Detroit Metro Times: Smashing ACORN

[marmar]

Smashing ACORN
There’s a bigger scandal than the pimp tapes

By Curt Guyette


You haven't seen Carrie Guzman on the television shows hosted by archconservatives Bill O'Reilly or Glenn Beck. Her name hasn't appeared on the op-ed page of The Wall Street Journal. And she hasn't shown up in any surreptitiously videotaped sting operations conducted by youthful right-wing zealots.

In fact, Guzman represents a face of the group ACORN that has been largely absent from the media in general since various factions of the right wing set out to discredit and cripple the anti-poverty organization.

At least she used to be a part of Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now. As head of the Lansing office, she worked out of a small office in that city for four years, putting in long hours while making just $30,000 a year. Given that Guzman holds a Ph.D. in community development, the pay is exceptionally meager. But she loved the job nonetheless, seeing it as a way to continue providing a public service after retiring from Michigan State University, where she previously served as director of the undergraduate social work program.

But late last year, after the federal government illegally cut off funding to the nonprofit and threatened to do the same to any other entity either affiliated or even associated with the group, ACORN in Michigan shut down all operations.

....(snip)....

"Now," she says, "the ACORN brand has certainly been damaged. How irreparably, I don't know. But it's certainly been damaged. And it's left a huge void. Right now, I don't see anyone else stepping up to take the lead."

In some ways, she says, it all seems so crazy. All these attacks on a group that has helping poor people and the disenfranchised as its goal. What, she asks, is there to be so afraid of? But she knows the answer to her own question.

"We did make political change. We did make economic change. And some people just didn't want to see that. I think that is the real reason we ran into so much trouble." .........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.metrotimes.com/news/story.asp?id=14767

[formercia]

1. A lot of 'Dems' voted to cut funding for ACORN.

Don't let them forget. I won't.

[Snotcicles]

2. A Sacrificial Lamb. nt

[gratuitous]

3. Mission Accomplished

James O'Keefe can now go rot in jail, for all the Masters of the Universe care. They got their pelt, and the reason is that last quote from Ms. Guzman: "We did make political change. We did make economic change." Unacceptable in the United States as the game is currently rigged.

[dem mba]

4. ACORN registered way more Dems than Repubs

that is the main reason they were targeted.