Little Acorns Have Mighty Enemies Update II
“You Can Tell a Lot About People by Who[m] They Choose to Demonize”
An incisive analysis of the attacks on Acorn and the Senate vote to defund them. Take a look.
http://www.anonymousliberal.com/2009/09/you-can-tell-lot-about-people-by-who.html
(ht: Glenn Greenwald)
Update: The Times has a profile of the provocateur who made the video of Acorn workers. He is the pimp in the videos and has provoked before. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/19/us/19sting.html
Patrick Molloy has helpfully posted this link to the New York Post story on our budding journalists and their plans:
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/duo_who_turned_this_trick_2sjQ58MdtwmSXxhfVELmZL
Happy are they who grind the faces of the poor. They shall have a career and prosper.
And here, The typical American solution to the problem, “Acorn Sues Makers of Video”
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2009/09/23/us/AP-US-ACORN-Lawsuit.html?_r=1&hp
I don’t know Mrs. S. Even Jon Stewart thinks the media missed the boat on this one. If you’ve lost Jon Stewart, you’ve lost…Cathy Kaveny?
It’s Stephen Colbert she adores!
But yes, I watched Jon Stewart last night. Since the events were staged by provocateurs, I’m not clear how the media would have gotten on that boat unless they staged such scenes themselves. Unless Fox staged them as I took Stewart to perhaps be suggesting.
The point of the analysis I posted was not a defense of the Acorn staff, but the rapidity with which House and Senate have reacted to the story by voting to defund. This, the analysis goes, is in contrast to the fraud perpetrated by many contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan, most of whom have not only not been called to account, but have had their contracts routinely renewed.
I take this episode to be a part of the viral contagion that right-wingers have set loose on the Democrats. In the Acorn case, the Dems don’t have the decency to conduct their own investigation, and as far as I can tell the media is still not doing it’s job by looking into the reported behavior–which I agree is pretty shocking, above all, masking the presence of under age girls in a brothel.
Lots of “I gurantees” and “I suspects” in there. Pretty thin gruel.
The Catholic Church does lots of good work, too, and is in large-part staffed by low-paid workers.
That doesn’t excuse covering up sexual abuse.
Since the events were staged by provocateurs, I’m not clear how the media would have gotten on that boat unless they staged such scenes themselves.
Right. And the mainstream media never do undercover, investigative reporting. They never run stings against criminal organizations. There are no prime-time news magazine shows that have been on the air for decades that specialize in that kind of stuff. Nope. Notta. (At least with regard to a criminal syndicate like ACORN.)
Criminal syndicate! strong language.
Having watched the videos, and considered in the light of other accusations of malfeasance, the impression I get is that, while they may do some good work, they’re a poorly run organization, with extremely undertrained staff. Their leadership seems to have failed them badly.
Here’s a less forgiving take on ACORN, fwiw:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203917304574412792287663918.html
[T]hey’re a poorly run organization, with extremely undertrained staff.
Yes, that’s the meme that going around. But I’m not the first to ask, how much training does it take to know that abetting child sex-slavery is wrong?
Yes, Stephen Colbert is special. But I really love Jon Stewart too. My heart is big enough for a full hour of late-night political comedy!
But thanks to the Glenn Becks of the world, ACORN has now been so demonized that its future as an organization is in doubt. Never fear, though, I’m sure Beck will find some other obscure powerless group to demonize soon.
Acorn is obscure and powerless? On the contrary, though somwhat obscure, they have Obama’s ear, and in fact, Obama told an Acorn gathering that they (Acorn) would help shape his (Obama’s) administration.
It kind of looks like the Dems are running scared as they look ahead, with considerable trepidation, to the 2010 Congressional elections. The last thing they need is the Acorn albatross swinging from their collective neck.
Point well made, Ms. Steinfels. But wonder after the ACORN mess during the election; now with healthcare on the table and needing every vote; the distraction of this (whether valid or invalid) just does not warrant immediate and strong support.
That is sad given the history and accomplishments of this group; but, like any group (the church), it does not take many to smear the name of their organization given the political slant and politics of paranoia that pass for news these days.
The Right scored points outing ‘welfare queens’ 35 years so they went back to an old playbook.On the Left , Michael Moore did so well he can be given some credit for sinking GM..
Maybe ‘outing’ is now on the media front table. Live by the sword, die by the sword..
We are so inured to injustice that we are all taken in by gross inequities. We admire that Jay Leno drives a different car to work almost every day and that Steinfeld has his own garages to house in cars in prohibitively expensive Manhattan while we debate while we should give health care to everyone. Our priorities are so mixed up that we tout clear opportunists like Russ Limbaugh and Glenn Beck (who advertised on CNN for the Fox job) and allow deliberate smears on Acorn.
Anyone with minimal political experience knows that the pharmaceutical and health care insurance companies are preventing universal health care from happening.
The Sermon on the Mount is placed in the trash while we tout liturgy and the magisterium as our greatest assets
I watched some of the ACORN videos. I am aware, through some of my work, of this type of sub-culture and so to a certain extent I can understand the ACORN workers. Anybody who has spent any sustained time near or close to the street sees an entire underbelly of people who are indeed “sinners”. Lets remember exactly what is meant by the term “sinner”. In the New Testament when the charge was leveled against Jesus that he ate with sinners, a sinner was not someone who did wrong and repented – even Pharisees welcomed that. A sinner was one who had no intention at all of moving or changing.
One ACRON worker advised the prostitute and pimp to call their enterprise a “Turkish” or “Swedish” massage – whatever. They are all over the place and function in a quasi-legal fashion. At issue was obtaining a mortgage.
The larger question is the legalization of prostitution. I know in the US and in Canada prominent people have been caught with prostitutes. St. Augustine advised that we tolerate prostitution.
It exists in our society as a significant issue. Groups like ACORN and any Catholic charity group are no doubt going to see it and see it regularly.
I don’t like prostitution. I see it connected to heavy drug use, lots of unhappiness, lots of abuse. However, at the same time we have a trillion dollar pornography industry.
ACORN workers were saying that to circumvent prostitution laws you have to come up with a euphemism. How is that different than issues surrounding campaign finance, or taxation movement. Nobody wants to actually break the law.
George D:
Forgive me, but you seem to have overlooked the crucial point that the “pimp” and “prostitute” were describing underage girls (13-15) from El Salvador. Surely you aren’t countenancing sex slaves, some as young as 13. Or are you?
I didn’t see all the videos. I was referring to one I saw and admittedly it was only a snippet. In that one there was no discussion of girls 13 – 15. The woman posing looked to be around 24. In the video I saw he was posing as a law student and she was trying to buy a house. Now I did not hear anything about underage girls. Obviously sex trafficking like that needs to be reported. In fact they are under legal obligation (under Canadian law) to report it and the fact that they didn’t should mean that a criminal investigation should be launched.
However, people like these do exist and the reality is that these are people who will be uninsured (because they will not apply for social assistance due to the reporting issues). They will be high users of emergency room visits and police.
I think groups like ACORN probably do a lot of good for uneducated people who live near or close to the street and who are economically disadvantaged. I don’t know what the housing situation is like but I know that welfare “reform” has hit a lot of people hard. There simply aren’t a lot of jobs for people to have stable income. There is a large population that is completely outside of the process.
Clearly there needs to be some moral grounding and tacitly (or in this case actively) supporting underage sex trade is just flat out wrong.
There obviously needs to be better leadership for these groups but even so I did not see the video of the 13 and 14 year old discussion. That truly is inexcusable and I can’t believe that any normal citizen would countenance that but obviously they did. That they did points to a pretty signficant cultural or sub-cultural issue.
There were indeed 13-14 year olds mentioned in a snippet I saw.
Just to press matters a bit: all any of us saw were snippets. Snippets are all anyone has seen, including members of Congress. The point: without any real investigation, properly by a local district attorney and without a congressional hearing, Congress has voted. Even Eric Prince (of Blackrock?? now XE??) got his face time before Congress;at the time no one pulled his State Department contracts.
Perhaps this is no time for the Dems to insist on a full look at the snippets and those offices of Acorn. But then: Have we come to the point that every time a right-wing group makes charges–the “offender” will get thrown overboard. Not a good scenario; not even constituional.
If the snippet makers were really interested in exposing Acorn why didn’t they take their “evidence” to the local district attorney instead of Cable TV? And by the way, do we even know where these snippets were filmed.
It’sclear that the Federal support of ACORN is dead.
How just the process leading to that is depends on the political perception that one brings as the posts here demonstrate.
Without trying to defend the actions taken by some workers, it’s also clear that those on the right look to attack groups that try to broaden voter registration (which obviously hurts their ideological cause.)
And today’s reality is that ideology rules -often backed by vitriol.
“I am aware, through some of my work, of this type of sub-culture and so to a certain extent I can understand the ACORN workers. Anybody who has spent any sustained time near or close to the street sees an entire underbelly of people who are indeed “sinners”.”
Hi, George, watching the videos, I had some of those same thoughts. People who are poor and hungry will do things that shock and offend us, like engage in prostitution, in order to survive. I sensed a sort of solidarity among the poor in those videotaped conversations.
At the same time: if a prostitute came to a Catholic Charities office for financial help and advice, she (or he) would be required to go through a formal intake process that would involve looking at her entire life situation. Catholic Charities would make it a priority to get her out of prostitution and into a safe and sustaining environment. I don’t know exactly what Acorn’s mission is, but it one of their programs is providing assistance to individuals who come to them for help, then they should be taking the same approach.
Amazing how calmly the news media is in reporting on this story – if they report it at all.
I wonder if they would have been as calm if someone had caught a conservative activist group in similar situation? And if that group had ties to then president Bush? Oh my, the outrage and moral indignation would have been of biblical proportions!
I think the mainstream media was much more shrill under Bush than they are under Obama.
Lots about this on CNN and my local news.
Funny how ideology shapes perception.
Maybe it’s ideology. Or maybe it’s distress that the Democrats are going to cave at every right-wing provocation, fair or not, legal or not. It’s bad enuf we have one party in the thrall of McCarthyism, if the other one follows, we’re in ds. Did y’all notice how quickly everyone signed onto and voted for guns in checked luggage on Amtrak….next thing you know we’ll have box cutters back.
Well, that will get rid of TSA and save all of us a lot of time at the airport. Speaking about an organization that came about because of paranoia.
James O’Keefe, the filmmaker of the Acorn follies, otherwise known as “a mighty enemy,” has also done yeoman work in pointing out rampant anti-Irish bigotry on the Rutgers campus:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4bxz2RSkrI
I presume this kind of protest wont’t be necessary at Fordham where O’Keefe is now enrolled.
The continuation of the youtube item is here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yMvisrO9hr8&feature=related
Which campus?
Hopping on the bandwagon:
From the Times-Picayune:
Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal issued an executive order to keep any state money from going to the controversy-wracked Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, which has its national headquarters in New Orleans.
According to the state’s Division of Administration, no state agencies have existing contracts with ACORN.
Gov. Pawlenty did the same as Jindal and his state also has no contract or funding for ACORN….aren’t they brave!
From the NYT article cited above:
Mr. O’Keefe said he considers the British writer G. K. Chesterton his “intellectual backbone”
HI Jim:
“Catholic Charities would make it a priority to get her out of prostitution and into a safe and sustaining environment. I don’t know exactly what Acorn’s mission is, but it one of their programs is providing assistance to individuals who come to them for help, then they should be taking the same approach”
Let’s say that she was attempting to access a mortgage for a house. What happens? In this video, they said that they had gone to banks (I have an issue with that because I think if they said that I would want them actually to have gone to a bank or credit union as I don’t know they actually did). The issue is monthly income and what can be listed legally as a business operation.
I agree that there is a moral/ethical component to this. However, I think we need to be fair minded. It is easy to be morally outraged with prostitution and drugs when you see the sleaziness, etc, attached to it. Yet, the federal government does have lobbies, they have 5,000 K fundraising dinners. People who pay that kind of money are going to get the kind of access to the levers of power that Catholic charities and certainly the people on the street will NEVER EVER get.
I would love, just once, to see a town hall meeting held in an inner city community centre. I want to see the all the upper middle class reporters, lawyers, politicians and citizens come to the poorest district in a YMCA or a Catholic charities building to have a presidential debate.
Not from the Kennedy Centre not from the University of Wherever.
I think that there are many people in these communities who want to escape the drugs, that whole area.
I agree with what you are saying but getting out of prostitution is not as easy as it seems. It is an easy form of quick money. Usually there is a distaste of it and there might be a few months of cleaner living but then back in the whole scene.
I am not excusing everything the ACORN workers did especially as it relates to underage sex trade but in other areas I understand it.
Look how long the whole torture issue took to unpack. What is torture – what is over the line. OK so a few people went over the line lets not get hysterical is the message. But when it comes to this – the whole congress freaks out and pulls funding without an adequate conversation of the entire context of the aim and objective of ACORN.
I agree with Margaret, there should at least be an investigation.
Chesterton? Flambeau? or Fr. Brown?
I loved your posting Margaret – “Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal issued an executive order to keep any state money from going to the controversy-wracked Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, which has its national headquarters in New Orleans.”
No matter what contracts they have or do not have with the state, that Acorn chose to have its national office in New Orleans is hilarious enough for any day.
The Big Easy being so well known for squeaky-clean politics and finances!
This just keeps getting better –
:)
Oh and yes – I would love to know what old Chesterton would have to say about it.
; )
Somehow, I see the provocateur falling more in the Joseph Heller, Kurt Vonnegut stream of literature. But you can never tell what inspires truth-seekers.
I’ve made some remarks above that are critical of ACORN’S leadership. Still … there is something unseemly about college students ambushing low-level community organizers. Is there anything fundamentally unfair, though? I’m not sure.
JP: What struck me especially after reading the Times profile of O’Keefe is that this is a class issue, yes, as in upper/lower class.
O’Keefe is reported to be from what sounds like a stable, middle-class family; he got a good college education at Rutgers (don’t know how Molloy found a Fordham connection); got “leadership” training from a consevative group; and has become a career-enhancing video guerrilla.
Like many of our American-Irish peers he seems to have forgotten his forebears who sat in the precinct captain’s office offering food, jobs, and advice.
ACORN needs to clean up its act. No doubt about it….but I persist in thinking that they’ve been mao-maoed by a young man who’s never been hungry, never been homeless, never been poor–thanks to his forebears.
Margaret Steinfels –
Here’s one mention of the Fordham connection in the New York Post:
“And James E. O’Keefe III, 25, a Fordham MBA student from New Jersey, isn’t a pimp so much as a provocateur — determined to expose what he sees as the hypocrisies and moral lapses of liberals by employing their own tactics against them.”
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/duo_who_turned_this_trick_2sjQ58MdtwmSXxhfVELmZL
You seem to agree that Acorn badly needs to clean up its act and so you are agreeing with O’Keefe. Are you likewise betraying your ancestors as you suggest he is?
Surely leftists are not the only ones allowed to criticize Acorn. And who certifies the class worthiness of critics? Who is mao-maoing whom when the middle class is excluded from public discourse as illegitimate and hypocritical participants?
From the NYPost story: “O’Keefe contends their tactics are “the future of activism and investigative reporting.”
“This is now my full-time job,” he said.
Is this investigative reporting? Is this journalism?
As I said above, criminal activities should go to appropriate law enforcement officials. Congress should hold hearings if misconduct or criminal activites are reported about federally funded projects. Fox News turned out to be prosecutor, judge, and jury of snippets.
If the Post and the Times were doing the story, there would be fact-checking, follow-up, interviews with the employees and Acorn supervisors, etc. We know a lot about Mr. O’Keefe and Ms. Giles now, but we still don’t know about the Acorn employees and what they thought they were doing.
As far as I can tell the middle class and upper class is not excluded from public discourse, if its members choose to join in and they have something to say. Not infrequently the poor and marginalized are excluded for want of resources, education, contacts, etc. Our provacateurs have taken advantage of the differences between themselves and poor people. Quite a career builder!
“If the Post and the Times were doing the story”
Would they, though? I don’t mean to accuse them of an ideological slant. I just think that most middle class people – the social class from which, in my experience, most reporters originate -hesitate to go after people from the the underclass who are trying to help other people in the underclass. Those women in those ACORN offices were not big corporate or political fat cats. I’d think that, if those news orgs were doing an ACORN investigation, it would be a very different kind of story – it would focus on voter fraud or misuse of government grants or something similar that would put the spotlight on the leaders, rather than the workers in the field offices.
Or maybe I attribute too many scruples to news reporters :-)
I am sorry, but this is too good to leave alone.
Margaret sez: From the NYPost story: “O’Keefe contends their tactics are “the future of activism and investigative reporting.”
“This is now my full-time job,” he said.
Is this investigative reporting? Is this journalism?
Ken – Yes it is.
Margaret – As I said above, criminal activities should go to appropriate law enforcement officials. Congress should hold hearings if misconduct or criminal activities are reported about federally funded projects.
Ken – Ha, Ha, LOL! You must be joking.
Margaret – Fox News turned out to be prosecutor, judge, and jury of snippets. Ken – Fox presented the evidence, as 60 Minutes (CBS) routinely does.
If the Post and the Times were doing the story, there would be fact-checking, follow-up, interviews with the employees and Acorn supervisors, etc. We know a lot about Mr. O’Keefe and Ms. Giles now, but we still don’t know about the Acorn employees and what they thought they were doing.
Ken – Oh, this is just too rich – Ha, ha! The Post and the Times initially were loathe to “do the story” and were only forced into covering it later, by Fox. If it was left to the Post and the Times, the story would never have been run. As for understanding what the Acorn employees thought they were doing, I think everyone involved in the story spoke English.
Margaret – As far as I can tell the middle class and upper class is not excluded from public discourse, if its members choose to join in and they have something to say. Not infrequently the poor and marginalized are excluded for want of resources, education, contacts, etc. Our provocateurs have taken advantage of the differences between themselves and poor people. Quite a career builder!
Ken – Oh please, you cannot really think the actions of Acorn are in any way excusable or justifiable. Please do not misunderstand me; your final song is very typical of well-meaning but misguided middle and upper class Americans; the “Oh they are poor, and are so ignorant and unwashed that we cannot reasonably hold them accountable for their actions” song is pure rubbish. They are accountable for what they do AND they are poor. Likewise, the middle class the upper classes are also accountable for what they do.
It is not fair to the poor to say that the poor Acorn workers are so ignorant that they do not know it is wrong to import underage El Salvadoran girls for the purposes of setting up a southern California prostitution ring. Indeed if you insist of painting “the poor” as being so unwashed and ignorant that they simply are not able to know what is morally right and what is wrong, then why in the world should we include “the poor” in public decision making at all?
No Margaret, it simply is not fair to paint the poor with such a broad brush. Most of “the poor” have decent morals and know right from wrong. Thankfully, Acorn and its minions, and legions of workers do not represent the majority of “the poor”.
Criminal syndicate! strong language.
If the shoe fits, wear it.
The claim that O’Keefe in exposing Acorn has shown that he has forgotten his Irish-American forebears presumably does not extend to this earlier endeavors, as reported in the same NYT profile:
“When he called a Planned Parenthood office in Columbus, Ohio, and said he wanted to finance abortions for minorities, saying ‘there’s way too many black people in Ohio,’ the administrative assistant on the phone laughed and agreed to his terms.
“When he called an Idaho branch, a helpful development official told him he ‘absolutely’ could restrict his donation to abortions of African-American babies, raising no objection even after he explained that his goal was to shield his son from future competition for college admission under affirmative action.”
PM: Point of information (historical): Margaret Sanger the founder of PP was the child of Irish immigrants settled in Upstate New York. According to David Kennedy’s study she was inspired in her work among other reasons by the large number of siblings she had.
Not to insist upon the ethnic link; it is how poor we once were, and how rich we are now in contrast. How easy it is to forget where we came from.
Please leave the Irish out of it. The fact of the matter is that old Margaret Sanger (founder of Planned Parenthood) was also a stone hearted racist and a big promoter of Eugenics.
Sanger, along with the German “race scientists” of those days, and other short-sighted and shallow contemporaries, definitely accepted (promoted) the notion that the ends justifies the means, which of course is very wrong and in fact led to various atrocities and horrors.
Along with “eugenics”, Sanger’s name still stinks in the nostrils of decent people.
MO’BS
Those who remember what it was like to be poor have special reason to oppose an organization that so cynically encourages criminal behavior, all in the name of “uplifting” the poor.
Or should warlords, organized crime, feudalism, the KKK and any other group that claimed to support the neglected poor, be given a free pass?
It all goes back to the question of the ends justifying the means.
Poor or Rich – not important. The ends never justify the means – period.
Ms. Steinfels – apropos of your original post…..from an editorial in today’s Dallas Morning News:
Editorial: If you thought ACORN was bad …
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
We’ve all heard plenty about a private U.S. government contractor whose employees were caught behaving unspeakably and which now faces the swift and brutal withdrawal of taxpayer dollars by a Congress demanding accountability.
That was ACORN, of course, which surely will miss the government cash spigot that has irrigated its coffers to the tune of $53 million since 1994. As we’ve written, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now deserved what it got.
But if you thought ACORN was bad, meet ArmorGroup North America. It’s the private U.S. government security contractor whose employees at the American embassy in Kabul were photographed in drunken revels that included urinating on and sexually molesting each other. It also has been alleged by whistle-blowing employees that ArmorGroup cut corners on security hiring, leaving our embassy personnel vulnerable.
As in the ACORN case, nothing gets the public’s attention like lurid video. One or more whistleblowers released images of the deviant, Lord of the Flies rituals to the Project on Government Oversight, a nonpartisan watchdog group, which recently made them public.
It’s startling that these tapes have made far less of a political splash than the ACORN undercover videos. ArmorGroup is two years into a $189 million contract to provide embassy security – a sum that dwarfs ACORN’s haul. And the stakes are far higher. Not only have former employees alleged that ArmorGroup’s alleged fraudulent practices and refusal to reform itself puts the safety of the embassy at risk, but the revolting images of the sex revels, now widely available on the Internet, also serve as recruiting tools for the Taliban.
This is not news to the State Department, which has been warning ArmorGroup in writing since at least 2007 that it had better clean up its act in Kabul or risk losing its contract. But it took the shocking video to get ArmorGroup’s top management to can its reckless Kabul crew – and to rouse Washington bureaucrats from their slumber. Now the State Department says it’s thinking hard about dumping ArmorGroup.
What are they waiting for?
In its haste to put distance between the federal government and ACORN, the House approved legislation that would defund a broad array of private government contractors caught engaging in fraudulent behavior. Take a look at POGO’s contractormisconduct.org site for a list of the corporations that could be out of government work under this legislation. It’s a veritable Who’s Who of defense contracting, including Houston-based KBR.
This is going to get real interesting, real fast. From this little ACORN, some mighty oaks might yet fall.
Or maybe not. Washington almost certainly won’t yank those defense-related contracts, which are essential to overseas military missions. Still, it would be a great thing if all government contractors, not just penny-ante players like ACORN, were scared straight by this.
Here you go: POGO’s contractormisconduct.org site
“From this little ACORN, some mighty oaks might yet fall.” Well a nice use of an old saw.
I noticed in the Times this morning that the Brooklyn DA’s office is on Acorn’s case in that jurisdiction.
At the risk of pointing out the obvious to the Dallas Morning News: what propels the ACORN story, particularly in Fox News precincts, is President Obama’s several close connections to the organization.