The ACORN Standard
Dan Clore
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/smygo
[This seems very reasonable, and actually a rather moderate reform. But
I find it very amusing to see what Robert Anton Wilson would consider
typical domesticated-primate politics, picking on those lowest in social
rank, turned around (and one might almost say d�tourned) against the
state-corporate elite.--DC]
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/10/18-4
Sunday, October 18, 2009 by The Nation
The ACORN Standard
by Jeremy Scahill
The nonpartisan Project on Government Oversight and Reform recently
revealed that the top 100 government contractors made nearly $300
billion from federal contracts in 2007 alone. Since 1995 these same
contractors have been involved with 676 cases of "misconduct" and paid
$26 billion in fines to settle cases stemming from fraud, waste or
abuse. Fines and other penalties, it seems, are simply the stunningly
small price of doing government business.
Take the case of the top three war contractors, Lockheed Martin, Boeing
and Northrop Grumman. These companies have engaged in 108 instances of
misconduct since 1995 and have paid fines or settlements totaling nearly
$3 billion. In 2007 they won some $77 billion in federal contracts. Or
consider pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, which in September paid $2.3
billion to settle a slew of criminal and civil cases, including Medicaid
fraud. According to the Justice Department, this was "the largest
healthcare fraud settlement" in its history. Yet Pfizer made more than
$40 billion in profits last year and won $73 million in federal
contracts in 2007; it continues to do robust business with the
government. Not bad for a "corporate felon."
Unfortunately, neither Pfizer nor the largest US military contractors
are targets of significant Congressional action. Instead it's ACORN, a
community organization that trains and advocates for poor and
working-class Americans. Over the past fifteen years, ACORN has received
just $53 million in federal funds, much of it for low-income housing.
Despite--or perhaps because of--its efforts to empower some 500,000
member families, ACORN was the subject of a sting video produced by a
right-wing activist that featured a fake pimp and prostitute seeking tax
advice. The group swiftly fired the handful of employees who were
entrapped, but that didn't put an end to the storm. Fox News aired the
video repeatedly, and right-wing astroturf operative Rick Berman set up
a Rotten ACORN website. The campaign was wildly successful. In
mid-September all but seventy-five House Democrats and seven senators
voted with their Republican colleagues to bar the group from receiving
federal funds.
ACORN, like all organizations receiving federal dollars, should be
subject to Congressional scrutiny. But ACORN was clearly singled out for
political reasons. Those Democrats who voted for the "defund ACORN" bill
should be required to explain their reasoning to their constituents,
particularly when so few of them have taken substantive actions to apply
the ACORN standard to corporate criminals with real rap sheets.
A small but growing number of lawmakers are fighting to confront
out-of-control corporations. Here are three legislative initiatives that
stand out:
* HR 3679. Representative Betty McCollum of Minnesota introduced her own
ACORN Act--the Against Corporations Organizing to Rip off the Nation
Act--which seeks to deny federal funds to "corporations or companies
guilty of certain felony convictions." Pfizer is singled out, but the
act could be applied to other corporations too. "Why are companies that
break the law as a business strategy allowed to receive taxpayer funds?"
asks McCollum. "A government contract is a privilege, not a right. If a
company commits a felony against the people of the United States, then
that privilege must end." Significantly, Wisconsin Representative David
Obey, chair of the powerful House Appropriations Committee, has signed
on as a co-sponsor. Obey also voted to defund ACORN.
* In the Senate, Bernie Sanders put forward an amendment to the current
defense authorization bill (HR3326 S. AMDT. 2617) that calls on the
defense secretary to conduct a wide-ranging study of the money the
government pays to contractors that have been indicted, settled charges
or been fined by any federal agency, as well as those that have been
convicted of fraud. It also calls for recommendations on how to penalize
contractors that are "repeatedly" involved with fraud. "Virtually every
major defense contractor in this country has, for a period of many
years, been engaged in systemic, illegal and fraudulent behavior while
receiving hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars of taxpayer
money," says Sanders. While Sanders is just calling for a "study," the
spirit of his amendment could be the basis for legislation that targets
corporate criminals receiving federal dollars.
* Several Congressional offices say they are weighing the possibility of
introducing legislation that would apply the ACORN standard to companies
like Blackwater, whose operatives will stand trial next year on
manslaughter charges stemming from killing Iraqi civilians; or KBR,
which is being investigated in connection with the electrocution deaths
of US soldiers and contractors in Iraq. Representative Jan Schakowsky
says she is considering reintroducing a version of her 2007 Stop
Outsourcing Security Act, which sought to ban the use of Blackwater and
other mercenary companies from performing armed activities on the
federal payroll. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, a co-sponsor in the
Senate, now oversees the work of Blackwater and other armed State
Department contractors, increasingly employed in Afghanistan.
Florida Representative Alan Grayson is spearheading calls for fraudulent
military contractors to be defunded under the anti-ACORN legislation. He
points to Halliburton's misconduct and its "extreme and gross
negligence...putting in showers in Iraq that end up electrocuting
soldiers, and feeding them poisoned water." The federal funding ACORN
has received over the past twenty years, Grayson says, "is roughly equal
to what the taxpayer paid to Halliburton each day during the war in Iraq."
--
Dan Clore
New book: _Weird Words: A Lovecraftian Lexicon_:
http://tinyurl.com/yd3bxkw
My collected fiction, _The Unspeakable and Others_:
(Wait for the new edition: http://hplmythos.com/ )
Lord We�rdgliffe & Necronomicon Page:
http://tinyurl.com/292yz9
News & Views for Anarchists & Activists:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/smygo
Strange pleasures are known to him who flaunts the
immarcescible purple of poetry before the color-blind.
-- Clark Ashton Smith, "Epigrams and Apothegms"
5228 Dead, 361 since 1/20/09
I'll bet you won't get so much as a frightened squeak out of the right
wingers here over this one. But I've passed it along, far and wide.
> News & Views for Anarchists & Activists:
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/smygo
>
> [This seems very reasonable, and actually a rather moderate reform. But
> I find it very amusing to see what Robert Anton Wilson would consider
> typical domesticated-primate politics, picking on those lowest in social
> rank, turned around (and one might almost say détourned) against the
Dan Clore
> On Tue, 20 Oct 2009 17:32:07 -0700, Dan Clore wrote:
>
> I'll bet you won't get so much as a frightened squeak out of the
> right wingers here over this one. But I've passed it along, far and
> wide.
Hehe. Thanks.
--
Dan Clore
New book: _Weird Words: A Lovecraftian Lexicon_:
http://tinyurl.com/yd3bxkw
My collected fiction, _The Unspeakable and Others_:
(Wait for the new edition: http://hplmythos.com/ )
Lord Weÿrdgliffe & Necronomicon Page:
http://tinyurl.com/292yz9
News & Views for Anarchists & Activists:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/smygo
Strange pleasures are known to him who flaunts the
AZDuffman
> News & Views for Anarchists & Activists:http://groups.yahoo.com/group/smygo
>
> [This seems very reasonable, and actually a rather moderate reform. But
> I find it very amusing to see what Robert Anton Wilson would consider
> typical domesticated-primate politics, picking on those lowest in social
Sounds like ACORN was being ignored by the liberals in media and
Congress until two brave kids showed what they really were. Finally
ACORN is being held accountable. Good for those two kids!