On the night of May 30, 2009 I was at Club Charles with my friends. I was standing at the bar picking some delicious leftovers off of a friends plate when two women approached me. They did not ask who I was but they did have a few words ready for me. The woman who ended up doing most of the talking said to me: "We are from ACORN and we did not like the article you wrote about our bill". At first I had food in my mouth and I could not respond right away. The swallowing of my delicious snack gave me a moment to think and figure out what article they were talking about (I have written over 400 articles in a little over a year now). They were talking about this article from February of this year. They did not like that I did not ask for ACORN's side of the story and that I said banks would not want to lend money for houses in Baltimore if such a bill passed. I said that I was not the only person who had this opinion. I stated that Councilman Bill Cole also shared my opinion. The woman then said something about Bill Cole having close ties with a bank. This was meant to be a derogatory statement. It is funny that ACORN representatives can express animosity toward Bill Cole yet they endorsed him in the 2007 election. Bill Cole suddenly did not just start to think like this.
One of ACORN's major problems is that it sometimes likes to endorse establishment candidates in order to gain political favor with them. ACORN paints itself as an organization that supports the underdogs of this world but they are an organization that charges poor and uneducated citizens to be members of their organization while they tell their members to vote for members of the establishment machine. ACORN is also notorious for sending clueless "community organizers" into neighborhoods they have no idea about. These "community organizers" usually talk a big game and then totally disappear. The true community organizers in these neighborhoods who have spent years trying to fight for neighborhood causes are usually annoyed when an ACORN person shows up. ACORN members are thought of as useless and naive people who only get in the way of the experienced community members who know better. This is not a liberal or conservative thing. Ask ultra-liberal Green party member Myles Hoenig his opinion of ACORN "community organizers" who get sent into Waverly. Also be sure to ask Myles about ACORN endorsing O'Malley for Governor in 2006.
I tried to explain to the ACORN woman that I do not like the banks at all, but no matter what they do they are going to be attacked. If they make loans to poor people then they are going to be called loan sharks because of the high interest rates they charged them. If they do not make loans to poor people they are going to be called racists. I tried to explain that the foreclosed houses must be placed on the open market as soon as possible so that the market is flooded and because of supply and demand, prices will drop. If prices drop then houses become more affordable and more people can buy them. Everyone says they want affordable houses and this is the way to get them! Intervention only delays things and causes more scam artists to emerge and more houses to be stripped of anything of value inside of them. The state of California just declared a moratorium on foreclosures. I agree with this blog that such a moratorium is a terrible idea that only delays the inevitable.
After I mentioned that the people being foreclosed on already had been given a lot of warnings and plenty of time to prepare, the ACORN woman just yelled out "PEOPLE ARE LOSING THEIR HOUSES!" and she quickly walked away without saying goodbye. Sure people are losing their houses, the same people who took out insane home equity loans out on their houses and bought every ridiculous piece of crap useless electronics "toy" advertised on TV. Whatever happened to responsible economic decisions? Why should we continue to coddle bling-obsessed self-centered materialistic 60 inch TV watching zombies?
Comments
Your insight into ACORN is spot on. I imagine that woman would never have confronted you had she known that this would stoke another Emainer entry. I expect Giordano to bash you for this one. But it's true, ACORN: If you're the organization for the little guy, why do you often back the Machine?
Adam, great articles on this. ACORN is a horribly corrupt organization and is looking to our liberal portals (Balto City & PG Co) to get into MD. They are so tied up in the mortgage industry and the housing crisis, it's frightening. Keep up the good work!
ACORN and SEIU are ongoing criminal organizations. They need to be audited by an independent outside auditor because BOTH are in the back pocket of this administration. A RICO suit would be appropriate in this case.
They are no different than the street gangs!
ACORN is a criminal outfit and they are in obama's pocket. They got millions of our tax dollars too. America is in big trouble and I fear a civil war is brewing. These leftists scumbags need to be thrown out of America and our constitution restored.
ACORN are racist trash and lying criminals.
Personal responsibility does not fit into ACORN's game.
Back in the day, the early 1990's and before. Banks were very stringent with their qualification guidelines. In the late 90's pressure was put on Congress who in turn put pressure on the banks to start loosening lending guidlines. People with good credit, employment history and down payments were deemed too exclusive of a group. Oddly enough it was groups like ACORN that advocated this at the time.
The Banks bit and continued to lower standards through the mid-part of this decade. As long as the housing market continued to rise everyone was happy. The banks threw all caution to the wind and got greedy, they were making money.
This was case of damned if you do and damned if you don't. It was also poorly thought out and unregulated.
Now they want banks who they previously accused of "redlining" to make up for the mis-steps in personal responsibility.
"Damned if you do, damned if you don't."
I can see both sides of this. There is a PART of me that will always have a warm spot in my heart for what ACORN has done in the past. Whatever their due-raising schemes, it's indisuputable that they are one of the very few groups concerned with empowering the "little guy". What ppl take issue with, is HOW they go about DOING that...they do take quite militaristic stances. But I do have to agree with Adam-- these ppl flyer 'hoods that the know little to NOTHING about....and then, don't really stick around! I have received manybe 2 or 3 ACORN flyers (advertising various meetings here and there) over the 9 years I've lived in Reservoir Hill. But during that same time, there were far, far more visible and approachable "organizers" (like one Frank Patinella) flyering 10x more than them -- plus he lived here, and knew what the hell was going ON here! I think their intentions are good, but the way they try to carry them out are not often the best (and that's putting it as nicely as I can).
Acorn A City Others Run Nothing, get it who in charge.
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