Systemic Lessons From The Rightwing Defunding Attack On ACORN
I'm working on an article about ACORN for Random Lengths News, for which I interviewed Nathan Henderson-James, currently ACORN's Director of Online Campaigns, which I also intended to present here at Open Left in some form. I was particularly struck by the following brief part of the interview, where I ask about the difference between how the right defends its own, and how the left generally fails to--and certainly did fail when ACORN was attacked most recently.
Nathan specifically says that he's not speaking for ACORN, but simply offering his own personal views, which, nonetheless do come from someone who witnessed what happened from the inside. And they accord 100% with my views, as someone who witneesed it from the outside. But the importance of what he has to say goes far beyond the case of the recent attacks on ACORN. In fact, they go right to the heart of one of the real reasons why single payer was excluded from consideration--a reason that has nothing to do with the supposed perfidy of everyone you can name and everything to do with the left's failure to organize itself for the true magnitude of the struggle we're engaged in.
OL:The natural thing that came to me was 'wait a minute, Blackwater kills people, and they're still getting hundreds of millions of dollars. I really had to scratch my head over that. And so what I'd like to ask you was, that sort of contrast between how you were savagely attacked, without even having hearings, and the way we have lawsuits, and people invoking state secrets, and all kinds of stuff with Blackwater, and what that says about the difference between the right and the left in terms of how they organize politically to protect their own. Any comments about that?
Nathan Henderson-James:
From a progressive's political point of view I think what this-this is a a personal observation, not an organizational observation- This is my own personal, this is not an ACORN position--is that it really points out how the progressive movement is not a movement. It is a bunch of people who share a political vision for America, but do it from the feet of several independent organizations that do not have an infrastructure that allows them to communicate quickly with each other, and create ways so that they can function much more as if they wre part of a unified movement, rather than a bunch of organizations that share a bunch of policy goals, but have a huge set of different methodologies for achieving those goals.
Media manipulation by the right-wing to influence public perception has been a decade-long tactic to undermine voter registration in America. While the current media frenzy surrounding the community organization ACORN is only partly related to voter registration efforts, it is important to note that the attacks have been built on a foundation of misinformation and media manipulation by the right-wing over several years, largely surrounding the myth of "voter fraud."
Appearing on Hannity to promote his latest book, America for Sale, author Jerome Corsi purported to explain the causes of the mortgage bubble by advancing a litany of falsehoods and misinformation: repeating the myth that the Community Reinvestment Act was responsible for the bubble; claiming that President Obama was tied to the housing bubble through conservative bogeyman ACORN; and falsely suggesting that Obama lowered interest rates to "zero or close to zero." Corsi has previously written falsehood-laden books about Obama and Sen. John Kerry, has claimed that Obama posted online a "false, fake birth certificate," and has a history of controversial comments about Islam, Catholicism, progressives, and other matters.
What's wrong with this? Superficially, it's easy: the CRA was not responsible for the housing bubble-rather it was non-CRA, non-bank institutions that lead the way, ACORN fought against irresponsible lending practices, both with respect to CRA- and non-CRA-based lending, and Obama's limited tangential connections with ACORN had nothing to do with ACORN's low-income-housing advocacy. These basic points have already been well established long ago--at least for those of us who have been paying attention. But to understand why this sort of constellation of lies recurs again and again, regardless of previous refutations, we need a framework of understanding at a higher of abstraction, taking note of how conservative ideology, narratives and fundamental cognitive practice commonly function. At the highest level, I suggest we need to understand five things:
(1) Conservative ideology characteristically generates narratives of blame directed at low-status outgroups, holding them responsible for all of society's ills. (Blacks, Jews, immigrants, gays, etc.) So naturally, it will blame the sorts of people ACORN is working to help.
(2) Conservative narratives routinely impute selfish motives and conspiratorial methods reflecting their own disowned common practices (or those of their elite heroes) to liberal shadow elites working in cahoots with low-status outgroups. This would be anyone who works with ACORN--even a lawyer representing them on a single case, such as Barack Obama.
(3) Conservative narratives routinely deny systemic explanations ( Kegan Levels 4 &5) for social ills, affirming the just order of the world-at least when run by conservatives (Kegan Level 3)-and blaming ills on the disordering of that world, particularly elevating the status of "undesireables" (those whose enduring dispositions at Kegan Level 2 mark them as essentially evil or at lest inferior).
(4) Causation is associational--Shawn Rosenberg's "sequential reasoning"--things follow an identified pattern, the pattern is the explanation, rather than "linear" (one cause->one effect) or systematic (multiple causes and effects, including potentially circular causality). Such "reasoning" is immune to logical, empirical or rational refutation, since it has no consistent foundations, but only, at best, the outward appearance of them. Furthermore, the patterns are mutable, and can be changed at the drop of a hat.
(5) The deep background of such "reasoning" includes a combination of the "Bullshit Epistemoloy" (that there is no objective truth, the only truth is fidelity to one's "true self"), and collective narcissism which implicitly celebrates conservative identity. This combination reinforces and synergizes with the characteristic of associational reasoning to fundamentally resist any possibility of logical, empirical or rational refutation.
ACORN continues to face virulent attacks from Glenn Beck and Company, but, unfortunately, diarists have not been asking the netroots to pony up financial support, despite the fact that raising large amounts of small donor dollars is one of the netroots greatest strengths.
Follow me below and I will make my case for a large scale netroots fundraiser.
There was a post at RedState I read over the weekend, "Defending Against an Alinsky Campaign", that illuminated Glenn Beck's and other conservative tactics recently for me. In graduate school, I took a grassroots politics class in which I read Alinsky's Reveille for Radicals, which actually predated his more well-known and popular Rules for Radicals. In it, he discusses the necessity of taking an opponent, "fixating" on an element or characteristic that could be blown up, "personalizing" it/her/him for the general public to match a negative perception with the name, and "humiliating" it/her/him as much as possible until you win. You see this to a limited extent with Van Jones- which wasn't even reported in many major outlets before he resigned, and certainly much of the public could not name who he was. But you see it to a smaller extent with Yosi Sergant with the NEA. And you see it big-time with ACORN. The two videographers fixated on what could be blown up (getting a few employees to screw up), and then with the noise machine's help, personalized ACORN and made the employees emblematic of the organization as a whole.
The attacks are seemingly unrelated, but I expect to see more that are related to the original personalizations- e.g., a petition asking those affiliated with ACORN to step down. And in some cases, they don't even need to do it. As Paul wrote last night, Democratic members of Congress- many of whom benefited greatly from ACORN's voter registration efforts over the years and advertised their close ties with ACORN- have already distanced themselves. Obama, who himself represented ACORN in a lawsuit and was affiliated in other ways with the group throughout the late 1990s, called for an investigation. I don't see what Obama did as cowardly as Congressional Dems' actions, since even ACORN's chief organizer called for the same, but it adds to the pile-on and keeps the story in the news. It works in what one colleague calls concentric circles- personalize and attack those closest to the organization, then attack those close to those you just attacked, and so forth.
The whole episode got me thinking of response tactics and a failure in organizing to stop this in its tracks. One of my favorite posts by Matt Stoller was one he wrote around failure to stop Alito's nomination and tactics that could have been pursued, but were not. There was organizing here that could have been pursued, but was not. One response that perhaps should have been pursued is similar to what Wes Boyd and Joan Blades of MoveOn.org did in the wake of the Lewinsky scandal- make the ask to "censure and move on". Slap someone/an organization on the wrist, but recognize there are a few bad apples in every organization/corporation, and that there are bigger problems. The advantage to this is that our esteemed Democratic leaders in Congress, in this kind of situation, are looking for an easy out, something to kill this story and give them something to say when a CNN reporter sticks a microphone in their face about it. A resolution is much preferable to de-funding just as a resolution is preferable to impeachment.
Another was to organize to ask for support prior to such a vote. We, including myself, should have organized earlier for a statement of support from those who benefit most/have the closest ties to ACORN, found a Progressive Block that could have blocked a defunding vote (similar to Chris' theory around holding a Block to stand firm on the public option and other key issues), and worked to lock them in. ACORN's tool to ask your member of Congress to stand firm is another step towards this.
The one problem with the latter tactic, at least, is that we operate in a media environment where pressure to de-fund, disaffiliate, distance oneself from, etc. builds like a head of steam in 24 hours, and makes it difficult to organize that kind of larger effort. The Alito nomination and the whip count on health care took months. We didn't have that kind of time. Regardless, once the Senate vote came down, something needed to happen quickly, and it didn't. Progressive movement actors, myself included, have to learn from this episode and figure out where we all went wrong in working to support those attacked. Other organizations/people will soon find themselves in a similar situation. The writer at RedState suggested targeting purple-district Congressional Dems themselves with the same Alinsky tactics and force the already-cautious among them to distance themselves from Obama. I can see this having policy implications, such as around LGBT issues. This can all snowball quickly. It is important to learn from these episodes and figure out a quicker rapid-response.
When the congressional Democrats joined the Republicans in attacking ACORN and cutting off its funding--without even the pretense of an investigation to establish a rational basis for their actions--they clearly demonstrated the almost utter meaninglessness of electing a Democratic majority over the past two wave elections. The elections were clearly important in terms of removing the GOP from direct power, so that it's worst abuses were either ended or toned down.
But clearly nothing remotely resembling actual Democratic governance has emerged to take it's place. And this vote was a stark, harrowing reminder of how politics, like nature, abhors a vacuum: if you don't have a positive agenda, you will end up voting for any sort of stupid, evil shit that comes down the line, if the stampede factor is high enough. Or, to put it more bluntly: If you don't stand for something, you will fall for anything. So here's a quick run-down on what I see as six of the principle evils involved in this heinous act. I invite everyone to add to my list in comments.
(1) Screw The Poor, Part 1: The defunding directly takes money away fromthe leading organization involved in helping low and moderate income keep their homes. ACORN's been getting around $3 million a year to do this kind of work--counseling low- and moderate-income families and individuals.
Whatever you think about ACORN, poor people and minorities may end up being hurt the most by Congress's sudden vendetta against the group....
According to Brian Kettenring, ACORN's deputy director of national operations, the group's voter-registration work is funded entirely through private sources -- primarily membership dues and foundation grants. So that work would be unaffected.
The same goes for ACORN's core operations -- the rent on its offices, for instance.
In recent years, ACORN has been getting around $2-3 million in federal funds annually, said Kettenring, stressing that this was a rough estimate. That's about 10 percent of its total budget for the year.
That money goes mostly to housing work: primarily fair housing programs, which fight housing discrimination; and foreclosure-prevention programs, which help low-income people obtain loan modifications so they don't lose their homes, and which educate people about preventing foreclosure.
Important work these days, you might say. Losing federal funds, said Kettenring, "would impact our ability to help people save their home."
In other words, ACORN itself, said Kettenring, won't be hurt much by Congress's action. It's the people who ACORN works with -- who tend to be among the neediest -- who will lose out.
To be sure, it's fair to question how effective those programs ultimately are....
But it's not as if the federal money will now go to a different group that does this work more effectively. So the ultimate result, of course, is less help for struggling Americans, in very difficult economic times. As members of both parties compete to express their outrage, that's worth keeping in mind.
In contrast, the top-tier financial firms have received more than $10 trillion in various forms of financial assistance from the government--a sum that's over 3 million times the annual $3 million that ACORN has received. Any quetions?
(2) Screw The Poor, Part 2: Cutting back on voter registration for minority and low-income voters. The federal funds have nothing to do with this, but as Roth also notes:
Late Update: A different ACORN spokesman tells the Wall Street Journal that the group is considering cutting its voter-registration work. That's not because of any funding issue. Rather, it's a desire to avoid "political attacks."
Of course, the GOP has been fighting to suppress minority voters for more than half a century. So, way to go, congressional Democrats! Of course, since they don't really care very much about passing legislation, it's really not a very big deal to them. That's why they are the enemy every bit as much as the Republicans are.
(3) Empower Demonization: The post-New Deal GOP is entirely built on demonization, from McCarthyism to Nixon's "Southern Strategy" to Reagtan's "welfare queens" to Willie Horton and beyond. The stupidest thing that Democrats can do is cave in to rightwing demonization, and thereby empower it. So, naturally, that's what the Versailles Dems do.
(4) VALIDATE Demonization: But the Versailles Democrats didn't just empower conservative demonization by allowing it to succeed. They joined in on it--essentially saying that conservatives were right to demonize ACRORN.
(5) Invalidate the reason for voting for Democrats in the first place. This would not necessarily be a bad thing if we lived in an alternative universe were (a) national third party politics was a viable possibility, with a substantial history behind it, and (b) low-income voters were not also largely low-information voters, who desperately need sharp party divisions in order to participate in electoral politics relatively effectively. Because we do not live in that alternative universe, this action clearly demoralizes and outrages progressives, and intensifies divisions within progressive ranks between those who advocate national third party politics and those who--however reluctantly--do not.
(6) A general "fuck you" to all grassroots activists. Seriously, if I have to explain this one to you, I'm afraid that I can't possibly explain it to you.
Way to go, Dems, for voting against a big registration advantage for yourself...
Morans!
Because what a handful of ACORN employees did was soooo much worse than Triple Canopy:
Former Iraq Security Contractors Say Firm Bought Black Market Weapons, Swapped Booze for Rockets
Last spring, the U.S. diplomatic mission in Iraq got a makeover,replacing the scandal-plagued Blackwater private security company with a firm named Triple Canopy.
The new $1 billion contract cemented Triple Canopy's status as the pre-eminent provider of private security services in Iraq, with its heavily armed employees appearing side by side with senior State Department diplomats.
But the company's rise to prominence followed a long, often chaotic route, marked by questionable weapons deals, government bungling and a criminal investigation that was ultimately closed without charges being filed, according to newly released investigative files.
Company employees told federal investigators that Triple Canopy swapped booze for weapons and supplies from the U.S. military. They said the company bought guns and other arms on the black market in Iraq. Some worried that the money was flowing into the hands of insurgents, records show.
WASHINGTON - The State Department said Wednesday it has extended a contract for protecting U.S. diplomats in Iraq with a subsidiary of the security firm once known as Blackwater USA even though the company doesn't have a license to operate in the country.
Whistleblowers Unveil More ArmorGroup Allegations:
Former Company Officials Say State Department Contractor Involved in Myriad Fraudulent Schemes
Former employees of ArmorGroup, the private security company that holds a State Department contract to protect the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, unveiled new allegations against the besieged contractor a week after photographic evidence emerged of its guards engaged in physical and sexual harassment. In a press conference revolving around an unlawful-termination lawsuit filed against ArmorGroup, former senior company officials said ArmorGroup was aware of widespread fraud; intentional use of non-English speaking guards to save money at the expense of embassy security; operations of a shell corporation in order to win contracts intended only for American companies; and even involvement in prostitution - and that the State Department knew about at least some of the company's illicit practices
ACORN: No investigation necessary to oust them. GOP-connected contractors: no investigation sufficient to oust them.
But ACORN is hardly alone in the Versailles Dems' war against the Dem base. Consider President Obama and Education Secretary Arne Duncan's war on public schools and public school teachers:
"This is journalistic malpractice, plain and simple. A reporter right out of J-school would have taken the two minutes necessary to call the San Bernardino Police Department and verify Ms. Kaelke's statements. But that never occurred to anyone at Fox News before the network ran with the story. This kind of shameful work raises serious questions about the legitimacy of the entire campaign currently being waged against ACORN."
Controversial Blackwater Security Firm Gets Iraq Contract Extended by State Dept
Company Banned From Operating by Iraqi Government Earlier This Year By KIRIT RADIA
Sept. 1, 2009-
The State Department has extended a contract with controversial private security firm Blackwater, ABC News has learned. The contract was due to expire this month.
Sources say the department has agreed to temporarily continue using the subsidiary known as Presidential Airways to provide helicopter transport for embassy employees around Iraq until a new contract with another security company, Dyncorp International, is fully implemented. Presidential Airways is an arm of U.S. Training Center, which is a subsidiary of the company Xe, formerly and still commonly known as Blackwater....
The Blackwater contract's extension is for an indefinite period of time, but an official stressed it was "limited." The official said the State Department would like to complete the transition in "weeks or months."
Certainly by 2012. Or '13. Definitely by '13. Or '14.
Census Bureau Cuts Its Ties With Acorn
By JAKE SHERMAN
WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Census Bureau on Friday dropped Acorn as a partner for the 2010 Census after two separate hidden-camera videos captured four employees of the community organization giving tax advice on running a brothel to a man posing as an aspiring politician and a woman posing as his girlfriend and a prostitute.
The Census Bureau earlier this year signed up the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, one of the nation's largest community groups, as a national partner for the decennial census, a role that entails helping to publicize the importance of the count and encouraging people to participate.
In a letter to Acorn President Maude Hurd, Census Director Robert Groves said Acorn had become a distraction.
But not Blackwater. No distraction there. Dead Iraqis, maybe. But no distractions.
Violence is cool. Sex, not so much. Even if the violence is real, and the sex hypothetical.
This week Project Vote and the ACLU of Pennsylvania filed a lawsuit, on behalf of ACORN, against Pennsylvania Attorney General Tom Corbett and Allegheny County District Attorney Stephen Zappala, Jr. The purpose of the suit is to keep the district attorney from filing a frivolous complaint alleging that ACORN's method of retaining - not paying - canvassers was a violation of state law.
Enfranchising America's least represented citizens is as simple as following the law: that's the message Project Vote and a coalition of voting rights groups sent today as they filed lawsuits against Indiana and New Mexico for failing to comply with the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA).
In a major victory for voting rights, low-income voters in the state of Missouri will finally have better access to voter registration opportunities, thanks to a lawsuit settlement announced today by Project Vote, Demos, and the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law.
When ACORN came under unprecedented attack last election cycle for our work bringing new low- and moderate-income voters of color into the electorate, Adam Bink, one of the editors there, reached out to our small online team and offered the resources of this vibrant progressive community to help us combat the firestorm of accusations and lies pushed by partisan activists.
He and people like Mike Lux, David Sirota, Chris Bowers, Natasha Chart, Matt Stoller, and Paul Rosenberg rearranged their priorities and gave their time to debunk the accusations and put the attacks and our work into context. Their advice was instrumental in helping ACORN build relationships with progressive bloggers and online activists, relationships that helped folks across the blogosphere contribute to our defense. Near the end of the entire saga, in response to a thank you video to the progressive online community that the Working Families Party produced with me, Digby said something that captures what I think is the essence of what happened in 2008. She said, “It’s beginning to feel like a movement.”
Well, it certainly felt like that to me too. And my involvement with the progressive online aspect of that movement all started with the OpenLeft community.
So when I found out that OpenLeft was facing a funding crisis (and I know a few things about facing fundraising crises as the CEO of a poor people’s organization) I knew I had to help. So I did. When ACORN was being attacked, OpenLeft stood up. Now its our turn. When OpenLeft is in trouble, ACORN will always have its back.
But you need to help too. OpenLeft is too important to the progressive movement to be allowed to fail.
If you believe that there is a need for a space that offers deep progressive analysis of both policy and politics, then you need to give.
If you believe that there is a need for a space that offers cogent analysis of the changing electorate and its potential impact on progressive public policy, then you need to give.
If you believe that there needs to be a place dedicated to holding elected officials accountable for their promises around progressive public policy, then you need to give.
If you believe there needs to be a space where progressives can discuss long-term goals, strategies and tactics outside of the short-term urgency of specific campaigns or elections, then you need to give.
Because the truth is that, while there are many sites that do some of these things very well, there are practically none that do them all and do them all so well. And that’s probably the biggest reason that you need to give.
Since 1948, when Congress defeated one of the best chances had at a universal health care bill, the issue has not diminished in its importance to the country or its influence in all aspects of our economy. Right now we are facing what I think is best opportunity of my lifetime to reshape the health care system to insure the uninsured, control costs, and remove health care coverage from its linkage to employment.
ACORN, through its partnership with Health Care for America Now (HCAN), is heavily involved in pushing out elected representatives to take advantage of this moment and enacting lasting, comprehensive health care reform. While we may not end up with the perfect system, from a progressive point of view, whatever we do get will be a vast improvement over what we have now. Today, in a direct shot at the insurance industry fighting the changes, HCAN and its partners, including ACORN, released a study on the consolidation of the industry and its near monopolistic practices in many states. Below I've written more about this, through the prism of Tamecka Pierce, one of Florida ACORN's strongest leaders. We can win real health care reform this year. But we need to fight for it. --Bertha
When Florida ACORN member Tamecka Pierce first got her employer-provided health insurance, she was ecstatic. No more dealing with the limitations and bureaucracy of the Medicaid system, which had been her sole option as an unemployed single mother with three children.
That joy was short lived. Just after she was accepted into the Blue Cross/Blue Shield program, she was diagnosed with lupus, an auto-immune disease in which the body slowly eats away at itself. The treatment is complex, ever-shifting, and life-long as there is no cure.
Predictably, Blue Cross/Blue Shield spent months fighting not to cover Tamecka. When she finally won, her problems didn't end. As the sole breadwinner, money is always an issue. On a monthly basis, Tamecka found herself choosing between medications and visits to specialist, or between health care and other bills.
But it doesn't have to be this way. Follow me on the flip to find out how.
If you didn’t see ACORN spokesman Scott Levenson take on Glenn Beck on Wednesday, you missed a bit of a dust-up. Enough of a dust-up for Keith Olbermann to name Beck his “Worst Person in the World” for Thursday May 7.
For most of the nine minutes, Beck did his best to continue the rich Fox News tradition of smearing ACORN’s work, especially around the voter registration drive we did last year. Scott did his best to give as good as he got.
For the most part, he did pretty well, I’d say, forcing Beck to shut off his mike one point. (Here’s an aside: Why is it that right-wing radio and TV hosts always prattle on about the first amendment when they get called out for their hate speech, but when they can’t bully guests into submission, then need to cut the other guy’s mike? Are they scared to actually deal in facts?)
But the real confrontation happened off-screen, when, during a commercial break, Beck said that ACORN was “bad for America” and Scott responded, “You’re just afraid of black people.” You can almost see Beck’s head explode in this clip.
Follow me over the flip for more on how Beck exemplifies the problems conservatives have with race.
The last time I was here I was discussing the foreclosure crisis at the heart of the economic meltdown and the launching of ACORN's Home Defenders campaign. This is the hard work ACORN members and like-minded community activists are doing to help foreclosure victims stay in their homes until the various programs and proposals from the Obama Administration can take effect. As part of that effort, we're calling for a 3-month moratorium on foreclosures and supporting the so-called bankruptcy "cram-down" legislation that is now before the Senate.
But I want to talk about something that’s even bigger than that campaign. And even more complicated and difficult to make sexy. No, it is not my auntie’s hair. (I keep saying, "Braids!" And she keeps reaching for the straightener. It ain't pretty.) I'm talking about President Obama's first budget proposal.
Before you click away with your eyes all glazed over, hear me out. Because this budget is a major down payment on a progressive future for the United States.
On Wednesday I wrote a piece on Huffington Post and another here at Open Left talking about the centrality of fixing the foreclosure crisis to any recovery from the economic meltdown. Since the toxic assets at the center of the meltdown are based on mortgages that are entering foreclosure at a rate of one every 13 seconds, we have to address foreclosure as a part of getting America back on its feet.
The Homeowner Affordability and Stabilization Plan (HASP), announced in Phoenix on Wednesday by President Obama, which will help up to an estimated 9 million families, is a good first step – and the first serious effort by the Federal government to confront the challenge. But just because there was an announcement does not lessen the urgency of the problem. We are still in a situation where four families every minute enter the foreclosure process. We believe there must be a moratorium on foreclosures until HASP is fully implemented.
In the extended entry I give a report back on ACORN's actions on Thursday to create a sense of urgency around this crisis and help some families stay in their homes.
President Obama unveiled his $75 billion Homeowner Stability Initiative today, which could be a start to ending the foreclosure crisis that plagued 2.3 million Americans last year. While Obama acknowledged his plan won't be able to save every home, he claimed it would stop "the worst consequences of this crisis from wreaking even greater havoc on the economy."
To that end, Obama's plan will help those homeowners facing mortgages more costly than the price of their homes, along with borrowers on the verge of foreclosure. That would be key to enabling 4-5 million Americans currently "under water" refinance their mortgages, and another 4 million people avoid foreclosure. The plan also "will provide forward-looking confidence" for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, as Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said.
But the question still remains how soon this money will get to the people who need it most, considering 10,000 Americans go into foreclosure every day. As Arianna Huffington recently put it, "'The banks are too big to fail' has been the mantra we've been hearing since September. But when you consider the millions of American homeowners facing foreclosure, aren't they also too big to be allowed to fail?"
