ACORN doesn't fall far from the tree

Vertical Management? How could something called ACORN be governed from the top. An ACORN gtows from the bottom up.

Not this ACORN. This ACORN mandates cookie cutter production from every orifice. Also, ACORNs sprout individual trees. Not this ACORN. This ACORN ecpects every tree to grow the same no matter the soil, availability of water, sunlight etc..

Translation? ACORN mandates all organizers go door to door and get two members a day by getting a bank acount number or 30 bucks from every member. Period. No matter the community. No matter the unemployment rate, no matter the danger, no mattter the demographic make up of the area.

All organizers must organize a chapter with 100 members, a meeting that yields 100 participants, and a victory in a neighborhood with 1000 affected households.
No matter that some communities have 25 percent unemployment, no matter that some communties do not contain neighborhoods of 1000 working class households.

Now you go and look at an area that is mostly migrant workers. These are poor people, right? These are affected people right? Well not according to top management at ACORN. Why are you organizing "those people" is the cry. "They are transient, and they don't have bank accounts". "You need to focus on homeowners and citizens."

You think ACORN will ever own up to that one in public? Not likely. In fact they brag about great work done to organize immigrant communities and then shut down the operations. Look into it. See if it is true.

ACORN looses Project Vote money in an area? Offices start to close like falling dominos. Now if ACORN is going to be a move one .org or the like then fine. BUT, if they want to continue to pretend to be a "grassroots organization" THAT is BULLSH#T. What many critics say is true about ACORN being a tool of the Democratic Party. The ironic part is that ACORN is screwing the Dems and the GOP. How? They don't do a thorough job of any of the crap they sell the Dems. IF the GOP were smart they would shut up. ACORN is ripping off the Dems blind and we can prove it.

Money for organizing shuffled in to ACORN political accounts (a big no no) and money for project vote shifted to organizing (another no no). They do it all the time. Their accountants fix it later.

In the end shitty VR and Get out the vote operations and lame organizing are the result. If the Dems were smart they would invest their money in traditional grassroots orgs with a track record of performance in one geographic area that sticks. ACORN moves into Ohio or Colorado like gangbusters and promises the Dems the moon and the stars and what do they get? A bunch of idiots trading crack for fake signatures and protesting offices demanding pay. And did it win Ohio for them in 2004? I would say not.

They promised the Dems if they funded (through the back door) a minimum wage campaign in Florida in 2004 it would deliver the state. The facts? Wasn't event close. 150,000 votes? Way worse than 2000. They did raise the minimum wage in Florida and tricked the Dems into bankrolling it so I guess they can smugly claim some victory. But getting a progressive or working class liberal vote at the polls? Their Get Out The Vote Effort sucks. Vans sat in parking lots prepaid while ACORN political twiddled for three weeks becuase their logistical vertical management in New Orleans sucked. Instead of empowering the individual teams to negotiate and manage getting vehicles in their area they choose to put one idiot who had no background in procurmenent in charge. That happens all time in ACORN. People with ZERO experience doing things that should be done by professionals? Seems the Dems would want to know a certain amount of professionalism was involved.

No vehicles were stolen by staff on benders, people with no allegiance to a progressive movement hired into management positions who later show up on the Rush Limbaugh show falsely accusing ACORN of all kinds of dastardly crap. The fault here isn't the false accusations. The fault here is building a team with no training or commitment and then being suprised when they show up in the national spotlight trading crack for signatures. Do ya get it Wade? Some of us out here no what we are talking about. We lived it for ever. Wade the fault is you allow 22 year old kids with no background in this work to be catipulted into management positions in three months. Positions that require some people to training? Like Regional political Director, or Head Organizer? The crime here is the young Head organizer crying her eyes out to fellow staff saying "why am I in this position, I don't know what I am doing". Want affadavits we can get them?

The crime here is that mahy foundations have invested alot of money into trusting ACORN to build a movement. The problem is? You are tearing it down Wade. By the way, quite a liberal three decades ACORN helped to usher in. NOT!!

ACORN is like the Nick Nolte in "Thin Red Line" demanding a group of soldiers rush the top of the hill over the radio and refusing to hear the troop leader reporting back "we are pinned down, we are out of ammunition, we are dying like flies" and Nolte responding "You get the hell up that hill soldier or you will be court martialed" or better yet like the commander that sends in a airstrike that hits his own soldiers rather than the enemy. THat is ACORN, THat is Wade Rathke.