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This is rather long, but it is an inconvenient truth that it takes time to relay the facts.

Simply shouting ACORN, HUSSEIN, SOCIALISM etc is certainly quicker, easier and much more suited to the 30 second sound bytes from which so many of us get our information. But please, bear with me.

Regardless of your political viewpoint, I think there is some interesting information that everyone should be aware of.

Most of us have probably read a story or seen a movie where the plot involves the protagonist warning people about some impending disaster. No one pays any attention to them, and the warnings are ignored or even ridiculed. Later, the disaster actually happens and the person who issued the warnings in the first place, is accused of causing the disaster.

As I dig into the details of this business concerning the ACORN organization, some interesting information does come to light that reminds me of the above storyline. First of all though, let me be clear. In no way do I condone any unethical or illegal behavior that may have been committed by ACORN employees. Anyone guilty of bad ethics should be fired. Anyone who committed a crime, should be prosecuted.
By the same token, anyone making accusations about ACORN should demonstrate that they are concerned with facts and the truth, instead of pursuing a political vendetta.

One of the first facts that I learned by doing just a few minutes of research was that the ACORN employee who is on tape in a southern California office allegedly discussing evasion of immigration laws, reported the incident to police before the video was released. That is a tidbit you will not learn on any of the usual partisan blogs.

Nor will you learn that during the 2008 campaign, the head of ACORN in Nevada initiated contact with local authorities about concerns over voter registration cards that were apparently fraudulent. This week, indictments were handed down and among all the reports from corporate so called "liberal" media, nary word about the letter from Bertha Lewis in 2008. I have linked to that below.

Aside from portraying ACORN as a dire threat to representative democracy, it is also fahshionable to portray them as responsible for the mortgage crisis. You see, they forced those poor defenseless mortgage companies into lending money to people who could not afford the mortgage. I think this must have happened right before Saddam shipped all of his WMD's to that secret warehouse just outside Chicago.

Not surprisingly the truth tells a rather different story and we do not have to look any further than Oakland to find it. Back in 2001, the Oakland chapter of ACORN raised strong concerns about the practice of predatory lending in the city. With the assistance of Oakland City Attorney John Russo, an ordinance was crafted and passed. It required the mortgage process to include a written verification from an independent credit counselor that the prospective borrower could afford the mortgage. Let me repeat that and raise my voice a bit.

IT WAS **ACORN** IN OAKLAND THAT WAS LARGELY RESPONSIBLE FOR A CITY ORDINANCE THAT WOULD HAVE MADE IT FAR MORE DIFFICULT FOR LENDERS TO EXTEND MORTGAGES TO PEOPLE WHO CANNOT AFFORD THAT MORTGAGE.

Pardon my cynicism, but I doubt that Rush or Hannity or Savage et all will be advising you of that pertinent fact anytime soon.

Unfortunately the Oakland story does not have a happy ending. Shortly after the ordinance was passed, a lender's trade association sued the city. In its essence, the argument was that if this ordinance stands, we can't make any money in Oakland. In the true spirit of free enterprise capitalism, the court decided that indeed nothing is more important than making sure corporations earn as much money as possible and eventually the Oakland ordinance was tossed out by the California Supreme Court. During the appeals process, corporate lobby money flowed freely in Sacramento in attempts to pass legislation that was more friendly to corporate interests.

And yes there are more than a few Demcorats who had their hand in this, including Democrat Don Perata. They were serving the interests of corporations, not people. As a former resident of Oakland, I sincerely hope the citizens of that city soundly reject his candidacy for mayor. Never really liked that guy.

So ladies and gentlemen, I invite you to chew on those facts. Reconcile them to the stories being told to you by your favorite FOX news or talk radio entertainer. For the sake of nostalgia think back to the early years of the Iraq war when so many conservatives complained about the media not reporting "all the good news" about Iraq. It would seem that the good news about ACORN is equally absent from the nation's conscience.

No one denies that some members of ACORN have been caught red handed in some serious wrong-doing. As we focus our attention on these people, it should be pointed out that five employees of the defense contractor Blackwater are on trial for murder in Iraq. Not prostitution, not illegal immigration, but murder. Yet, our tax dollars continue to flow to that organization and no one except us wild eyed leftists says a word about it.

Cynicism is not a healthy state of mind. It gives you gray hair and raises your blood pressure. But the facts in this whole episode reveal yet another example of what is happening in our country. Ideology is more important than principle. It is not unethical or illegal behavior that offends us, it is an opposing viewpoint to which we most take offense. The folks who agree with us can do no wrong. Or at least if they do wrong, it is nowhere near as serious as wrong-doing committed by people who do not agree with us. That is a sad state of affairs. But in 21st century America, it is also the truth. Cynicism seems entirely appropriate.

After the link for the 2008 ACORN letter, you will find a link to the original 2001 lawsuit against the city of Oakland, along with a link to a later news story that nicely summarizes the events.

The bottom line is that ACORN tried to raise the alarm about risky mortgage lending practices. Their efforts were torpedoed by the lobbying group promoting corporate interests. Now ACORN is accused of causing the crisis that the Oakland chapter tried to warn us about.

So in summary, a community organization that receives government funding warns us about a problem. Attempts to resolve the problem are thwarted by corporations. When the problem grows to catastrophic proportions, some people want to blame the community organization and the government.

Maybe I'm a bit slow, but I just don't get that.


http://www.acorn.org/index.php?id=12439&tx_ttnews[tt_news]=22367&tx_ttnews[backPid]=12346&cHash=bfe5d5d350

"For the past 10 months, any time ACORN has identified a potentially fraudulent application, we turn that application in to election officials separately and offer to provide election officials with the information they would need to pursue an investigation or prosecution of
the individual.

"Election officials routinely ignored this information and failed to act. In early July, ACORN asked to meet with election officials to express our concerns that they were not acting on information ACORN had presented to them. ACORN met with Clark County elections officials and a representative of the Secretary of State on July 17th. ACORN pleaded with them to take our concerns about fraudulent applications seriously. One week later, elections officials asked us to provide them with a second copy of what we had previously provided to them. ACORN responded by giving election officials copies of 46 'problem application packages,' which involved 33 former canvassers.

http://www.courtinfo.ca.gov/opinions/revpub/A100258.DOC

The City of Oakland adopted an ordinance regulating sub-prime consumer loans secured by Oakland real property. Federally chartered lenders were exempted. The American Financial Services Association (AFSA) sued the city, alleging that its lending ordinance was preempted by state law. On cross-motions for summary judgment, the trial court upheld the ordinance subject to severance of the exemption for federal lenders.

http://www.eastbayexpress.com/news/acorn_foresaw_the_foreclosure_crisis_in_2001/Content?oid=1203397

Back in the late 1990s, ACORN was acutely aware of the grave dangers posed by subprime mortgage lending because of the group's close work with low-income property owners.
ACORN officials were witnessing first-hand how unscrupulous lenders were enticing people to buy homes they couldn't afford and advising long-time homeowners to strip out all of
the equity in their homes. The group then saw those very same people lose everything when their subprime mortgages kicked in and low-income neighborhoods were devastated.

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*So in 2001, ACORN helped sponsor anti-predatory lending *laws in Oakland and a few other cities around the nation *that would have greatly curtailed the subprime market.
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