Monday, September 21, 2009

ACORN’s Crime is Organizing Poor People

9/21/2009—You think there is democracy in this country? Freedom of Speech? Try exercising your rights and you’ll find out differently. If you don’t believe it, look at the attack on ACORN.

Were crimes committed? Apparently someone committed embezzlement at the organization. That makes ACORN a victim of crime, not a criminal organization. Voter fraud? That crime is committed when you pay someone to vote a certain way or pay someone to vote who is not eligible. Submitting false voter registration forms, as in one case of a form containing the name Mickey Mouse, is no threat to democracy unless Mickey actually votes, which apparently did not happen. False tax information? If you sent undercover agents to H&R Block, you would catch errors too.

For that matter, didn’t those undercover Republicans who "investigated" ACORN commit crimes along the lines of people who have gone undercover at agricultural facilities and meat packing plants and have been prosecuted or sued?

Republicans are after ACORN because if poor people organize, they will vote Democratic. Democrats are unwilling to defend ACORN because there is an air of radical politics about the organization and the Democratic Party worships the status quo and gets most of its money from wealthy interests.

Whatever mistakes or errors the organization has made don’t amount to a hill of beans. ACORN’s real crime is organizing poor people. Even unions don’t do that. In a capitalist society, there is no greater crime.

No comments:

Post a Comment