Fox News is calling for a formal investigation of controversial community organization group ACORN after an undercover investigation of a Baltimore area ACORN office.
ACORN (the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) works on behalf of low and moderate-income families to promote justice and strengthen communities that are struggling. BigGovernment.com, a companion site to Andrew Breitbart’s blog, targeted the organization (as they explain) irritate and embarrass them, and perhaps prevent the organization from reaching out to lower income communities (which traditionally vote Democratic) in future campaigns.
Brietbart blogger James O’Keefe described the prank campaign, designed to give ACORN a “taste of their own medicine,” in response to videos circulating of the group breaking locks on foreclosed homes:
…whether it’s by banning Lucky Charms cereal because it’s racist against Irish people, calling Planned Parenthood saying you want to donate money for black abortions in the name of Margaret Sanger, or making Sen. Snowe sign an oversized bailout check for a billion dollars to Amtrak, in her own office.
In this instance, a man and woman posing as a pimp and a prostitute scheming to import young prostitutes internationally ask ACORN for tax advice. Trafficking in humans is deplorable, but the invented scenario puts ACORN in a tough spot. No one can argue that it’s in any way defensible to advise pimping teenagers, but impoverished communities operate in real, reality-based fear and hatred of “snitching.” If word got out that the organization reports legally questionable behavior, even those in need legitimately seeking assistance may be put off out of fear of deportation or prosecution of poverty-related issues surrounding housing, immigration, or inability to pay fees or fines. Of course, it doesn’t make protecting harmful illegal behavior in any way okay, it just means that the situation was invented to place a public organization in a very precarious spot, for sport.
While BigGovernment.com admits that the scenario is entrapment, by concocting a situation unlikely to occur in real life, the “investigators” have created much brouhaha about very little actual action. It should also be pointed out that the actions in the video reflect the poor judgment and lack of action on one representative of a large organization. There is no evidence that this is any kind of reflection on ACORN policy- it’s more like a poor reaction on the part of one individual to a surreal and absurd situation.
Below are the videos showing the “pimp” and “prostitute” seeking advice on taxes.
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