09-14-2009, 03:56 PM
Eh, that's OLD news. We had the same hullabaloo here in Cleveland (one street person told a reporter that Acorn had paid him with food, cigarettes, and cash to fill out a fistful of voter registration cards with different (false) addresses and names. Of course the forms were rejected when submitted.
Any community organizing activity, from national organizations to the high school kids wandering around with a petition to get "Moa Fooball Duude !" gets undisciplined and unscrupulous practitioners. I can remember walking around neighborhoods where I grew up trying to get petitions on a proposal to stop the construction of a dam on a local river (and we won, BTW !). I was 13 years old, long-haired, and very, very convinced that our cause was just. Did I falsify entries ? No, but I WAS tempted after a long hot August day pounding the pavement and getting doors slammed in my face.
What drives people like our dear friend swampy completely bonkers is that ACORN's specific style is to use the system against itself. These folk are trained to find and take advantage of the loopholes in the 'system'. It's, IMHO, a reasonable supposition that the fact that the sitting President of this nation was once one of 'them' almost guarantees that those loopholes will stay, and may expand.
Unfortunately. ACORN operatives are sometimes also trained to go outside the laws when they feel it is 'appropriate'. And that's a bad thing, so I applaud efforts to rein them in. I just hope the President, as an ACORN alumnus, doesn't pardon the lot of 'em.
poochies- ACORN is very active in poor urban neighborhoods. So, to a certain extent, is the YIPPIE party of the 60's. Hell, even the Black Panthers still exist.
Any community organizing activity, from national organizations to the high school kids wandering around with a petition to get "Moa Fooball Duude !" gets undisciplined and unscrupulous practitioners. I can remember walking around neighborhoods where I grew up trying to get petitions on a proposal to stop the construction of a dam on a local river (and we won, BTW !). I was 13 years old, long-haired, and very, very convinced that our cause was just. Did I falsify entries ? No, but I WAS tempted after a long hot August day pounding the pavement and getting doors slammed in my face.
What drives people like our dear friend swampy completely bonkers is that ACORN's specific style is to use the system against itself. These folk are trained to find and take advantage of the loopholes in the 'system'. It's, IMHO, a reasonable supposition that the fact that the sitting President of this nation was once one of 'them' almost guarantees that those loopholes will stay, and may expand.
Unfortunately. ACORN operatives are sometimes also trained to go outside the laws when they feel it is 'appropriate'. And that's a bad thing, so I applaud efforts to rein them in. I just hope the President, as an ACORN alumnus, doesn't pardon the lot of 'em.
poochies- ACORN is very active in poor urban neighborhoods. So, to a certain extent, is the YIPPIE party of the 60's. Hell, even the Black Panthers still exist.