I'm mad about ACORN

I'm mad about ACORN.

I'm mad that an organization dedicated to helping the most powerless people in society (the same people Jesus was always prattling on about) is being attacked by some of the most powerful people in society (the same people who always prattle on about Jesus).  And that a group that works on the ground day after day, doing the critical yet tedious work of community organizing, is being excoriated for it rather than praised.

I'm mad that privileged whites are trying to undermine an organization that registered 1.3 million of the underprivileged, 60-70% of whom were non-white—because they expect those people to vote for the wrong candidates.

I'm hopping mad that in his grasping pursuit of power, mummified pissbag John McCain claimed that ACORN's extraordinary effort to expand the exercise of the democratic franchise is actually "perpetrating one of the greatest frauds in voter history in this country, maybe destroying the fabric of democracy." **

And I'm mad that of the press accounts I've read and watched, almost none of them report the crucial facts that it was ACORN itself that caught almost all of the instances of fraud, that the employees in question were fired, and that ACORN is often required by state laws to turn in all registration cards—valid or not.  Or that if they do report this critical information they handle it like the Associated Press did, burying it in a suitably-guarded quote in paragraph 30 of a 31-paragraph article:

"There are certainly problems and I don't think anyone disagrees on that," said Wang of Common Cause. "But it doesn't get reported that ACORN finds these registrations errors themselves. They flag them as being no good, but they have to turn them in anyway."

If you need the full set of rebuttals to counter the robotic droning of the conservatives of your acquaintance, it's here.  The critical points:

• Most states require every card collected to be turned in whether it is a valid application or not.
• ACORN calls each card collected up to three times to ascertain the information on it is legitimate and complete.
• All suspicious cards are flagged, set aside, and delivered to the board of elections under a cover sheet that describes the problems.
• Almost all the cards submitted to the boards of elections that have been noted as “possibly fraudulent” were caught by ACORN’s quality control procedures first.
• ACORN has zero tolerance for fraud and fires employees caught by our quality control systems immediately.

And finally: I'm mad that every asinine, manufactured, ideologically-motivated conservative attack becomes the conversation du jour in this country, but real issues can't get a hearing at all.

** "Greatest frauds in voter history"?  Sure sounds like another one of those infinitely-renewable ideological superlatives to me.

Comments

[SteveB]

After McCain made attacks on ACORN a focus of his campaign, ACORN offices have been vandalized and they've seen a large increase in threatening calls and emails. I posted a note about this on my local progressive-party list, including a Donate to ACORN link, and was encouraged to get a response right away from someone who said they used the link to make a donation. I hope others will do the same.

[Chuck]

I'm mad that you pin the actions of some on an entire race.
I'm mad that so many white people think it's okay to blame the entire white race for any injustice.
I am white and I am sick of hearing this. You severely damage any cause if you unjustly tie it to one race as you have just done. I am white and I do nothing to harm anybody. I am a simple student. Don't insult me. You don't need my spite.

[John Caruso]

Chuck: You've misread what I've written, but it sounds like you should ask yourself why you've taken it so personally.