The Distracting Benefits of ACORN Hysteria

by Glenn Greenwald

Earlier this week, I wrote about [1] how the Fox-News/Glenn-Beck/Rush-Limbaugh leadership trains its protesting followers to focus the vast bulk of their resentment and anxieties on largely powerless and downtrodden factions, while ignoring, and even revering, the outright pillaging by virtually omnipotent corporate interests that own and control their Government [2] (and, not coincidentally, Fox News). It's hard to imagine a more perfectly illustrative example of all of that than the hysterical furor over ACORN [3].

ACORN has received a grand total of $53 million [4] in federal funds over the last 15 years -- an average of $3.1 million per year. Meanwhile, not millions, not billions, but trillions of dollars of public funds have been, in the last year alone, transferred to or otherwise used for the benefit of Wall Street. Billions of dollars in American taxpayer money vanished into thin air, eaten by private contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan [5], led by Halliburton subsidiary KBR [6]. All of those corporate interests employ armies of lobbyists and bottomless donor activities that ensure they dominate our legislative and regulatory processes, and to be extra certain, the revolving door between industry and government is more prolific than ever, with key corporate officials constantly ending up occupying the government positions with the most influence over those industries.