The ACORN tragedy

ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now), once the nation's largest community organizing group for the poor and powerless, has been forced to shut down.

Plagued by charges of voter registration fraud (later proved to be only simple greed of a few voter registration workers who padded their small income by "registering" fake names -- none of whom tried to vote) and then by the more sensational scam, secretly videotaped and then edited creatively, of workers giving bad advice about illegal activities -- all led the media and Congress to over-react in the heat of the crisis, creating a sensational faux scandal.

The result: Congress passed a resolution canceling all government associations and contracts with ACORN. This led to sharp decline in contributions, and the organization can no longer survive.

In the meantime, a federal judge has ruled that Congress' action was unconstitutional, because it passed a measure aimed at a single organization. It's even more unconscionable that an organization of such good works was destroyed for minor flaws, when organizations like Blackwater and other guns for hire, with multimillion dollar government contracts, literally get away with murder and with claiming immunity when female workers try to file claims that they were raped by co-workers -- because their U.S. contracts gave them immunity in the foreign country where this took place. And that doesn't even begin to address what else they got away with -- alleged murders, graft, shoddy work resulting in death of soldiers, and other illegal acts -- all while keeping their lucrative contracts.

In its better days, ACORN had upwards of 400,000 members that could lobby for liberal causes, such as raising the minimum wage or adopting universal health care. But their most successful activity was arguably the registering of hundreds of thousands of low-income voters.

Which is exactly why the conservatives attacked. According to CEO Bertha Lewis, "ACORN has faced a series of well-orchestrated, relentless, well-funded right wing attacks that are unprecedented since the McCarthy era. The videos were a manufactured, sensational story that led to rush to judgment and an unconstitutional act by Congress."

It's too late to save ACORN -- at least with that name. Perhaps another organization will rise to take its place.

Maybe it's only the afterglow of the exhilarating passage of health care reform, but it feels like there is a new momentum against this kind of hateful, destructive right-wing action. Let us hope so.

Ralph