I blogged about this absurd line of reasoning months ago when it first started rearing it's ugly head, but I dismissed it as a temporary, desperate ploy to make the public take its collective eye off of the real subprime crisis culprit, deregulation. The most obvious point to be made is that the majority of institutions that made subprime loans are non-depository institutions that are not even covered by the CRA. And anyone who thinks that anything other than profit margins and the desire to elude risk drove the growth of the mortgage securitization market is smoking some strong stuff.

Usually arguments that have absolutely NO factual underpinnings die, right? Nope. Like a gang of roaches that have developed immunity to conventional repellents, conservatives have been coming out from under the kitchen cabinet over the past week, impervious to the truth and common sense. In what could be only viewed as a coordinated messaging campaign originating from the same cock-eyed memo, conservatives took to the radio, television, newspaper and blogsphere to spread their loopy talking points.

But there also has been a disturbing subtext to the argument, that ACORN and other community reinvestment advocates are also to blame for the crisis. The reasoning is that organizations that have used the CRA to embarrass financial institutions into helping to build low- and moderate-income neighborhoods, and communities of color, are somehow pressing for the lowering of underwriting standards. This of course completely ignores the fact that ACORN as well as the entire community reinvestment organizing and advocacy community, which includes me, have done little else over the last ten years than fight AGAINST subprime mortgages and predatory lending practices, and to RAISE lending standards.

As anyone knows, I have been critical of some of ACORN's tactics in the past. But when it comes to organizing around community reinvestment causes, they have been on the side of righteousness. Few organizations have done more nationwide to advance the cause of economic justice than ACORN.

How do I know? Because I cut my political teeth in the early nineties as a community organizer, pressing banks to invest more in Central Brooklyn. If not for the Community Reinvestment Act and those campaigns, the Credit Union I co-founded would have never have come to be. Our CRA efforts in Central Brooklyn led directly to the Credit Union receiving thousands of dollars in deposits from area banks, acquiring a bank branch building, and its ability to make millions of dollars of loans to people who had been shut out of the mainstream banking system. And we never, ever made a subprime loan.

I just returned from the Kirwan Institute's conference in Columbus, Ohio on Subprime Lending, Foreclosure and Race. Instead of focusing on how to re-invent the CRA to fit the needs of the 21st century we spent valuable time defending its inherent value. In that respect the conservatives have won the battle, but not the war. The only way to counter their attacks is with the truth, which includes the message that only re-regulation and the broadening of the CRA to include non-depository institutions will keep us from falling into this financial crisis again.