Two Takes on Acorn

Here are two takes on the Acorn scandal/bashing—from the Yes Men (in the Washington Post) and from Bill Fletcher, Jr. (at Black Commentator).

By Jacques Servin and Igor Vamos
Sunday, September 27, 2009

We are the Yes Men, two guys who dress up as powerful businessmen, propose horrible things to audiences of actual powerful businesspeople and film them cheerfully applauding our most outrageous—and often illegal—ideas.

In our new film "The Yes Men Fix the World," we posed as Dow Chemical representatives at a big 2005 banking conference where we said that, clearly, any number of human deaths is acceptable as long as a project is extremely profitable. A life-size golden skeleton made sure the message hit home. Instead of recoiling in horror, most of the bankers simply applauded. One chief executive said he was interested in working with us, and a senior manager at a financial technology firm said he found the idea "refreshing."

In 2006, we posed as Halliburton reps at an insurance conference on Amelia Island, Fla. There we unveiled the "SurvivaBall," a grotesque suit six feet in diameter, made of nylon and inflated by two small computer fans, which we said would keep corporate managers safe from the climate calamities that they had helped cause. Lawyers at the conference, who represented some of the most powerful American companies, had a few questions: How much would it cost? Could it be made more comfortable? Might it work in a terrorist attack?

The art of impersonation for political purposes is catching on. Recently, a couple of conservative provocateurs dressed up as a low-rent prostitute and a pimp and visited the offices of the community organizing group ACORN (an organization we briefly featured in our film), where they got some advice about how to buy a house and start a brothel.

Like ours, those antics were widely covered in the mainstream media. But in a new twist, Congress got involved, voting to cut off ACORN's federal funding. In an even more exciting turn of events, the House legislation intended to defund ACORN is written so broadly that it would similarly cut off money to "any organization" indicted for various forms of lawbreaking, and any organization with employees or contractors who have been indicted on certain charges.

This gives us great hope. Our corporate targets, unlike ACORN, have not yet been punished. If we had known that all it takes is pimp and hooker outfits to spur such ambitious legislation, we would have bought some ages ago! Now, thanks to this case, perhaps the many companies whose reps we've filmed vigorously nodding their heads at and asking for more details about our immoral and criminal proposals will finally see justice.

If the idiocy of a few ACORN workers can lead Congress to defund that organization, surely lawmakers will move to rescind the bailout cash given to the banks whose employees seemed ready to go along with our depraved schemes, and whose reckless gambling with other people's money helped create the foreclosure crisis—precisely the crisis that ACORN and other agencies are trying to help poor and working-class Americans cope with.

Surely such action will set a shining example for years to come and will save society from the most criminal tendencies in our midst.

Won't it?

By Bill Fletcher, Jr.

Sometimes an organization is faced with a crisis of such proportions
that it calls into question its integrity and relationship with the
public. In the corporate world, one can think of the airline ValuJet
which, after the disastrous crash into the Everglades of one of its
planes, so lost the confidence of the public that it had to shut down;
remake itself; and brand itself with a new name: AirTran.

It is important to separate the attacks on ACORN which it is receiving
from the political Right from the actual content of the organization?s
problems. Let?s face it: any progressive organization, particularly
one as significant as ACORN, must assume that it will be attacked by
the political Right. In fact, the Right is very clear about that. So,
the fact of an attack from the Right should come as no surprise.

Something is very wrong in ACORN and, unfortunately, the leadership of
the organization does not seem to recognize the depth of the problem.
The alleged embezzlement of nearly one million dollars by Dale Rathke,
the brother of ACORN founder and long-time chief organizer, Wade
Rathke, sent shockwaves throughout the progressive movement and
foundation community. It was not simply the fact of the alleged theft,
but the reported manner in which this had been covered up such that
much of the leadership, not to mention the membership, apparently had
no knowledge of the circumstances. The matter was handled much like a
family embarrassment rather than as a legal and ethical challenge.

Now we are made witness to one of the most bizarre circumstances I can
remember. Right-wingers, with a clear objective of discrediting ACORN
largely due to its voter registration work among people of color,
undertook a mission to display ACORN?s alleged corruption to the
world. It does not matter, to a great degree, that in many places that
these right-wingers showed up that they were thrown out. What matters
is that they captured on camera ACORN employees allegedly offering to
assist undercover personnel in the establishment of a BROTHEL!!!

Unless those ACORN employees were plants within ACORN, there is an
obvious question: what could those employees possibly have been
thinking about? What level of training and supervision, not to mention
ethics, were they guided by such that they would think that this was
permissible? On top of all of this, what sort of basic common sense
did they lack that they would not GUESS that this might have been a
set up?

The response from the ACORN leadership to this latest incident has
been to terminate the employees and insist that this is
unrepresentative of the work of ACORN. While I know that this is not
representative of the work of ACORN, such an answer is insufficient at
best. Leaving aside other allegations targeted at ACORN, the question
is what is going on in the leadership such that such actions can
unfold?

From the outside it appears that at least two things are operating
within ACORN. The first is arrogance within a part of the leadership.
That fact that a clique within the leadership would attempt to shroud
an alleged theft and treat it as if it were a personal matter displays
a significant level of lack of accountability. The extent of the
alleged embezzlement was such that criminal prosecution should have
been entertained immediately. Yet this clique kept this silent and did
not discuss the ramifications for the entire organization.

The second thing that appears to be operating is that the organization
is not operating, at least in a functional manner. In other words,
there is a systemic lack of accountability and training. On the one
hand, in the face of the right-wing provocation, some cities
immediately recognized that something was up, but, for reasons
unknown, this was not communicated to the entire organization. Worse,
that some employees when actually confronted with an illegal business
proposition did not have the proper awareness of the consequences of
giving advice on an illegal matter shows, at a minimum, poor judgment.

The subsequent attacks on ACORN by the Right, therefore, have been
entirely predictable. ACORN has opened itself up and invited the enemy
in. Yet they now wish for all liberals and progressives to rally
around them in their defense yet their leadership only offers an
anemic explanation of the depths of this crisis.

Should ACORN dissolve? Absolutely not. ACORN has been an essential
part of the progressive movement for nearly forty years. That said,
neither should progressives act as if the extent of the crisis in
ACORN can be ignored. Certainly the attacks on ACORN by the Right are
both politically and racially motivated. But that does not mean that
ACORN can afford to act as if nothing is new under the Sun. In many
other countries, in the face of such scandals the entire leadership
would resign without a moment?s second thought. Yet here, in the face
of repeated, humiliating mistakes, the leadership seems to think that
relatively minor changes can remedy the extent of the problem.

What can ACORN do?

1. Bring in a crisis management team to take over the day-to-day
operations of ACORN: The current managing leadership should be either
suspended or given other duties while a new management team is brought
into ACORN to assess the extent of the organization?s problems and
INTRODUCE changes in the day-to-day operations of the organization.
This should include an evaluation of current staff and supervisors,
financial accountability, ethics and other aspects of organization. A
new organization operating system needs to be put into place to ensure
staff accountability, including in the hiring process. Such a team
would be on temporary assignment to ACORN to assist in the rebuilding
of the organization.

2. Leadership retreat: One part of the work of the crisis management
team should be the organizing of a leadership retreat of the current
national leadership plus any additional key leaders from chapters
around the country. Such a retreat should aim at evaluating the nature
of the current crisis in the organization; what has worked; what has
failed; and new strategic directions. New leadership elections should
be organized.

3. An apology to the friends, supporters and members of ACORN: To be
honest, I do not want to hear anything more about how the Right is
attacking ACORN. What I do want to hear is how sorry and self-critical
the ACORN leadership is about the current state of affairs and how
they, in fact, let down the members, supporters and friends of the
organization.

I know what the objectives of the Right are: they want to eliminate
any and all evidence of a progressive movement in the USA. What we do
not have to do is make their job any easier.