Frances Fox Piven, honorary chair of the Democratic Socialists of America, can arguably be considered the mother of ACORN. At least, her ideas and theories set ACORN, and its parent, the National Welfare Rights Organization, onto a path of creating and manipulating crisis situations to further their agenda of a more equal “distribution of wealth” in America. In other words, socialism.
It’s a path, I believe, that runs contrary to our country’s original intent. But Piven doesn’t think so. In her book, “Challenging Authority,” she quoted both Thomas Jefferson and John Adams.
What I found most bizarre was the apparent disconnect in Piven’s mind between individual rights and property rights, particularly the idea of acquiring as much wealth as one wishes without fear of government encroachment. It’s impossible to believe that Jefferson, Adams and the other founders – most of them very successful entrepreneurs – could have envisioned or approved of a massive national government that siphons property and economic rights from private citizens.
The American Revolution they led was by no means a social revolution. It was a group of North American economic elites breaking away from an oppressive central authority in London. The leaders of the revolution had no interest in sharing their wealth with the masses. Most of them did not even favor extending the vote to common laborers.
It’s well documented that the founders were suspicious of a powerful central authority. That’s why they fought to rid themselves of King George III. That’s why they experimented for several years with a national confederation that had virtually no central government at all. They would be horrified at today’s progressive agenda, the very agenda Frances Fox Piven has been so successful at articulating and implementing for the last 40 years.