On my way back from Richmond last Thursday, I decided to listen to the Sean Hannity radio show, just to check the pulse of the rabid right. I was treated to several eye-opening points of view and detected the beginning of what I perceived to be a coherent idea building amongst the wingnuts out there in Fox News-watching, Hannity-listening, National Review-reading world:
ACORN, the most famous tree nut of this political season, is responsible for both the collapse of the stock market AND will deliver the election to Barack Obama this November.
... uh what? Come again?
Yes, you read correctly: the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now is single-handedly going to turn the country over to Barack Obama come November 4 (through "one of the greatest frauds of voter history in this country" according to Mr. McCain). How could they pull off such a massive campaign to defraud the naation? Well, its easy when you consider that they have already checked "cause the entire sub-prime mortgage crisis" and "plunge the stock market into over 30% loss in a year" off of your to-do list.
My friends (I couldn't help myself), the rabid right is truly reaching into its bag of dastardly tricks here. I mean, when accusations of "pallin' around with terrorists" aren't sticking, and people don't really give a shit if a candidate is Muslim (
muslin?) as long as he has some clue of what is going on with the economy, you really have to dig deep to reverse the slide in the polls that your candidate is facing. And thats what brings us to the latest boogeyman of the radical right. Not your typical poor person or welfare queen or lazy minority, no no, its a group of ALL of them put together fighting for their RIGHTS and SOCIAL-ECONOMIC JUSTICE. God forbid!
ECONOMIC PERIL!
By asking the
Big Bad Federal Government to step in and
force responsible lenders to issue them loans back in 1977, minorities and other poor rabble are responsible for this economic mess we have found ourselves in! Nevermind the mind-bogglingly complex mortgage-backed derivatives and credit-default swaps, ACORN is the modern descendant of this government handout movement that really screwed us!
ELECTION FRAUD!
By mobilizing voter registration drives in record numbers, ACORN has opened the door ballot booth door for Jive Turkeys all around the country. Nevermind that voter registration fraud is not, in fact, voter fraud (there is a step or two in between), these ACORN people are going to deliver the vote to that socialist Obama, and the country will really go down the crapper - presumably farther than it is now.
- end sarcastic rant -
If this formula sounds slightly familiar, you may have been paying attention in history class. Congratulations! If it is less than familiar or you need a refresher after all these years, I'll break it down for you:
The Right is trying to make ACORN and groups like it out to be this nation's very own FIFTH COLUMN. What is a fifth column, you ask? Lets go to the Wiki, which provides a fairly succinct definition:
A fifth column is a group of people who clandestinely undermine a larger group to which it is expected to be loyal, such as a nation.
- and, with my additons -
The term also refers to a subpopulation, such as an ethnic minority (or ACORN and groups like it), which is assumed to have loyalties to countries other than the one in which they reside (they probably live in those anti-America parts of the country), or who support some other nation (anti-America) in war efforts (elections) against the country they live in (the pro-America), the result of dual loyalty (to both pro- and anti-America?).
Here are some historical fifth columns:
Nationalists in Madrid during the Spanish Civil War (original)
Kulaks in Stalinist Russia (purge much?)
Jews in Germany (re:
Stab In the Back)
and soon to be added to the list: the vile COMMUNITY ORGANIZERS OF ACORN!!!111
Just you wait for the scapegoating come November 5... its sure to be rich.
h only the states as of 1864:
