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Politics from the Nation's Capital ACORN drops tarnished name and moves to silence critics
Share Print By: Kevin Mooney 06/20/09 11:00 PM
Special to the Examiner
.Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now (ACORN) leaders are using the threat of a law suit to silence and intimidate critics, according to current and former members of the liberal activist group.
In a letter dated June 11 an attorney for ACORN advised top whistleblowers that their unauthorized use of the organization’s name could make them liable for monetary damages and injunctive relief.
ACORN executives have also changed their organization’s name, which was tarnished by investigations in at least 14 states of allegations of voter registration fraud during the 2008 presidential campaign, and charges by current and former members of financial mismanagement and misrepresentation.
The new name will let ACORN leaders continue their operations without worrying about prior bad publicity, according to Marcel Reid of ACORN 8, a group of present and former members.
“We’ve known for many months now that the name ACORN is going to be retired,” Reid said. “The name has been so damaged to the point where the leadership knows it simply can’t go on as it has with the ACORN label out front and center, especially after all of the reporting.”
In fact, the process has already begun, she noted. Wade Rathke, who founded the organization, announced on his blog that ACORN International has officially changed its name to “Community Organizations International.”
Reid also said ACORN is in the process of dismantling Citizen’s Consulting Inc. (CCI), a New-Orleans based non-profit, which has been used to maintain centralized financial control, ACORN 8 activists claim. Tax records show that CCI is interlinked with several ACORN affiliates.
Dale Rathke, the brother of ACORN founder Wade Rathke, embezzled almost $1 million from the organization in 1999 and 2000, while he was employed as the organization’s chief financial officer with the CCI affiliate. For almost a decade Wade Rathke and other staff members concealed the embezzlement from ACORN’s board of trustees, according to the criminal complaint ACORN 8 members filed against the organization.
ACORN’s national leaders withdrew a lawsuit Reid filed with fellow board member Karen Inman last October seeking access to internal financial records. Reid and Inman were also expelled from their board positions; a move they say was illegal. Reid and Inman then came together with six other colleagues to form ACORN 8.
“ACORN has to be decapitated,” Reid said. “The senior staff and current national board should be dismantled. The only way to have reform is for the current leadership to be removed completely. We also need a forensic audit.”
Arthur Schwartz, the general counsel for ACORN, has sent a “cease and desist” letter to Reid and Inman instructing them to discontinue using the name ACORN in a connection with their activities. This same letter threatens legal action if the ACORN 8 members do not provide written assurances that they will comply with this demand by the end of June.
“It is a violation of federal and state law for you to use the ACORN name and mark without the written permission of ACORN,” the letter states. “Should you continue to do so, you will be liable for monetary and injunctive relief.”
Reid told The Examiner that ACORN 8 will not comply.
“We have no intention of not using the name ACORN 8, it is not a trademark infringement,” she said. “This get tough attitude is part of larger attempt to silence people and shut them down. We are not going to be silenced.”
Meanwhile, ACORN’s Project Vote affiliate has filed suit against Anita MonCrief, a former employee, who has testified under oath on voter registration allegations. ACORN is currently under investigation in at least 14 states for electoral irregularities. The Project Vote suit claims that Anita MonCrief and an unidentified accomplice gained access into private e-mails from group executives and stole the group’s name without permission. It also accuses Moncrief of using a company credit card for her own purposes.
“ACORN is attempting to silence me, and the allegations in the lawsuit are false,” MonCrief said in statement emailed to The Examiner.
ACORN 8 has released its own statement on “whistleblower retaliation” through its national spokesman Michael McCray that expresses support for new protective legislation.
“On behalf of the national board of ACORN 8, we are all saddened by and express great concern due to ACORN’s court action filed against whistleblower Anita MonCrief,” the statement reads. “While we do not express an opinion on the merits of ACORN’s complaint; we as reform advocates decry the tactic of suing whistleblowers – especially, low to moderate income people who do not have the financial means to effectively fight back in courts of law. Moreover, this is yet another example of why congress must enact strong corporate, government and tax-payer funded whistleblower protection laws.”
ACORN 8 has endorsed H.R. 1507, the Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act of 2009.
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Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/beltway-confidential/2009/06/acorn-drops-tarnished-name-and-moves-silence-critics#ixzz1PGqBiVEy
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
Wow, Dan Baird! Ayn Rand and 67 years ago!
The Only Path To Tomorrow
Ayn Rand
Readers Digest, January 1944, pp. 88-90
The greatest threat to mankind and civilization is the spread of the totalitarian philosophy. Its best ally is not the devotion of its followers but the confusion of its enemies. To fight it, we must understand it.
Totalitarianism is collectivism. Collectivism means the subjugation of the individual to a group — whether to a race, class or state does not matter. Collectivism holds that man must be chained to collective action and collective thought for the sake of what is called ``the common good.´´
Throughout history, no tyrant ever rose to power except on the claim of representing ``the common good.´´ Napoleon ``served the common good´´ of France. Hitler is ``serving the common good´´ of Germany. Horrors which no man would dare consider for his own selfish sake are perpetrated with a clear conscience by ``altruists´´ who justify themselves by-the common good.
No tyrant has ever lasted long by force of arms alone. Men have been enslaved primarily by spiritual weapons. And the greatest of these is the collectivist doctrine that the supremacy of the state over the individual constitutes the common good. No dictator could rise if men held as a sacred faith the conviction that they have inalienable rights of which they cannot be deprived for any cause whatsoever, by any man whatsoever, neither by evildoer nor supposed benefactor.
This is the basic tenet of individualism, as opposed to collectivism. Individualism holds that man is an independent entity with an inalienable right to the pursuit of his own happiness in a society where men deal with one another as equals.
The American system is founded on individualism. If it is to survive, we must understand the principles of individualism and hold them as our standard in any public question, in every issue we face. We must have a positive credo, a clear consistent faith.
We must learn to reject as total evil the conception that the common good is served by the abolition of individual rights. General happiness cannot be created out of general suffering and self-immolation. The only happy society is one of happy individuals. One cannot have a healthy forest made up of rotten trees.
The power of society must always be limited by the basic, inalienable rights of the individual.
The right of liberty means man's right to individual action, individual choice, individual initiative and individual property. Without the right to private property no independent action is possible.
The right to the pursuit of happiness means man's right to live for himself, to choose what constitutes his own, private, personal happiness and to work for its achievement. Each individual is the sole and final judge in this choice. A man's happiness cannot be prescribed to him by another man or by any number of other men.
These rights are the unconditional, personal, private, individual possession of every man, granted to him by the fact of his birth and requiring no other sanction. Such was the conception of the founders of our country, who placed individual rights above any and all collective claims. Society can only be a traffic policeman in the intercourse of men with one another.
From the beginning of history, two antagonists have stood face to face, two opposite types of men: the Active and the Passive. The Active Man is the producer, the creator, the originator, the individualist. His basic need is independence — in order to think and work. He neither needs nor seeks power over other men — nor can he be made to work under any form of compulsion. Every type of good work — from laying bricks to writing a symphony — is done by the Active Man. Degrees of human ability vary, but the basic principle remains the same: the degree of a man's independence and initiative determines his talent as a worker and his worth as a man.
The Passive Man is found on every level of society, in mansions and in slums, and his identification mark is his dread of independence. He is a parasite who expects to be taken care of by others, who wishes to be given directives, to obey, to submit, to be regulated, to be told. He welcomes collectivism, which eliminates any chance that he might have to think or act on his own initiative.
When a society is based on the needs of the Passive Man it destroys the Active; but when the Active is destroyed, the Passive can no longer be cared for. When a society is based on the needs of the Active Man, he carries the Passive ones along on his energy and raises them as he rises, as the whole society rises. This has been the pattern of all human progress.
Some humanitarians demand a collective state because of their pity for the incompetent or Passive Man. For his sake they wish to harness the Active. But the Active Man cannot function in harness. And once he is destroyed, the destruction of the Passive Man follows automatically. So if pity is the humanitarians' first consideration, then in the name of pity, if nothing else, they should leave the Active Man free to function, in order to help the Passive. There is no other way to help him in the long run.
The history of mankind is the history of the struggle between the Active Man and the Passive, between the individual and the collective. The countries which have produced the happiest men, the highest standards of living and the greatest cultural advances have been the countries where the power of the collective — of the government, of the state — was limited and the individual was given freedom of independent action. As examples: The rise of Rome, with its conception of law based on a citizen's rights, over the collectivist barbarism of its time. The rise of England, with a system of government based on the Magna Carta, over collectivist, totalitarian Spain. The rise of the United States to a degree of achievement unequaled in history — by grace of the individual freedom and independence which our Constitution gave each citizen against the collective.
While men are still pondering upon the causes of the rise and fall of civilizations, every page of history cries to us that there is but one source of progress: Individual Man in independent action. Collectivism is the ancient principle of savagery. A savage's whole existence is ruled by the leaders of his tribe. Civilization is the process of setting man free from men.
We are now facing a choice: to go forward or to go back.
Collectivism is not the ``New Order of Tomorrow.´´ It is the order of a very dark yesterday. But there is a New Order of Tomorrow. It belongs to Individual Man — the only creator of any tomorrows humanity has ever been granted.
__________ Information from ESET Smart Security, version of virus signature database 5995 (20110329) __________
The message was checked by ESET Smart Security.
http://www.eset.com
Ayn Rand
Readers Digest, January 1944, pp. 88-90
The greatest threat to mankind and civilization is the spread of the totalitarian philosophy. Its best ally is not the devotion of its followers but the confusion of its enemies. To fight it, we must understand it.
Totalitarianism is collectivism. Collectivism means the subjugation of the individual to a group — whether to a race, class or state does not matter. Collectivism holds that man must be chained to collective action and collective thought for the sake of what is called ``the common good.´´
Throughout history, no tyrant ever rose to power except on the claim of representing ``the common good.´´ Napoleon ``served the common good´´ of France. Hitler is ``serving the common good´´ of Germany. Horrors which no man would dare consider for his own selfish sake are perpetrated with a clear conscience by ``altruists´´ who justify themselves by-the common good.
No tyrant has ever lasted long by force of arms alone. Men have been enslaved primarily by spiritual weapons. And the greatest of these is the collectivist doctrine that the supremacy of the state over the individual constitutes the common good. No dictator could rise if men held as a sacred faith the conviction that they have inalienable rights of which they cannot be deprived for any cause whatsoever, by any man whatsoever, neither by evildoer nor supposed benefactor.
This is the basic tenet of individualism, as opposed to collectivism. Individualism holds that man is an independent entity with an inalienable right to the pursuit of his own happiness in a society where men deal with one another as equals.
The American system is founded on individualism. If it is to survive, we must understand the principles of individualism and hold them as our standard in any public question, in every issue we face. We must have a positive credo, a clear consistent faith.
We must learn to reject as total evil the conception that the common good is served by the abolition of individual rights. General happiness cannot be created out of general suffering and self-immolation. The only happy society is one of happy individuals. One cannot have a healthy forest made up of rotten trees.
The power of society must always be limited by the basic, inalienable rights of the individual.
The right of liberty means man's right to individual action, individual choice, individual initiative and individual property. Without the right to private property no independent action is possible.
The right to the pursuit of happiness means man's right to live for himself, to choose what constitutes his own, private, personal happiness and to work for its achievement. Each individual is the sole and final judge in this choice. A man's happiness cannot be prescribed to him by another man or by any number of other men.
These rights are the unconditional, personal, private, individual possession of every man, granted to him by the fact of his birth and requiring no other sanction. Such was the conception of the founders of our country, who placed individual rights above any and all collective claims. Society can only be a traffic policeman in the intercourse of men with one another.
From the beginning of history, two antagonists have stood face to face, two opposite types of men: the Active and the Passive. The Active Man is the producer, the creator, the originator, the individualist. His basic need is independence — in order to think and work. He neither needs nor seeks power over other men — nor can he be made to work under any form of compulsion. Every type of good work — from laying bricks to writing a symphony — is done by the Active Man. Degrees of human ability vary, but the basic principle remains the same: the degree of a man's independence and initiative determines his talent as a worker and his worth as a man.
The Passive Man is found on every level of society, in mansions and in slums, and his identification mark is his dread of independence. He is a parasite who expects to be taken care of by others, who wishes to be given directives, to obey, to submit, to be regulated, to be told. He welcomes collectivism, which eliminates any chance that he might have to think or act on his own initiative.
When a society is based on the needs of the Passive Man it destroys the Active; but when the Active is destroyed, the Passive can no longer be cared for. When a society is based on the needs of the Active Man, he carries the Passive ones along on his energy and raises them as he rises, as the whole society rises. This has been the pattern of all human progress.
Some humanitarians demand a collective state because of their pity for the incompetent or Passive Man. For his sake they wish to harness the Active. But the Active Man cannot function in harness. And once he is destroyed, the destruction of the Passive Man follows automatically. So if pity is the humanitarians' first consideration, then in the name of pity, if nothing else, they should leave the Active Man free to function, in order to help the Passive. There is no other way to help him in the long run.
The history of mankind is the history of the struggle between the Active Man and the Passive, between the individual and the collective. The countries which have produced the happiest men, the highest standards of living and the greatest cultural advances have been the countries where the power of the collective — of the government, of the state — was limited and the individual was given freedom of independent action. As examples: The rise of Rome, with its conception of law based on a citizen's rights, over the collectivist barbarism of its time. The rise of England, with a system of government based on the Magna Carta, over collectivist, totalitarian Spain. The rise of the United States to a degree of achievement unequaled in history — by grace of the individual freedom and independence which our Constitution gave each citizen against the collective.
While men are still pondering upon the causes of the rise and fall of civilizations, every page of history cries to us that there is but one source of progress: Individual Man in independent action. Collectivism is the ancient principle of savagery. A savage's whole existence is ruled by the leaders of his tribe. Civilization is the process of setting man free from men.
We are now facing a choice: to go forward or to go back.
Collectivism is not the ``New Order of Tomorrow.´´ It is the order of a very dark yesterday. But there is a New Order of Tomorrow. It belongs to Individual Man — the only creator of any tomorrows humanity has ever been granted.
__________ Information from ESET Smart Security, version of virus signature database 5995 (20110329) __________
The message was checked by ESET Smart Security.
http://www.eset.com
Ted Dunham's medic duties WWII Thanks Jim Kegley!
High Notes 06-16-2011
Jim Kegley
Scioto Voice
Wheelersburg, Ohio
It was 66-years and 5-weeks ago, on May 8, 1945, that the war in Europe ended and that date is remembered as V-E Day.
My half-brother, Theodore (Ted) Dunham, was a Private First Class member of the U.S. Army Medical Department, “Medic” attached to the 242nd Infantry Regiment serving in Germany when the war ended.
On 15 March, just a few weeks before the war ended, Ted and his Company I, were attacked by the Germans. They were penned down near Melch, France, by “intense artillery, mortar, and machine gun fire”. My brother, Ted, “noticed an infantryman lying wounded in terrain exposed to the deadly barrage. Braving the murderous fire, he advanced to the side of the injured man and succeeded in helping him to a covered position where he promptly administered first aid. By his courageous and unhesitating action, Private Dunham undoubtedly saved his wounded comrade from further injury or possible death.”
This information was contained in an official extract, dated February13, 1946, by Lt. Col., General Staff Corps, Actg, Chief of Staff, by command of Major General Collins. The extract explained that Ted was awarded an Oak Leaf Cluster, to be added to his Bronze Star, which had been authorized by the President in an extract dated, February 1, 1946.
Ted’s Bronze Star was awarded for, “Heroic achievement in action on 11 April 1945, near Schweinfurt, Germany. During an intense artillery concentration near Schweinfurt, Germany, Company I suffered numerous casualties. Private Dunham, medical man with the company, left the safety of his foxhole many times throughout the day to treat the casualties and prepare them for evacuation. Fearlessly braving the murderous enemy fire, he administered first aid to ten of the twenty-one wounded throughout the day. Private Dunham’s courageous action and unselfish determination saved many lives during the day and were an inspiration to his comrades”.
This battle occurred, one day before, President Franklin D. Roosevelt died, April 12, 1945.
I have told the story before about seeing my mother softly weeping as she stood ironing clothes, and when I asked her why she was crying, she said, “Our President Roosevelt died today”. I was six-years at the time, and Ted, was 20 and still in Germany where the 242nd Infantry Regiment had a solemn commemoration of Roosevelt’s death, while on a battlefield in Germany.
Of course, Ted had always been a hero to me, but in all the years I never knew the stories about his service medals until last year when Helen, Ted’s widow, sent copies of the above citations to their daughter, Roseanne Evans, of Huber Heights, near Dayton. Thankfully Roseanne sent copies to her Uncles and Aunts.
Ted, like so many of that “Greatest Generation”, never talked about his war experiences. Ted died in 1982, at 62. He was retired from the Norfolk & Western Railroad.
I do remember that Ted told me that his outfit had been at the liberation of Dachau concentration camp. I subsequently verified via the internet, that, although “the 45th Thunderbirds Division actually liberated Dachau, the “42nd was right beside them on 29 April, 1945”.
My mother, Mary E. Kegley, had been married to Ted’s father, Theodore Dunham of Wakefield, when he was accidentally killed while working for the power company, and she was pregnant with Ted. She later married my father, Forest, and had nine more children.
Jim Kegley
Scioto Voice
Wheelersburg, Ohio
It was 66-years and 5-weeks ago, on May 8, 1945, that the war in Europe ended and that date is remembered as V-E Day.
My half-brother, Theodore (Ted) Dunham, was a Private First Class member of the U.S. Army Medical Department, “Medic” attached to the 242nd Infantry Regiment serving in Germany when the war ended.
On 15 March, just a few weeks before the war ended, Ted and his Company I, were attacked by the Germans. They were penned down near Melch, France, by “intense artillery, mortar, and machine gun fire”. My brother, Ted, “noticed an infantryman lying wounded in terrain exposed to the deadly barrage. Braving the murderous fire, he advanced to the side of the injured man and succeeded in helping him to a covered position where he promptly administered first aid. By his courageous and unhesitating action, Private Dunham undoubtedly saved his wounded comrade from further injury or possible death.”
This information was contained in an official extract, dated February13, 1946, by Lt. Col., General Staff Corps, Actg, Chief of Staff, by command of Major General Collins. The extract explained that Ted was awarded an Oak Leaf Cluster, to be added to his Bronze Star, which had been authorized by the President in an extract dated, February 1, 1946.
Ted’s Bronze Star was awarded for, “Heroic achievement in action on 11 April 1945, near Schweinfurt, Germany. During an intense artillery concentration near Schweinfurt, Germany, Company I suffered numerous casualties. Private Dunham, medical man with the company, left the safety of his foxhole many times throughout the day to treat the casualties and prepare them for evacuation. Fearlessly braving the murderous enemy fire, he administered first aid to ten of the twenty-one wounded throughout the day. Private Dunham’s courageous action and unselfish determination saved many lives during the day and were an inspiration to his comrades”.
This battle occurred, one day before, President Franklin D. Roosevelt died, April 12, 1945.
I have told the story before about seeing my mother softly weeping as she stood ironing clothes, and when I asked her why she was crying, she said, “Our President Roosevelt died today”. I was six-years at the time, and Ted, was 20 and still in Germany where the 242nd Infantry Regiment had a solemn commemoration of Roosevelt’s death, while on a battlefield in Germany.
Of course, Ted had always been a hero to me, but in all the years I never knew the stories about his service medals until last year when Helen, Ted’s widow, sent copies of the above citations to their daughter, Roseanne Evans, of Huber Heights, near Dayton. Thankfully Roseanne sent copies to her Uncles and Aunts.
Ted, like so many of that “Greatest Generation”, never talked about his war experiences. Ted died in 1982, at 62. He was retired from the Norfolk & Western Railroad.
I do remember that Ted told me that his outfit had been at the liberation of Dachau concentration camp. I subsequently verified via the internet, that, although “the 45th Thunderbirds Division actually liberated Dachau, the “42nd was right beside them on 29 April, 1945”.
My mother, Mary E. Kegley, had been married to Ted’s father, Theodore Dunham of Wakefield, when he was accidentally killed while working for the power company, and she was pregnant with Ted. She later married my father, Forest, and had nine more children.
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