ACORN branches rename, rebrand after scandal

[sabra]

Source: AP

CHICAGO — Affiliates of the once mighty liberal activist group ACORN are remaking themselves in a desperate bid to ditch the tarnished name of their parent organization and restore federal grants and other revenue streams that ran dry in the wake of a video scandal.

The letters A, C, O, R and N are coming off office doors from New York to California. Business cards are being reprinted. New signs with new names are popping up in front of offices.

The breakaways are trying to shed the scandal that emerged six months ago when videos showed some ACORN workers giving tax tips to conservative activists posing as a pimp and prostitute. But while their names are different, most groups have kept the same offices and staff.

That, critics say, means the groups really haven't started anew and severed all ties to ACORN, which faced accusations of mismanagement and rampant voter registration fraud well before the video brouhaha sent even longtime Democratic backers scattering.

Read more: http://www.post-trib.com/lifestyles/2103442,ACORN-318.article

[NJmaverick]

1. I don't like these false and misleading headlines AP are putting out

the ONLY scandal was the falsified films produced by that right wing liar.

[tom_paine]

6. This is shocking or surprising to you?

You always try to be the calm, cool-headed (and maybe a bit too contemptuously patronizing) debunker of "hysterical, paranoid conspiracy theories". Unfortunately, we live in a time in which quite a few of them happen to be TRUE.

The Corporate Media HAS fused with the RW Lie Machine to create an almost seamless bubble of false reality based on the principles of advertising, marketing, PR, and various branches of psychology including behavioral and statistical.

This is not the first instance of something like this laundering of disinformation into "conventional wisdom" but the thousandth or more.

I will not try to break down the whys and wherefores. Besides, much of it has been documented in books you need to read like David Brock's "Blinded by the Right", which details one tip of a very large iceberg.

Just look at the reality of it:

1) RW creates misinformation (in this case by a phony scandal, but there are many ways step #1 is done by them)

2) RW Lie Machine trumpets fake scandal, Corporate M$M also trumpets fake scandal long and loud, no questions asked, no deviation from "The Message".

3) months later, the truth leaks out, but is picked up by almost no one - disappearing shortly thereafter

4) thus, as per the principles of marketing/PR the fact remains that, for 99% of people who are aware of the story, the scandal is not fake at all and the exoneration never occurred

5) MISSION ACCOMPLISHED! Fake scandal is now and forever a REAL piece of "conventional wisdom", never to be questioned and always able to be brought up again in Cable TV "news" conversation just the same way that AP blithely uses it - as if it was 100% FACT and not debunked.

Maybe you're noticing it for the first time, beings that you are so allergic to thinking outside the box and that anything outside said box is a wacky "conspiracy theory" worthy of your contempt.

Now you've noticed it in action, but it's not the first time, it's the thousandth. Personally, when a coin is flipped 1000 times and it comes up "heads" each time, I don't think it's a "wacky conspiracy theory" to suspect a crooked coin.

I respect you, even when we disagree, and I believe you are sincere, otherwise I wouldn't be wasting my time replying to you. But you really need to start "thinking outside the box" and realizing that much more is going on than our increasingly poisoned "Cable TV Conventional Wisdom" suggests.

Here is a golden opportunity in which the an instance of the reality of the fusion of Corporate Media with the RW Lie Machine has slapped you in the face with a dead fish. Now you've noticed it. Look closer and you will see this pattern repeat itself over and over and over again until it begin to become understandable why our party has been neutralized into oblivion and that even when we win, we lose because you can't fight a modern interlocked propaganda machine that includes the information source where 99% of people get their information from institutions (like AP) that are neutralized and parasitized.

I ask that you read David Brock's book "Blinded by the Right", understanding that the corrupt mechanisms revealed in it have increased in power ten times or more since then.

I ask that you consider that maybe, in your zeal to "debunk loonies" that you fail to notice it is our nation, where FOX News has mainstreamed things one had to go to a KKK meeting to hear just 40 years ago, that has gone loony.

Read the David Brock book. Think outside the box of Cable TV Conventional Wisdom.

[No Elephants]

7. Always be suspicious of AP, and the fake registration stories were all foolishness, but

there was misappropriation of money by the brother of ACORN's founder.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/09/us/09embezzle.html

[democraticinsurgent]

2. Great plan

Maybe they could name themselves "Blackwater" since that name is now available. Could lead to some lucrative government contracts.:D

[TerribleLarryDingle]

3. scandal or smear/hoax

As usual the AP spins for the cancervatives.

[MUAD_DIB]

4. If ACORN was smart they'd take a page from the GOPiggies and rebrand themselves

with names that contain/embody Freedom, America(n), Pioneer and Patriot(ic).

It's childish and simple, but think of the confusion if the GOP started to attack an organization that sounds universally American.

[louis-t]

5. Great idea! Name them "cute, cuddly puppies"

and watch the repugs try to demonize them.

[jmowreader]

15. How about the American Patriotic Freedom Alliance?

It's catchy, it describes what they do (helping Americans achieve freedom through voter registration and good housing, and that's patriotic) and there's not a winger in the country who would protest against a group with a name like that. Use a minuteman as the logo for extra effect. The acronym kinda sucks because it's not all that pronounceable, but you can't have everything.

[No Elephants]

8. It it's good enough for Halliburton and Blackwater, whose employees have robbed, raped and killed,

it's certainly good enough for ACORN, whose employees register people to vote.

[Leopolds Ghost]

9. End of ACORN?

Source: CNN

"ACORN is shutting down offices nationwide... several chapters are splitting off from the national organization entirely... {in one city} ACORN is relinquishing its --business license-- {corporate charter} to settle a lawsuit."

Read more: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3W10RQ5b9dI

---

Disturbing news. Especially because the smarmy sounding journalist, who covers only the "right hand side" of the story, does not mention that in many jurisdictions, ACORN is the ONLY organization working for HUD-certified mortgage counseling and inner city low-income tenants' rights -- the latter cause Democrats no longer support.

[willing dwarf]

10. What happened to the lawsuit they were mounting?

I thought that had just been launched last month.

I tried our Philadelphia office website and it was down. The Philadelphia office is a terrific resource. I hope they survive!

[Ian David]

11. This will help them prove they were damaged. n/t

[bondwooley]

12. I saw a post yesterday that they were just changing their name. Interesting. n/t

[Leopolds Ghost]

13. This is pathetic bullshit, but to be expected from an org that has watered itself down

From being a legitimate inner city rights organization to being an organizing arm for local political causes. In New Orleans after Katrina, they were known as the group that did not do shit for public housing and was only interested in the rights of middle-income African-American homeowners -- their supposed constituency there.

[Leopolds Ghost]

14. Any organization that runs away from its name is incapable of standing for anything.

But as mentioned, they are one of the few groups in many cities that does HUD certified counseling. Then again, when I tried to get them to counsel one person we were helping, we never heard back from them.