Wade Rathke:

New Orleans      Watchwords for all of us in this work have always included “know your enemy” and “keep them close.”  It is impossible to keep up in these days and times with all the right’s rage and social media screed, but some effort has to be made.  I try to at least read some […]

New Orleans       A common occurrence on the road to freedom from the “peculiar institution” of slavery, as some termed it, was yet another promise broken.  General Sherman’s promise of “40 acres and mule” to allow former slaves to gain economic stability rather than starting with nothing once “free,” was revoked by the President Andrew […]

New Orleans     Let me be honest.  We can hardly keep our primary Facebook account and website up to date.  We gave up on Twitter long ago and have sworn it off until Trump is gone.  Because there are multiple organizations in our family of operations from unions to community organizations to radio stations to […]

New Orleans     It’s hard to categorize the experiences of four in a row rat-a-tat Zoom calls commemorating ACORN’s 50th anniversary.  The technology isn’t seamless, at least for me, but even while it is strange and less satisfactory than in person, it is also weirdly intimate, because you are face-to-face with people, some of whom […]

New Orleans       Hey, bosses of healthcare workers, listen up!  Yo, consumers and families of healthcare services, pay attention to this, like your life is at stake, since for more than half of you over 65, it is, because you will end up in long-term care.  Policy peeps and political hacks, heads up:  pay attention […]

Pearl River     A lesson close to the heart for every organizer is the importance of numbers.  An organization can live and die on the numbers.  Rising numbers are a sign of health, falling numbers are a flashing yellow caution light.  Good organizers learn quickly at their peril that if they don’t manage the numbers carefully, […]

Pearl River     The big reveal on protests now is an admission of what many have known or suspected for years:  domestic surveillance is real and it’s all around us. According to press reports, the Department of Homeland Security deployed helicopters, airplanes and drones over 15 cities where demonstrators gathered to protest the death of […]

New Orleans      President Trump in replying to withering criticism of his initial decision to hold a Covid-19 campaign rally in Tulsa on Juneteenth claimed he was doing African-Americans a favor, because “no one has every heard of it.”  Besides showing his general indifference to anything outside of his own self-interest bubble, he also proved […]

New Orleans       Celebrating a 50th anniversary feels strange on a Zoom call, but that doesn’t make it feel any less of an accomplishment.  As the clock passed midnight in India, the farthest extent of ACORN’s membership, almost fifty staff and organizers gathered from Lima, Manchester, Toronto, Kampala, Prague, Bristol, Edinburgh, Vancouver, Ottawa, Little Rock, […]

New Orleans     If I had a thousand dollars for every time someone, well-meaning or evil-intentioned, said to me, that “I could agree with ACORN, but I can’t agree with your tactics,” then we would have enough money in the bank to organize for years.  For all those making such gratuitous and self-serving comments, the […]