Detroit Metro Times: Pimps, weasels and ACORN

Pimps, weasels and ACORN
The truth is slowly catching up with the smears

By News Hits staff


The old aphorism that a lie can make it halfway around the world before the truth can even get its boots on came to mind last week when News Hits found a little-noted story about the group ACORN, which we've been keeping an eye on since this rag recently wrote abut the right-wing attack machine's attempts to crush the anti-poverty group.

Many of you have probably seen the videos of conservative operative James O'Keefe dressed in a comically outrageous pimp getup that he purportedly wore last summer while accompanying a woman posing as a prostitute and visiting a number of ACORN offices to seek advice regarding ways to hide their ill-gotten gains from the IRS.

The widely publicized video clips, fueled by the propagandists at FOX News and other right-wing distortionists, went viral. In other words, this deception wore the winged sandals of Mercury while the truth got bogged down in cement overshoes.

The controversy prompted Congress to shut off funding to the group that was created to help poor people and minorities, both with services such as help with things like tax preparation and avoiding foreclosure, and in pulling them together so that their collective voice could be heard through the din of big-money politics.

It didn't matter that a New York court ruled that the way Congress went about cutting off funds to the group was unconstitutional. The government is fighting that ruling, and the flow of funds remains shut off. Even worse is language that threatens the same to any group that even attempts to work with ACORN, a truly crippling blow. ..........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.metrotimes.com/news/story.asp?id=14877