Because I think anything written by a man of Fletcher's extensive experience about social movement organizations is worth reading.
Joseph Catron
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Okay, it's morning, I am sober. I apologize for being snippy. I'll explain.
Fletcher's experience. He needs to get out of the office more often. Yes, you have to constantly keep after people to do right and get rid of people who don't. You also need to structure organizations so they are `self-cleaning' so to speak.
What can I say? I've been there, been stuck in meetings trying to defend the indefensible, so the whole ACORN thing pissed me off.
Where am I coming from? Two of the three social movement projects I worked for years ago were brought down in a very similar fashion. The first on director and employee misconduct charges and the second on tax fraud.
I've spend a long time providing services to the down and out public. I was asked to do all kinds of nonsense and had to figure out where to draw the line. So I have a great deal of sympathy for the women on the tape who sat there and agreed to clearly rotten propositions.
``what could those employees possibly have been thinking about?''
The answer is, it doesn't matter. You just can't imagine the kind of shit you have to deal with when you deal with the public and their problems. Social services are put in an impossible ethical bind just in the way the rules for their delivery are written. It comes down to a catch-22. You are not allowed to do, the very thing you are mandated to do. So what happens is, if you're human, you get used to breaking the rules as a matter of course. A corrupt society breeds corruption from top to bottom.
``Senior Scholar with the Institute for Policy Studies, the immediate past president of TransAfrica Forum and co-author of, Solidarity Divided: The Crisis in Organized Labor and a New Path toward Social Justice''
Okay, so Fletcher should know all about the issues of corruption. He should also know that the quasi-privatization of public services is part of a whole welfare-cop mentality. Where were the public agencies that were supposed to do their oversight? I don't know how ACORN is structured and whether or not locals have a local community advisory board, but that's the place to start with apologies, oversight, overhaul and a clean up campaign. And if locals don't have a community based advisory board, then clearly they need one.
Most fed funds are (or were) channeled through the state and county, so where were the state, county, and city auditors?
As for public confession and contrition? I don't know. I just read the wiki on ACORN. Man, they are in deep shit.
``The New York Attorney General announced an investigation to ensure that state grants given to ACORN were properly spent.[70] The New York City Council suspended all ACORN grants while Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes conducted an investigation.[71] On September 23, the Internal Revenue Service removed ACORN from its volunteer tax-assistance program.[72] On September 28, The Wall Street Journal reported that Bank of America has suspended financing ACORN Housing in response to the various scandals.[73]''
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_of_Community_Organizations_for_Reform_Now
If ACORN is under legal investigation, then most lawyers will tell you to keep your mouth shut in public and private.
The last sentence is quite funny since BOA is itself under investigation:
``NEW YORK (Reuters) - Investors in a class-action lawsuit against Bank of America Corp (BAC.N) over the Merrill Lynch & Co takeover are trying to collect `billions' of dollars in damages, Ohio's attorney general said on Monday.
Attorney General Richard Cordray spoke after filing a 155-page complaint in Manhattan federal court that accuses Bank of America of fraudulently concealing Merrill's soaring losses even as it let Merrill award $3.6 billion of bonuses in 2008.
Cordray is leading the case on behalf of five pension funds. Investors also want to recover from Bank of America Chief Executive Kenneth Lewis, Chief Financial Officer Joe Price, Chief Accounting Officer Neil Cotty, the bank's board of directors, and former Merrill chief executive John Thain.''
http://www.reuters.com/article/ousivMolt/idUSTRE58R48R20090928
CG