ACORN prostitution sting caught on video is wave of new conservative activism
With the recent scandal involving ACORN employees giving out tips to those turning tricks and trying to hide it from the taxman, much has been made of the tactics by those behind the project. James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles blew open the story by posing as pimp and prostitute and asking for help securing a loan. They actually received help in New York, Washington D.C., and Baltimore. Whether or not the mainstream media covers this is another matter, but it is a massive story.
The videos are shocking and appalling, and ACORN is finally getting its just desserts as the US Senate voted last night to cut their funding from upcoming Housing and Urban Development Projects. The US Census cut their ties with ACORN last week.
Had ACORN been watching the activist scene from the Right and not just encouraging it from the Left, they might have seen O’Keefe coming.
In the summer of 2008 I became the first editor in chief of New Guard in over a decade. New Guard was the product of William F. Buckley, Jr., the modern American conservative legend. The magazine was an outgrowth from the 1960 Sharon Statement and the beginning of the “Goldwater Republicans.” It also served as the official publication for Young Americans for Freedom.
Like New Guard was to its generation of conservatives activists, we thought it could be the same for us when the magazine was revived in print and online. (Unfortunately, a September 2008 release was a bad time to go out and try to get financial backers to continue to support the mag).
Had ACORN been reading New Guard, they would have seen the article that publisher Kevin DeAnna and I asked him to write up talked about investigations just like this one. In “Pro-life activists not ashamed to use the tactics of the Left against them” O’Keefe outlined his project in vowing to donate money to Planned Parenthood on the condition that they ensure that the money went to aborting minority babies only. They told the “donor,” O”Keefe, that wanting to have less blacks born was “understandable.”
O’Keefe explained:
We framed the issue in a creative way. We did not tackle abortion conventionally but from the racism angle. Because leftists believe that racism is a cardinal sin, we used their rules against them…
Many students around the country have nodded in agreement with my theories on activism, but they fear doing what it takes to make them happen. The movement dies when it becomes boring and risk-averse. The hardest part about being a leader is getting people to focus on action in addition to philosophy. If you must spend time “convincing” anyone of anything, it is that they owe it to their philosophy to take action. In the pro-life movement it has been particularly difficult to find people to believe in these tactics, or have the courage to use them…
The ability to use “Rules for Radicals” by Saul Alinsky is easy for conservatives to adapt. When the Left is in power, the Right can use the same spirit to break down their institutions. The best example of this is on a university campus. When I first met James, he came to William and Mary to help us better develop The Virginia Informer. It was there that James shared what was probably his most infamous and outrageous video, until last week. He somehow managed to get his alma mater, Rutgers, to band Lucky Charms cereal in the cafeteria, as he dubbed it offensive to Irish-Americans.
ACORN and the head community organizer, Barack Obama, ought not be surprised or troubled by the tactics used by O’Keefe and others. Right activists are nearly taking a page out of Alinsky’s book and flipping the script. That makes two things that Obama and I can agree on.
