It's so easy to beat up on the poor. The latest skirmish in the ongoing class war of the rich and powerful against the poor and powerless is the targeting of ACORN (the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) for the apparent misconduct of some of its employees evident in videos created as part of what might accurately be called a right-wing "sting" operation, the apparent goal of which was to smear the organization and attempt to bring about some type of legal sanction against it. While at face value the conduct evidenced by some of the ACORN employees is indeed reprehensible, one should be mindful that these videos were apparently created and edited with the explicit aim of casting the organization in the worst possible light. One should also keep in mind that there were numerous similar attempts to "entrap" ACORN workers, and indeed at several sites the sting operators apparently found little joy. For a little more balance and perspective than you are likely to find on Fox News, see ACORN head Bertha Lewis's response to the recent firestorm of criticism.
While the right-wing architects of these efforts would probably have been pleased with a general smearing of the reputation of ACORN, they were no doubt giddy upon learning that the Senate, by an 83-7 vote, had moved to bar further government grants to ACORN. And now their glee must have truly turned to wing-nut rapture as the House has similarly voted, this time 345-75, to bar federal funding to the organization. Wow, it's really quite remarkable, here is a small, non-profit organization that, as Glenn Greenwald points out, has perhaps been the recipient of a total of about 50 million federal dollars over the last 15 years, and, without any of its employees having been accused of a crime in a court of law, has apparently already been tried and convicted by the same governing Parties in Congress that have been the perpetrators and enablers of truly epic illegality over the last eight years. The CEOs of KBR, Halliburton, and Blackwater (now Xe), to name just a few of the corporate pirates in charge of our government, must be laughing all the way to their banks stuffed with ill-gotten billions and billions of federal no-bid contracts. Those who now sit in judgement of ACORN are the same Parties who were happy to funnel trillions of dollars of federal funds to their client, "too big to fail," Wall Street banks in order to make whole the lost bets they made with other peoples money. The chutzpah and sanctimony here are truly off the Richter scale.
The attack on the poor, and its accompanying hypocrisy is truly bipartisan. Republicans have long sought to cripple ACORN because it's actually been successful in promoting democracy. That is, in helping to enfranchise poor and minority communities, constituencies which tend to vote reliably for Democrats. Apparently Republicans are only for promoting democracy when it can be used as a pretext to enable an illegal, immoral war. Meanwhile, you really don't want to be a friend of the Democrats, do you? Just look how you're treated. ACORN was successful in registering millions of new voters, a majority of whom likely voted for Democratic candidates in the last election, but the instant there are some potentially damaging allegations brought against the group, no matter the circumstances, the Democratic leadership is more than happy to throw ACORN under the proverbial bus. As the saying goes, with friends like that, you don't need enemies.
The entire episode just further reinforces the failure of our now corporate-controlled government. Groups that aid constituencies which the Federal government has long abandoned must scratch and claw for the most meager of support, whereas corporate oligarchs are feted like kings, and wealthy corporations can look forward to the next round of no-bid, socialism-for-the-rich contracts, all at taxpayer expense. Torturers can admit their crimes, indeed brag about them, but not a peep is heard from the leadership of either corporate Party. It is a sorry spectacle indeed.
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