"Community Organizer"
Posted on 09/05/2008 10:18:36 AM PDT by mukraker
The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) President Maude Hurd issued the following statement after presumptive Republican vice president pick Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuiliani made disparaging comments about community organizing during the Republican National Convention Wednesday night.
“ACORN members, leaders and staff are extremely disappointed that Republican leaders would make such condescending remarks on the great work community organizers accomplish in cities throughout this country.
The fact that they marginalize our success in empowering low- and moderate-income people to improve their communities further illustrates their out-of-touch with ordinary people. Through community organizing, people are empowered to take action to solve their own problems, develop leadership skills and make decisions that improve their lives and their communities.
ACORN has been building organizations and developing leadership among low- and moderate- income residents in neighborhoods throughout the United States for 38 years.
During that time, ACORN chapters have worked individually and collectively to organize innovative grassroots campaigns on a number of critical issues. As the nation’s largest grassroots community organization with more than 400,000 member families, ACORN employs 400 organizers that carry a huge responsibility of helping disenfranchised people in their communities.
In the past 10 years, ACORN has helped more than 30 million American families through our various organizing campaigns: better schools, financial justice, living wages, community improvement, immigration, healthcare, predatory lending, voter engagement and utilities.
The total monetary value of recent victorious ACORN campaigns was quantified in a 2006 report entitled, “ACORN Wins”.
Over the last decade, ACORN’s victories amount to $15 billion, an average of $1.5 billion per year going directly into low- and moderate-income communities to help strengthen working families.
Community organizers handling such awesome responsibilities is no laughing matter," Hurd concluded.
And here I thought non-profit organizations were supposed to be non-partisan, not allowed to attempt to influence legislation or elections.
I actually took a look at their wenbsite, read through some of their propaganda. And I still have no idea what a "community organizer" is or does.
Me neither, but I do know the bastards do it with my tax money.
We’ve got more community organizations in my own hometown than Carter has liver pills. Yet, only 45% of our high school kids graduate. Pretty disgusting. They were the best schools around when I was a kid.
I lived in Chicago for 17 years and as far as I can tell, they keep people of color in poverty.
The ONLY sign I saw of POLITICS on Reed College’s Campus (Portland, Oregon- I was there with my niece previewing a few weeks ago).....was a posted note from ACORN looking for election workers!
ACORN just got slammed with voter fraud. Michele Maulkin has a nice piece on them from June. Victory ‘08 needs to counter.
“The fact that they marginalize our success in empowering low- and moderate-income people to improve their communities further illustrates their out-of-touch with ordinary people”
Hhhhuuuummmm, in the rest of the country — we call those people — Family, Friend, Coach, Priest, Pastor, Teacher, Neighbor, Scout Leader, and Youth Group Minister...out-of-touch — I think not.
They used to run a lot of ads in The Washington Post years ago. It seemed that they had a fairly high turnover rate. That what I surmised from the ads - they were always in the paper.
They operate on the assumption that if you’re poor, its because you haven’t effectively obtained enough services from government, and you need them to help you get more services from government.
The idea that the answer to poverty is investment, building businesses, putting people to work, working to attract industries, thats not part of their palette.
Their whole purpose is to interpose themselves between you and government, so that you will think you need them, and they can invent programs that have to be funded by government which they will in turn manage. That money won’t go to you, though, it will go to other community organizers to pay for them to find other ways to interpose themselves between you and government.
Its welfare for leftists. They don’t solve poverty. They feed upon it.
Does the phrase 'older than dirt' mean anything to you?
Shocking that ACORN values it’s community agitators,,errr,,organizers. Who woulda thunk?
I remember when I was an undergrad at UT Austin that ACORN ran ads in the Daily Texan all the time. Everyone understood that anyone who signed on with them was a deadbeat loser who didn’t want to get a real job.
This needs to be publicized. Strictly factual attack ads should be made of this.
Congressman Billybob
Tenth in the ten-part series, "The Owner's Manual (Part 10) -- The Remaining Amendments"
ACORN is renown for epidemic registration and voting fraud, across the nation.
Their patron sait is Saul Alinsky, who advocated that the ends justfiy the means and “morality” is just another weapon.
They got nailed for fraudulent voter registrations in New Mexico in 2004. They also got in trouble for paying less than minimum wage while agitating for a “living wage” in Santa Fe.
"Community Organizer"
During that time, ACORN chapters have worked individually and collectively to organize innovative grassroots campaigns on a number of critical issues...
Indeed!
Cuyahoga board probes ACORN voter registration drive
10 more voter registration workers face investigation (ACORN)
City refers 32 more to DA for voter fraud (ACORN in Milwaukee, WI)
And of course:
Our tax money shouldn’t be going to any of these groups.
The ones on the left, especially, do whatever they please with the money they receive regardless of the rules/regulations they’re supposed to follow.
If ACORN is so great and does such an awesome job, they should be able to survive on their own through donors who believe in their mission and the results they achieve.
Let me clarify something. Nobody is mocking community organizers in church basements and community centers across the country working to improve their neighbors’ lives. What deserves ridicule is the notion that Barack Obama’s brief stint as a South Side rabble-rouser for tax-subsidized, partisan non-profits qualifies as executive experience you can believe in. What deserves derision is “community organizing” that relies of a community of homeless people and ex-cons to organize for the purpose of registering dead people and shaking down corporations and using the race card as a bludgeon.
As I’ve reported previously, Obama’s community organizing days revolved around training grievance-mongers from the far left group ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now).
The ACORN mob is infamous for its bully tactics (which they dub “direct actions”); Obama supporters have recounted his role in organizing an ambush of a government planning meeting on a landfill project opposed by Chicago minority lobbies.
With benefactors like Obama in office, ACORN has milked nearly four decades of government subsidies to prop up chapters that promote the welfare state, undermine the free market, and perpetuate illegal immigration and voter fraud. Since I last detailed ACORN’s illicit activities in this column in June (see “The ACORN Obama knows,” June 19, 2008), the group continues to garner scrutiny of law enforcement:
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I'm still confused on what they do. I didn't see anything about ensuring manufacturing or retail businesses could operate in those communities to provide jobs, teaching the skills that employers actually want (like showing up on time and working during work hours), or emphasizing their personal responsibility to fix their personal problems. I didn't need to be empowered. Instead, I got an education and a job. I didn't need an organizer to develop my leadership skills. Instead, I joined the Boy Scounts of America and then once I had a job took on responsibilities and produced results, so I came to be recognized as a leader by actually leading. I don't need an organizer working for "financial justice", whatever that is, because I pay my bills on time, save money for the future, and plan ahead. As for "utilities", I'm confused. My utility company has never been an issue, and I've heard most of them are the same for customers who pay their bills.
So, now that ACORN has spoken up, what exactly is it that they do, and why do adults need someone else to do this for them?
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