Jim Hightower: ACORN's Real Crime: Empowering the Poor

[marmar]

via AlterNet:



ACORN's Real Crime: Empowering the Poor

By Jim Hightower, Hightower Lowdown. Posted January 25, 2010.

ACORN helps the poor become political and economic players. That's why the money powers unleashed right-wing politics to go after ACORN with a blood lust.




The name Felix Walker is not one you would recognize, but this 19th-century congressman inadvertently contributed a word to America's political lexicon that you will recognize--a word that fairly well sums up a lot of what we're getting these days from right-wing politicos and pundits.

In the 1820s, Walker was the U.S. representative for Buncombe County, North Carolina. In an age of great political orators, Walker was not one. He was a droner, a dull fellow known for expressing his dullness at great length on every topic. No matter what issue was up for debate in the House--no matter whether he had any real knowledge, facts, or insights to add--Walker would rise to speak, insisting that his constituents back home would want his voice heard. He would then launch into a wandering, wearisome, often-nonsensical discourse that he always called "a speech for Buncombe."

Exasperated colleagues began to refer to Walker's interminable prattling as "just so much buncombe," a phrase that has been passed down to us as "bunk"--a synonym for meaningless political claptrap.

We've been getting an overload of bunk in recent weeks from a gaggle of Fox-brained Republican Congress critters. They've been flapping their gums to demonize and destroy a grassroots group that has offended them by--get ready to be outraged--organizing and helping to empower thousands of Americans who live in low-income and working-class neighborhoods all across the country. ...........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/story/145371/acorn%27s_real_crime%3A_empowering_the_poor

[Orsino]

1. Hightower for Something!

Secretary of Ag/Commerce/Education. Something.

[JVS]

2. K&R

[cilla4progress]

3. Total agreement

It's all one big play for money and power. The rest is "BUNK." It's so obvious to me - and no doubt all of you; why are some so easily misled into "believing" there are actual "reasons" for the BS memes the right dishes out: trickle-down economics; no new taxes; 60-vote supermajorities; bank bailouts; even organized religion?

[Lydia Leftcoast]

4. Hightower is one of our best

When ABC kicked him off the air (ostensibly for "low ratings," although he had the same ratings as the people they kept) in the early 1990s, the Dems (if they had been smart and actually interested in winning the hearts and minds of ordinary people) should have found sponsors for him (Ben and Jerry's, for example) to appear on some other station.

He was better than anyone I've heard at talking to people who have been bamboozled by the likes of Rush.