As a former ACORN employee, who lived through the whole "pimps and hos" media assault, and the eventual destruction of the organization, I do appreciate the fact that kossacks are outraged and calling for lawsuits.
One problem, unless there is a kossack out there that is a great lawyer that would be willing to do this for no money up front, there won't be a lawsuit. To put it simply, ACORN staff worked for modest salaries, because we understood the importance of the work and that organizations of low income families need to put as many resources as possible into the actual organizing work, and not into inflated salaries. Now that so many of us are unemployed and the national organization has fallen apart, there is no way we could actually afford to bring a suit.
More on the truth of the "pimps and hos" story and it's actual purpose, after the jump.
Despite the fact that everyone in the media and on the right wing blogs focused on government contract, which ACORN won through competitive bidding(unlike say KBR or Halliburton), they were not the actual target of the campaign. As ACORN officials repeated, over and over, we recieved very little money from the federal government. In fact, on many of the government grants, such as the free tax filing, we lost money. We continued to provide these services, because these services were vital for the communities ACORN members lived in and served.
The truth is that the actual targets were the private funds given to ACORN by foundations. These gifts made up a much larger percentage of ACORN's budget. By making the ACORN brand radioactive, we lost virtually all of our foundational funding. Charities that had been giving ACORN grants for many years one-by-one cut all ties to ACORN. Time-after-time I had breakup conversations with foundations that all seemed to a variation of
It's not you. We've always been very happy with the work that has been done by the local office. Unfortunately, due to the negative attention that the national organization has garnered, we can't refund you for the coming year.
of, if they were being more candid
We can't afford to have the Tea Party protesting us, because that could hurt our ability to fundraise for all of the other groups to which we give. We're so sorry, you don't deserve this.
During this entire time, most of the left stayed silent. Maddow's pieces first began to pull this apart, but her series began to run after the "pimps and hos" story had been running in virtually every media source, with little push back from anyone outside of ACORN.
So, while we appreciate the belated outrage and solidarity, when you're on the dole, it's little comfort. If you're a great attourney, or know one that would be interested, I'm sure there are tons of ACORN employees that would sign onto a class action suit, but telling a bunch of broke people that they should file suit against a bunch of major corporations(who have giant legal teams) is a nonstarter.
update: Thanks for the recs, every one of us appreciate your support.