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Defending ACORN and the Right to Vote
Barack Obama's poll numbers are up - and the McCain campaign's gloves are off. This time the GOP's target isn't merely the Democratic candidate -- it's a poor people's group - and if we're not careful, the impact of the targeting may be felt long after the '08 election.
In a new ad running online, the John McCain campaign reprises its attack on commnity organizers. In this case, ACORN. The ads allege that in Chicago, Obama and ACORN were close, and, to quote from the ad: "What did ACORN in Chicago engage in? Bullying banks, intimidation tactics, disruption of business. ACORN forced banks to issue risky home loans. The same types of loans that caused the financial crisis we're in today."
Just to be clear: Poor people, especially people of color, (like those who comprise ACORN) did not cause the 2008 credit crisis. The global practices of investment banks and their deregulators did that. Nonetheless -- blaming people at the bottom rather than those at the top for our economic woes has been around for as long as there have been people at the top making out at others' expense and hoping nobody will notice.
The McCain ad goes on to accuse ACORN of "massive voter fraud," saying the group is under investigation in 11 states "for thousands of potentially fraudulent ACORN (voter registration) forms."
To clarify again: ACORN has registered a stunning 1.3 million voters so far this year. (Not an insignificiant fact in this story.) Most states require all voter applications, even ones with obvious mistakes, to be turned in to election officials. It is that record, flagged and submitted by ACORN, that the GOP attack ads are using. Flawed forms are flagged so they'll be thrown out. No matter what the GOP ads say, "massive voter fraud" has not been perpetrated - because "voter fraud" requires voting.
Raising this specter of "voter fraud" in advance, the GOP is clearly laying the groundwork for delegitimizing a Democratic presidential victory. But ads like these, and the attack on community organizers in general, also serve to demonize exactly those grassroots groups who are working hard this election because they want a voice in the planning of a new direction. The Obama campaign is due to respond. They better speak up strongly in defense of ACORN. A week ago it was Bill Ayers. Now it's ACORN the GOP would have Obama renounce and deny. For their own sake, the entire progressive community should stand up and say enough. The radical Right have no place determining who has a legitimate voice in American politics.
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23 Comments so far
Show AllACORN for years has been at the vanguard of trying to protect the lower and middle class against predatory subprime lenders:
http://www.commondreams.org/news2000/0625-01.htm
http://www.commondreams.org/news2001/1108-04.htm
(these little jewels from 2000 and 2001, but obviously ignored by the Bush Administration).
Thanks for these important links. The points in these links were under-emphasized in the original article above. They're very important to this, the clear #1 issue in the campaign now, from a Republican point of view.
All Republicans are scum.
Republicans are greedy but Democrats are stoopid
I can keep an eye on greed.....
Think about it
.What can one say about a stupid post calling an entire bloc of people stupid.....???
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We see things, not as they are, but as we are.
Anais Nin
Not all conservatives are stupid but all stupid people are conservative. Think about it if you can...
.Its important , I believe, to make a distinction about this subject. There are many intelligent conservatives in this nation, fine and rational folks who believe in a fiscally sound economy. Some are our natural allies on certain issues in fact.
Then there are the neoconservatives, and I fear SnowWolf is one of those. Folks who unabashedly distort truth, lie in fact, smear and do whatever is necesary to support their narrow ideology. They hit and run, post inane and childish garbage sans attribution, link or anything to support their amazing contentions. Mostly hit and run types...
We should also note the prevalence of such among those we find on our own side of the aisle.....
We see things, not as they are, but as we are.
Anais Nin
Why aren't Democrats putting out tons of ELECTION FRAUD ads out there?
Because it's a power sharing arrangement and it's their turn to win.
After watching the Democrats fail to fight election fraud or reform the electoral college over the past 8 years, I can only conclude they are conspirators.
Imagine a sports team not caring that that they are losing every game due to clearly proven cheating, yet continuing to play. Their fans tell them to challenge the cheating and they tell their fans to shut up. What would you conclude if they finally won?
Astute analysis.
The real crime in this situation is that ACORN helps millions of poor workers register and then they go and vote en masse for a candidate who works against their class interests.
TV, and specifically Government and politics on TV, has killed the basic concept of a Representative Government. Of course it was just the gun, We, the People pulled the trigger.
This is starting to feel like the longest October of my life. Can't wait for November 5th. Then all the deluded will have made their foolish "choice" and we can finally talk about something else. Real and important things instead of the nuances of the B.S. methods of Control.
it is democrats and progressives who believe in everybody getting a vote. it has long been a republican effort to highlight and vilify voter fraud. but as you can see, the system in the case of catching bad applications works. my neighbor called the republican voting machine fraud voter fraud, but voting machine fraud is a much worse crime, because it affects election outcomes. let's all stamp out digital scams on vote counting machines.
for peace and sustainability
I wonder who Mouse, Mickey was going to vote for, anyway???
Has anyone noticed that it has only been since George H.W. Bush was Director of the CIA that dirty tricks about voting and voters registration have become prominent in election year news?
The CIA was severely limited in their funding and their capabilities after the Church Commission Hearings following Watergate... After Bush1 became Director, CIA planes were found to have traces of cocaine... many known CIA operatives were found to be connected to cocaine trade entering Florida and California... and standard CIA dis-information tricks seemed to become a part of American politics.
Jeb Bush was directly connected with an HMO and Medicare treatment of Nicaraguan Contra fighters at a hospital in Miami.
Coincidentally, the CIA named their new annex at Langley the "George H.W. Bush Building" upon it's completion a few years ago.
It is standard operating procedure for the CIA to discredit the vote in foreign countries in order to aid "friendlies" in elections.
Not to mention that BOTH Bushes were caught illegally BUYING favorable Press coverage in the American media with taxpayer money.
For confirmation of any of these points, search the National Security Archives at Georgetown University for the name Otto Reich, the Contra Hearings and the Kerry Commission Hearings of the 1980's.
.Actually our history is replete with incidents of voter fraud and election manipulations...If only you would actually read history.
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We see things, not as they are, but as we are.
Anais Nin
Unfortunately you are correct...
it just seems to be very blatant this time around...like they aren't even trying to hide it...
I wasn't aware that Bush was in the CIA in 1960 when Mayor Daley of Chicago stole the presidential election for Kennedy?
Are you counting the disenfranchisement of African Americans all across the South? Yes, in general it's not new, but there are new approaches.
I have worked on a number of ballot initiative campaigns. In ONE of them an overzealous volunteer wrote in tons of names with her own handwriting. I caught it and we didn't submit those forms. These things happen but it isn't "fraud". Republicans engage in fraud every time they try to get voter turnout DOWN since they win when voting is low.
This whole article is "nuts".
If you think it's nuts, why couldn't you muster up even one argument or piece of evidence against it, even a feeble argument or half true piece of evidence?
My comment was a play on words - a pun, if you will - on the acronym ACORN. Nothing more. Nothing less.
This is an important article and video, but we also need more on the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) work of ACORN and others. 1. A major Republican myth is that CRA requires banks to make bad loans, and 2., that they have done so, and 3., that this is the main reason for blaming the whole financial crisis, not on Republican policies, but on the poor/racial minorities/Obama/Democrats (Clinton & Carter, Chris Dodd, etc)/progressives/liberals. Each is false. 1. No bad loans are required, only good loans in low and moderate income neighborhoods (housing/small business) and to poor and minority borrowers and and small farms and nondiscrimination elsewhere. If banks make bad loans, they're responsible for them. 2. The loans perform better than many others (see study below). 3, And anyway they make up a relatively small proportion of the financial crisis, less than 25% of the mortgage market in the study below and "Experts have estimated that 80 percent of high-priced subprime loans were offered by financial institutions that are not subject to the CRA," see http:// mediamatters dot org/items/200809300012
Also see a recent study of massive data, "The Community Reinvestment Act: A Welcome Anomaly in the Foreclosure Crisis" January 7, 2008, at http:// www.traigerlaw dot com/index.php
See their articles, (even from American Banker) at http:// www.traigerlaw dot com/index.php?link=news.
See "Subprime Scapegoats" at common dreams, Oct. 11.
This is the central Republican issue now. Republicans have already had their crash course in teaching the masses all about it, all that is not true. Progressives are playing catch up.
Not to downplay the signifigance of voter suppression I think the bigger problem is in the counting of the votes and the efficacy of the voting machines, which still aren't required to give voters a receipt of how they cast their ballot so that there is some sort of safeguard. It's a ludicrous situation. As a person whose ben known to frequent the track and invest in a horse or two on occasion I can attest to the fact that these machines exist are in use all over the country. It would be but a simple matter to design the voting machines so that there were two paper rolls, one that would give the voter a copy of how they voted and another that stayed in the machine but that the voter could verify was correct. If a recount was called for the paper record could be matched against the digital record. True, it would cost a little bit of money and take a little bit of time, but FCOL it is our democracy we're talking about!
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