I had never heard of ACORN until possibly August 2008, when right wingers started calling it all kinds of names and questioning then-Sen. Obama’s ties to the organization.
Seeing as how ACORN was founded in 1970, has
how is it that this evil, nefarious organization managed to not raise anyone’s ire until it became an issue to people during the election?
To me, it looks like this is just something being used as a bogeyman by the right, not because they really think ACORN is evil, but because they can score easy political points with the dittoheads and their ilk.
A bogeyman and convenient distraction is exactly what it is. For the Republicans to have the nerve to demand a special prosecutor to investigate Obama’s nonexistant relationship with ACORN, while resisting any investigation into torture, warrantless wiretapping, military contractor theft, etc etc etc, is simply incredible.
No, its more than that. ACORN is not nearly the threat they are made out to be, but they are a threat, kinda. ACORN specializes in empowering the powerless, which is why the are always awash in money. Their absolute favorite is voter registration, following a time honored progressive tactic going way back to the labor movement. “Organize” is the one word rule of progressives.
I’ve met them from working in a foundation, and they are used car, cheap suit, idealistic liberals. Solidly approve of them, support them, can’t stand them.
But professional Pubbies hate ACORN because that approach works, it gets people registered. Power to the people, and for real. Same reason they hate Saul Alinsky, the shit works, organization is power. And when the people lead, the leaders follow. Pretty much have to follow you, when you got their balls in your pocket.
And, as a side light, they would still love to find some scrap of justification for the crap the White House was pulling with selective prosecutions by US attorneys. Theres a video somewhere of the statue of Justice setting down her scales and sword so she could puke her marble guts out.
ACORN is a shell of 150 different organizations so if one of them ends up on the news you don’t make the link directly unless it’s pointed out. It gets political attention because federal funds are used to “empower the powerless”. Since this oftena consists of mining welfare people or relaxing voter verification laws in court it’s looked on as a publicly funded political benefit.
Do you have a cite for that? There’s nothing in the wikipedia article that mentions anything like that, and the ACORN: Allied Organizations page only lists 9 organizations, 2 of which are radio stations and 1 of which is a journal.
elucidator has eloquently summed up the situation and Magiver has put the icing on top. One of ACORN’s specialities has been getting voters registered. In a democracy, this is normally considered to be a good thing. However, increased registration and voter turnout typically favors one party; the Democratic party. This has forced the Republican party into a somewhat difficult role - they must oppose registration and increased turnout. This is a pretty tough position to take on directly - they just can’t come out and say it directly. “We’re against fundamental democracy!”
Instead, they must use coded words. They must be opposed to “relaxed voter verification”. They must fight against “vote fraud”.
ACORN scared the bejeezus out of Repubs. They saw in ACORN the possibility of losing election after election because more people were empowered to vote.
To properly understand the potential impact that ACORN’s activities may have on the upcoming and future elections, it is important to understand their structure. In all, ACORN’s massive enterprise includes as many as 150 subsidiary organizations, according to a recent legal filing by members of its board of directors.1 This list includes two affiliated labor union locals, TV and radio broadcast operations, immense housing counseling operations, and a number of lobbying and political entities. In all, ACORN’s total operation this year has an estimated budget of $110 million.
Yeah, and this Glenn Beck guy can’t be all that bad either – after all, he’s been a radio broadcaster for years, but it’s only been in the last year or two that left-wingers have started calling him all kinds of names.
How is it that this evil, nefarious guy managed to not raise anyone’s ire until he became a critic of Obama?
To me, it looks like this is just something being used as a bogeyman by the left, not because they really think Beck is evil, but because they can score easy political points with the Olbermannites and their ilk.
Republican translation; Voter Registration = Voter Fraud. They must define it so, because an increase in voter registration benefits the Democrats, and the Republicans can’t be seen to be obviously anti-registration.
Therefore, they consistently try to frame the debate in terms of their preferred terminology; Voter Fraud.
That’s embarassing. “Voter fraud”. Right. Sure. You bethca.
Says right there in the text: the guy was busted for offering an extra incentive for more registrations. He ran afoul of a law that forbids such incentives. Period. There is nothing to indicate that the registrations were fraudulent, or that he encouraged any fraudulent registrations. We covered this, you were here, remember?
Your cite is a report from James Terry, of the Consumer Rights League. He has nothing to back up his assertion of 150 subsidiaries, excepting that he says in a footnote:
He and his organization are also massive right wingers, extolling the virtues of Glen Beck, the WSJ and FoxNews right on their front page. They also have no history I can find, and are more involved with smearing ACORN than with their stated mission:
They appear to be a recently created hack organization whose sole purpose is to re-post news reports found elsewhere and to try and undermine ACORN.
Unless you can come up with a better cite than this guy’s say-so about the size of ACORN, I’m going to say that your information stinks and is false.