Bill Berkowitz: Hunting for the Next ACORN

After three decades, it took a pair of right-wing movement activists masquerading as a pimp and prostitute, equipped with a hidden camera and a phony storyline, and access to Andrew Breitbart’s well-traveled websites to finally take down ACORN. With that success under their belts, the right has moved on to other targets: In April, the Examiner, a conservative news operation owned by a Hollywood mogul who also happens to be one of the richest men in America, launched a frontal attack on the Berkeley-based Greenlining Institute.

In partnership with CalWatchDog.com, a news service sponsored by the Pacific Research Institute (PRI), a conservative think tank that claims to be non-partisan, the tabloid newspaper manufactured a “scandal” in a splashy 6-part series. While the attack on Greenlining has the veneer of balanced journalism, it betrays itself through a series of provocative, but unsubstantiated, charges and the use of inflammatory rhetoric. In fact, the Examiner series includes no factual evidence of malfeasance by the Greenlining Institute. The series also pivots around another longtime movement goal -- the repeal of the Carter Administration’s Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) of 1978.

The attack on The Greenlining Institute could result in a conservative version of what United Farm Workers Union president Cesar Chavez used to call the “double whammy” when referring to the powerful combination of the strike and the boycott. In this case, the “double whammy” would be the take down of another progressive organization working for economic justice and the repeal of the CRA.

The Community Reinvestment Act

Passed by Congress in 1978, the Community Reinvestment Act is a federal law aimed at mitigating deteriorating conditions in low- and moderate-income neighborhoods by addressing discriminatory lending and credit practices known as redlining. At its website, the Greenlining Institute points out that the CRA “rates large financial institutions based on three practices: their lending, their investments, and their services. Financial institutions must demonstrate to regulators that its activities in each of these three sectors are adequately serving the communities in which they have market presence.”

Over the years the CRA has been repeatedly revisited; in 1995, for example, it was revised under the Clinton Administration to prevent financial intuitions with poor CRA compliance records from participating in mergers. However, as the Greenlining Institute notes, “the main responsibility for enforcing CRA lies with consumer protection groups,” and the CRA “as it is currently implemented has weak disciplinary powers for non-complying institutions.”

In this post-stimulus, post-bailout period, Greenlining “believes that CRA should be expanded to cover insurance companies, credit unions, investment banks, and other essential parts of an interrelated financial services industry.”

The right’s multi-decade campaign to ‘Defund the Left’

Given its advocacy for the poor and its willingness to step into the arena with and step on high-powered toes, could the Greenlining Institute become yet another victim of the modern conservative movement’s “defund the left” strategy? (For conservatives, the “left” is a loose term used to describe just about any nonprofit public interest group working for economic/social justice –- or as the Fox News Channel’s Glenn Beck would have it, doing the work of communists.)

In 1981, the Heritage Foundation produced a document called “Mandate for Leadership.” This was a blueprint written for the Reagan Administration –- aimed in part at moving conservative ideas into the mainstream. “One challenge, as Heritage saw it,” the Center for Media and Democracy’s SourceWatch points out, “was to counter the rise of its ideological opponents by whittling away their status as 'public interest' organizations and eliminating federal financial support for 'liberal' groups.”

“Mandate for Leadership” stated that "unless conservatives can break the moral monopoly still enjoyed by persons indifferent to the well-being of the American private sector and by proponents of expanded government power, any effort to reform federal domestic policies is likely to be reduced to the level of tinkering."

Other conservative think tanks –- most notably the National Center for Policy Analysis, the Capital Research Center and The New Citizenship Project –- along with a host of conservative political columnists, right-wing radio and television talk show hosts, and activist organizations took up the “defund the left” challenge. SourceWatch notes that not only was the goal “to curtail funding of non-profits,” but also legislation was introduced “aimed at silencing advocacy groups.”

Over the years, targets for “defunding” have included Planned Parenthood for America, the Sierra Club and ACORN (the recently government de-funded and disbanded Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now).

This past September, Michelle Bachman, addressing a conservative conference about Congress’ vote to cut off funding to ACORN, triumphantly stated that “defunding the left is going to be so easy, and it’s going to solve so many of our problems.”

Right focuses on The Greenlining Institute

Coming on the heels of the right’s victory over ACORN, Tori Richards, a “special projects” reporter for an entity calledCalWatchDog.com, a conservative watchdog group associated with the San Francisco-based Pacific Research Institute, a conservative think tank, recently took on Berkeley, California’s Greenlining Institute. In a 6-part Washington/San Francisco Examiner series on the organization, Richards stated that Greenlining has “been called a bunch of shakedown artists, a growing menace, and a cousin” to ACORN.

At its website, Greenlining describes itself as “a national policy, organizing, and leadership institute working for racial and economic justice…. [and] ensur[ing] that grassroots leaders are participating in major policy debates by building diverse coalitions of grassroots leaders that work together to advance solutions to our nation's most pressing problems.” It was co-founded by Robert Gnaizda and John C. Gamboa (both recently retired) and involved members of the African American, Asian American, Latino, and disabled community in 1993 “to fight redlining and institutionalized discrimination.” Its stated mission is to “empower communities of color and other disadvantaged groups through multi-ethnic economic and leadership development, civil rights, and anti-redlining activities.” As opposed to redlining, greenlining “would be the proactive effort of bringing investments to communities.”

Richards reported that Greenlining “has garnered clout with state and congressional lawmakers, federal regulators, and top bank executives across the country, even as a growing host of critics accused Greenlining of helping cause the mortgage industry meltdown.”

One of the lynchpins of the Examiner’s Greenlining series is Richards’ attempt to link the organization to ACORN as yet another corruption-addled group. In an April 12 story headlined “Greenlining & ACORN : Two peas in a pod?” Richards asked: “Are they two sides of the same coin?”

Unlike ACORN, which was in the cross-hairs of the right for more than two decades, Richards pointed out that The Greenlining Institute’s “name isn’t one that most people would likely recognize, even though for 17 years it has been the leading self-appointed national policeman for diversity in bank lending practices, corporate hiring and public utility contracts.”

In a story titled “Radical Greenlining Institute perfected legal bank heists,” Richards wrote: “Most recently, Greenlining officials have begun aiming their proven high-pressure intimidation tactics at the trillions of dollars in assets held by private foundations across America. What started two decades ago as an organization to help minorities and low-income residents obtain bank loans morphed into a political intimidation machine that has infiltrated the sectors of public utilities, insurance, education, health care and charities.”

On its website, Greenlining claims that since 1993, it “has blossomed into a major policy player throughout California and the nation ... garnering over $2.4 trillion dollars in investments into traditionally underserved areas.”

While the Greenlining Institute’s Executive Director Orson Aguilar criticized the series as an example of “pretty weak journalism,” he acknowledged that “the underlying issue is serious,” claiming that the Examiner is “using us to attack the Community Reinvestment Act and [by extension] the whole idea that huge Wall Street financial institutions have some responsibility to the communities they serve. We may be the scapegoat du jour, but the real aim is to blame low-income communities for a financial crisis that was caused by inadequate regulation and greed. We have no intention of backing down."

Through Greenlining’s media relations department, Aguilar told me that "free-market zealots blame CRA and those who support it for the subprime disaster, but 75 percent of subprime loans were issued by institutions not covered by CRA -- independent mortgage brokers and lightly-regulated bank subsidiaries. FDIC chair Sheila Bair has declared CRA 'not guilty.' Anti-regulation zealots hope to avoid further oversight of financial markets –- and loosen what already exists -- by blaming CRA and its supporters for causing the recession, when the real culprits were inadequate regulation and greed."

"If shining a light on greed and irresponsibility, asking banks to behave responsibly, and demanding that government officials protect citizens on Main Street from the predators on Wall Street makes us ‘radicals’ or ‘extortionists,’ the Greenlining Institute pleads guilty."

Richards and her collaborator, Mark Tapscott, have sterling conservative credentials. Richards’ onsite bio says she is CalWatchdog’s “special projects reporter.” CalWatchdog is a Sacramento, California-based project of the Pacific Research Institute (PRI), a conservative San Francisco-based think tank. According to Media Transparency, PRI has consistently challenged environmental regulations, has opposed healthcare reform and “was former Governor Pete Wilson's favored source of information regarding privatization and water rights.” Between 1985 and 2006, PRI, which calls itself a “nonprofit free-market think tank,” received nearly $9 million from long-time conservative foundations, including the Roe Foundation, the Castle Rock Foundation, the Sarah Scaife Foundation, the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation, The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, Inc., and the William E. Simon Foundation.

Tapscott is also a veteran of the conservative movement. His Examiner bio lists him as the newspaper’s “Editorial Page Editor.” It notes that he “was voted Conservative Journalist of the Year for 2008 by the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC),” and that “he was inducted into the Freedom of Information Act Hall of Fame in 2006.” Before working with the Examiner, Tapscott was director of The Heritage Foundation's Center for Media and Public Policy.

In an April 16 entry in his blog, Tapscott focuses on the Greenlining Institute series: “For nearly two decades, radical left-wing activists with the Greenlining Institute have used cries of racism to intimidate banks and other financial institutions [in order] to make billions of dollars of loans and mortgages based on the ethnic characteristics of neighborhoods instead of the credit-worthiness of the borrowers. When mobsters do this kind of thing, prosecutors call it running a ‘protection racket.’ When radical left-wingers like those at the Berkeley based Greenlining Institute do it, they call it ‘fighting for social justice.’"

Philip Anschutz: The man behind The Examiner newspapers

The Examiner newspapers, whose parent company is Clarity Media Group –- which also owns the conservative magazine The Weekly Standard (formerly owned by Rupert Murdoch) -- is owned by Denver businessman Philip Anschutz, one of the world's richest men. One former Examiner employee told Politico.com that Anschutz “wanted nothing but conservative columns and conservative op-ed writers” on its editorial pages.

The billionaire Anschutz, a Kansas native who prefers to remain out of the spotlight, is the co-founder of Quest Communications, is among the largest land-owners in Colorado, owns some of the world's most prominent sports and entertainment venues, and is a major player in the oil, railroad, and media markets.

In addition to the Examiner newspapers and The Weekly Standard, Anschutz is heavily involved in the film industry, owning the Regal Entertainment group, the largest U.S. theater chain, and financing a number of film projects –= through his entity Walden Media. Over the past few years, this has included a partnership with Disney to turn C.S. Lewis' Narnia series into a string of movies.

Anschutz has been a significant donor to Republican candidates and causes, as well as a number of Christian-right organizations. Over the years he helped fund the anti-gay Amendment 2, a ballot initiative designed to overturn a Colorado state law giving equal rights to gays and lesbians, and the Discovery Institute, a Seattle, Washington-based think tank that promotes intelligent design and critiques some theories of evolution.

According to Politico, the Examiner, a daily tabloid founded in early 2005, reaches about 100,000 to 135,000 households in the Washington metro area on Monday to Wednesday, and Friday; “On Thursday and Sunday — the two days the newspaper is delivered to upper-income neighborhoods — the circulation is 300,000 and 250,000 respectively.”

One of the Examiner’s aims (similar to those of the Rev. Sun Myung Moon-owned Washington Times) is to compete for readers with the Washington Post. Thus far, they haven’t come close to achieving that goal, and along the way the paper has lost a fair amount of money. However, Phillip Anschutz has unlimited resources and some larger projects in mind; looking to outstrip the Washington Times and become Washington’s leading advocate for an anti-tax, anti-regulatory conservative agenda.

On April 16, in an editorial titled “Repeal CRA, stop blackmailing banks,” the Examiner noted out that Texas Republican Congressman Jeb Hensarling had introduced legislation to repeal the 1977 Community Reinvestment Act. The Examiner pointed out that “The CRA empowered left-wing activist groups like ACORN and the Greenlining Institute to use claims of racism to force banks and other financial institutions to make loans and mortgages on the basis of the ethnic and demographic makeup of neighborhoods instead of the creditworthiness of borrowers.”

According to the Examiner, “The CRA gave ACORN, Greenlining and legions of similar groups leverage to extort loans and mortgages in return for not conducting devastating PR and political pressure campaigns designed to libel offending banks and bankers as racists.” Ultimately, the Examiner editorial advocates repeal of the CRA “before it causes any more damage to the U.S. economy.”

“They call it ‘extortion,’ but all they document is what pretty much every advocacy group does: Asking for things we think are needed, negotiating, and from time to time taking our grievances to the media or holding protests,” Greenlining’s Executive Director Orson Aguilar told me. “If that's extortion, then everyone from the Heritage Foundation, Pacific Research Institute, AARP to the ACLU is also guilty. The bottom line is this isn't really about us, it's about distracting from the real cause of the economic crisis – greed and fraud. Instead, some want to shamefully blame the crisis on the poor and on laws that have helped the poor such as the Community Reinvestment Act.”

Cross posted from BuzzFlash: http://blog.buzzflash.com/contributors/3200

BUZZFLASH NOTE: Since 2000, BuzzFlash has been warning of the danger from a well-armed seditious right. Yesterday, in the editor's blog, we took note again of the grave threat that those who would commit treason pose to the government of the United States in a commentary, "Sedition is Coming to a Town Near You: The Potential Domestic White 'Christian' Terrorists in Our Midst are Locked and Loaded."

© Scoop Media