Wade Rathke's Page
Charismatic activist and chief organizer for ACORN (the nation’s largest grassroots community organization, with more tha...
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Wade Rathke posted a blog post
Wisconsin Worker Whistleblowers Expose Vision Rent-to-Own Scams
Pittsburgh Vision Property Management, headquartered in South Carolina, seemed like a bad penny that kept turning up in every neighborhood we door knocked in Pennsylvania and Ohio. The ACORN teams spent a lot of time before and after these visits … Continue reading →
April 19, 2017
Wade Rathke posted a blog post
Cities Trying to Fight Back Against Home Exploitation Scams
New Orleans Perhaps against their will, some Ohio communities have become ground zero in trying to throw roadblocks in the path of companies exploiting the desperate need of lower income and working families for affordable housing and, just maybe, the … Continue reading →
April 19, 2017
Wade Rathke posted a blog post
New Orleans Maybe it’s personal. Several weeks ago, I had a root canal. It’s shocking how much those bad boys cost, and talking to a friend in the northeast, he had to pop for another $500, so I guess it’s … Continue reading →
April 19, 2017
Wade Rathke posted a blog post
All Praise the Field Campaign, Few Practice It!
New Orleans In recent years genuflecting in the direction of the “ground war” in politics has become almost routine. Sadly, much like other religions and church attendance, a whole lot more people praise field operations as critical to winning … Continue reading →
April 19, 2017
Wade Rathke posted a blog post
Breitbart’s Bannon, More Proof that What Goes Around, Comes Around?
Little Rock I don’t want to speak too soon, because I don’t want to put my dirty mouth on it, but as depressing as it has been to read the Stephen Bannon fan mail in the media since the election, … Continue reading →
April 19, 2017
Wade Rathke posted a blog post
Executions, Drug Companies, and High Drama in Arkansas
Little Rock So, if you ask , what’s happening these days in Arkansas, you think you’re being a wit, because what in the world could be happening in Arkansas, now, really? These days though there is high drama in Arkansas, … Continue reading →
April 19, 2017
Wade Rathke posted a blog post
Social Media is Giving Boycotts New Life
New Orleans Frequently, I’ve quibbled about the role of social media tools in building organizations. I’ve argued such tools are powerful communication tools, rather than organizing tools. They can spread the word to people, lots of people, but they are … Continue reading →
April 19, 2017
Wade Rathke posted a blog post
Corporate Takeover of Government Means Trouble for All of Us
New Orleans The one thing that President Trump has proven thus far is that there is nothing about running a family business that qualifies anyone to believe that they have learned how to manage the government. Any thoughtful person would … Continue reading →
April 19, 2017
Wade Rathke posted a blog post
Trump’s Taxes Trip Up His Tax Reform
New Orleans A reported number of 100,000 hit the streets in various cities, not to celebrate Easter, but to continue to demand on the eve of the US tax deadline that President Trump release his tax returns. The President was … Continue reading →
April 19, 2017
Wade Rathke posted a blog post
The Lights Came On in Georgia for Congressional Race
New Orleans Jon Ossoff, a 30-year old documentary filmmaker in Georgia and a former Congressional aide, took a run at winning an election in a suburban Atlanta district so conservative that it had not sent a Democrat to Congress since … Continue reading →
April 19, 2017
Wade Rathke posted a blog post
New Orleans I’ll admit it. No matter what I had thought was possible with Donald Trump, when my companera told me he had been tweeting before dawn about a sex tape of some kind, I was incredulous. I answered her … Continue reading →
October 4, 2016
Wade Rathke posted a blog post
Getting the Lead Out of Schools
New Orleans Increasingly, we are going to ask which school district is going to be the last one to stand up for its children and workers and test for lead. There really is no rational reason in the face of … Continue reading →
October 4, 2016
Wade Rathke posted a blog post
Tax Records Show that Trump is a Promoter, not a Businessman
New Orleans The poor New York Times. They have the scoop of the election campaign when a little birdie drops in the mail a copy of much of Donald Trump’s 1995 tax returns, and because of the speed of the … Continue reading →
October 4, 2016
Wade Rathke posted a blog post
Stadiums are Public Playgrounds, so Protests Should be Common
New Orleans Colin Kaepernick may never start another football came in his career. He pushed out a 49ers quarterback who has gone on to success as a starter in Kansas City, but after getting the 49ers to the Super Bowl … Continue reading →
October 4, 2016
Wade Rathke posted a blog post
Bollore-Socfin Steals Liberian Land with Empty Promises and Government Help
Douala, Cameroon The Organizers’ Forum and ACORN International delegations spent an afternoon meeting in the cabaret of our hotel yesterday. We had finally come to the part of our agenda where we were hearing about the campaigns a number of … Continue reading →
September 30, 2016
Wade Rathke posted a blog post
Visiting the Villages in between the Socfin-Bollore Plantations
Douala Visiting the members of our affiliates in the villages along the plantations where they lived in Koungue and Mbambou was always going to be a highlight of this Organizers’ Forum and ACORN International dialogue in Cameroon, but I had … Continue reading →
September 30, 2016
Wade Rathke posted a blog post
Rough Road for Unions in Cameroon
Douala About 30 years ago in the 1990s there was a “liberalization” in Cameroon. Citizens were given freedom of expression, the total autocracy was diluted, and they gained freedom of association, including the ability to form unions. There is a … Continue reading →
September 30, 2016
Wade Rathke posted a blog post
The Tentacles of Bollore-Socfin Stretch Far and Wide
Douala We listened carefully to two more reports from our delegation at the Organizers’ Forum about the land grabbing of Bollore-Socfin, the Paris and Brussels-based conglomerate. One was from two organizers from the Ivory Coast and the other was from … Continue reading →
September 30, 2016
Wade Rathke posted a blog post
The Election Gauntlet of Cameroon
Douala Make no mistake. Any notion that Cameroon is a democracy is the same as believing that an obstacle course is the same as a straight road. Yes, there are parties. Yes, there are elections. But, there is no even … Continue reading →
September 30, 2016
Wade Rathke posted a blog post
Making Big Plans for Expanding Organizing in Africa
Douala After six straight days of meetings, almost nonstop, for the Organizers’ Forum in Cameroon, we spent the last two days in critically serious conversations with all of the ACORN-allied organizers and organizations in attendance including ACORN Kenya on Skype … Continue reading →
September 30, 2016
Wade Rathke posted a blog post
Out of Cameroon, the Rest of the Story
Washington As one of our veteran participants wrote me when he got home, “I didn’t think any Organizers’ Forum could beat Egypt, but Cameroon did!” In Cairo we could feel a revolution slipping away, less than a year after it … Continue reading →
September 30, 2016
Wade Rathke posted a blog post
Trump May Be Rebuilding the Women’s Movement
New Orleans In spite of himself Donald Trump may launch a sea change in the way that American women are dealt with in both private and public by serving as a poster boy for how much American men say they … Continue reading →
September 30, 2016
Wade Rathke posted a blog post
Is Wells Fargo Forcing Regulators and Politicians to Finally Take on the Banks?
New Orleans Ok, I’ve always been clear that Wells Fargo for more than a decade has led my list as the most evil and customer-exploiting of the nation’s big banks, and I am loving the fact that they have been … Continue reading →
September 30, 2016
Wade Rathke posted a blog post
Foundation Confusion: Is it Charity or Branding?
New Orleans Poor Donald Trump. He just can’t catch a break it seems, and somehow the defense that “that’s business,” doesn’t seem to be working for enough people. One of the latest examples revolves around the Trump family foundation. An … Continue reading →
September 30, 2016
Wade Rathke posted a blog post
Republican Latino Backfire Continues to Reverberate
Amersfoort, Netherlands Donald Trump is quickly proving that he is the best Presidential nominee the Democrats may have ever had. His recent brief visit to Mexico City embarrassed the Mexican government, became a huge public and political relations disaster for … Continue reading →
September 9, 2016
Wade Rathke posted a blog post
Two Campaigns: One Tight Ship and One Full of Leaks
Vlodrop, Netherlands Trump and his family have to be walking around his namesake tower in New York City just hopping mad. Everywhere they turn they have to wonder at sieve of a drowning campaign who is leaking to the press. … Continue reading →
September 9, 2016
Wade Rathke posted a blog post
Fear of Immigrants and Others is a Global Political Monkeywrench
Hamburg Meeting with people in the Netherlands and Germany, conversation quickly comes to the Clinton-Trump race. People want to be reassured that Trump really can’t win. They don’t want to hear that the vote will be close, even though Clinton … Continue reading →
September 9, 2016
Wade Rathke posted a blog post
Activist Cooperatives are Building in Hamburg
Hamburg It had rained all night and most of the morning in this large, northern port city in Germany where I was scheduled to talk to activists and organizers later in the evening. More depressingly, I had spent the morning … Continue reading →
September 9, 2016
Wade Rathke posted a blog post
Is Labor Day for Workers or Politicians?
Berlin Every four years Labor Day marks the official beginning of the “real” campaign for President in the United States. Of course these campaigns are endless and began years and years before for most candidates, like a Hillary Clinton. Even … Continue reading →
September 9, 2016
Wade Rathke posted a blog post
The Interesting Transition from Ideological Argument to Personal Contact
Berlin Visiting with political and labor organizers and activists of all stripes in Germany was fascinating and for me, an education. It was impressive to see the deep, lifelong commitments that so many have made individually to progressive work that … Continue reading →
September 9, 2016
Wade Rathke is now a member of Berrett-Koehler Community