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Alinksy, Campaign for Human Development, Industrial Areas Foundation, United Power for Action and Justice
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"[R]acial bigotry is not merely a product of intentional interactions between individuals but racialized social relationships developed over generations and manifested in all of society's major institutions." [Johnny Eric Williams, "Unveiling Systemic Racism: 'Barack the Magic Negro'" Revisited," Racism Review, 1-13-09] he above statement has been a difficult one for dominant cultures to grasp. Sin, after all, isn't systemic - it's personal, that is, it's the deliberate act of a person. A person lynches another human being; a person withholds an employee's wages; a person throws toxins into drinking water ...these are acts over which a person has personal control and therefore personal responsibility.
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"So long as CCHD sees no problem in pitting the needs of poor people against the needs of in utero people - even if this action is unwitting and unintentional - it cannot claim to be a vehicle for human dignity, for social justice, or for Catholic principles. It is a scandal and an abomination. Please reform the CCHD now."
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Why is it that we see so many problems with CCHD and the organizations that they fund? While they have cleaned up their act considerably from the days that they openly and wantonly funded groups at odds with Church teaching, they still have not been adequately successful in purging themselves of past demons. I propose that the reason for this lies in CCHD's roots. CCHD is essentially formed around the ideology of the architect of community organizing, Saul D. Alinsky. Saul Alinsky is a complex figure who formed his ideology from a variety of sources especially from Marxism. However, one cannot say that he was purely aligned with Marxism, though he did seem to most consistently espouse the gradualism of Antonio Gramsci, an Italian Communist. Gramsci promoted a gradualist sort communist revolution that relied on infiltrating the "oppressing" source of power and using the dialectic process in a transformative approach rather than fomenting bloody revolution.
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Bishop Edward J. Slattery of Tulsa, Oklahoma also chose not to contribute to the national collection for the Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD) LifeSiteNews.com (LSN) has confirmed, making him the sixth bishop confirmed to have done so. In a letter to the pastors of his diocese, read at Masses on the weekend of the November 21-22 collection, Bishop Slattery informed the faithful that the funds contributed to the CCHD collection would be reserved for use within the diocese. Msgr. Patrick Brankin told LSN that Bishop Slattery made his decision in the week before the collection, in light of the evidence released this fall implicating numerous CCHD grantees in activities contrary to Catholic teaching.
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What do Adam Lambert, Cass Sunstein, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and Barack Obama have in common? They share it with countless other political leftists - those who can be described, variously, as "liberals" (a euphemism that belies the word's roots and traditional meanings), as "progressives" (another euphemism that confuses or mislabels as progress what is merely invasive government control), often as "Democrats" and perhaps most accurately as "socialists." They use the technology of popular culture mass-media - television and, increasingly, streaming/real-time or downloaded video and audio available online, which forms an increasing portion of Americans' entertainment and news consumption - to tell us, over and over again, what we should think because they think it. This is a fundamental expression of insecurity. It is the need for validation, and it forms the backbone of all left-wing sociopolitical thought.
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(CCI NOTES: In our files on the CCHD, we came across this article published in Crain's Chicago Business, written in l995 by Joseph A. Morris.) "IAF's strategy, by contrast, is to spawn local organizations that derive their clout from church affiliations and seek to maximize their ability to influence government. They demand subsidies, heightened regulation and direct government intervention in community life. In Chicago, the Catholic Church rightly lobbies for privatization of the Department of Children and Family Services and calls for parental empowerment through education vouchers. Meanwhile, however, church money goes to groups that oppose privatization and school choice and that beat the drum for a radical, big-government agenda. The religious left, pretending to be non-partisan, calls for more expansive and expensive government."
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Every year on the Sunday before Thanksgiving, many Catholic parishes take up a second collection for the Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD). Recognize that organization? If you don't, you should. Here's why: Until 2008, CCHD had been funding ACORN for several years, giving over $7 million to the corrupt organization. The same organization that is being investigated for voter fraud, embezzlement, and other wrongdoing was recently caught in undercover videos in recent months helping a pimp and prostitute set up a business and traffic underage girls for prostitution. It doesn't end there. CCHD has funded groups that openly oppose the Church's teachings. Consistent with the positions CCI adopted last year regarding the CCHD collection, this year CCI has joined with a growing number of Catholics nationwide who are refusing to fund an organization that claims to help the poor, and in reality funds poltiical and even criminal efforts. For the most recent video expose on CCHD, click here...Help the poor, but stop feeding the nuts...
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Bishop Victor Galeone of St. Augustine, Florida also decided to discontinue the CCHD collection, LifeSiteNews.com has confirmed, bringing the list of bishops who decided against holding this year's collection to five. In a November article for his diocesan magazine, Bishop Galeone explains that he had made this decision in May - many months prior to the controversy that erupted this fall over reports that the CCHD is funding groups that support abortion, contraception, and same-sex "marriage." The bishop lists three reasons for his decision. First, he says, "over the years some CCHD funds were disbursed to certain organizations hostile to key Catholic positions." He specifically highlighted the funding of ACORN as an instance of this.
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Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz of Lincoln, Nebraska explained in an interview with LifeSiteNews.com today his reasons for dropping the Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD) collection in his diocese, saying that CCHD head Bishop Roger Morin was "a little bit too dismissive" of concerns brought against the organization. Bishop Bruskewitz is one of four bishops confirmed so far to have chosen not to take up the collection this year for the national CCHD, the USCCB's domestic anti-poverty arm. "We question the ideology of [CCHD]," the bishop explained in the interview, "and ... we are shocked at the scandalous participation with the ACORN organization and also the participation with other organizations of questionable moral values or standards."
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A sign of the growing discontent with CCHD is the furor that arose in response to a letter signed by the group's director in the Archdiocese of Chicago, published on November 13 by Matt Abbott at RenewAmerica.com. The letter, signed Rey Flores, accused "certain groups" of having "motivations and objectives [that] are rooted in partisan politics, rather than faithfulness to Catholic teaching and concern for the poor." The comparison between ACORN's involvement in voter fraud, currently being investigated in 13 states, and the pro-life organizations criticizing CCHD seemed so preposterous, I emailed Flores and asked him: Given that a pro-life, pro-family position taken by Catholic activists appears to conform more to the GOP platform than that of the Democrats, is it fair to assume their motivation is partisan -- that is, to benefit the Republican Party?
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I promised myself that I'd written the last article of the year about the Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD) - the collection won't be tabled, no matter how much scandal swirls around it, and the collection's various supportive bishops and CCHD offices are scrambling to write ameliorating publicity pieces to assure fellow Catholics that despite its problems, CCHD will somehow help people who are struggling to find affordable housing, jobs, or medical care. However, the "For the Record - The Truth about CCHD Funding" document currently on the national CCHD pages at the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops' website is too much. Similar - in fact identical in some sections - to a 1997 CCHD document with the same name, "For the Record..." presents itself as refuting numerous "allegations."
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EWTN's coverage of this controversy has to be extremely worrisome to the Bishops. The host of a national Catholic TV talk show says that Catholic Bishops have to come clean on their funding of groups that undermine traditional values and promote radical social change. Raymond Arroyo, host of Catholic television network EWTN's "The World Over" program, says that the evidence indicates that groups funded by the Bishops through the Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD) are actually "subverting" Catholic teaching on matters such as homosexual rights and abortion. He regrets that money being spent on such causes is coming at the expense of Catholic schools and hospitals facing funding shortfalls and possible closure. Arroyo, whose November 13 show featured two major critics of the CCHD, is a graduate of the National Journalism Center (which also produced ACORN whistleblower Hannah Giles). He is a conservative who has a worldwide Catholic audience and can shake up the Bishops and the Vatican itself.
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While many U.S. bishops have publicly acknowledged problems with the Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD), LifeSiteNews.com (LSN) has confirmed that at least four bishops opted to not take up this year's national collection. A controversy has erupted in the U.S. Church in recent weeks after evidence came to light showing that numerous CCHD grantees have promoted issues and practices in violation of Catholic teaching, including abortion, contraception, and same-sex "marriage." In response to the revelations a coalition of Catholic organizations, the Reform CCHD Now Coalition, formed, calling for a boycott of the November 21-22 national CCHD collection. Shortly thereafter Bishop Roger Morin, chairman of the USCCB's subcommittee on the CCHD, delivered a passionate plea to the bishops' plenary meeting last week, pledging the CCHD's commitment to ensure grantees' respect for Catholic teaching.
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In the wake of criticism that the national Catholic Campaign for Human Development has financed organizations that violate church teachings, leaders of the Chicago campaign have been scouring grantees for such violations and redefining who qualifies for funds. At least three Chicago agencies funded by the national campaign are under investigation on suspicion of defying church guidelines about same-sex marriage, birth control and partisan politics. "Our goal in Chicago is ... to help the poor, but it has to be from a Catholic perspective," said Rey Flores, director of the Chicago Catholic Campaign for Human Development. But the overhaul comes too late for some conservative Catholics urging parishioners at masses this weekend to boycott the campaign's annual collection, of which Chicago is always the nation's largest... "A large portion of the funds go to the national collection, and we don't know what's going to happen there," said Mary Anne Hackett, president of Catholic Citizens of Illinois. "They're still giving to groups that are against teachings of the church."
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"I am aware that some groups have widely advertised such flaws in the CCHD system, hoping to torpedo the whole operation. This, it seems to me, is the classic 'throwing the baby out with the bath water.' There are imperfections, yes, but there is also so much good that is being done through this collection." He pointed to Bishop of Biloxi, Mississippi Roger Morin, who gave public reassurances about the CCHD grant approval process at the U.S. bishops' fall assembly in Baltimore.
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I asked two organizations - American Life League and Human Life International - if they might have a response to the... letter (from the Archdiocese of Chicago Office of Peace and Justice blasting critics of the CCHD.) Michael Hichborn, a researcher and spokesman for American Life League, who said "The charge that criticisms of the CCHD are rooted in partisan politics is patently false." Stephen Phelan, communications director for Human Life International and a spokesman for ReformCCHDNow.com said "It would be more helpful, though, if the Archdiocese of Chicago's CCHD could distinguish between what they call 'hateful' criticism and that which our partners at the Bellarmine Veritas Ministry and certain others have offered: factual reports on organizations that have been - and, in some cases, continue to be - funded by the national CCHD. Publicly acknowledging legitimate criticism is a sign of strength; tarring all critics with unfair charges and name-calling doesn't help anyone and certainly doesn't serve the truth."
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CCHD money was the foundation for President Obama's political career, his role as a "community organizer" in Chicago. That job -- the young Barack Obama's first political job -- was as the lead organizer for the Developing Communities Project in Chicago, a project of the Calumet Community Religious Conference, which had been created by local Catholic churches and funded by CCHD. According to The New Republic magazine, the Calumet project "aimed to convert the black churches of Chicago's South Side into agents of social change." (Obama discussed Catholic Church support for Calumet in his book, Dreams from My Father.)
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As a collection that claims to want to "protect the poor and vulnerable," one would expect the Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD) to be particularly sensitive to Catholic teaching about the sanctity of human life at its most vulnerable stages. Given the sheer volume of surgical abortions - around 50 million since the CCHD began awarding grants in the US - and countless millions of additional abortions from contraceptives - one would expect the CCHD to recognize that our most abused and vulnerable population is the pre-born. No other social evil remotely approaches the magnitude of these numbers, although, in terms of human misery and evil consequence, the breakdown of family life probably runs a close second. Catholics, with an amazing body of social teaching literature at their disposal, know this - or should. Yet, we find many of CCHD's grantees are actually working against protecting these most exceedingly poor and vulnerable people...
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ACORN sued the U.S. government Thursday for stripping the nonprofit of funding after employees were caught giving tax advice to a couple they thought was a pimp and his hooker. The lawsuit, filed in Brooklyn Federal Court, seeks to lift a funding ban put into effect on Oct. 1 in the wake of national outrage over the embarassing scandal. ACORN staffers were captured on hidden cameras at several offices nationwide, including in Brooklyn, advising the couple to hide their income. "The charges leveled against ACORN by members of Congress such as that it is a 'criminal enterprise,' or a 'corrupt and criminal organization,' or a 'crooked bunch' are false," the complaint said. The complaint does not specify how much money the group has lost because of the ban.
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The term "money laundering" can mean several things. One meaning refers to a patently illegal activity in which stolen money is moved through a legitimate financial system in such a way that the casual observer would think everything is on the up-and-up. Another meaning for the term refers to a sprawling network of funds that has been deliberately created - legally - to disguise how money is being used. Why would anyone do this? Well, suppose you wanted to raise a lot of money for a very progressive cause but you knew that your supporters were relatively few in number. Believing that your cause was righteous, and being the sort of person who could rationalize that noble ends justify shady means, you might look for a way to so confuse the casual donor that he doesn't realize to what he is contributing.
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The RC bishops have cut off two more organizations - ACORN being already tossed under the prelatial bus - from Catholic Campaign for Human Development funding. One of them is "the Chinese Progressive Association (CPA), which has been funded for the last four years, and was set to receive $30,000 this year. The CPA's 2008 voters guide (on the BVM website here and here) urged Californians to vote against enshrining the true definition of marriage in the state's constitution (proposition Eight) and requiring parental notification for minors seeking abortions (proposition 4)..."
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Investigators with the Louisiana Attorney General's Office raided the New Orleans ACORN office Friday in connection with embezzlement and tax fraud allegations. Assistant Attorney General David Caldwell said the office got a tip that some employee computers may be missing. Investigators executed a search warrant and hauled off laptops and hard drives to make copies of information stored on the computers. Caldwell said the machines would be returned at a later date. Officials with ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, had no comment Friday afternoon.
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In this second part of our report on CCHD grantees whose actions and associations are deserving of further investigation by the USCCB, we will examine an alliance that has developed between seven CCHD grantees, several Catholic Charities branches and a voter mobilization coalition that has the express goal of indoctrinating immigrants to further a pro-abortion and progressive political agenda. Before detailing the grantees and Catholic groups involved, it is important to first give some background on this voter mobilization organization: Mobilize the Immigrant Vote (MIV) is a coalition of like minded organizations who have developed an immigrant voter mobilization strategy which goes far beyond voter registration. In their own words: "It is important to note that policy change is one of the longest term goals of MIV."The MIV explains its theory of producing social "change" as follows: "Over time, and when conducted at a sufficient scale, MIV's partner organizations' successful movement-building electoral organizing will cause a marked shift in the consciousness of the electorate within a region, the credibility of organizations' message, and the overall political power that these organizations hold with elected officials and policy-makers."
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The Bellarmine Veritas Ministry attracted attention in Catholic circles a few weeks ago for an outstanding report about five recent Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD) grantees about which there was "indisputable and conclusive evidence from multiple sources" showing that they were "acting directly in support of grave evils condemned by the Catholic Church." None of the five, one must point out, are associated with ACORN, which has recently been pulled from the CCHD teat thanks to an embezzlement scandal and numerous incidents of voter fraud. Among the five identified by the Bellarmine Veritas Ministry as supportive of grave evils was the San Francisco based Chinese Progressive Association, which received CCHD funding despite its public support of and legal action on behalf of abortion and same-sex marriage legislation.
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The big problem in reforming the Catholic Campaign for Human Development is that oversight of its grant-giving is only part of the problem. The CCHD has two functions: grant-giving and education. Therefore reform of the CCHD must address problems on both fronts. Now, concerning its grants, the CCHD is funding political groups that organize in churches for progressive political power, which, in the progressive world includes abortion and homosexual "rights" - explaining why a pro-life group such as Human Life International and the American Life League want it reformed. Obviously, therefore, any reform of the CCCHD must be able to identify these progressively networked groups and must absolutely stop funding them.
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While CCHD poses as a mainstream Christian charity trying to help the poor, it uses left-wing euphemisms in its mission statement. It seeks to address "the root causes of poverty in America through promotion and support of community-controlled, self-help organizations and through transformative education." "Root causes of poverty" is Marxist-speak meaning "capitalism is bad." Not surprisingly, rather than helping the poor, CCHD merely channels funds towards Alinsky-inspired poverty groups. Almost all of the grants CCHD has distributed over the years have gone to ACORN-like groups for political activities and community organizing -- and many of those groups have been founded or are run by Catholic priests. Here are some select recipients of CCHD grants: Alinsky's Industrial Areas Foundation, the mother of all community-organizing networks with dozens of affiliates nationwide (and affiliates in Canada, Germany, and the United Kingdom), has received plenty of money over the years from CCHD. Alinsky referred to its training institute as a "school for professional radicals." Ex-seminarian Edward T. Chambers has run it since Alinsky's death in 1972...
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At the annual American Banking Association conference this weekend in Chicago, the SEIU army spearheaded an angry mob protest against major financial institutions who have taken federal bailout funds. It was the usual left-wing Kabuki theater. If the protesters were sincerely mad about the government bailouts, they'd be yelling on Capitol Hill and in front of the White House. SEIU is simply taking over for its disgraced brethren at ACORN - with whom they have long collaborated on corporate shakedowns. Remember: SEIU and ACORN are flip sides of the same corrupted coin. This isn't about demanding an end to corporate welfare. It's about getting a piece of the action through the "persuasion of power."
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The Catholic Media Coalition (CMC) has posted a two-minute video on YouTube warning Catholics about supporting the Catholic Campaign for Human Development. This scandalous collection has poured millions of dollars into liberal groups over the past thirty years while telling people in the pews the money goes to help "the poor." Some of it does. So what? Would you drink a glass of water that was one third sewage? The CCHD collection verges on fraud! To view the video CLICK HERE. For a video on Saul Alinsky's influence on CCHD, and the continued focus on political organizing instead of helping the poor, CLICK HERE
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In violation of the strict rule that any discussion using "Nazi" as a simile for anything is immediately ceded, let me ask what Nazism, American slavery, and abortion have in common. The answer is that they all deny(ied) the personhood of one group of human beings with the consequence that the "right to life" of the depersonalized group lies (or lay) in the power of those with legal status. Which is why I won't be contributing to the Catholic Campaign for Human Development - not this year or any year that one penny goes toward the support of any Alinskyian organizing network, such as the Industrial Areas Foundation, PICO, Gamaliel, DART, and the now disgraced and defunded ACORN... not to mention smaller networks and the hundreds of affiliate groups they spawn.
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How many times can CCHD get away with claiming "a mistake" when it comes to supporting the murder of unborn babies and other moral atrocities. The reality is that the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops is a liberal out-of-control bureaucracy with an agenda to support leftist politics and politicians. When they get caught they beat their breasts and claim (once more ad nauseum) that they just goofed this one time and the collection is oh-so-squeaky-clean if you just trust them. And that's the rub -- trust. The bishops' bureaucracy cannot be trusted!
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Public prayer has its place but one has to be careful not to pollute the act with anything that upstages pious motives. It's all too easy to become proud ("Look at holy me!) or, worse, to use prayer calculatingly, as the moral garment for a political message rather than a sincere conversation with God. Therefore, when Alinskyian organizations put out press releases or chat with reporters about the prayer vigils they're organizing for political ends, one is - excuse me - a tad cynical. There may be sincere worshippers in the crowd but a media event qua "prayer" is just smarmy.
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An internal review by the board of directors of the community organization ACORN determined that the amount allegedly embezzled from the community organization was $5 million, well more than the previously reported amount of nearly $1 million, according to a new subpoena in an investigation by Louisiana Attorney General Buddy Caldwell. The subpoena, released this afternoon, says, "It is still unclear if some of the monies embezzled are from state, federal or private funds." ACORN Chief Executive Officer Bertha Lewis said the new accusation about the embezzlement is "completely false." She said she would comment further after she and ACORN attorneys have a chance to review the subpoena.
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With each passing week, the shadowy radical political network that has made possible the career of President Barack Obama is being dragged into the sunlight. And almost all paths of this network, directly or indirectly, lead to or from the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), a virtual corruption machine of the Democratic Party Left. One of the more disturbing aspects of the White House-ACORN connection is that the White House political affairs director is one Patrick Gaspard. Gaspard doesn't register on the media radar screen in the way that his immediate Bush-era predecessor, Karl Rove, did. But as the New Orleans-based ACORN has been implicated in a host of illegal schemes ranging from voter registration fraud to embezzlement to tax evasion, he may get there. That's because prior to assuming his current job, Gaspard, at least according to ACORN founder Wade Rathke, had been political director for the New York City chapter of ACORN under Bertha Lewis, who last year replaced Rathke as the group's chief organizer and CEO. What's more, he's worked closely with the ACORN-controlled Working Families Party and the largest local within the Service Employees International Union.
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Newly discovered evidence shows the radical advocacy group ACORN has a man in the Obama White House.This power behind the throne is longtime ACORN operative Patrick Gaspard. He holds the title of White House political affairs director, the same title Karl Rove held in President Bush's White House. Evidence shows that years before he joined the Obama administration, Gaspard was ACORN boss Bertha Lewis's political director in New York. Lewis, the current "chief organizer" or CEO of ACORN, was head of New York ACORN from at least 1994 through 2008, when she took over as national leader of ACORN. With Gaspard at work in the White House, Lewis might as well be speaking to President Obama through an earpiece as he goes about his daily business ruining the country.
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Conservative commentator Glenn Beck said Thursday the ethics investigation into the community activist group ACORN will yield no meaningful findings unless it reaches into the top levels of the organization or the White House gets involved. "I think this whole thing is bogus," said Mr. Beck, a Fox News talk-show host. ACORN on Wednesday named former Massachusetts Attorney General Scott Harshbarger, a Democrat, to lead an independent inquiry into the liberal group's social-services program. The inquiry follows the recent release of videotapes showing undercover operatives posing as a prostitute and pimp seeking tax and housing advice at five ACORN offices. "It's a show," Mr. Beck told The Washington Times.
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The Catholic Campaign for Human Development has canceled grants to two organizations after learning about their involvement in activities contrary to church teaching and is studying the actions of two other groups. Ralph McCloud, executive director of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' anti-poverty program, told Catholic News Service Sept. 23 funding was canceled for two San Francisco-based organizations, the Chinese Progressive Association and Young Workers United. The Chinese Progressive Association, which works to improve working conditions and advance social and economic justice for Chinese immigrants, was set to receive $30,000. Young Workers United, a coalition advocating for the rights of low-wage service-sector employees, was awarded a $25,000 grant during the 2009-10 funding cycle, according to CCHD records.
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That trouble with Pitts concluding that these various conservative talk show hosts are liars is that none has actually said (anywhere that I can find) that some "version of healthcare reform being contemplated by Congress mandates death for the old, the disabled or the infirm." What they are saying is that they fear it may lead to that, and then they supply their reasons with which one may agree or disagree. So, who's confounding the truth here? Moral rationalization is indispensible at all times of action....all effective actions require the passport of morality. Saul Alinsky, Rules for Radicals.
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A cry is coming from Catholics across the country to defund the Catholic Campaign for Human Development, the social justice arm for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. The annual campaign for funding by Catholic parishes, held each November, may be in serious jeopardy based on new revelations concerning the group's actions. The outcry is based on a recent report on funding practices by the Bellarmine Veritas Ministry (BVM). BVM, who describe themselves as "a Catholic grass-roots organizing ministry dedicated to truth and action," dove deeper into CCHD practices and launched a national campaign aimed at addressing deeper problems within the organization. They had found that some of the grantees were groups who supported abortion, contraception, same-sex "marriage," and legalized prostitution. The report also revealed that these groups are involved in pushing Obama's health care reform without prejudice to its proposed funding of abortion and contraception. FOR THE FULL STORY CLICK HERE
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New, stunning, evidence has just been reported by LifeSiteNews.com that the Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD) is funding groups that advocate abortion and prostitution. CCHD, the social justice arm of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, which ceased funding ACORN last year, has responded by defunding two of the four organizations, while the fate of the other two remains undecided. The evidence about the CCHD was unearthed by Bellarmine Veritas Ministry after their intensive study of CCHD grants from 2008 to 2010 (LifeSiteNew.com has links to the list of grants). Bellarmine Veritas Ministry began a national campaign in late August to investigate the groups being funded by the CCHD and found: "Unfortunately some of the groups funded openly promote abortion, same-sex marriage, contraception, and other issues not in line with Catholic teaching."
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SEIU and ACORN have done so much more to terrorize Advocate for resisting unionization. They have endangered the health and safety of Advocate patients. Here's just one example, one of the more egregious. The Daily Southtown reported on Dec. 22, 2005: The union denies that ferrying people in groups to emergency rooms is part of the Care For All strategy. But the SEIU-affiliated ACORN has been transporting small groups of people beyond their own communities to Advocate hospitals. In so many words ACORN and SEIU have admitted to what I consider extortion. Wade Rathke, founder of ACORN, wrote this on his blog on Dec. 9, 2005, about a board meeting: Joseph Geevarghese of SEIU's Hospital Accountability Project that has been focusing on the Advocate chain in the city gave a detailed report on the four years of this effort and the results in moving increased accountability, charity care, and other reforms at the hospital. 70,000 hospital workers are in the market and such an effort once again reminds organizers of SEIU's discipline in hunkering down to develop winning programs.
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The ongoing scandals involving ACORN have made national news. Most Catholics know that until recently, the community-organizing group had been receiving annual funding from the Catholic Campaign for Human Development. According to a Catholic News Service article of October 16, 2008, ACORN had received $7.3 million from the Catholic Campaign over the previous ten years, making it one of group's largest supporters. Has ACORN really been cut off, or have their organizations simply changed names and re-applied for the same CCHD grants?
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Just what stellar organization won grants in 2008 from Baltimore's Catholic Campaign for Human Development? Hint - you'll go NUTS over them! Yes. Catholics of Baltimore, watch the following (two parts ) to see your contribution dollars - at work! Now let's take a look at the Baltimore CCHD's 2008 Grants. Some careful examination is in order because this thing might be a bit tricky. For instance, look at the "National Economic Development Grants" section. What's the second item? Why, it shows that $35,000 was granted in 2008 to that same organization that was just busted giving advice to a pimp and a prostitute on how to set up a brothel, on video. (To see the videos at YouTube click VIDEO ONE and VIDEO TWO) Did you note the identical addresses? Just below that you read a disclaimer stating that "no national CCHD funds will go to ACORN.." Well, that's nice! But what about local CCHD funds??
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Ever catch the cartoon strip of Calvin and Hobbs, playing with imaginary transmogrifier guns? Zap! Hobbes, Calvin's stuffed tiger, turns Calvin into a miniature pterodactyl. Zap! Calvin retaliates by turning Hobbs into... something. Zap! Zap! Back and forth until the gun overheats and Calvin is stuck in owl-form and must wait until the transmogrification wear off. Every now and then, I notice that the transmogrifier guns make their way into the public arena - like the time education reformers of the progressive stripe realized parents were becoming increasingly discomforted by "outcome-based education." No problem! Zap! Give it another name. Write it up as a "new" program. Issue resolved. Then there's ACORN, the Alinskyian community organization making the news for all sorts of scandals - embezzlement in high places, voter registration fraud in low places. After years of controversy, the US House has finally voted to cut federal funding to ACORN while California, Georgia, and Minnesota have called for investigations or discontinuation of state funds. Even the US Catholic Church pulled Acorn off the nipple last autumn.
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"Is ACORN Intentionally Structured As a Criminal Enterprise?" is the title of a July 2009 U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform report by Congressman Darrell Issa. The report draws some shocking conclusions: "The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now has repeatedly and deliberately engaged in systemic fraud. Both structurally and operationally, ACORN hides behind a paper wall of nonprofit corporate protections to conceal a criminal conspiracy on the part of its directors..." It is a shocking statement to absorb: "to conceal a criminal conspiracy." Yet you won't see this on your TV unless you happen to be watching Fox News. Others are refusing to report this corruption. America is a country that is dependent on a dynamic, bombastic, independent and informative free press. During every period of great change and trial, we have relied on the honesty and unbridled courage of America's press to help us find solutions to our problems.
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Read Rules for Radicals. If you want to combat Madison Avenue's manipulative advertising tactics, you need to know what they are. If you want to combat the community organizer's plans you need to know when he's trying to "freeze, personalize, and polarize" you. Maybe we need to develop our own book of rules for fighting the radicals. We have a good start already -- The Ten Commandments and the Eight Beatitudes. Our standard bearer is Christ the King. Our boot camp is in Church. As for Jimmy Carter, his statements about racism, whether misguided or deliberately provocative, indicate he is willing to slander good Americans to advance the liberal agenda. It reflects badly on him and puts him squarely in the camp of Saul Alinsky and those willing to use any immoral means to a bad end. Shame on you, Jimmy, you should have stuck with peanut farming.
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A number of left-leaning social justice Catholic groups who favor President Obama's health care overhaul have announced that they plan to protest Cardinal Justin Rigali, the chairman of the U.S. bishops' pro-life office, for opposing the abortion expansion embedded in the bill. The Catholic Peace Fellowship, The House of Grace Catholic Worker, and The Philadelphia Catholic Worker are calling on Rigali explicitly to endorse Obama's legislation, claiming that "abortion funding is not included" in the health care proposal. The groups' "vigil" will gather at 1 p.m. on Saturday, September 19, across from the Philadelphia Free Library for a procession to the Cathedral Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul. "The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has a 30-year history of lobbying for universal health care, which the bishops have called 'a fundamental issue of human dignity and life,'" wrote the groups in a press release Monday.
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"There are more," Mike Flynn, Editor-in-chief of new site BigGovernment.com, told HUMAN EVENTS in an exclusive interview this afternoon regarding the number of undercover films exposing ACORN. Flynn would not reveal the location of the ACORN office where the latest video was filmed, but he said, "It's a slightly different discussion in this one than you've seen so far." The video should break around 9 p.m. EST. Flynn said this is not the last one, either. "There are more after that. It is amazing. Stay tuned."
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I'm confident the ACORN scandal will lead to the White House if investigations aren't squashed. First, this backdrop, from the Union News, October 17, 2008: NPR reports that ACORN's cofounder, Wade Rathke, also founded SEIU... ACORN's biggest union backer, the Service Employees International Union, gave more than $4 million to the community organization and its affiliates from 2006-07, according to Dept. of Labor filings... Living in IL, I've sensed an unholy alliance between the SEIU and Barack Obama for several years. In 2003-4 the SEIU invited me to join forces with it and a Chicago community organizing group to keep Christ Hospital from building another hospital in my suburb. SEIU cared because Christ wasn't unionized. It was during that time I got an idea something odd was up. I just haven't had the wherewithal to find the there there.
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"I'm skeptical that any significant action will be taken against ACORN. A few low-level officials will be sacrificed for PR purposes, but the main leaders and functions of the organization will not be affected. Indeed, I'll be pleasantly surprised if this is still a story being talked about next week. While the he American media-and the the American public in general-loves a good scandal, conspiring to commit crimes against children just isn't sexy enough to be given much attention."
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"I didn't feel at the time Obama cared about the downtrodden and less fortunate and I still don't feel that way. I didn't see any proof of that at all during the 11 months I worked there. I don't have any knowledge of Obama helping in the community in any way. We as legal secretaries weren't paid very much there and he could've started helping with that - speaking up about the low pay we had. I didn't see that he cared about our state in life. I also saw him act in ways that were very self-serving, self-focused and ambitious... If he couldn't care for people in a small office with a small staff, which would have been relatively easy, how can he care what happens to the poor and downtrodden?"
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If you happen to be in a congregation that's part of an Alinskyian community organization - an increasingly common phenomena under the Obama administration (coincidence? I don't think so) - there will be "house meetings." The organizer running the show will attendees what concerns they have for their neighborhood. They're looking for specific answers: unemployment, lack of adequate healthcare insurance, school issues...something like that. Every once and a while, the organizer will get someone in the crowd who wants to do something about abortion. He will be told, "that's too divisive an issue. We only get involved with issues we can all agree on."
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The flyer is simple but informative. "Community Organizing at St. Charles." Sounds innocuous enough. But upon closer inspection, it appears to be further attempts by ACORN-esque organizers to infiltrate well-meaning parishioners in the Catholic Church in the Oklahoma City area, among other places. The flyer reads: "Come to a special training in community organizing for Catholic parishes, presented by Oklahoma Sponsoring Committee and hosted by Our Lady of Perpetual Help parish." Not much could be found about the Oklahoma Sponsoring Committee, other than a Grace Presbyterian Church flyer online that notes that "the OSC is a congregation-based community action group that equips churches to better meet the needs of their communities through training and support."
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In a move to block designation of $8.5 billion in economic stimulus funds, Republicans on a House committee released a report calling for a criminal investigation of ACORN, the community activist group tied to numerous charges of voter fraud nationwide. The 88-page report asks whether ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, is intentionally structured as a criminal enterprise. Commissioned by Rep. Darrell Issa of California, the ranking Republican on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, the report charges ACORN "hides behind a paper wall of nonprofit corporate protections to conceal a criminal conspiracy on the part of its directors, to launder federal money in order to pursue a partisan political agenda and to manipulate the American electorate."
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...the House Judiciary Committee chairman's May 4 statement exonerating ACORN couldn't have come out at a worse time. "Based on my review of the information regarding the complaints against ACORN, I have concluded that a hearing on this matter appears unwarranted at this time," Conyers said in a statement aired that night on CNN's "Lou Dobbs Tonight." Just hours earlier his fellow Democrats in Nevada, Secretary of State Ross Miller and Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto dropped a bombshell. ACORN and two former senior ACORN employees in the state, they announced, had been charged with a total of 39 felony counts related to voter registrations. "By structuring employment and compensation around a quota system, ACORN facilitated voter registration fraud in this state," said Masto. "Nevada will not tolerate violations of the law by individuals nor will it allow corporations to hide behind or place blame on their employees when its training manuals clearly detail, condone and, indeed, require, illegal acts in performing the job for the corporation."
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Immediately after the Democratic National Convention in Colorado, the Boston Globe published a letter from David Alinsky. He boasted about how Barack Obama had made effective use of his training in the methods of David's late father, the famous Chicago radical, Saul Alinsky. David Alinsky gloated: "I am proud to see that my father's model for organizing is being applied successfully beyond local community organizing to affect the Democratic campaign in 2008. It is a fine tribute to Saul Alinsky as we approach his 100th birthday." What was Saul Alinsky's model that Barack Obama used so successfully to defeat the Clinton machine plus the Republican Party in a dramatic one-two punch never before seen in politics?
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Citing a recent scandal involving grants made to a group accused of engaging in partisan political activity and alleged voter registration fraud, as well as what they say is a history of funding organizations unfriendly to the faith, some Catholics are urging the faithful not to give money to the Catholic Campaign for Human Development during a special annual collection planned at parishes across the country this weekend.
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The CCHD was sold to Catholic parishioners with a slogan of "a hand up instead of a hand out," but instead, CCHD has heavily invested in the political organizing techniques of Saul Alinsky, a Marxist organizer from Chicago who founded the nationwide Industrial Areas Foundation, which in the Chicago area is known as United Power. United Power has been financed by various mainline Protestant churches and has made great inroads into the Catholic Church in Chicago, recruiting parish ministers and receiving funding from various parishes through dues and contributions. For all practical purposes, United Power is an extension of the far left wing of the Democrat Party... Catholic Citizens of Illinois calls on all Catholics to boycott the annual collection for the Catholic Campaign for Human Development on the weekend of November 22 and 23.
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This year, we will take up a collection for the Church in Latin America on November 22nd and November 23rd rather than the scheduled collection for the Campaign for Human Development. I am a member on the Bishops' Committee for the Church in Latin America at the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops which seeks ways to build communion and solidarity between the Church in Latin America and the Caribbean and the Church in the United States in accordance with the exhortation of Pope John Paul II, Ecclesia in America. I can attest to the variety of worthwhile pastoral endeavors...
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"On November 5 the American people elected the most liberal candidate in the history of our country who has promised to advance abortion and same-sex "marriage." Sadly, his accomplishment could only be achieved with the active cooperation of millions of Catholic voters. What is particularly appalling, however, is that millions of Catholic dollars were funneled directly into liberal coffers through the Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD). The fraud and financial mismanagement of ACORN was exposed recently and we applaud the CCHD suspension of grants for that organization. However, ACORN's behavior was longstanding and every bishop in the country received detailed information ten years ago about their problematic agenda. Yet the vetting process at CCHD was apparently so lax that this agency received millions of dollars while they were engaging in immoral actions that directly conflict with Catholic teaching."
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Do you wonder why 2008 election data show that the majority of Catholics voted for Barack Obama even though his record as Illinois State Senator proves him the most pro-abortion candidate who ever ran for President? Perhaps one answer is that on the Sunday before Thanksgiving, millions of Catholics will again be putting in their church's collection plate their annual donation to what the pre-printed envelope calls "Campaign for Human Development: The Catholic Church working to end poverty and injustice in America; We'll turn your dollars into hope for the poor of our nation." The generous Catholics who respond to that well-phrased appeal probably think they are making a Good Samaritan gift to provide necessaries to the down-and-out. Most would probably be shocked to learn that the money donated to the Campaign for Human Development (CHD) does not go for charity but for radical Obama-style community organizing.
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The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops yesterday released a report in which Bishop Roger Morin discussed the reasons behind the Catholic Campaign for Human Development's decision to end funding to the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN). Bishop Morin, auxiliary bishop of New Orleans and Chairman of the Subcommittee on Catholic Campaign for Human Development, explained that 'in the past, CCHD has funded proposals from local organizations affiliated with ACORN when those activities conform to the CCHD guidelines and when the local diocesan CCHD director and the local diocesan bishop explicitly approve the proposal. Many of these local ACORN groups have done impressive work preventing home foreclosures, creating jobs opportunities, raising wages, addressing crime and improving education.'
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The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has hired forensic accounting specialists to investigate more than $1 million in church funding to voter-registration group ACORN, fearing the money may have been spent in partisan or fraudulent ways that could jeopardize the church's tax-exempt status. The investigation is "thorough, serious and ongoing," according to a July 11 letter to more than 200 bishops from New Orleans Bishop Robert Morin, chairman of the committee that oversees the Catholic Campaign for Human Development. The CCHD sent $1,037,000 to the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) in 2007, including a $40,000 grant to an ACORN affiliate in Las Vegas that was raided last month by the Nevada attorney general's office in a voter-fraud probe.
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The Catholic Campaign for Human Development [CCHD] uses a diagram with two footprints to explain its work. One footprint says "Direct Services" and lists good works such as feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, and sheltering the homeless. The other footprint is labeled "Social Change" and lists, among other things, legislative networking, advocacy, and community organizing. "You need both to walk," the diagram explains [CCHD, "Poverty and FaithJustice," 1998, p. 20]. The distinction between direct services and "systemic" issues - the changing of problematic social structures - isn't difficult to understand. One can translate through a pro-life illustration: We see a frightened woman about to enter an abortion clinic. She is threatening to "terminate her pregnancy" because she needs many practical things: diapers, rent money, a friend to talk to, and a place to stay. Those are the goods and services the prolife community offers her. They are celled "direct services," that is, they respond directly to the immediate needs of this suffering human being.
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Over at the Catholics for Obama blog, the headline screams, "Palin Continues to Smear Catholic Action." This preposterous thesis has been crafted from her comments about Barack Obama's past as a community organizer. The blog contends, "Catholics across the country continue to be outraged by Republican politician Sarah Palin who repeated her smear against Catholic Action by mocking Barack Obama's service as director of a community group sponsored by the Catholic Campaign for Human Development (an arm of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops) and led by eight Catholic parishes on the South Side of Chicago." Well! That's quite a leap. Ms. Palin said nothing whatsoever about Catholic Action. It was the Catholics for Obama blogger who drew the connection between community organizing, the Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD). There's no secret here. The CCHD gives between a third and a half of its grants to Alinskyian organizing networks. Alinskyian what?
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The Catholic Campaign for Human Development suspended funding a nationwide community organizing group after it was disclosed June 2 that nearly $1 million had been embezzled. Funding was suspended for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, popularly known as ACORN, because of the financial irregularities, said Ralph McCloud, executive director of CCHD, the U.S. bishops' domestic anti-poverty and social justice program. "We're not funding them at any level," McCloud told Catholic News Service Oct. 15.
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Over at the Catholics for Obama blog, the headline screams, "Palin Continues to Smear Catholic Action." This preposterous thesis has been crafted from her comments about Barak Obama's past as a community organizer. The blog contends, "Catholics across the country continue to be outraged by Republican politician Sarah Palin who repeated her smear against Catholic Action by mocking Barack Obama's service as director of a community group sponsored by the Catholic Campaign for Human Development (an arm of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops) and led by eight Catholic parishes on the South Side of Chicago." Well! That's quite a leap. Ms. Palin said nothing whatsoever about Catholic Action. It was the Catholics for Obama blogger who drew the connection between community organizing, the Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD). There's no secret here. The CCHD gives between a third and a half of its grants to Alinskyian organizing etworks. Alinskyian what?
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Whether or not Barak Obama becomes the nest president of the United States, the annual Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD) bears responsibility for raising this community organizer to his current national prominence. Through CCHD funding, he received a Machiavellian practicum. Through CCHD-funded organizations, Catholics sponsored his education - not at Harvard but in the Chicago streets. Thanks to CCHD grants, this convicted pro-abort has been backed by Catholics every step of his short, meteoric rise. They aren't the only ones using the religious institution of their preference for political ends, of course, but the CCHD has been in business since 1970, pouring millions into Alinskyian organizing.
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Barack Obama's supporters insist that an ad from a conservative group attacking his ties to unrepentant 1970s radical William Ayers is irrelevant to the campaign. Cass Sunstein, a University of Chicago law professor and close friend of Mr. Obama, says that while he is "very disturbed by [Mr. Ayers'] past and by his refusal to disavow what the did . . . the implications of this for Obama are zero." You wouldn't know that from the reaction of the Obama campaign. Yesterday, it took the extraordinary step of airing a response to the Ayers ad, which links Mr. Obama to the former Weather Underground organizer who took credit for a series of non-fatal bombings at the U.S. Capitol and Pentagon during the Vietnam War era. "With all our problems, why is John McCain talking about the 60s, trying to link Barack Obama to radical Bill Ayers?" the Obama ad asks. "McCain knows Obama denounced Ayers' crimes, committed when Obama was just 8 years old."
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Most Americans revile socialism, yet Barack Obama's poll numbers remain competitive. One explanation: He's a longtime disciple of a man whose mission was to teach radicals to disguise their ideology. The presumptive Democratic presidential nominee's choice of the word "change" as his campaign's central slogan is not the product of focus-group studies, or the brainstorming sessions of his political consultants. One of Obama's main inspirations was a man dedicated to revolutionary change that he was convinced "must be preceded by a passive, affirmative, nonchallenging attitude toward change among the mass of our people. They must feel so frustrated, so defeated, so lost, so futureless in the prevailing system that they are willing to let go of the past and change the future." ...Barack Obama's "Change We Can Believe In" is simply socialism - imposed by stratagem because Americans have never believed in Marxist economics. Saul Alinsky understood this, and his ghost is alive and well - and threatening to haunt the White House.
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Senator Barack Obama's political ambitions stirred Jackie Kendall, executive director of the Midwest Academy, a Chicago-based training center for community organizers, to crow, "He's given community organizing a good name." This remark was sparked by the fact that Obama entered politics through community organizing. In 1995, one analyst wrote, "He says he is drawn to politics, despite its superficialities, as a means to advance his real passion and calling: community organization....What if a politician were to see his job as that of an organizer, as part teacher and part advocate, one who does not sell voters short but who educates them about the real choices before them? As an elected public official, for instance, I could bring church and community leaders together easier than I could as a community organizer or lawyer."
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By this point, most people are aware that Hillary Clinton, a contender for the Democrat Party's nomination as a candidate in the 2008 presidential elections, wrote an analysis of Saul Alinsky's organizational theories for her college thesis. She met Alinsky through a church group and remained in touch with him until his death in 1972. Alinsky was an interesting acquaintance for an ambitious politician. He founded the Industrial Areas Foundation in 1940 and authored two books on organizing, Reveille for Radicals and Rules for Radicals the latter written as a poor man's Machiavelli. In these works, he observed that the worldly mechanisms for power come from money and large numbers of organized people. Therefore, Alinsky taught his people's organizations, in their quest for power, should seek money and numbers.
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Barack Obama is... an Alinskyite. Trained by Alinsky's Industrial Areas Foundation, Obama spent years teaching workshops on the Alinsky method. In 1985 he began a four-year stint as a community organizer in Chicago, working for an Alinskyite group called the Developing Communities Project. Later, he worked with ACORN and its offshoot Project Vote, both creations of the Alinsky network. Camouflage is key to Alinsky-style organizing. While trying to build coalitions of black churches in Chicago, Obama caught flak for not attending church himself. He became an instant churchgoer. That Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama share an Alinskyite background tells us two things. First, they are leftists, dedicated to overthrowing our Constitutional system. Second, they will go to any length to conceal their radicalism from the public. That is the Alinsky method. And that is today's Democratic Party.
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There is a resurgent movement in religious circles to advance big government programs behind so-called social justice agendas. The religious left has aligned with big labor, pacificst groups and liberal politicians to promote collectivist alternatives to the free market. Can anyone stop them? Rev. Robert Sirico is the President of the Acton Institute (www.acton.org) To reserve a seat contact Kimberly Brink at 616-454-3080 or email to info@acton.org.
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CCI readers have known for years how the so-called Catholic Campaign for Human Development has been manipulating Roman Catholic parishes into supporting the Democratic Party throughout the US. Kevin Killian was on the receiving end of CCHD's ham handed tactics at silencing their critics. Kevin wrote to us recently, "Just thought I'd let you know that I just received a printed, postal-mailed letter from the pastor of Saints Faith, Hope and Charity parish. In a very gentle, polite way, I've been disinvited from asking questions that I had wanted to ask of an upcoming speaker at FHC, George V. Murry, who is chairman of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops' Committee for the CCHD."
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CCI NOTES: United Power for Action and Justice is an organizing branch of the Democratic party designed to exploit Catholic Church donations to advance welfare programs and elect Democrats. In spite of the obvious political focus of this organization, the Catholic Campaign for Human Development continues to endorse and sponsor them nationwide, and they have been allowed to siphon millions of dollars out of Chicago Catholic Church over the past few years. It won't stop until you stop them in your own parishes...
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The Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD) is an annual collection taken up in Catholic parishes around the United States. Over one third of their grants go to Alinsky-styled political organizations. The largest are the Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF), Pacific Institute for Community Organizing (PICO), Direct Action and Research Training Institute (DART), Gamaliel, and ACORN. These so-called community organizations DO NOT provide direct services to relieve the suffering of the poor, nor do they provide economic development grants for the poor. Rather, they organize institutions - particularly in and around churches - to fight for political power. Illinois Catholics are advised that in spite of laudable CHD undertakes, your donations are also being used to sabotage Church teachings. Catholic donors to CHD are paying for organizations who fight for health clinics that dispense contraceptives and make abortion referrals. Catholic donors to CHD pay for political organizing that supports pro-abortion politicians. Catholic donors to CHD pay for organizing that trains Catholics to dissent from Catholic teaching. Until CHD agrees to commit its resources exclusively to non-political charitable relief, and it has NOT done that, Catholics will continue to fund a network of subversive and anti-Catholic political organizations masquerading as not-for-profits.
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Northwest suburban religious leaders and other Democrats Sunday called on legislators and residents to push for broader health care coverage, in-state tuition for immigrant students and affordable housing. About 200 people gathered at Holy Family Roman Catholic Church in Inverness (home base of dissenter group Voice of the Faithful), at a meeting of the Northwest Suburban Assembly of United Power for Action and Justice, a coalition of Christian, Jewish and Muslim leaders.
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