ACORN Diverts School Donations to Occupy Wall Street

ACORN is back in the news -- this time for diverting money donated to test schools for dangerous toxins to support the Occupy Wall Street gang. This is one more Alinskyite trick illustrating that any means is acceptable as long as it moves the society along toward socialism. Unfortunately, this same tactic is also active in the Church as the national collection for CCHD (Catholic Campaign for Human Development) takes place this coming weekend. Thirty to 50% of the collection goes into community organizing groups linked to the Industrial Areas Foundation (Alinsky's baby), GAMALIEL, and other socialist-oriented front groups.

Know your history. In 1893 Walter Rauschenbusch, founder of the Social Gospel Movement, wrote, "The only power that can make socialism succeed, if it is established, is religion." CCHD is a partner with Just Faith, which preaches, not the social doctrine of the Church, but Marxist socialism and liberation theology. Religion is being used to advance, not the Kingdom of God, but the Kingdom of this World whose prince is Satan himself. The latest Mindszenty Foundation report blows the cover on Just Faith. And their are plenty of other articles out there as well. Go here to see a few. And here's another. We are being preached a different faith than that of Christ Jesus, and we must reject it as St. Paul warned. Yes, we have an obligation to help the poor, but not according to Marxist socialism. We aren't serving God when we begin by occupying Wall Street, but when we begin by occupying the confessional. In the end it isn't societal sins and the class struggle that will send us to hell, but our personal sins and our failure to serve our neighbor beginning with our families.

Wake up! The enemy is within like the fox under the Spartan boy's cloak chewing away at the faith. Catholics are under assault from the treachery and stupidity of the enemies within and their useful dupes. If we don't know our faith and fight for it, we'll lose it. Pray for the zeal of Joan of Arc and the charity of the Blessed Mother. With Mary as our 12 star general and Joan as our battalion commander we can fight back the slings and arrows being launched from all sides and the daggar thrust from those nearest.

ACORN: "a key provider of money and manpower for the Democratic Party"

Obama and the Democrats love ACORN as well they should since the community organizing group is "a key provider of money and manpower for the Democratic Party" according to the National Legal and Policy Center (NLPC). In fact, last March, despite Congress banning ACORN funding, Obama ordered it restored after an out-of-control federal judge, Nina Gershon, made permanent her injunction against halting the cash transfer to the corrupt group.

Now federal judges are supposed to rule according to the Constitution which gives the power of the purse to the Congress. Nobody has a right to federal funding and it's up to Congress to pass appropriations that designate where taxpayer dollars go, but, hey! the Constitution never stops liberal judges from making things up as they go along and the Constitution be damned!

ACORN has been keeping its head down since all the scandals broke. And here are some of the reasons why NLPC writes:

Armed with its ‘by-any-means-necessary' philosophy of community power, ACORN activists in recent years have amassed a well-earned reputation for stretching the bounds of ethics and law via methods such as vandalism, property invasion, tax evasion, voter fraud and embezzlement. ACORN activists in Missouri, Nevada, Ohio and other states were prosecuted for generating phony voter registration cards, with any number of individuals pleading guilty. The State of Louisiana filed two tax liens against ACORN and an affiliate totaling more than $330,000, while the IRS hit up ACORN for tax liens amounting to more than $1.5 million. Wade Rathke in June 2008 was forced out of his own organization following revelations that he'd covered for his brother, Dale, when the latter, as ACORN chief financial officer, during 1999-2000 embezzled nearly $950,000. Neither has been prosecuted.

The national spotlight shined on ACORN ever more brightly after Barack Obama became president. Though never formally a member, Obama during his days as a Chicago lawyer in the mid-Nineties represented ACORN in its (successful) attempt to force the State of Illinois to comply with the new federal "motor voter" law that loosened voting registration requirements (and whose passage owed much to ACORN pressure). But with increased visibility came increased scrutiny. Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., supervised the preparation of a detailed report released in July 2009 concluding that ACORN was structured as a racketeering enterprise. Two months later an ad hoc multi-city private sting operation caught local ACORN officials on hidden camera giving advice on how to get around the law. Quickly, the IRS and the Census Bureau canceled planned working relationships with ACORN. And Congress passed a resolution cutting off funds to ACORN. Read the complete article here.

ACORN, meanwhile, declared they were going out of business, while, in reality remaking themselves under different names. Which just goes to prove that community organizers never die, they just reincarnate under new names. After all, who wants all that experience of registering dead people and pressuring banks to make bad loans to go to waste? Surely not liberals who never tell a lie. Just ask them. They'll tell you it all depends on the meaning of the words. And like Humpty Dumpty in Alice's world, they mean just exactly what they say they mean, no more, no less. But don't hold them to it, because the meanings will change in a blink if it suits them.

CCHD Battle Goes On!

Conning the conservatives

Congress Plays Us for a Bunch of Chumps: ACORN Still Funded!

If anyone wants to know exactly how corrupt this Congress is all they have to do is see this dishonest move. Congress defunds ACORN for a month, gets the headlines, and the "defunding" expires October 31st. The ghouls, witches, and vampires, like Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, Barney Frank, and Christopher Dodd trick us all and pass the treats to ACORN. Shake your head over this one. Political corruption has never been so shameless. The Sir Galahad who rode into the White House with his glittering banner of hope and change is turning out to be Mordred, the evil knight. The oval office is less a round table and more a cesspool. Throw the bums out on election day!

President's ACORN Buddies Get Nearly 1 Million Firefighting Grant!

According to an article in the Washington Times this morning, ACORN's been awarded a Homeland Security grant that normally goes to firefighters. What exactly qualifies ACORN in the firefighting department? Must be they help the president put out political fires.

"[Senator] Vitter, who was routinely notified of the grant before it became public, sent his letter to Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano on Sept. 22, saying the money should be given 'to a more deserving group of first responders.'

"One such group might have been the St. Tammany Parish Fire District No. 3, which applied for a $120,000 grant to purchase smoke alarms for low-income families after a January fire killed four childrenin a home that had no working detectors.

"'We wanted to buy smoke detectors to spread to homes all over the community to prevent that from happening again,' Chief Charles Flynn said in an interview Tuesday." Read more....

How Many More Nuts Are in This Administration?

ACORN's Man in the White House

Obama's Top Aide Gaspard Tied to ACORN

One has to laugh at Bill Clinton's resurrection of rhetoric about the "vast right-wing conspiracy." What's "vast" is the number of acorns and various other nuts in the Obama administration. Van Jones has been shaken off the White House nut tree, but there are plenty more still clinging to the branches -- like former ACORN executive Patrick Gaspard who was once Bertha Lewis' boss. You remember Bertha, the ACORN CEO. She defended all the offices that were willing to help the pimp and the hooker bring in underage children for their brothel -- oops, er, their entertainment center (or whatever the euphemism was).

Sorry, Bill, but the American people are wising up to the conspiracy and its stench is definitely coming from the left. But maybe the president can escalate a little war as a diversion (Afghanistan will do) to take people's attention off the blue dress (oops, wrong administration) off all the president's shady associates.

By the way, who's doing the vetting at the White House - Squirrel Nutkin? Must be somebody who loves nuts!

Connecting the dots between ACORN, SEIU, and Obama

What I know about ACORN, the SEIU and Obama

"I'm quite sure part of Obama and the SEIU's long-term plan is to unionize every American health-care entity. And thuggery toward that end doesn't bother them."

The "Pimp & Prostitute" Who Made the Mainstream Media Look Like Fools

BREITBART: The politicized art behind the ACORN plan

Ho-hum...we all know that the mainstream media are shills for liberal politicians. They've demonstrated it again and again. Not that FOX is squeaky clean. As a serious Catholic I'm not a fan of cafeteria Catholics Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity either. I'm interested in the the truth, which the Lord promises will set us free.

As Scripture says, we need to be as wise as serpents and as gentle as doves and continue to fight the good fight. Kudos to the young investigative team, James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles, who did what the "IMPORTANT professionals" (Yes, Charlie, that means you and ABC!) didn't and wouldn't! It's a David and Goliath story to warm the heart!

For everything you ever wanted to know about ACORN (and maybe didn't), go to BigGovernment.com.

ACORN Plans to Police Itself! Ha-Ha-Ha-Ha.....

It's time for a Congressional investigation of this organizaton which has received multi-millions of dollars in taxpayer money. It's one rotten acorn!

ACORN calls its actions 'indefensible'

For ACORN articles on this blog go here.

Another Blockbuster ACORN Video - San Bernadino

Here's one more example of a stellar ACORN operative: are you starting to see the trend? It wasn't just an isolated case of a few bad eggs. In Baltimore, Brooklyn, San Bernadino, Washington, D.C. They all approve of: prostitution, tax evasion, fraudulent representation of illegal businesses, child sex abuse, human traficking. Is there anything these folks won't stoop to and condone? This is liberalism which believes there is no truth and man is the author of his own destiny (except for the abused children). Obviously, for this woman her destiny included killing her husband, but setting it up first, which proves premeditation. And she got away with it.

Remember, this is the community organizing network following Saul Alinsky's rules. The end justifies the means even when the means include turning little girls into child prostitutes and urging violence against them to get more money. Note the liberal politicians named in the video including Barbara Boxer, California senator.

Note as well her remark that "if they were liberal they would help you." This type of corruption is endemic to godless liberalism which champions individual autonomy. If you are your own god, you can do whatever you want.

Many Americans are living in a dream world, believing that there are no repercussions from the liberal philosophy. They think it means helping the downtrodden: getting the government to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, etc. Wake up, folks. Government charity is an oxymoron, a contradiction. Idealistic blindness is not a virtue. These liberals have raked in millions in government tax dollars often with liberal politicians enabling them! And Obama wanted them involved in the census? How would you like this woman knocking at the door and casing your property?

Will ACORN Really be out of the Census?

The tentacles of the community organizer have a far reach. I'd like to think ACORN's ties to the census really will be severed, but I'm not confident. There's more than one way for a community organizer to get his hooks in the books. How many ACORN workers will apply as census workers without being formally connected to ACORN? It's a question worth pondering.

Census Bureau severs ties with ACORN in 2010 count

Washington ACORN pimps like Baltimore!

Second Video Shows ACORN Officials Helping 'Pimp,' 'Prostitute' in Washington Office

ACORN: These Nuts are Involved in the Census?

The latest ACORN scandal involves Baltimore ACORN's tax advisor telling a woman she thought was a hooker and her pimp, actually undercover investigators, how to set up a brothel as a legal business. The adviser doesn't even flinch when the pimp says they are bringing in little girls from El Salvador as young as 14 to "man" the business. How should they handle them? "You can always claim them as dependents," is her advice about the planned abuse. When the pimp says the girls will be turning tricks, she tells them not to report the income because in the state of Maryland it is illegal to work under 16. "If nobody is telling it," she says, "they don't even exist." So much for child sexual abuse.

The two ACORN flunkies have been fired, but does anyone believe this isn't typical of ACORN? Their record is fraud at every level and now add enabling child abuse.

In light of this latest scandal, inquiring minds want to know - What exactly is ACORN's role in the 2010 census? They are listed as a "partner" with the census bureau. Will they be "organizing" their people to take census jobs? Will the census worker who knocks on your door be an ACORN flunky?

"Why does it matter anyway?" you ask. They only have to count. Nope, the census is used politically so its non-partisan integrity is crucial as the Washington Times editorial below points out. "The allocation of seats in Congress, and ultimately questions of who controls it, depend on an accurate count. Much of the money Congress spends is allocated based on the census. Requiring that the census be non-partisan is the first requirement that must be met."

Hold the administration accountable. Obama gave ACORN $800,000 during his campaign to register voters and ACORN fraud was rampant all over the country. Who is calling for ACORN's involvement in the census? The administration tried to put the census under White House control. Do you actually believe Obama has given up attempts to manipulate it? It's time for a serious investigation and not by the foxes guarding the henhouse!



ACORN to Play Role in 2010 Census

Political Corruption: Congressman slams ACORN Census participation

Explosive Documents! Reveal Dangerous ACORN-Census Partnership

EDITORIAL: ACORN to count heads for Census

Criminal Charges Against ACORN Raise Concerns About Its Partnership With Census Bureau

Good for the House Republicans

Not a single Republican in the House voted for the Democrats $819 billion spending extravaganza when it passed yesterday. And eleven democrats joined the good guys. Thanks be to God! Now when the inevitable failure occurs, liberals will take the full blame.

The falsely called "stimulus" package doesn't stimulate anything but liberals' saliva glands. The handouts in the bill are so excessive they offer real hope of waking up the sleeping giant, the middle class who may have been duped into voting for a liberal dressed in a conservative suit, but you can only fool people for so long. Let's hope what's happening also is a wake-up call to Republicans who sold out conservative principles a generation ago. Big-government Republican should be an oxymoron. Let's make is so once again.

I mentioned some of the porky items in the bill in an earlier post. Here are a few more. Ask yourself as you read this list how this spending will create new jobs and contribute to economic recovery. Maybe it's a secret only liberal democrats can understand:

-- $5.2 billion for "neighborhood stablization programs" that will go primarily to groups like ACORN (This is Obama payback time.)

-- $400 million to NASA for climate change research (the Chicken Little payback)

-- $426 million to the Center for Disease Control to construct buildings (That will put a few construction workers on the payroll.)

-- $360 million for new daycare facilities at military bases (Get those moms out of the house and into the taxpaying workforce.)

-- $600 million for the General Services Administration to buy new cars (but they'll be energy efficient)

-- $800 million to clean up Superfund Sites (Payback to the liberal greenies)

Aren't you happy to know that your taxpayer dollars...and your children's...and your grandchildren's...will be going for this good cause. This behemoth spending bill is mortgaging the future. If you think your kids' school loans have put them in hock for too long just think of the impact of all this borrowed money on their earning power. But we are guaranteed one thing out of this - a deeper recession, higher taxes, more unemployment, and hyper-inflation. That's just economic reality.

U.S. Bishops Nix all ACORN funding -- Is that enough?

Catholic World News reports that "The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops yesterday released a report in which Bishop Roger Morin discussed the reasons behind the Catholic Campaign for Human Development’s decision to end funding to the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN)....(more)

Is that enough to satisfy concerns about CCHD? NO! One of the main problems with the campaign is that it consistently gives 30% to 50% of grants to organizations founded on Alinsky principles: the end justifies the means, winning is everything and whatever tactics accomplish a "win" are justified, grasp power, demonize your "enemy", etc. There are too many good alternatives to justify throwing your money away to groups that end up supporting liberalism and secularism including abortion and the homosexual agenda. Give, but wisely -- not to CCHD. It's time to hang a rest in peace sign on the office door of the CCHD.

And if you want to see what others are saying check out these sources:

Te Deum Laudamus blog

Phyllis Schlafly of Eagle Forum

Fr. John Neuhaus of First Things

Joseph Lawler at the American Spectator

Tom McFeely at the National Catholic Register website

Picking Pockets in the Pew: the CCHD Scandal

Fleecing the flock!

On November 23rd in Catholic churches around the country ushers will pass collection baskets for the Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD). Millions of trusting Catholics will contribute “to help the poor.” What many don’t know is that their hard-earned dollars will pour into the coffers of liberal organizations promoting causes they oppose and which often hurt the poor.

In 1969, the U.S. bishops established CCHD “to fund low-income controlled empowerment projects and to educate Catholics about the root causes of poverty.1 Since then the campaign has spent $300 million funding community and parish organizing. According to the grant application criteria on the CCHD website, groups offering direct services, e.g., soup kitchens, day care centers, homeless shelters, etc. are ineligible. So scrap the Missionaries of Charity, your local free clinic, or crisis pregnancy center; they are banned by definition. Not a single one appears on the 2007 summary of CCHD grantees.2 To be eligible, groups must organize the poor “to enact institutional change.” That means working for modification of existing laws and/or policies; and establishment of participatory and just social structures and/or redistribution of decision-making powers so that people living in poverty can be involved in policy-making that affects their lives.”3 (There is also an "economic development" category of funding for businesses run by and creating jobs for low-income people, but it's a small percentage of the pie – useful, however, for CCHD PR.)

The bottom line is CCHD primarily funds community organizers who go into neighborhoods and agitate for change using local people led by trained organizers, the real decision-makers. That isn’t necessarily a bad thing depending on the change and the tactics used, but CCHD has a shaky history of funding groups that promote radical left socialism rather than Catholicism. CCHD policy is modeled more on the failed strategies of secular poverty programs than on Catholic social justice philosophy. (Continued...)

Dissing the Organizer: Obama, ACORN, and Catholic Action

When the Catholic Church takes up the collection November 23 for the Catholic Campaign for Human Development, will Catholics in the pew know they are supporting abortion and other immoral causes?

By Stephanie Block

Over at the Catholics for Obama blog, the headline screams, “Palin Continues to Smear Catholic Action.” This preposterous thesis has been crafted from her comments about Barak Obama’s past as a community organizer. The blog contends, “Catholics across the country continue to be outraged by Republican politician Sarah Palin who repeated her smear against Catholic Action by mocking Barack Obama’s service as director of a community group sponsored by the Catholic Campaign for Human Development (an arm of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops) and led by eight Catholic parishes on the South Side of Chicago.”
Well! That’s quite a leap. Ms. Palin said nothing whatsoever about Catholic Action. It was the Catholics for Obama blogger who drew the connection between community organizing, the Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD). There’s no secret here. The CCHD gives between a third and a half of its grants to Alinskyian organizing networks.
Alinskyian what?

If you are saying “Alinskyian, what?” you need to know that there are over 200 organizations operating in cities around the United States training social justice activists according to the theories of Saul Alinsky. Over the past 30 years, the Catholic Campaign for Human Development has given millions of dollars from Catholic donations to these groups. That’s a lot of money going to train people in a very distinctive way of looking at the world and its problems.

Alinsky’s writings contain a number of disturbing premises:

“The third rule of the ethics of means and ends is that … the end justifies almost any means.”
“The seventh rule of the ethics of means and ends is that generally success or failure is a mighty detriment of ethics. ... There can be no such thing as a suc­cessful traitor, for if one succeeds, he becomes a found­ing father.”
“The tenth rule of the ethics of means and ends is that you do what you can with what you have and clothe it with moral garments. ... Moral rationalization is indis­pensable at all tunes of action whether to justify the selection or the use of ends or means.”
“An orga­nizer working for change ... does not have a fixed truth — truth to him is relative and changing.”

The book from which those “rules” are taken is called Rules for Radicals and it opens with the disturbing lines: “What follows is for those who want to change the world from what it is to what they believe it should be. The Prince was written by Machiavelli for the Haves on how to hold power. Rules for Radicals is written for the Have-Nots on how to take it away.”
The reader can glean a great deal of information from those opening remarks. Machiavelli’s The Prince used to be on the Catholic index as forbidden reading (when the Church had an index) because Machiavelli was so completely amoral. The Prince and Machiavelli’s companion piece, “Discourses,” are cold-blooded examinations of political power, how it is obtained, maintained and expanded. In “Discourses” one reads: “Cunning and deceit will serve a man better than force to rise from a base condition to great fortune” and “A prince cannot live securely in a state so long as those live whom he has deprived of it.”
In The Prince, Machiavelli makes it clear that he believes the moral law does not apply to leaders. He says, for example: “So you see a wise ruler cannot, and should not, keep his word when doing so is to his disadvantage, and when the reasons that led him to promise to do so no longer apply. Of course, if all men were good, this advice would be bad; but since men are wicked and will not keep faith with you, you need not keep faith with them…But it is essential to know how to conceal how crafty one is, to know how to be a clever counterfeit and hypocrite.” (54) Elsewhere, he writes: “So a ruler…should do what is right if he can; but he must be prepared to do wrong if necessary.”
This is Alinsky’s model, rewritten for “the people.” It’s the antithesis of Catholic teaching. It cannot, therefore, be used to promote Catholic Action.

Ditching moral truth

Marxism teaches that “truth” is a social construction, determined by consensus. Alinsky teaches the same thing, writing, “An organizer....does not have a fixed truth – truth to him is relative and changing.” The organizer, for whom the “ends justify the means,” can’t be bound by moral absolutes. To support a ut ilitarian ethics, the truth must be fluid.
This is not what scripture or the Church teaches, of course. It isn’t enough that organizations acquire “good things” for their constituencies. They must accept and teach moral truth; they must be principled. A lying or bribing political lobby may win all its temporal battles, but it will have lost its soul.
Contemporary Alinskyian networks, far from repudiating Alinsky, have built upon his work: Mary Beth Rogers writes, “All participants in the Industrial Areas Foundation [the first Alinskyian network, founded in 1940] national training programs are given a reprint of a 1933 article by John H. Randall, Jr. titled ‘The Importance of Being Unprincipled’. ...The thesis is that because politics is nothing but the ‘practical method of compromise,’ only two kinds of people can afford the luxury of acting on principle...everyone else who wants to be effective in politics has to learn to be ‘unprincipled’ enough to compromise in order to see their principles succeed.”
Civic action predicated on “truth by consensus” is the antithesis of Catholic truth. It cannot, therefore, be used to promote Catholic Action.

Liberationism

Alinskyian organizing, operating within faith-based institutions, is liberationist – as in liberation theology. Liberationism uses religious language to promote socialism.
Consider again, for example, the words quoted above: “What follows is for those who want to change the world from what it is to what they believe it should be. The Prince was written by Machiavelli for the Haves on how to hold power. Rules for Radicals is written for the Have-Nots on how to take it away.”
Christians don’t think in those terms. Catholic social teaching stresses the mutual dependency on God and one another that exists between the Haves and the Have-nots. They aren’t rivals. It’s an entirely different worldview.
Then there’s the pedagogy – the teaching method by which liberationists educate people into their worldview. Charlie Curran, a dissident Catholic theologian who admired Alinskyian organizing, writes: “Although Alinsky does not use the word ‘conscientization,’ there is no doubt that such a process is the cornerstone of his method….The people must learn that through their power they can bring about change. Raising consciousness is a part of Alinsky’s overarching commitment to popular education.”
Contemporary Alinskyian networks continue to use this pedagogy. Maryann Eklaund, in her Master’s thesis on one of these networks organizing in southern Texas, details the values clarification exercises – her term – its organizers used to get people to change their perspective on things. We’re talking serious manipulation of people.
Another writer, Mary Beth Rodgers, describes the same thing. “Cortes [an organizer for the Industrial Areas Foundation network, southwest region] knew that Mexican parents willingly sacrificed for their children – and often for their church. By talking about family values, could you motivate and organize people to act politically in their own genuine self-interest?...the new organization had to reach into the heart...The idea of protecting and enhancing families might make that possible.” The implication of this passage is that the religious and family values of Catholics have been used to generate a conversation between them and the organizers. The organizers use the relationship built from the Catholic values of the Mexicans to introduce another set of values – those of the organization.
That brings us to yet another element of liberationism, which is its deliberate use of scriptures and religious symbols for a political end. For example, St. Timothy’s Catholic Church in San Antonio used “new catechisms” that connected biblical and Mexican historical and cultural themes with the current issues of the Alinskyian organization to which it belonged. Now, Catholic catechisms don’t contain this sort of information. These “catechisms” were not designed to present Church teachings but the organizers’ teachings.
Liberation theology isn’t Catholic. It doesn’t support the Catholic faith any more than it supports authentic justice or truth. It cannot, therefore, be considered Catholic Action.

The big picture

What are contemporary Alinskyian organizations trying to build?
In general terms, their “vision” can be expressed as a practical philosophy of governance called variously a third way,” “participatory democracy,” or “democratic socialism.” All these terms, and others, describe a system of government that seeks to use “mediating institutions” – churches, unions, schools, and the like, held together by the relationships they have forged through the Alinskyian organization – to control all facets of its citizens’ lives.
To achieve this, Alinskyian networks are engaged in “restructuring” activities of all kinds. On the political level, they work among the Democratic Socialists of America, the New Democrats, and the New Party, and the Democratic Party. In the economic arena, they have promoted and overseen the Empowerment Enterprise Community Zones in dozens of communities. They support universal health care and are experimenting with church-based health-care clinics. They have driven federal education “reform” and are insinuated in many school-to-work programs. In short, the programs they support involve centralizing benefits that effect larger and larger groups of people.
Catholic social teaching has never supported socialism. In fact, Pius XI writes “No one can be at the same time a sincere Catholic and a true socialist.” The work of Alinskyian organizations cannot be considered – by any stretch of the imagination – to be Catholic Action.

Yet, This Is What the Campaign for Human Development Supports

Those are the foundational problems with the CCHD. Its political problems are twofold.
In the first place, millions of charitable Catholic dollars are being poured into organizing networks that are furthering a pro-abortion, pro-homosexual civic agenda. Nearly every legislative healthcare package they propose has an abortion-supportive element to it. There is not one politician of which I’m aware who has been endorsed by or emerged from these networks who publicly opposes abortion or homosexual “rights.”
By funding the Alinskyian networks, Catholics have become practical allies of the very groups they profess to oppose in the public square.
The second political problem with the CCHD collection is much worse, however. Not only does CCHD fund people whose goals are antithetical to Catholic Action but it provides the vehicle through which Catholics are systematical educated to work against Catholic Action.
How? CCHD-funded Alinskyian organizations organize in Catholic parishes, reeducating Catholic activists to work according to liberationist principles (not Catholic Action principles). There is widespread use throughout American-Catholic parishes of materials crafted to support Alinskyian organizing. The confusion, therefore, that Catholics express over fundamental moral issues and their comparative weight and urgency in public affairs isn’t just zeitgeist. It’s been systematically inculcated.

Obama and the Alinskyian Organizations

If one must fault Governor Palin comments about Obama’s community organizing experience, it’s that she minimized the seriousness of that experience. CCHD gave $40,000 in 1985 and $33,000 in 1986 to the Chicago Developing Communities Project, of which Obama was then lead organizer. It also gave millions to Gamaliel and ACORN, the Alinskyian networks that trained Obama and which today are stumping for his election.
The most recent accounting of CCHD grantees available (2006-2007) indicate that in just that one year, $1,146,000 was given to the ACORN network and well over $2 million went into the other major Alinskyian networks.
What did ACORN give us for that investment? Last year, The Seattle Times reported the biggest voter-registration fraud scheme in Washington history. Three ACORN employees pleaded guilty, and four more were charged for filling out and submitting more than 1,800 fictitious voter-registration cards during a 2006 registration drive in King and Pierce counties.” (Keith Ervin, “Three plead guilty in fake voter scheme,” 10-30-2007)
This year, an ACORN employee in West Reading, PA, was sentenced for to up to 23 months in prison for identity theft and tampering with records. A second ACORN worker pleaded not guilty to the same charges and is free on $10,000 bail.
Those are convictions from the past year. There are also examples of indictments this year, such as the four ACORN employees in Kansas City charged with identity theft and filing false registrations during the 2006 election and the Reynoldsburg fellow indicted on two felony counts of illegal voting and false registration, after being registered by ACORN to vote in two separate counties. And there are current investigations into ACORN for voter fraud all over the map:
the Milwaukee ACORN for 200 to 300 fraudulent voter registration cards;
the Cleveland ACORN for its submission of 75,000 voter registrations, many of which are fraudulent;
the New Mexico ACORN, which claims to have taken 72,000 new voter registrations in the state since January, is under suspicion for 1,100 possibly fraudulent voter registration cards turned in to the Bernalillo County clerk’s office recently.

These are recent complaints, but ACORN’s history is riddled with criminal activity. During the last major election, the Wall Street Journal did a story about ACORN. Four ACORN workers had been indicted by a federal grand jury for submitting false voter registration forms to the Kansas City, Missouri, election board; other ACORN workers were convicted in Wisconsin and Colorado and investigations, at the time the article was written, were under way in Ohio, Tennessee and Pennsylvania. [“The Acorn Indictments,” WSJ 11-3-06]

Programs that don’t work

The Wall Street Journal article points out some additional facts that have particular interest to us, two years later. “Operating in at least 38 states (as well as Canada and Mexico), ACORN pushes a highly partisan agenda, and its organizers are best understood as shock troops for the AFL-CIO and even the Democratic Party. As part of the Fannie Mae reform bill, House Democrats pushed an ‘affordable housing trust fund’ designed to use Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac profits to subsidize ACORN, among other groups. A version of this trust fund actually passed the Republican House and will surely be on the agenda again next year.”
ACORN was a tremendous force for the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA), created in the late 70s to force banks to make loans to low-income borrowers. Besides fighting for passage of this act, ACORN monitored banks9 9 compliance. Some analysts of the current housing crisis contend the CRA policies are in good part to blame. Representative Michele Bachmann (R-Minnesota), a member of the House Financial Services Committee, takes the analysis a step further. The “housing bailout” package signed into law to rescue Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae with an unlimited credit line not only increases the federal debt but also gives millions of dollars to La Raza and the ACORN. [Elizabeth Williamson & Brody Mullins, “Democratic Ally Mobilizes In Housing Crunch: Acorn Leads Drive to Register Voters Likely to Back Obama; New Federal Funds,” WSJ, 7-31-08]

Brought to you, ladies and gentleman, in part by the Catholic Campaign for Human Development. Remember that in November