ACORN no longer federally funded Options

[dosomethin888]

I totally support this.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/capitol-b...ederal_fun.html

[hypnotique]

LOL

[dosomethin888]

Why are you LOLing?

[hypnotique]

Cause its only a matter of time when other organizations get busted for the same bullshit.

[dosomethin888]

ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

[mipadi]

So why do you support this?

[dosomethin888]

Because the govt shouldn't fund an organization that is doing illegal activity.

[mipadi]

Does that apply to corporations as well? For example, should the government refuse to award contracts to corporations that have been convicted of felonies?

[dosomethin888]

You failed to notice that this is the news forum.

[mipadi]

You failed to notice that this is the news forum.

Does that mean we're not allowed -- or even expected -- to discuss the news that is posted?

[brooklyneast05]

a forum where people can't discuss anything, sounds like a real winner

[dosomethin888]

Does that apply to corporations as well? For example, should the government refuse to award contracts to corporations that have been convicted of felonies?

They should hold them to the same felony convictions an individual gets. Will they do that? No.

[mipadi]

The ridiculous thing about the Defund ACORN Act is that the law isn't even constitutional (see bill of attainder). Not only were the employees responsible for these alleged illegal acts fired by ACORN, but punishing an entity before a trial is simply unjust -- and for a party that claims to uphold the Constitution to the letter, the Republicans sure are hypocritical in this regard.

On the other hand, corporations like Blackwater for which we have evidence of illegal acts at the corporate level, and for which employees acting directly on behalf of the corporation have committed crimes like mass murder and torture, are still under contract to provide "security" (read: mercenary) services for the US military and the US State Department. So if you're getting pissed at ACORN and are fighting to have ACORN de-funded, I sure as hell hope that you're fighting to prohibit the US government from dealing directly with truly disgusting corporations like Blackwater.

[Reidar]

I was for the premise of this bill but it's worded poorly and should not treat the entirety of ACORN as "indicted". Simply put, I don't think an organization that has a pattern of corruption to this degree should be federally funded. And how outrageous was it for Bertha Lewis to blame the undercover bloggers for entrapment?

So if you're getting pissed at ACORN and are fighting to have ACORN de-funded, I sure as hell hope that you're fighting to prohibit the US government from dealing directly with truly disgusting corporations like Blackwater.

Damn right I am (figuratively). Blackwater is abhorrent.

[mipadi]

The hypocrisy of this ACORN bullshit really gets my goat. A couple ACORN employees break the law, and a shitstorm ensues. However, we live in a country that still does business with Blackwater, and yet they're corporate felons. We live in a country where we still give contracts out to KBR, a corporation that not only employees gang-rapists, but actively prevents employees who are victims of rape from filing charges. We live in a country where corporate officers can routinely break laws, circumvent tax guidelines, etc., but when they f*ck up, we bail them out with taxpayer dollars. And yet, when a community-based organization wants to register poor people to vote, we get up in arms about it.

This case reeks of typical right-wing classism and racism. Right-wingers are pissed off because ACORN got poor people and black people to vote against Republicans, and now they're seeking revenge. If the right-wing had its way, the only people who'd be allowed to participate in politics would be white male landowners.

[kryogenix]

^So now that the left wing is in power, why are they hiring more mercenaries instead of ceasing business with them?

It's not a right-wing problem, it's a government problem.

[mipadi]

^So now that the left wing is in power, why are they hiring more mercenaries instead of ceasing business with them?

I didn't say anything about only the right-wing hiring mercenaries and war profiteers to fight our wars abroad; you'll note that I specifically condemned the entire government for doing so.

[Reidar]

If the right-wing had its way, the only people who'd be allowed to participate in politics would be white male landowners.

That's baseless, not to mention cheap. The biggest damn any major political party truly gives about race is how it can help them get support from whatever demographic they've alienated. If Michael Steele will make the GOP look more "hip" then they'll put him up there without so much as a second thought, and somehow I doubt they did it begrudgingly with gritted teeth.

[mipadi]

That's baseless, not to mention cheap. The biggest damn any major political party truly gives about race is how it can help them get support from whatever demographic they've alienated. If Michael Steele will make the GOP look more "hip" then they'll put him up there without so much as a second thought, and somehow I doubt they did it begrudgingly with gritted teeth.

Unfortunately, it's neither. The behavior of the Republican Party, in particular with regards to ACORN, demonstrates a definite classist bias. The GOP has had ACORN in its sights for over a year, after ACORN began signing poor citizens up to vote -- citizens that voted mostly in support of Obama. The GOP doesn't want poor people to vote because they typically don't vote for conservatives. Of course, the Republican Party, as a whole, is inadvertently racist. Its policies are much more classist in nature; it just so happens that in America, poor people are disproportionately minorities. That's why they can have a guy like Michael Steele in charge -- because the party is intentionally classist, accidentally racist. (Besides, assuming that the GOP was intentionally racist, -- putting Steele in charge doesn't change that -- it just means that it's willing to put aside its racism to achieve a "higher" goal of gaining seats for the party. Just because a party panders to a certain audience, doesn't mean it actually respects or even likes those people.)

[Reidar]

I can't help but notice your backtracking. First you said they want while male landowners in power. Now they're unintentionally racist only by association?

Classisism isn't racism. As far as that's concerned, both sides are corporatists. "Accidentally racist", just because there are racial hierarchies that exist within said classes? That would mean race is an irrelevant correlation. And saying that they were willing to overlook this supposed racism to prop up Michael Steele is exactly what I meant by baseless. I saw Steele yucking it up with Sean Hannity and even being his substitute on the show well before he was nominated. Ironically, saying that pandering isn't necessarily anything about goodwill applies to your logic on racism and pursuance of ACORN on the opposite front.

"Racist" becomes a cheap and inconsequential word when it's used in wrong pretenses and only abates real faults that politicians are guilty of.

[mipadi]

I can't help but notice your backtracking. First you said they want while male landowners in power. Now they're unintentionally racist only by association?

I haven't backtracked at all. In my post which you initially referenced, I clearly mention both racism and classism. The history of racism and the history of classism, in the United States, is tightly interwoven, such that's it's virtually impossible to separate the two. Yes, there are very poor white people, and yes, there are very rich black people, but historically, class is closely linked to race. Look at the South post-Reconstruction: once racial laws were "abolished", lawmakers used class-target laws in order to implement racist policies legally (poll taxes, for example). Furthermore, the term "white male landowner" is virtually synonymous with the aristocracy; it's more a classist term than a racist term, but the fact that it has both connotations is just an example of how race and class are intertwined in the history of the US.

Classisism isn't racism. As far as that's concerned, both sides are corporatists.

True -- but in this context, that's just a nice soundbite. Corporatism, racism, and classism are not mutually exclusive. Furthermore, corporatism can be thought of as just another case of classism.

"Accidentally racist", just because there are racial hierarchies that exist within said classes? That would mean race is an irrelevant correlation.

It's not irrelevant, as class and race are closely linked in American politics and American society. This is a consequence of America's long history with both classist and racial issues. You could trace it back to its heart and see which came first, but the two are so closely linked now that it's hard to analyze one outside the context of the other. That's not to say they're indistinguishable, just that they relate closely to one another.

[Reidar]

I haven't backtracked at all. In my post which you initially referenced, I clearly mention both racism and classism. The history of racism and the history of classism, in the United States, is tightly interwoven, such that's it's virtually impossible to separate the two. Yes, there are very poor white people, and yes, there are very rich black people, but historically, class is closely linked to race. Look at the South post-Reconstruction: once racial laws were "abolished", lawmakers used class-target laws in order to implement racist policies legally (poll taxes, for example). Furthermore, the term "white male landowner" is virtually synonymous with the aristocracy; it's more a classist term than a racist term, but the fact that it has both connotations is just an example of how race and class are intertwined in the history of the US.

Your backtracking is a matter of speculatory intent, first by saying they explicitly want a certain race in power (be that as it may that it happens to coincide with rich people; it just makes the racial component that much more irrelevant) and then saying they don't necessarily care specifically about race because it merely comes with the territory of classism, and then going back on that so that now it apparently isn't "accidental" after all because they use that correlation to their intended advantage.

We can very easily separate the two when it comes to human aim and purpose. You are not racist by being "elitist", "classist", etc. anymore than you're antisemitic for opposing Israel just because the prelude to a Jewish state has had a historically discriminatory attachment.

True -- but in this context, that's just a nice soundbite. Corporatism, racism, and classism are not mutually exclusive. Furthermore, corporatism can be thought of as just another case of classism.

Mutually exclusive? You couldn't have missed the "there are racial hierarchies that exist within said classes" bit because you quoted it yourself, so I'm not sure where that's coming from. Correlation does not imply causation. And of course corporatism is classism. That was the point in discerning between actual racism and being a corporate whore. By logical extension, everyone opposing the public option in health care reform (including Democrats) isn't merely catering to the insurance companies writing them checks, they're secretly racist.

It's not irrelevant, as class and race are closely linked in American politics and American society. This is a consequence of America's long history with both classist and racial issues. You could trace it back to its heart and see which came first, but the two are so closely linked now that it's hard to analyze one outside the context of the other. That's not to say they're indistinguishable, just that they relate closely to one another.

The issue is not whether race and class are historically related, and that being the case doesn't mean one automatically assumes the other or else white nationalists wouldn't defend lower class whites getting shafted when immigrants take up job space.

[mipadi]

Incidentally, it turns out that Fox was intentionally deceptive about the ACORN scandal. The highlights:

For example the ACORN employee accused by O’Keefe and Giles (and “evidenced” by the edited tapes) of advising them on how to smuggle prostitutes into the country, actually immediately called the police once the two had left the office. [...] Additionally, the ACORN employee who was apparently encouraging Giles to start a prostitution business? Turns out she was encouraging Giles not to give up looking for financing for housing.

(Emphasis mine.)

I should note that these were the results of an investigation by the California Attorney General.

But hey, the truth doesn't matter when you're Fox News, as long as you can trick your gullible viewers into raising enough of a shitstorm to get rid of a political "enemy" of the Republican Party.

So, let's recap on the ACORN debacle:

1. A couple of conservatives and Fox News make false accusations about ACORN and "creatively" cut a video support their lies.
2. Republican congressman cut funding for ACORN, a clear violation of the Constitution.
3. Devoid of funding, ACORN goes bankrupt and disbands.
4. Months later, a federal judge rules that the Defund ACORN act is unconstitutional.
5. An investigation by the CA attorney general reveals the deceptions of Fox News.

So what have we learned? It is easier and faster to lie than abide by the US constitution and US law.

[superstitious]

Incidentally, it turns out that Fox was intentionally deceptive about the ACORN scandal. The highlights:
(Emphasis mine.)

I should note that these were the results of an investigation by the California Attorney General.

But hey, the truth doesn't matter when you're Fox News, as long as you can trick your gullible viewers into raising enough of a shitstorm to get rid of a political "enemy" of the Republican Party.

So, let's recap on the ACORN debacle:

1. A couple of conservatives and Fox News make false accusations about ACORN and "creatively" cut a video support their lies.
2. Republican congressman cut funding for ACORN, a clear violation of the Constitution.
3. Devoid of funding, ACORN goes bankrupt and disbands.
4. Months later, a federal judge rules that the Defund ACORN act is unconstitutional.
5. An investigation by the CA attorney general reveals the deceptions of Fox News.

So what have we learned? It is easier and faster to lie than abide by the US constitution and US law.

Shoot first, look later/make retraction.

So does Fox News lose their funding now?

[mipadi]

So does Fox News lose their funding now?

Haha!




No, it turns out to be very lucrative to make shit up.