The Atlantic - Latest Comments in Get Your Weight Up. Not Your Hate Up.

Re: Get Your Weight Up. Not Your Hate Up.

anna perez — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 16:40:51 -0000

I'm a little late but a couple of points I think are worth noting: The Acorn staffer in the San Bernadino office was "playing" the so-called reporters, who, if they (and their Fox news enablers) were really journalists would have made a call to the local police dept. to find out if in fact there had been a murder.

Our nation's entire economy was nearly tanked by the bad practices and corruption of a whole lot more than a "few" large companies. Having worked in govt. as well for some of the world's largest corporations, I know its not constructive to paint either with a broad brush, good or bad. You can find both in healthy or unhealthy amounts in the private and the public sector.

Re: Get Your Weight Up. Not Your Hate Up.

Lemmy Caution — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 02:48:40 -0000

I am ready to join in on the condemnation of what happened in these ACORN offices, but first, I have a question based on what I've just read.

Were the ACORN workers who met with the fake pimp and partner given an opportunity to either discuss their concerns with their managers, or contact law enforcement, before the investigation ended? It is actually somewhat reasonable that an interviewer would "play along" during the interview: it's what happened soon after that would be more important.

Re: Get Your Weight Up. Not Your Hate Up.

JPB — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 23:28:22 -0000

1. Even if you humor yourself, which the people in the vids show very little if any signs of doing, at some point, where it gets morally reprehensible, you stop playing along. My personal line lays somewhere between government sponsored tax evasion and child sex slavery. call me crazy.

2. see 1.

3. What part of taxpayer-funded child prostitution tax shelters was unclear?

Re: Get Your Weight Up. Not Your Hate Up.

Jon — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 20:09:42 -0000

Re: Problem is, there's really nothing we can do to shame the other side. Rush Limbaugh gets away with saying stuff like

"In Obama's America, the white kids now get beat up with the black kids cheering, 'Yay, right on, right on, right on, right on,"

and no one blinks.

No one blinks? Maybe you should read some other blogs. Both Meagan McCardle and Rod Dreher (neither are noted liberals) came down on Limbaugh like two ons of bricks.

Re: Get Your Weight Up. Not Your Hate Up.

brucds — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 17:38:44 -0000

"Same story everywhere" - but which story ? I still haven't seen the videos, but apparently the woman who told them that everybody knew she killed her husband didn't really kill her husband, so I'm not convinced there couldn't be a put-on factor here.

Re: Get Your Weight Up. Not Your Hate Up.

wiliwili — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 17:23:40 -0000

This. The real problem is that ACORN = Obama in the crazies minds and the media's running with it instead of taking the time to investigate and look at facts. Same old story.

How many Republicans (and democrats) have had to resign for soliciting prostitutes, taking bribes, or all manner of illegal activities. It doesn't mean the entire government and all politicians are corrupt/immoral (though of course it warrants further scrutiny)

Re: Get Your Weight Up. Not Your Hate Up.

ktheintz — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 17:09:08 -0000

Just a couple of questions, for anyone who thinks these pranks are newsworthy:

1. If you were an ACORN rep, and someone came into your office dressed exceedingly strangely (i.e., WASPs dressed in Superfly costumes) with a bizarre and frankly unbelievable story, to the point where you suspected you were being wound up, what would you do?

2. How likely is it that the ACORN reps in the video believed that the actors were for real?

3. What possible basis would there be for any inference regarding how ACORN services its real-life clients, based on these staged interactions?

Re: Get Your Weight Up. Not Your Hate Up.

CParis — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 17:09:04 -0000

This situation is just the 21st century version of Reagan's Cadillac-driving welfare queen. God forbid an organization helping regular people (including some poor, brown folks) access their government's services screws up - meanwhile HalliburtonBlackwaterKBR continue to get $billions in federal contracts despite massive incompetent and illegal behavior (ya know, like raping/killing people).

Help me, I'm getting the vapours!!

Re: Get Your Weight Up. Not Your Hate Up.

holyfrak — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 17:08:34 -0000

The point I was alluding to is that our culture tries to control women by telling them what they can do with their bodies. Maybe if that element were less pervasive, it would not be transmitted to these men who resort to violence as a means of exerting control over women.

Re: Get Your Weight Up. Not Your Hate Up.

Tim — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 16:47:30 -0000

I've seen reports that say Acorn has received $56 million in taxpayer money over the past 15 years. Anybody know if that is correct? That seems like a very small amount of money we're talking about, considering how much coverage Acorn gets on Fox News.

Re: Get Your Weight Up. Not Your Hate Up.

gordon gartrelle — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 16:45:19 -0000

Yeah. Lunkheads, degenerates, whatever.

Someone is going to have to explain to me why these incidents invalidate the valuable work this organization does.

It's like saying that a country should immediately disband its army because some of its soldiers are accused of rape.

This whole story is akin to letting children dictate the terms of a debate.

Re: Get Your Weight Up. Not Your Hate Up.

DaveinHackensack — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 14:43:56 -0000

Correction: As TW Andrews writes above, and the NY Times reports, it's 4 videos so far. That's cold-blooded, dripping those videos out like that. I like it. They let ACORN claim that the one office was just an outlier and then the rest of the combination hits.

Re: Get Your Weight Up. Not Your Hate Up.

DaveinHackensack — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 14:23:53 -0000

Of course. That's where the stupidity comes in.

Re: Get Your Weight Up. Not Your Hate Up.

JPB — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 13:58:35 -0000

GG,

love the shirts.

But seriously, it is less damaging for Obama than the organization as a whole. But I don't think "lunkheads" is the proper term for people who aid and abet underage sex slavery. I mean, they say on the tapes "13 very young Salvadorean girls"--and ACORN tells them to file those kids as "dependents." Really? Lunkheads?

If Southern sympathizers started calling 1850s slave traders and raping masters "lunkheads" I think we'd all be pretty p.o.'d, and rightfully so. Helping out underage sex traffickers goes well beyond any acceptable qualification of simply "poor decision making."

Re: Get Your Weight Up. Not Your Hate Up.

DaveinHackensack — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 13:51:55 -0000

Good post, but just a minor correction: ACORN bit on this three times, not twice.

Re: Get Your Weight Up. Not Your Hate Up.

LCrawfty — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 13:51:26 -0000

Here's the last thing I`ll say on this-just because the Swiss have these views on banking secrecy does not mean they are correct-these are potentially billions in funds owed to our country to support programs our people need-I could really give a flying F what the Swiss-who up until very recently would not release Holocaust victims funds to their relatives-have to say about banking secrecy. Also, trade embargo is one threat of a dozen or so you can throw out there I understand it may sound extreme.

Re: Get Your Weight Up. Not Your Hate Up.

Betsy — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 13:37:30 -0000

Thank you. The argument that men who are violent against women only do so out of sexual frustration has NO evidence to support it and is pernicious in its implications. It leads nearly directly to the "she MADE me do it because she was a tease!" defense.

I mean, just the fact that prostitutes suffer far more violence than most women ought to suggest that access to sex does not prevent violent men from being violent.

Re: Get Your Weight Up. Not Your Hate Up.

Deborah — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 13:31:32 -0000

But following your analogy, multiple torturers at Abu Ghraib was taken to mean that the military had serious, top-down issues that needed to be addressed.

Re: Get Your Weight Up. Not Your Hate Up.

Deborah — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 13:26:13 -0000

I kept hoping it would turn out one of the Acornettes had called the FBI and was working on an entrapment deal--"Child pimpers! They came to my office! I played along; you've gotta take them down when they come back! I'll wear a wire; please!" But no.

As for rich people cheating on their taxes, it's widely accepted that people at all income levels try to cheat on their taxes. (It pays better for the IRS to go after the big fish and collect $1 million rather than Joe the Plumber and collect $1000.) I just don't see where someone having a swiss bank account gets Acorn off the hook.

Re: Get Your Weight Up. Not Your Hate Up.

Deborah — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 13:21:58 -0000

My guess would be, if they tried it at say 6-10 offices and posted video from 3, the remaining offices gave them push back, showed them the door, etc. The people making the video are hardly going for a balanced look at the situation. (Which is fine.) The fact that only Baltimore is shown helping them out with the whole smuggling child prostitutes into the country thing suggests that was a sticking point for DC and NY.

Bertha Lewis notes that activists tried the same stunt several times before they got a bite. In some people's eyes this is exonerating.

Yeah, "only 3/10" or "only 3/6" really is not exculpatory in any way. 1 would be a big deal; establish a pattern and it's an organization-ending situation.

Re: Get Your Weight Up. Not Your Hate Up.

TW Andrews — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 12:53:12 -0000

If it was only one video, sure. But I think the tally is 4 now, and it's pretty much the same story everywhere.

Re: Get Your Weight Up. Not Your Hate Up.

TW Andrews — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 12:47:51 -0000

Indeed. The Swiss are mightily pissed at UBS for capitulating to US pressure over the banking secrecy. My wife, who is swiss, has sworn never to bank with them, and apparently so has most of her family.

Re: Get Your Weight Up. Not Your Hate Up.

Doctor Cleveland — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 12:45:02 -0000

There is absolutely no reason to believe that going to a prostitute makes a man less violent or saner about women.

Re: Get Your Weight Up. Not Your Hate Up.

TW Andrews — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 12:42:02 -0000

o the extent they resort to entrapment of local idiots for purpose of demagoguery against the president I do think it's worth some pushback.

Right. I don't think ACORN itself merits any defense whatsoever, but I don't see how ACORN being a corrupt organization has much to do with Obama.

Re: Get Your Weight Up. Not Your Hate Up.

Jennifer D. — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 12:33:35 -0000

Smiley face.