Beck Exposes Bertha Lewis & ACORN When Mainstream Media Won’t
Article audio sponsored by The John Birch Society

Despite President Obama’s various attempts to thwart his critics by adamantly denying that he is a socialist, his connection to Bertha Lewis and ACORN tells another story. In a speech given before the Young Democratic Socialists (yes, you read that correctly), ACORN CEO Bertha Lewis admits, “Any of these groups that say I’m young, I’m Democratic, and I’m a socialist is all right with me.”

You might be wondering how the confession of socialist Lewis denotes Obama’s affiliations with the socialism. In a recently released video clip, Barack Obama admits, “I definitely welcome ACORN’s input. You don’t have to ask me about that, I’m going to call you [ACORN], even if you [ACORN] didn’t ask me.” Flattery gets you everywhere, Mr. President! He continues, “Since I’ve been in the United States Senate, I’ve been always a partner with ACORN as well. I’ve been fighting with ACORN, alongside ACORN, on issues you care about my entire career.” Issues like assisting a group in setting up a prostitution ring involving underage El Salvadorian girls, as ACORN was caught doing in a video sting? Or issues like campaigning for Barack Obama, even though the group was receiving federal funds at the time? Please be clear, Mr. President, as you so often aspire to be.

You see, the President cannot claim to stand with ACORN while simultaneously rejecting the fundamental principles of the organization. The conservatives did not buy it when Obama attempted to detach himself from his racist, anti-American long-time pastor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, though most mainstream media networks successfully quelled this story, and Americans, in general, should be equally incredulous if he attempts the same trickery here.

Expectedly, while the mainstream media is reporting on the so-called dangerous rhetoric of the Right, they have once again ignored inane and instigative language from the Left. In her speech before the Young Democratic Socialists, Lewis accused Tea Partiers of being racist, anti-free speech zealots who want to imprison their opposition: “Right now we are living in a time which is going to dwarf the McCarthy era. It is going to dwarf the internment during World War II. We are currently in a period that is going to dwarf the era of Jim Crow and segregation.”

On yesterday’s Glenn Beck program, he proceeded to rebut these fantastical claims piece by piece, virtually asserting that all the examples Lewis cited were initiated by governments that were entirely too large. It was the Democrats’ beloved Franklin D. Roosevelt that utilized internment camps, and the progressive Woodrow Wilson that elected to segregate the army.

Beck explains: “If you truly understand progressivism, it is exactly what I said you on the Left better be careful of. I am afraid of a swing too far with a progressive Right or a progressive Left. Let’s dismantle progressivism. Let’s dismantle this giant government. Let’s go back to the Constitution because the Constitution would bar people from being rounded up like in the internment camps by the beloved FDR, a Democrat progressive…. Progressivism allows one to build a camp and intern people.”

In other words, only a big government like that which we currently see under the Obama administration is capable of doing the things that Lewis is accusing the Tea Parties of planning. In fact, big government has been the main point of contention for Tea Partiers, who have rallied around the call for “smaller government.” But why trouble Lewis with things like “reality” and “truth”?

Interestingly, Lewis is utilizing “fear-mongering” rhetoric, a brand of propaganda that the media and Left have regularly attributed to the Right and claim will lead to violent acts by listeners. SEIU director of strategic affairs Michelle Ringuette accused Beck of using rhetoric to “instigate unbalanced individuals into committing rash and violent acts.” Where’s Ringuette on this one?

For fun, let’s compare Beck’s message to Lewis’. On his extremely popular daily television program, Glenn Beck utilizes a chalkboard to teach fundamental constitutional values. He has carefully drawn a set of railroad tracks to illustrate where the United States lost track of the values of our forefathers, only to show how Americans can find their way back to their roots. Bertha Lewis tells a group of young Americans that they should fear being rounded up by Tea Partiers in the middle of the night and detained in internment camps. Which image inspires more fear?  That’s a tough one…. Beck does use some sharp chalk!

Fox News, mainly Glenn Beck and Bill O’Reilly, successfully launched a campaign against ACORN, effectively removing that group’s mask and revealing its progressive agenda. In doing so, they managed to help cut off federal funding to the partisan group. On April 21, a federal appeals court in New York confirmed that the group should not be receiving federal funds, on the grounds of embezzlement and coverups.

Over a year ago, ACORN began to reveal that they were having financial problems and on April 1 of this year, made claims that the group would be dissolved. Beck predicted that the group would simply “change their name and go underground.” As he confirmed yesterday, that is just what they did. According to Beck, “California ACORN changed to the Alliance of California for Community Empowerment…. New York ACORN is now New York Communities for Change…. ACORN Arkansas is now Arkansas Community Organizations,” etc.

Now that it’s clear that ACORN is anything but gone, it is the job of the mainstream media to watch them carefully, but media doesn’t watch. If we gave media the benefit of the doubt, we could conclude that, maybe, the media just didn’t want to encourage Lewis in her remarks by giving her the attention she desires and strives for — such as when she kindly and classily referred to the Tea Party movement as a “bowel movement,” accusing the members of violence and racism, totally uncorroborated by any evidence. Honestly, though, the major media doesn’t deserve the benefit of the doubt. After all, they were silent when eyewitnesses caught on tape a brutal beating of a conservative black man named Kenneth Gladney who was protesting against the leftist SEIU Union. Gladney was mercilessly beaten by these SEIU members who yelled, “What’s an [n-word] like you doing here?”

ACORN apparently doesn’t see the Left’s violence either as it asserts that there are plans by the Right to instigate racist violence (ACORN affiliates continue to ally themselves with SEIU.) Why?

The answer is simple. It’s not racism that Lewis fears, perhaps because she is aware that it is not racism that is the driving force behind the Tea Party movement. It is any opposition to Obama’s agenda. ACORN is a dangerous organization and fundamentally opposes America’s traditions and Constitution. Beck sums up the hypocrisy of the media and of ACORN when he says, “The media is trying harder than ever to paint the Tea Parties as rabid, frothing at the mouth, unhinged lunatics ready to start firing at will any moment. Yet we have Bertha Lewis getting millions of dollars of taxpayer money, telling socialists to be proud of that and to look out, because people will put you in an internment camp. And no one says a word.” This is one reporter who refuses to stay silent.