radical-wannabe in my early 20s, I can say with much confidence that the amount of actual, tangible good that a nonprofit does in community work is inversely proportional to the amount of ideological politicking that it incorporates into its mission. In short: providing shelter, food, advice, job interviews = good. Radicalizing and instilling a grievance mentality among already disadvantaged people = an utterly counterproductive disservice to the poor and the community at large.
Verdict: no tears for ACORN. There are much, MUCH better ways to deliver its legitimate and "compassionate" services -- but those ways don't involve self-righteous ego-enhancing leftist moralizing sanctimony, so don't expect a lot of congresscritters to support them with tax money.
Poor people managed to live prior to the founding of ACORN, so either it's not essential or it can be provided by other means.
Funny thing - in the 50s and 60s, it was the left where all the racists hung out. The South was almost entirely Democrat for a century.
Thus is born a brand new organization call WALNUT.
:)
The real victims here are the many illegal immigrants who will be deprived of vital assistance in evading taxation and voting for Democrats.
No underage prostitution without representation!
Congratulations on learning that ACORN is an acronym. It took significantly less time than learning how to capitalize titles. It's nice to see progress.
Hmmm... I think Megan's usage is correct. An organization that suffers an instance of embezzlement had "a problem". An organization that continues to employ the embezzler for eight years, covers up the crime, and expels board members who want accountability, "has problems".
ACORN's problems, or that of its state affiliates, go back even further and extend past embezzlement. ACORN got in trouble for not paying its employees (who were calling people up to push for a higher minimum wage) minimum wage back in 1996. Their excuse is that they couldn't hire as many people if they paid minimum wage.
They later sued the state of California, asking for a minimum wage exemption.
ACORN has been blasted by the IWW of all things for engaging in possibly illegal union-busting and firing employees for attempting to organize, the latter of which is clearly illegal under Taft-Hartley.
ACORN was accused by the National Labor Relations Board in a report of frequently cutting late paychecks and failing to pay statutorily required overtime when employees worked 54+ hrs in a week.
They are a horribly hypocritical activist group.
Exactly! The leaders of ACORN have always considered themselves above the law and felt that the end justifies the means. Surely it's possible to have an organization that tries to meet ACORN's goals while also maintaining the sort of ethical standards that we would expect in a for-profit company.
I find it pretty sad that only these videos have brought down ACORN-- they should have been excommunicated years ago for their hypocritical stance on minimum wage and their blatant violation of labor laws. But because they're on the "right side," their team didn't want to criticize them. Have to break a few worker eggs to make a labor omelet.
What are you talking about? Are you delusional? How about we say moderates and liberals (and perhaps even a few conservatives - the real kind) have reason to be mournful?
Do you really need to be hit over the head repeatedly with a cluestick to get the point? Or is this a case of pretending that you never felt the hit?
SoV, do us all a favor and explain exactly what your objection is using declarative English sentences. I think I know, but I don't want to speak for you.
What makes you think I have an objection to declarative sentences? I've got no problem with sentences like 'Conservatives want to suppress voter turnout amongst the poor and blacks.' It's a true statement, right? So you can't kick at all.
SoV, I don't think you have a problem with using declarative sentences. I'm asking you to explain your problem, using such sentences, instead of elliptical analogies. (My "using" is not an infinitive--it doesn't have a "to" before it--it's a participle). As I said, I think I know what you're objecting to, but I don't want to put words in your mouth.
So please: explain what you mean as straightforwardly as possible.
I'm being very straightforward, would please answer the question? is 'Conservatives want to suppress voter turnout amongst the poor and blacks.' a true statement? Not a hard question, I would think.
I do not think that is a true statement. YMMV.
Now, my turn: why do you find the final two sentences of the original post objectionable?
Well then, there's your answer, I don't think those two final sentences are true and accurate - probably for exactly the same reasons you think my statement wast not true and accurate. Even though there are some partial truths in all the claims.
As I understand your objection--and I'm just going to put words in your mouth because I'm giving up on getting a straight answer--you believe that the statement is not so much inaccurate as incomplete: that is, people other than liberals will also mourn ACORN, or ought to, anyway (I take it you do not assert that ACORN is in fact totally indispensable).
Logically, the statement is perfectly correct (saying "Socrates is mortal" does not, without more, preclude the possibility that others are also mortal), but you feel that it should have been made broader.
Am I close?
Well, in that case, Rob, logically, the statement 'Conservatives want to suppress voter turnout amongst the poor and blacks' is also perfectly correct. And you believe the statement is not so much inaccurate as it is incomplete.
Is this your objection to that statement? I'm genuinely curious as to why you think the two are different in any material way.
Is this your objection to that statement? I'm genuinely curious as to why you think the two are different in any material way.
They're different because one is overinclusive while the other is underinclusive.
Saying "Conservatives want to suppress voter turn out" ascribes to some conservatives views they don't hold, and indeed views they find odious. That statement is an insult to them.
Saying "Liberals will mourn ACORN" fails to ascribe to some non-liberals views that they do hold. (Again, assuming that I have understood your objection correctly). It is correct, but incomplete, because there are non-liberals who might have been included but were not. This is not an insult to anyone, or at least is a much milder one than your statement.
I would still appreciate an answer: have I understood your objection correctly?
If your objection is that there are some liberals who do not mourn the putative death of ACORN, please say so plainly. In that case your "conservatives" statement and our gracious hostess's "liberals" statement are logically equivalent.
Yes. So, what is your problem with my statement, given that it's true?
Btw, and for the record, I don't think that 'Conservatives want to suppress voter turnout amongst the poor and blacks' is true either, in the sense that it suggests something that isn't so. I once asked my daughter if she had asked her mother if it was okay if a friend of hers had a sleep-over. To which she replied uh-huh while vigorously nodding her head. Do you think I didn't punish her when I found out that her mother had been in the loop, but had nixed the idea? Would you think it wrong of me to punish her even though she gave a 'truthful' answer?
Yes. So, what is your problem with my statement, given that it's true?
It's not true, as I explained. And neither is the original. Now that I finally know what your objection is (why didn't you say that to begin with, for heaven's sake?), I have no objection to it. The sentence would have been better phrased as "ACORN's supporters have legitimate reason to be mournful..."
Would you think it wrong of me to punish her even though she gave a 'truthful' answer?
No. But given your history of adamantly refusing to either consider context when evaluating other people's statements or give them the benefit of the doubt in construing their meaning, I kind of think you got what you deserved.
SoV, if your objection to Megan's last sentence was that not all liberals automatically mourn the fall of ACORN, then I take back my earlier criticism of you. It is certainly true that, as Rob Lyman points out, it's not "liberals" per se that will be upset, but ACORN supporters. But, why didn't you say that originally? Why all the coy little semantic games?
To put it another way, this is an example where unnecessary animosity and immoderate rhetoric can actually create an artificial disagreement out of what is essentially an area of consensus. I suggest that we have enough organic disagreements in this country already without having to deal with artificially created discord.
Kudos to Rob Lyman for being adult enough to not take the bait. The quality I most admire about Obama -- even when I disagree with him -- is his ability to remain calm and thoughtful while people to his left and right are mindlessly slandering each other as racists or crypto-fascists or "political terrorists" or whatever. Some people in this world create discord, others defuse it.
Actually, the sentence would have been better phrased as "The people who want all eligible citizens registered to vote have legitimate reason to be mournful..."[1]
That is far more accurate - and truthful. I can't think of any good reason to phrase it the way Megan did unless you want to engage in a little smearing. And I've never understood why anyone would be against wanting eligible citizens registered to vote, quite frankly. It strikes me as akin to willfully disabling the temperature gauge on your dash.
[1]Actually, the people I know, mostly moderates, are irritated with this sort of tomfoolery. They tend to think that Congress has far better things to do than pass grandstanding and ill-written legislation.
Er, Rob? I have a history? Didn't we just do this a bit ago where I pointed out that technically you would be correct to say that dogs aren't four-legged animals if you took the 'all' to be understood to be in front of 'dogs'? Don't you mean that you have a history? And in fact, aren't my posts in this about context, and 'technically' true vs 'really' true? Didn't we just do this a bit ago where I pointed out that technically you would be correct to say that dogs aren't four-legged animals if you took the 'all' to be understood to be in front of 'dogs'? I don't think this remark serves you at all well - you've got to know that it can only lead to more bickering. Whups! Strike the 'only'; wouldn't want to be accused of being 'technically' incorrect again!
I call bull on this one - you certainly didn't have any difficulty seeng a problem when the 'technically correct' wording went the other way. I suppose you could say that you didn't realize that you were being selectively blind. But you'd have to admit to if first, now, wouldn't you?
Yep. I admit it. And I would have admitted it happily, and a lot earlier, if you had just pointed it out like an adult rather than being such a self-satisfied a--hole about it for so long.
I can't think of any good reason to phrase it the way Megan did unless you want to engage in a little smearing.
I'm going to have to ask for clarification again.
The only way I can see that sentence as a "smear" is if one thinks ACORN is a terrible organization, with whom nobody would every want to be associated. If that's the case, then saying that "Liberals support ACORN" is a smear by erroneously suggesting that "liberals," as a group, all support a terrible organization.
But if ACORN is doing noble work, then erroneously attributing support for their noble work to that subset of "liberals" who in fact oppose ACORN can't possibly be called a "smear." At worst, you've giving them credit they don't deserve, which is the very opposite of a smear.
Rob,
I admire your patience, but other than the pleasure of making him look like a fool, what do you get out of it?
See, here's the deal - I'm pointing out that this is what Megan is doing with those last two sentences. Like I've pointed out similar behaviour on her part many times already.
Care to acknowledge that Megan is in fact engaging in 'unnecessary animosity and immoderate rhetoric'? Or is this where you get in a little 'impartial' bashing on an opponent?
Because frankly, unless you can admit that this is how Megan is coming across, then I will quite cheerfully dismiss you as yet another low-level partisan.
I don't think this remark serves you at all well - you've got to know that it can only lead to more bickering.
That's not true at all. I have to go home soon, so I probably won't have time to bicker, although we'll see.
No, it's a smear because (a)it's trying to force the presumption that ACORN's goals don't have broad, mainstream support, (b)that because 'liberals' support ACORN's work they are willing to excuse bad acts committed by the institution as an institution, and (c)that what ACORN is and does isn't 'really' good, as anyone but liberals well know.
Um, you know, the way I was brought up, when people accuse you of being rude and nasty, and you thought that they were being sincere, you were supposed to accommodate them. Not go on being rude and nasty. That wasn't a pass to make those accusations for an advantage of course, you had to actually, genuinely believe it.
Are you saying you were taught differently, or that you think Megan was taught differently?
I too came up short on this sentence, "Liberals have legitimate reason to be mournful--they think ACORN does good work." It seems to preclude even the possibility that ACORN may do what could be objectively considered good work, and that only Liberals could think so.
It is either her bias showing or sloppy writing, and unfortunately it's a pattern. I keep trying to figure her out and give her the benefit of the doubt, and she gets her nose out of joint when people point it out. But she's the one writing this stuff. I simply expect better from the The Atlantic.
It may well be that ACORN is beyond salvation as an organization, but I categorically reject the "burn the witch!" reaction common in these parts. Megan is not as bad as all that, but what is inescapable is the stark contrast between her ongoing "no villains in the financial crisis" campaign and her immediate conclusion that it's time for ACORN to die.
Sorry, I forgot pandering in my post above. Pandering is also a possibility.
Rob, SoV, knock it off, the pair of you. You're giving me a headache.
Rob's mistake was replying. As with the Iranian negotiations, it just gives lunacy a platform.
Fortunately, Megan has put in some sort of ingenious mechanism causing most SOVs comments to sink to the bottom where they can be easily ignored. ;)
That's the kicker. As one Bond villain said, "Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action." I can buy the protestations of being unjustly accused only so many times. But Megan does this schtick over and over and over . . . We've long since gone from the plausible deniability defense and into the 'if I deny it, my denials must perforce be plausible' territory.
Right. Another old schtick, the "You're angry?!? Hey Bud, I'm Angry!!" ploy. Again, it works okay the first few or half a dozen times it's trotted out, but it get's pretty shopworn as it's deployment numbers into the 'teens and beyond. Like you, I once tried to figure out where Megan is coming, but I've long since come to the conclusion that it's all about the hits on her site. Whether she's been instructed to do this or she's doing it on her own, I don't greatly care.
It seems ever more likely that I may be the only person here who has actually interacted with ACORN, so I feel compelled to relate my experience.
The year was 2006 and my fiancee and I were considering buying a house (we didn't, fortunately). The absurdity of home prices in San Diego made it clear that we couldn't even think about it without a very good deal on a loan. Research on this topic brought us to an ACORN office.
From my observations, what they were doing there was first educating people about home buying, mortgages, etc. We had to sit through a seminar or two (this was a requirement), and we actually learned a few things.
Then they check and verify income, etc. to see that applicants could support a given mortgage. There was documentation required, e.g. W-2s, and were quite a number of boxes to check and hoops to jump through.
For anyone who cleared all the above hurdles, ACORN had partnered with various lenders who were prepared to offer decent interest rates based on the sign off that the applicant knew what they were getting into and had proven that they could support a certain mortgage.
We actually felt a little guilty being there as two professionals in their 30's with no kids, on the idea that we might take money away from a poorer person who could use it. On the other hand we thought we might boost their success rate. The plan was for only my fiancee to apply, because our combined income would disqualify us for the program and was only possible because we weren't married yet.
In the end we walked away from the whole idea, and still rent. But what we saw was a motivated and professional group providing a valuable service. A service of the sort that I see a bit of advocacy for in this forum from time to time, i.e. educating folks about loans, interest, and whatnot. We were impressed, frankly.
So my conclusion is that there is in fact a baby in this bathwater, however small and sickly it may be.
I have to agree.
I worked with ACORN in the 1990s advocating for minimum wage hikes. They seemed a bit sketchy but did some good work.
No, it's a smear because (a)it's trying to force the presumption that ACORN's goals don't have broad, mainstream support, (b)that because 'liberals' support ACORN's work they are willing to excuse bad acts committed by the institution as an institution, and (c)that what ACORN is and does isn't 'really' good, as anyone but liberals well know.
Excellent! We finally have that clear explanation I have been looking for. And actually, when you strip away the kinda weird counterexample, it's a fair critique. Not one I would have bothered making, given that the thrust of the paragraph was "Don't worry, the good that ACORN does can still be done by others," and the "smear" is pretty collateral to that point, but neither is it unreasonable.
Kaykuri -
Thanks for sharing your experience. I don't think that anyone is debating whether ACORN's goals are valuable (regardless of what SoV claims). The disagreement is that some think that repeated, systemic transgressions should be overlooked because in theory, ACORN means well; while others think that such worthy goals make it that much more important that the organization be well run and dedicated to the central goals that it claims.
Given your experience with ACORN, weren't you at least a bit taken aback to see those videos where workers in office after office rattled off a list of ways to hide income and cheat on taxes? The list included reporting only 10% of your annual income, having multiple bank accounts with no more than $500 per month put into each, burying money in a tin in the back yard, and declaring 12 year old girls taken to a foreign country to work as prostitutes as dependents, without reporting the money earned by their turning tricks.
Don't you think it's possible, and even preferable, for an organization to offer the kind of services you received without also going out of its way to help people break the law, and without upper management regularly and blatantly violating its own stated principles? Doesn't the baby deserve proper care?
Ann,
I've learned several things about ACORN in the recent past. ACORN is bigger than I thought, it provides a wider variety of services than I was aware of, and it apparently has some serious management issues that go all the way to the top.
These videos are sad and pathetic and very unfortunate. What's the proper political formulation nowadays, "I renounce them?" But you know what? I know for sure that at least in San Diego, where I live, the dude has been fired. That is the proper reaction to that event.
But you are being disingenuous about the ongoing "disagreement" both here and in the wider media. You are certainly correct when you say that, "I don't think that anyone is debating whether ACORN's goals are valuable". There really seems to be no debate about that at all. Most of what we get around here amounts to this:
To offer any defense at all of ACORN is to be equated with supporting human trafficking and child prostitution? This is simply preposterous.
If you think that the campaign against ACORN in recent years is motivated by a desire for accountability, transparency, and reform, feel free to delude yourself. These people are not trying to fix this organization, they are trying to kill it.
The actual facts of whether ACORN actually, objectively does any good work is simply not considered worthy of investigation by our hostess or the MSM. No, no. Megan's keen observation and business analytical skills bring us the following conclusion:
"Indefensible!" End of story.
Again, I invite you to contrast this with her treatment of Goldman Sachs and the wider financial crisis, just for one example.
There is an entire industry built around helping individuals and corporations "hide income and cheat on taxes", which generally fails to inspire much indignation around here.
As I have said before, ACORN may well be beyond salvation, which would be too bad. I find the anti-ACORN campaign and the (premature?) gleeful dancing over its grave profoundly distasteful. These jokers were free to do what they did and ACORNS employees got busted being stupid. Suing them is a really stupid idea to throw on the pile. But whatever.
The spectacle of our Federal Gov't suddenly swinging into righteous action over this also puts me off. But there you go. That doesn't mean that suspending or cutting their Federal funding is not a proper response.
In the long run, if this ridiculous stunt spurs ACORN to finally clean up their act, then they will have performed a public service. But do not for a moment kid yourself that that was their goal.
Moreover, if the Congress passes the bill as written, and succeeds in cutting funding to all organizations out there routinely bilking the gov't for money, then I may well be willing to sacrifice ACORN to that cause. It would probably aid in shrinking the deficit as well.
"These people are not trying to fix this organization, they are trying to kill it."
But why are they so anxious to kill this particular organization? You're being disingenuous if you're trying to claim that the vehemence against this particular organization is because this one is so much better than others with similar goals. It's because of the blatant hypocrisy that ACORN has shown through the years, the attitude among top management that they are above the law, above the rules, justified in doing anything they want simply because they pretend to be doing it for noble reasons.
"I know for sure that at least in San Diego, where I live, the dude has been fired. That is the proper reaction to that event."
ACORN's upper management has always set the tone of the organization. People at the bottom who respond to that tone get thrown out when caught, while those at the top sanctimoniously point fingers and claim to be victims.
ACORN's management has been riddled with hypocrisy from the start. They protest and circulate petitions demanding a higher minimum wage and yet use backdoor routes to avoid paying even the current minimum wage that they say is too low; they petition to support unions yet use extreme measures to prevent their own employees from unionizing; they cover up evidence that someone at the top, with good connections, has embezzled nearly a million dollars, throwing out board members that are asking too many questions. For voter registration, they set up systems that encourage their employees to falsify registrations and then fire those same employees if they're caught, putting all the blame on the lower level workers without ever, ever holding upper management responsible.
The corruption is at the top, so how is it either fair or effective to place all of the punishment on a few scapegoats at the bottom?
My stars and garters. They register poor people to vote. And those poor people tend to vote democratic. And no one was holding them accountable! What responsible citizen could stand for that, after all?
Absolutely nowhere do I claim or even insinuate that "the vehemence against this particular organization is because this one is so much better than others with similar goals". Nor do I say that it is "fair or effective to place all of the punishment on a few scapegoats at the bottom".
Without finely parsing each individual incident here, if you get caught doing what some of these folks did, then I'm afraid you have to lose your job. Asà es la vida, baby. Lo siento mucho. But that's hardly the end of it--don't know if you've been watching the news lately. The place needs a top to bottom shakeout. I don't know how I can be any clearer on this.
There's no shortage of hypocrisy to be found in many quarters. It's a bumper crop and a hot commodity. And it is particularly rank among the vehement anti-ACORN crowd.
Kaykuri -
Nice try, but I don't buy it. First, if that really was O'Keefe's motivation, it's shameful, although even then he didn't force the various offices to give the answers they did.
But this sounds to me like a misquote, or something taken out of context. I've seen TV interviews with both O'Keefe and Giles about why they did it, and both made it clear that it was ACORN's invalid registrations, deliberate fraud, and misuse of taxpayer funds to favor one political party and set of candidates.
It's fine to get taxpayer money for non-partisan voter registration and get-out-the-vote drives, and it's fine to have partisan organizations that openly favor only one side. ACORN funneled money between the two, which is misuse of taxpayer funds. Perhaps O'Keefe and Giles were motivated by the tapes of ACORN workers during the last election cycle openly telling people to vote for Obama while engaged in supposedly non-partisan get-out-the-vote drives.
Again, why does ACORN raise so many protests? The League of Women Voters has been doing voter registration drives for decades without attracting a similar response. Any voter registration drive tends to favor the Democrats, since such drives disproportionately sign up people who haven't registered themselves, and such people naturally tend to favor the idea of big government. Yet other organizations that focus on voter registration don't attract such outrage. Why? Because most other such organizations are legitimate, while ACORN has been corrupt at the top from the beginning.
"Nice try"!?! They're quoting the man. I'm done here.
Here's the link I found to the article you're quoting from:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/17/AR2009091704805.html?hpid=topnews&sid=ST2009091704852
And what do we find at the top?
Correction to This Article
This article about the community organizing group ACORN incorrectly said that a conservative journalist targeted the organization for hidden-camera videos partly because its voter-registration drives bring Latinos and African Americans to the polls. Although ACORN registers people mostly from those groups, the maker of the videos, James E. O'Keefe, did not specifically mention them.
So yes, you are done here.
Actually, I gave the clear explanation a while back with the 'weird' counterexample. What was weird about it anyway? You've already admitted that they were logically equivalent.
Uh-huh. And just after you admitted it was fair. Rob, why don't you just come out and say that Megan shouldn't have said that, and that it is certainly a smear? And didn't you just try to play the 'context matters' card? We've had this go-'round any number of times now, where you keep making these sorts of half-baked excuses, and then ask me why I have such a low opinion of 'conservatives'.
It's because they - and you - pull little stunts like this. Constantly. For once, could you stop making excuses and just call a spade a spade? I'd wager that if you saw this sort of persistent behaviour from self-declared 'liberals' you wouldn't be quite so accommodating of their shenanigans. The difference between us is, I wouldn't be either.
Right. And that has nothing to do with the actual quote:
And what else did Kaykuri say?
Nothing in there about African-Americans or Latinos. Of course, this is Ann, who claims to have teach finance but insists that Fannie Mae was never privatized.
Yes, Ann, I think you're really done here. And Rob? I don't want to hear one more word out of you about finding these people acting in bad faith. Here and on the polling thread? They're dripping, oozing, spouting bad faith.
SoV -
Kaykuri claimed that O'Keefe was objecting to legitimate (poor) voters being signed up, when O'Keefe was actually objecting to ineligible voters being signed up through fraud and misuse of taxpayer funds. To me, the two are very, very different.
To you, I would guess that the end justifies the means. But if in fact you also strongly object to ACORN's methods, I'd be happy to be corrected.
Really? The quote doesn't support you. Neither did this 'reporter' try to register to vote to check whether or not they were being fraudulently registered. No, he tried to see if they were giving bad tax advice instead, which might have had some relevance if he was claiming that ACORN was giving bad tax advice, but inapropos in this situation.
I don't believe in the slightest that you're saying any of this in good faith, and at this point, I can't think of anything that would change my mind on this score. Well, you could always admit you were wrong(snort! 'Fannie Mae was never privatized.') and apologize for your behaviour. Yeah, like that's going to happen. Accountability. Accepting responsibility for the consequences of your actions. It's not just for other people.
Here's the quote:
"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."
This is the only part that's a direct quote. Both the reporter and Kaykuri used their own pre-existing prejudices to assume that O'Keefe wanted ACORN held accountable for signing up poor people to vote, but the reporter later had to admit that this was his (her?) invention. Both you and Kaykuri could see all along that the part about poor voters was not part of the actual quote but was interpretation on the part of the reporter, who later admitted error.
Have you ever been interviewed? I've found that it's easy for journalists to misinterpret what is said in, say, a 45 minute phone interview, which is why I usually send an e-mail summarizing my message afterward. I've been interviewed at most only a couple of dozen times, but out of all those times, only once did a journalist (for the Wall Street Journal) follow up before publication by e-mailing me what she planned to write, to make sure it was accurate. Their deadlines are probably too tight for this to be routine. As a result, even journalists that are sincere and unprejudiced still make mistakes. Add in some existing prejudices, and mistakes are even more likely to occur. At least the Washington Post later admitted the error.
As for Fannie and Freddie, yes, the government technically privatized them to get them off the official books (as I've always said), but both continued to be able to borrow at below-market rates because everyone assumed that there was an implicit government guarantee. How can you deny this when even the head of Fannie Mae admitted it publicly? And, after all, the government later did exactly what everyone thought it would do (stepped in to prevent a default), so the expectations appear to have been correct.
If you're genuinely still confused about Fannie and Freddie, you could straighten it out in the way I've suggested before - go to the library and look at some money and banking textbooks. They'll all confirm what I've said, since this is standard stuff.