Post-election Obama and ACORN

ACORN made headlines during the past presidential campaign, not just for candidate Barack Obama’s past work with the organization, but also for revelations that it was implicated in voter fraud and embezzlement. The situation was serious enough – and public enough – that the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ charity, the Catholic Campaign for Human Development, decided “to end CCHD funding of ACORN organizations because of serious concerns about financial accountability, organizational performance and political partisanship.” And the CCHD doesn’t defund the progressives lightly.

ACORN, an acronym for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, considers itself the nation’s largest community organization – and a highly partisan one, at that. Its political action committee, ACORN Votes, to take an example, enthusiastically endorsed Senator Obama’s run for the US presidency in February 2008.

Like most of the large community-organizing networks, ACORN’s roots reach back to Saul Alinsky, the founder of contemporary organizing who left behind his “vision” in two books, Reveille for Radicals and Rules for Radicals.

It’s a fundamentally unethical vision, however. Alinsky teaches, for example, that in politics, the ends justify the means. Specifically, he teaches organizers to seek political power by any means that accomplishes that end. Local agendas of “self-interest” serve a larger, organizational agenda that is sometimes diametrically opposed to the values of its membership. To support the “dissonance” this creates, faith-based institutions are re-evangelized to embrace liberationist theory. These are serious problems.

There are practical matters, too. Aside from instances of malfeasance – which are merely an incarnation of Alinsky’s amoral world of power-grabs – citizens must wrestle with the specific programs ACORN supports, and that support ACORN.

For instance, ACORN was a major force behind the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) of the late 70s, forcing banks to make Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae loans to low-income borrowers who didn’t have the wherewithal to pay them back. So long as the number of such borrows remained small, banks and the federal government were able to absorb the losses. Therefore, ACORN claimed the programs were a tremendous success and pushed to expand them, reporting banks for disciplinary measures when they failed to award a sufficient number of subprime mortgages. After a while, as we saw, the system collapsed.

…And motivated a “housing bailout” package to rescue Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae by providing them with an unlimited credit line and feeding millions of dollars back to ACORN.

Now, the Freddie Mac/Fannie Mae programs are more than just about housing. Can we say “social engineering?” Both foundations have given money to the Washington, D.C. chapter of Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG-DC) for years. Freddie Mac has awarded grants to the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), the nation's largest gay lobby group, to assist homosexual couples adopt children. Fannie Mae has sponsored a number of Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) events – whose purpose is positive media portrayal of homosexuality.

Most egregiously, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have made substantial campaign donations to Representative Barney Frank (D-MA), an openly gay congressman who chairs the committee having oversight of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. How is such corruption possible? Some suggest that the fact Herb Moses, a former partner of Frank’s, was an executive at Fannie Mae during time Frank was serving on the Committee, might have something to do with it.

So, now what? The federal government has a Self-help Homeownership Opportunity Program (SHOP) to fund non-profit organizations (like ACORN) help those “who otherwise would not become homeowners.” One stipulation, however, is that prospective homebuyers “must apply through current SHOP grantees” – of which ACORN is, of course, one. Political junkies expect the new legislative session to approve a $10 million appropriation for the SHOP program. Not bad.

That’s small potatoes, however, next to the $1 billion for Community Development Block Grants or the $4.1 billion for the Neighborhood Stabilization Program. ACORN has its feet in these doors, too. So, it’s hardly surprising to learn that ACORN’s current campaign is passage of the Economic Recovery Package. There’s gold in them ‘ther ills.

See www.acorn.org, “ACORN and Allies Launch Nationwide Economic Recovery Campaign”

Stephanie Block is the editor of Los Pequenos - a New Mexico-based publication. Her columns are made possible by the sponsorship of generous individuals who believe information about the development and dissemination of progressive ideology needs to be more widely understood. Please fell free to share -- acknowledging authorship -- these articles with others. If you would like more frequent publication of Stephanie Block's work, tax-deductible donations can be sent to: Catholic Media Coalition - PO Box 427 Great Cacapon, WV 25422 Attn: Progressive Watch