After 40 years of working in the trenches to empower low-income people, ACORN – the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now –  is closing its doors.

The organization has declared bankruptcy, staffers across the country have been laid off, offices are shuttered.  Many of its chapters have disbanded and the few remaining will go forward as  independent community groups without a national voice or affiliation.

You would think that the announcement that ACORN was closing its doors would be enough for the right-wing noise machine that has made the organization’s destruction a top priority for years. So far, that’s not been the case.

“ACORN is not dead or even dying – its just transforming itself into something else,” writes right-wing blogger, David Horowitz calling ACORN”s demise, ” a hoax in progress.”

Glenn Beck warned his empty-headed followers not to believe that ACORN is gone. “The press reporting that they are going out of business. They’re bankrupt. Don’t fall for the silly ruse that ACORN is out of business.”

Though ACORN is gone, the fear-mongering goes on.  Louisiana Sen. David Vitter even tried to attach another defund ACORN amendment to the health-care reconciliation bill  the same day the group was  declared bankrupt. The Congress passed a bill last year to defund ACORN, which was later ruled unconstitutional, but the damage had already been done.

Apparently unaware their foe has been vanquished, some tea-partiers at the Capitol carried anti-Obama/ACORN signs while screaming every kind of epithet at congress members during the healthcare reform vote.

Instead of uncorking the champagne bottles, the right-wing appears haunted by the idea that somewhere out there, low-income people may still have the capability to fight disenfranchisement and stand up for their rights as working people.  This victory  over ACORN does not appear to comfort them. In an odd way, the right wing still appears to need ACORN to demonize.

A barn that takes months to build can be kicked down  in minutes by a jackass, the old saying goes.

ACORN’s demise was aided by its own internal problems, such as was a  non-existent communications staff which left them no way to get their side of the story out, and a national staff too busy fighting each other to handle the threat coming.”What took 40 years to build was destroyed by a 20 minute video tape,”  Maud Hurd, ACORN’s president said recently.

The media certainly did its part to  help destroy ACORN. The New York Times belatedly announced last week that it may have gotten the ACORN story wrong, but oh well, maybe next time we’ll get it right.

There are other groups out there that will pick up the tasks of voter registration, organizing against the banks and fighting foreclosure. Only a few can do the shoe-leather work of organizing in America’s poorest neighborhoods that ACORN did.  Perhaps what the right-wing fears most is that poor and working class people simply can’t afford to just give up.

Rep. Bart Stupak emerged from his office bunker Sunday to announce his support for the health-care bill, after weeks of paralyzing the negotiation process with unfounded charges that the bill allowed federal funds to be used for abortion.

Flanked by his wife and several House colleagues, Stupak thanked them for standing by him during the difficult weeks spent obstructing the health-care reform  with a bogus argument in an effort introduce new restrictions on women seeking to use their insurance coverage to pay for abortion services.

For a while, it looked like Stupak might be able to succeed in bringing down healthcare reform where Republicans had failed. No amount of parsing of the bill could persuade the sanctimonious Stupak to give up his give up his crusade, even as his Blue Dog colleague began switching their votes one by one.

When an organization of 59,000 Catholic nuns sent letters to every member of Congress urging the passage of health-care reform legislation, calling it “the real pro-life stance” it was not good enough for St. Bart.

“When I’m drafting pro-life legislation, I don’t call up nuns,” sniffed Stupak, who preferred instead to listen to Catholic  bishops who have a very poor track record when it comes to women’s health issues. The Catholic Health Association, a group of 1.200 Catholic hospitals also called for support of the healthcare reform, but that wasn’t good enough for Stupak either.

Plainly, Stupak had another agenda, and he was betting that Democrats would be so desperate to pass healthcare reform he could use it as an opportunity advance anti-choice legislation beyond the Hyde Amendment, which already prohibits federal funding of abortion.  And he almost got away with it, until House Speaker Nancy Pelosi finally called the game, and refused to accept any changes to the  bill already passed or further amendments.

It’s likely that Stupak was working on behalf of his C Street cabal, a fundamentalist Christian organization for powerful Washington insiders, but we’ll probably never know for sure. Stupak likes to claim he never even heard of “The Family.” even though he has lived in a townhouse owned by them for years.

As the vote came down to the wire, the Democrats were again forced to turn back to Stupak, but this time, with an assurance that he would get a executive order from President Obama that will simply re-state current federal law, Stupak climbed down off the limb.

All that effort has earned him a Democratic primary challenge from Connie Saltonstall a pro-choice candidate who says that Stupak is ,”willing to block important legislation to support his own agenda at the expense of those he was elected to represent.” And finally, after the bill was passed, Stupak got called “a baby-killer,” by a right-wing lawmaker.

What happens if Democrats can’t get together to pass health care reform?

Blue Dog Rep.  Bart Stupak hopes to hijack the health-care bill for a  chance to create more restrictive abortion laws. The House Progressive caucus hates the Senate bill so much they barely have enough votes to pass the ‘Senate’s “individual mandate” bill so that it can be tweaked during reconciliation.

The public option. a favorite of the Democratic base,  still remains in the wilderness without enough House or Senate members to convince the White House its worth fighting for.

And of course, with all those Republican amendments and  new ideas from the healthcare summit cluttering up the legislation, no Republicans are willing to vote for anything that contains their own ideas.

During a meeting with various Democrats, President Obama is said to have told the group that his presidency was on the line with this vote.

It is, and its even more than that.  What happens when Democrats fail to pass this bill with all its flaws is that they give up their right to govern.  They will not be able to move on to a jobs bill or reining in Wall Street or reforming student loans.  Healthcare will remain unchanged, and health insurance companies will have free reign to bankrupt millions more people with huge jumps in insurance rates every year or every six months or whenever.

That’s why Republicans dreamed for a moment that they could convince Obama to scrap the bill and start over.  It would have just been short-cut  - a Democratic loss 9 months early  in March instead of November.

After raising the hopes that the Democrats could tackle one of the most important issues of our time – access  for all to healthcare – Democrats failure to pass healthcare reform will prove they are not able to stand up to the interests that have fought Social Security, Medicare,  and universal healthcare for 70 years.

If the Democrats fail, it will prove that special interests – Big Pharma, health insurance industry and big banks and corporations –  have permanent control of our government, regardless of how many concessions are made to them, and there is no check on their power.  It’s what everyone has suspected  and the Democrats failure will confirm that.

The Republicans, “a wholly owned subsidiary of the insurance companies,” as Congressman Anthony Wiener called them, will initially appear to benefit, as they push their anti-middle class, anti-regulation, corporations-first agenda while telling the rubes they’re being protected against socialism.   The Wall Street banks will know for certain that no one can stop them as they create more worthless derivatives and step up foreclosures on millions more homes.

If healthcare reform, even in its present state, goes down so does rest of it.  Obama’s “Waterloo,” will be ours too.