ACORN has been, according to their website, "a voice for working families since 1970," pressing for living wage jobs, affordable housing for all, universal health care, voter activism, and confrontation of the global financial crisis.

The organization had been salient in the news cycle during the 2008 election. They were accused of voter fraud by helping unqualified voters to register, including Mickey Mouse. They organize locally in urban areas, targeting "big box" stores (e.g., Wal-Mart) for their treatment of employees, and pressing for bank regulation and a rolling back of welfare reform. They disrupt business near their branch offices, most notably by rioting around and sometimes in their target's office building.

However, two college students suspected that there was not much truth behind the façade of wholesomeness that ACORN tried to create. Friends James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles posed as a pimp and prostitute respectively and visited several offices with their small camera in tow.

In Brooklyn, O'Keefe and Giles inquired about acquiring a loan for a house out of which they planned to operate their "business." They kept no secrets from the ACORN staff about their plans. "Honesty is not going to get you the house," says a loan officer heard on the video. "You can't say what you do for a living."

"You know, what goes on in the house, we don't care," another staffer says. "We just help you with the mortgage." They also suggested ways to skirt the law by opening two separate bank accounts and depositing limited amounts so as not to draw attention.

Never mind that prostitution is illegal in New York. However, the Brooklyn office administrator apparently knew that: "Don't get caught--it's against the law what you're doing..." The DA's office has announced that it will be investigating them.

Later, in an ACORN office in Baltimore, the same pair was advised on how to establish a prostitution ring with underage illegal immigrants. One of the workers suggests that Giles call herself a "performing artist" on tax forms and declare some of the El Salvadorian girls they plan on importing as dependents for child tax credits. "Stop saying 'prostitution'," says one of the workers. "You want to keep them clean…make sure they go to school."

ACORN has fired several of the employees involved, but in a statement released after the videos were aired on Fox News, the organization said, "…a crime it was--our lawyers believe a felony--and we will be taking legal action against Fox and their co-conspirators." However, if it was a crime to reveal this gross negligence of the law, why fire anyone? ACORN wants it both ways.

This organization has become the poster child of rabble-rousing leftist groups. However, their advisement on skirting the law and heinously exploiting children invalidates them. It has been announced that they will lose at least some of their taxpayer funding, but this group should be completely denounced and disbanded. They claim to be watchdog advocates for people's basic rights, yet they were completely willing to be complicit in tax fraud and the prostitution of underage girls. For their lack of a moral compass, these people and their like-minded ilk deserve our esteem no longer.

Logged in members can write a review and comment    

Go to YOUR VOICE - Inside Music and Culture
Latest discussion headlines: