A short history of ACORN's nutty agenda, written in 2003. It is worth reading to get a real sense of the organization, and how divorced their goals are from reality. Urging cities to pass "living wage" laws that raise taxes and reduce available jobs while suing to prevent minimum wage laws from applying to their own workers, since they couldn't afford the very wages they seek to proscribe for everyone else. They are strongly allied with unions, most clearly teachers' unions, in whose stead they resist any attempts to introduce accountability, privatization, or voucher programs while endorsing a status quo that is driving our inner cities' education systems further into the gutter. They fight for justice against evil corporations, while essentially blackmailing them for donations at the same time. But mention personal responsibility and the effects of illegitimacy on the lower classes and they abstain from commenting. They would rather blame capitalism as their enemy, which is insane, particularly considering the role of capitalism in lifting untold millions out of poverty and into a middle-class existence that so many now take for granted as a given. One of their big issues is unionizing welfare recipients. Seems ridiculous, and yet it is a major goal of theirs. And not to get them off the dole either; rather, they acknowledge that "for a lot of people, it’s not right to force them to work. There should be some type of income support for those who still won’t be able to join the work force.” This is code for perpetual dependency, which helps no one, and bankrupts our already strained system.

The obvious question, then, is why Barack Obama has given so much of his time to this organization, as a lawyer, leader, trainer, and worker. His Project VOTE was funded directly by ACORN as an extension of the organization, yet now he pretends the groups have no relationship. On the various boards he sat on (with Bill Ayers), they directed hundreds of thousands of dollars to ACORN. And now their single biggest political advocate in Washington, who helped steer numerous grants their way, is on the doorstep of the Presidency. And the sad thing is, Obama's biggest supporters couldn't even tell you what he plans to do. Nor do they try and defend his associations; they just ignore the accusations while painting the other side as "racists" peddling "conspiracy theories". I'd truly like to see some of these "conspiracies" debunked, for the sake of the country if he wins, but I won't hold my breath. All while Obama's campaign adopts the tactics of ACORN, using intimidation to drive down the opposition while cramming the ballot box with fraudulent votes (ACORN is under investigation in over a dozen states this election cycle, and have had registrations challenged in nearly every state in past elections), or, failing that, shouting them down. I still don't get how this is a "change" from the politics of the past, and no Obama supporter has ever been able to explain to me how this is so. I imagine I will continue to wait...