The Future of ACORN

If you want to know what will happen to ACORN as a result of all the scandals and controversies, this story from Connecticut is a microcosm.

Its political allies fled. And with its national organization fighting for its life and unable to give any money, ACORN of Bridgeport is doing what other chapters have been doing across the nation, going independent, sort of.

This month, the group began a campaign to raise money and create two local nonprofits, one to concentrate on social issues, the other on political action. To be clear, the plan is to continue to work with other chapters on national issues through a federation, according to Emeline Bravo-Blackwood, a small business owner who is leading the effort to transform the group in Bridgeport.

So, more and more ACORN chapters are moving away from their current structure, which is one organization where all the local chapters answer to a national board, to a federation. Where have I heard that term federation in relation to ACORN? Oh yeah, it was in my interview with Wade Rathke. He explained that ACORN is one organization whereas COI, what Rathke now runs, is a federation. Here’s how Rathke described the difference.

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Tags: ACORN, acorn scandal, Community Organizations International, local ACORN, Wade Rathke
Posted Nov 28th 2009 at 5:27 pm in ACORN, News, Politics | 3810246 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/mvolpe/2009/11/28/the-future-of-acorn/The+Future+of+ACORN2009-11-29+00%3A27%3A06Michael+Volpe

The Future of Wade Rathke and ACORN, Part III: Wade Rathke Wants to Rule the World

Yesterday, I finished the third part of my interview with Wade Rathke. I felt, correctly, or not that after spending several hours with Rathke, that I was starting to understand Rathke, his vision, and his goals. So, I tried to make these questions as pointed and interesting as possible.

1) What can the local, state, and federal government do right now to help the poor and middle class?

The answer that Rathke gave was both surprising and impressive. I expected him to rattle off several laws that could be implemented, maybe a moratorium on foreclosures, and other policy changes that he believed in. Instead, Rathke was practical and pithy.

He said that all government programs: unemployment insurance, welfare, etc. should be streamlined on the internet so that all citizens would be given access to electronic files. By doing this, the government would cut all sorts of red tape and save those in need all sorts of time and energy in receiving these benefits. For the money the government would spend in implementing these systems, the benefit to the people would come back ten fold.

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Tags: ACORN, ACORN 8, ACORN power struggle, acorn scandal, Bertha Lewis. Beth Butler. ACORN International
Posted Nov 16th 2009 at 8:43 am in ACORN, Culture, Politics | 3135860 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/mvolpe/2009/11/16/the-future-of-wade-rathke-and-acorn-part-iii-wade-rathke-wants-to-rule-the-world/The+Future+of+Wade+Rathke+and+ACORN%2C+Part+III%3A+Wade+Rathke+Wants+to+Rule+the+World2009-11-16+15%3A43%3A16Michael+Volpe

The Future of Wade Rathke and ACORN, Part II: Tea Parties and Protests

Last Tuesday, I had round two with former ACORN Chief Organizer and current head of Community Organizations International, Wade Rathke. This interview was a lot more sweeping. It ranged from Rathke’s philosophy, his philosophy on organizing, his views on the tea parties, to all sorts of issues surrounding ACORN.

1)What do you think of the tea parties?

It’s important to note that I wasn’t asking about political philosophy or personal preference, but rather as an organizing philosophy.

Rathke is impressed by their ability to organize. As an organizing phenomenon, the tea parties are effective and, as an organizer, Wade Rathke believes they took advantage of a vacuum, stepped in, and filled a void that the president never saw coming. Rathke once referred to the tea party movement as “tea baggers”. He did this only once. He never really took any pot shots at them besides this and so I don’t know that this was a deliberate dig.

Rathke did, however, also point out that often the tea parties fail basic organizing principles.

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Tags: ACORN, ACORN 8, ACORN embezzlement, acorn scandal, Bertha Lewis
Posted Nov 13th 2009 at 5:01 pm in ACORN, Culture, Politics, Tea Party | 3068261 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/mvolpe/2009/11/13/the-future-of-wade-rathke-and-acorn-part-ii-tea-parties-and-protests/The+Future+of+Wade+Rathke+and+ACORN%2C+Part+II%3A+Tea+Parties+and+Protests2009-11-14+00%3A01%3A36Michael+Volpe

The Future of Wade Rathke and ACORN, Part I

People that know him, and know him well, have described him as an “organic genius” and a “diabolical genius”. He’s become a lightning rod and a polarizing figure, and he’s at the center of a national debate. Wade Rathke is the former long time CEO, or Chief Organizer, of ACORN, the Association for Community Organizations for Reform Now. He’s now running Community Organizations International, the former ACORN International. When I emailed Wade Rathke  Friday October 23rd, I was surprised that he agreed to an interview. I was even more surprised that he was familiar with my work. Yet, he was willing to give me some time on the afternoon of the 26th of October. What follows are some of my thoughts following an interview that lasted about an hour.

The campaign that COI is most involved in, or at least featured on their main page, is the campaign to reform global remittance. Global remittance is the process by which ex patriates send money back to family in their home country. For instance, it’s been well documented that Mexico’s main economic source is actually money sent back home from the USA. According to Rathke, this is an industry that topped $300 billion, and far too many of its players practice predatory lending practices. For instance, Rathke has seen fees up to 20% of the amount to be wired. So, if someone were to send $1000 back home, they would be charged $200 to process this transaction. Rathke stressed that such fees were an “outlier” but fees of 5% are about the norm. In his view, this is far too much, and the poor are being taken advantage of by predatory lending practices in this area. Furthermore, with these rates, it also leads to a black market. That’s what’s happening. Often people send money home with all sorts of strangers because they’re promised that it will get there with no charge.

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Tags: ACORN, ACORN Canada, ACORN Dominican Republic, ACORN India, ACORN International
Posted Nov 12th 2009 at 2:17 pm in ACORN, Culture, News, Politics | 2953832 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/mvolpe/2009/11/12/the-future-of-wade-rathke-and-acorn-part-i/The+Future+of+Wade+Rathke+and+ACORN%2C+Part+I+2009-11-12+21%3A17%3A09Michael+Volpe

Rathke’s Reach: Critical ACORN Doc Found on Asian Website

If one wonders or doubts Wade Rathke’s reach around the world, consider the following document found on a community organizing website in Asia and published on ACORNcracked.com.

It has been well-documented that last year Rathke “left” ACORN U.S. to head over to ACORN International and export ACORN’s brand of organizing and tactics.  He has since changed the group’s name to Community Organizations International.

ACORN Community Organizing Model is not the type of document ACORN would wish to have on the Internet.  For ACORN, is tantamount to Eisenhower’s plan for D-Day being printed on the front page of the Washington Post.  Not a good thing for the ultra-secretive group.

Consider this frank section of “SETTING UP THE ORGANIZING DRIVE:”

2.  Contacts:  The whole process of making contacts is built on a pyramid theory.  Make one that leads to others.  The purpose of contacts is to gather information and resources, and to build power.  There are three types:  hot, warm, cold.  The hot contacts are people we have met before at some point in the organization’s history.  Check the biographical file in the state office.  Warm contacts are those we have not met but know something about in order to build an edge, i.e. we have an opener or a handle for the conversation – something they did, someone they know who we know, some reason to believe we can hit the core.  The cold contacts are those people we must meet for some reason, yet we have no lead to them.  The only edge there is simply an organizer’s skill in prying information and setting up his/her ego in order to loosen her/his tongue in person or on the phone.  It’s a skill to be perfected, if you’re greasy, you are in the hole. 

Groups such as Leaders and Organizers of Community Organizations in Asia clearly didn’t nor don’t understand the pressure and scrutiny ACORN has faced over the last several months.  But their foolishness or naivete is the ACORN’s researcher’s gain.

For whatever reason, the LOCOA site doesn’t create a direct link to the individual page.  If you wish to see it for yourself on the LOCOA site, go here, then click on Program in the menu bar.  Then, go to the second page of documents and click on ACORN Community Organizing Model.  Or, to save yourself time (not to mention if and when the document disappears from the website), you can visit ACORNcracked.com for a PDF.

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Tags: ACORN, ACORN International, ACORNcracked.com, Community Organizations International, community organizing
Posted Oct 9th 2009 at 8:44 am in ACORN, Culture, Politics | 1475816 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/kolson/2009/10/09/rathkes-reach-critical-acorn-doc-found-on-asian-website/Rathke%27s+Reach%3A+Critical+ACORN+Doc+Found+on+Asian+Website2009-10-09+15%3A44%3A17Kyle+Olson

Wade Rathke’s a ‘Dangerous Fellow’

“I’m Recognized to be a Fairly Dangerous Fellow Out There in the Community” – Wade Rathke

Let’s be honest, if Wade Rathke saw me walk into his book signing last Tuesday, he wouldn’t have been at his most candid.  I wanted insight into the man who created this racket that is the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or is it the American Institute for Social Justice, or Citizens Consulting Inc?  I’m still not too sure.  I know it operates under 361 different affiliates in at least 43 states and the District of Columbia.

In his newly released book Citizen Wealth, he paints himself as a modern day Robin Hood, stealing from the evil faceless corporations to give to the poor.  But as he recounts these campaigns it becomes clear the corporations have faces, their CEOs, who he doesn’t hesitate to harass at home to demand financial concessions.  Wade’s stilted story almost makes him sound noble as he provides innocuous reasons why he would like to collect and store copies of people’s personal financial records and birth certificates or as he tries to rationalize why people would be well served by becoming dues paying ACORN members.

These past few months I believed Wade’s the blissfully ignorant captain whose been stripped of his command but still seems intent to go down with the ship.  He hasn’t “run” the organization since the very public revelation that his brother embezzled close to $1 million from ACORN and Wade went about covering it up.  He was negotiated out of the coveted “chief organizer” role that he had held for decades.  The ACORN Board allowed him to retain control of ACORN International, but when public pressure started building, he even went ahead and changed its name to COI – Community Organizations International.

Even in exile he denies that ACORN is a criminal enterprise and claims that allegations that federal and tax-exempt funds have been used for political purposes are a “complete fabrication.”

I had to hear him speak.  I had to see for myself if he really bought what he was selling.  But let’s be real.  I’m a twenty-eight year old Republican lawyer… and I look like one.  I wear Brooks Brothers suits, bold ties, and nine times out of ten there’s a pair of elephant cufflinks on my wrists.  If he saw me coming I doubted he would be as open in his proselytizing for community organizing.

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Tags: ACORN, ACORN International, acorn scandal, ACORN video scandal, American Institute for Social Justice Inc.
Posted Oct 5th 2009 at 2:15 pm in ACORN, Culture | 1224660 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/cberg/2009/10/05/wade-rathkes-a-dangerous-fellow/Wade+Rathke%27s+a+%27Dangerous+Fellow%272009-10-05+21%3A15%3A06Chris+++Berg

ACORN Paycheck Aside, Patrick Gaspard is a Radical

Several days ago, Capital Research Center’s Matthew Vadum published research here indicating an ACORN alumni in the White House (other than the president): Political Director Patrick Gaspard.  As I did three weeks prior at ACORNcracked.com, Matthew used a Wade Rathke blog as the source, which Rathke, the founder of ACORN,  immediately changed after Vadum’s report, citing “memory tricks.”  Politico led the way in poo-pooing the connection once Rathke played cover-up.

Rathke said it not only on his blog, but also at a book signing in New Orleans, which was recently covered in the Fox News Special: The Truth About ACORN.”  While we attended that book signing and were not able to get that portion on tape, the Fox documentary crew did.  Sadly, the remarks apparently ended up on the cutting room floor.

The fact is, Patrick Gaspard, Obama’s “Glue Man,” is more important than Van Jones ever hoped of being.  The fact is, one of the most critical and influential jobs in a White House, the Director of Political Affairs, is occupied by a former SEIU health care lobbyist and ACORN organizer.  To be exact, he was Executive Vice President–the #2–at SEIU 1199 in New York City.

After Gaspard was appointed to the White House, Carribbean Voice quoted him as saying, “I grew up in 1199…and I will always be an 1199er wherever I am.”  SEIU’s luxury is that now taxpayers are paying for it.

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Tags: 527 organization, ACORN, Al Sharpton, America Coming Together, Barack Obama
Posted Oct 5th 2009 at 8:45 am in ACORN, Big Labor, Obama | 1207028 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/kolson/2009/10/05/acorn-paycheck-aside-patrick-gaspard-is-a-radical/ACORN+Paycheck+Aside%2C+Patrick+Gaspard+is+a+Radical2009-10-05+15%3A45%3A36Kyle+Olson

ACORN Saga: Founder Wade Rathke Wants YOU — To Go on Welfare

Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) founder Wade Rathke wants to use the Internet to overthrow the capitalist system.

He said so in his new book, Citizen Wealth: Winning the Campaign to Save Working Families, in which he serves up some community organizing war stories, and offers his thoughts on the future of organizing. Rathke’s currently on a cross-country book tour.

ACORN founder Wade Rathke (to the right of the microphone) at an ACORN-SEIU rally.

Rathke, a pioneer of the so-called welfare rights movement that aims to get Americans on welfare, devotes an entire chapter of his book to what he calls “The ‘Maximum Eligible Participation’ Solution.” It is a strategy for orchestrated crisis that savvy leftist groups across America are likely to embrace. He writes:

“[I]t is hard to believe that we cannot assemble the troops to mount a campaign for maximum eligible participation that harvests the opportunities and dollars already available if we could achieve full utilization of existing programs.”

Rathke acknowledges his support for the Cloward-Piven Strategy, an approach to radical social and political change articulated by Marxist university professors Richard A. Cloward and Frances Fox Piven in a 1966 Nation article, “The Weight of the Poor: A Strategy to End Poverty.” The two academics called for “a massive drive to recruit the poor onto the welfare rolls” in an effort to overwhelm the system. [Italics in original.]

The strategy helped to bankrupt New York City in 1975. Years later, the Big Apple’s mayor, Rudy Giuliani, denounced the academic activists by name. “This wasn’t an accident,” Giuliani argued in a 1997 speech. “It wasn’t an atmospheric thing, it wasn’t supernatural. This is the result of policies and programs designed to have the maximum number of people get on welfare.”

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Tags: ACORN, ACORN International, American Spectator, Barbara Ehrenreich, Citizen Wealth
Posted Sep 29th 2009 at 7:45 am in ACORN | 9958106 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/mvadum/2009/09/29/acorn-saga-founder-wade-rathke-wants-you-to-go-on-welfare/ACORN+Saga%3A+Founder+Wade+Rathke+Wants+YOU+--+To+Go+on+Welfare2009-09-29+14%3A45%3A29Matthew+Vadum

ACORN’S Enron-Style Accounting: Playing Musical Chairs with Big Money

The activities of the radical, corrupt to the core, left-wing Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, which has tangled itself up in an infinitely complex web of deceit, thuggery, and questionable financial dealings, are long overdue for a RICO probe.

Recent well-publicized events that I need not recount here show ACORN’s criminal propensities. In a moment I’ll explain how ACORN’s financial affairs ought to raise a red flag for investigators at the U.S. Department of Justice, but first some background.

The Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act, which was created to prosecute organized crime, allows the federal government to go after individuals who commit any two RICO-related crimes over a decade. The law allows courts to convict persons if it can be shown that they committed those crimes as part of an illegal enterprise and can order disgorgement of their ill-gotten gains from the enterprise.

RICO is the right tool for the job.

Perhaps it’s the only tool for the job because the ACORN network is deliberately structured to deter scrutiny. Its nebulous legal status and opaque corporate structure allow it to keep its activities largely hidden from public view.

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Tags: ACORN, ACORN International Inc., Affiliated Media/Foundation Movement, American Institute for Social Justice Inc., American Spectator
Posted Sep 25th 2009 at 7:10 am in ACORN, Big Labor, Obama | 797431 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/mvadum/2009/09/25/acorns-enron-style-accounting-playing-musical-chairs-with-big-money/ACORN%E2%80%99S+Enron-Style+Accounting%3A+Playing+Musical+Chairs+with+Big+Money2009-09-25+14%3A10%3A22Matthew+Vadum