It's been a bad morning. I overslept, then while eating breakfast, read several depressing stories in the New York Times. The one that upset me most was about a "sting" operation enacted by two ultraconservatives who decided that they would bring about the right-wing wet dream of destroying the community organizing group Acorn.
Acorn is not perfect. It has had a series of scandals involving its officers over the last few years. But it also has done legitimate work to empower and engage disenfranchised, low income Americans in politics and economic growth. In New York City, Acorn has helped families frozen out of the housing market obtain places to live through shrewd credit counseling, homeownership classes, and technical assistance. People who participated in Acorn's programs here are not losing their homes to foreclosure.
Conservatives hate nothing more than when low income people ask for their fair (or I should say, fare) share of the heaping American apple pie. Actually, forget the "fair share" - they loathe when people who have been locked out of the mainstream systems that benefit white, middle- and upper-classes as for even a crumb or two of what they deserve. These groups and people, many of which have engaged in questionable activities themselves (remember Rush Limbaugh's illegal prescription addition and how he blamed his maid?), thus must bring down organizations like Acorn that are successful.
Today's New York Times article explains that two squirelly right-wingers dressed up as a prostitute and pimp, then went to Acorn offices and asked for help acquiring a home that they could use a brothel for under-age El Salvadorean girls. Two Acorn workers didn't blink an eye, explaining not only how to obtain the property, but also how to hide their illegal activity from the government.
There is nothing excusable or OK about what these Acorn employees did, and they have been fired. As a result of disgusting actions, Acorn is losing federal housing funds. But here's the problem with these incidents: they were isolated. And we don't find that out until deep in the article. See, the Times notes that the filmmakers "spent months visiting numerous Acorn offices, including those in San Diego, Los Angeles, Miami and Philadelphia, before getting the responses they were looking for."
Why is no one demanding the rest of the tape? The evidence where almost everyone they came into contact to at Acorn did the right thing? It's like shutting down an entire hospital because of one awful doctor and a shitty nurse. Investigative journalism is NOT when you go out and do undercover investigations, find one thing that confirms wrongdoing, and then portray it as rampant corruption. YouTube may have made this video popular, but it certainly did not help tell the truth.
Between these squirrelly, unethical "truth seekers" and the fucking lunatics who protested in DC on Sept. 12, I really give up. Americans are not, as far as I can tell, interested in truth or justice. The sad part is this is what the real American way might be.
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It always seems to simply take one single incident to bring a whole group down. (Except when Dick Cheney shot his friend while hunting. That didn't do much for gun control, eh?) Acorn has done alot of good and this whole situation is clearly unfair. But, the fact that W was voted in TWICE serves as the true barometer of the "real American way." Obama sure has his work cut out for him.
ReplyDeleteACORN has done their share of good. Their mainstream efforts have benefited many families. Every organization has it's bad apples. This thing only goes to show that if you look long enough, eventually you'll find dishonest people.
ReplyDeleteWhat many people don't know is that ACORN has also used sub-standard practices to accomplish their goals.
Pressure tactics to force financial institutions to approve mortgage applications.
This is not my opinion. Anyone can research this and learn the facts.
They have accused financial institutions of racism for not approving minority applicants, and have conducted demonstrations at their offices. The numbers spoke for themselves...some applicants simply could not afford the mortgage. Yet, ACORN accused them of racism anyway.
And unfortunately, some financial institutions approved mortgages they knew were bad, because they caved into the pressure.
ACORN certainly has done it's share of good in the community. But let's not forget that they aren't perfect.
Matty, I agree with you that Acorn has some serious problems, but the mortgages were not part of them. People who completed Acorn's homeownership training courses are not defaulting on their mortgages the way that other low income people are. Banks do discriminate and do offer racially based mortgages. There is ample, depressing evidence that people of color pay higher fees and higher interest rates than white people with the same income levels do.
ReplyDeleteFurther, the idea that banks caved to Acorn to make loans to people who cannot afford them is inaccurate at best and ludicrous at worst. In the last few years, banks would make loans to anyone who moved. They were leading the way on abandoning common sense in favor of exotic mortgages. They moved to meet investor demand for more collateralized debt obligations, which spelled enormous profit.
I worked in this industry. This is not something I'm just saying because it fits with my view of the world. I attended conferences hosted by the Federal Reserve; I read the research done by actual academic institutions (not think tanks, although I've read that, too); and I've studied the public policy. Acorn has about as much to do with banks lending to low income borrowers as I do with electing Pres. Karzai. And bank discrimination is disgustingly real, in the past and today.
You are right about everything, from ACORN to housing, to the banks. I've read and researched the entire mortgage crisis situation and don't argue your facts. The point I was trying to make was specifically about ACORN. They certainly did not cause the financial crisis, BUT, they did accuse banks of racism for not approving applications. It's one thing to turn down an applicant solely based on race, it's an entirely different thing to do so because they simply can't afford the mortgage. ACORN has every right to challenge the former. BUT, they also challenged the latter, and that just isn't right.
ReplyDelete