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Wrathful Wade Rathke

By on 7.16.09 @ 6:07AM

The ACORN founder wants to use the Internet to overthrow the capitalist system.

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, 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.

“[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,” he writes.

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.

In the Nation article, Cloward and Piven made it clear that they were irritated that plenty of Americans legally eligible to receive forcibly redistributed wealth hadn’t bothered to ask for handouts. “The discrepancy is not an accident stemming from bureaucratic inefficiency; rather, it is an integral feature of the welfare system which, if challenged, would precipitate a profound financial and political crisis.”

In his book Rathke hails “Cloward and Piven’s exciting call to arms.” He notes that the activist group they created and that he organized for in the late 1960s, the now-defunct National Welfare Rights Organization, caused “a flood tide from its work that allowed many boats to rise, including the level of participation in government assistance programs.”

In a new interview with DailyKos blogger Robert Ellman, Rathke complains bitterly that Americans are not getting all the government benefits to which they are legally entitled. (The podcast is available here.)

With one question, Ellman unwittingly lays bare the anti-social, profoundly un-American entitlement mentality that so many on the far left possess. The blogger asks if the “lack of participation” in food stamps, Medicaid, and the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (S-CHIP), all of which many eligible people are not claiming, is “a failure of government, political will, or a culture that demonizes poor people?”

The unctuous Rathke, whom some have called a cult leader, doesn’t miss an opportunity to compliment his interviewer. “Once again you’ve hit the trifecta,” he says. “It’s really all three of those things.”

Rathke quotes approvingly from a New York Times op-ed by his fellow progressive poverty pimp, Barbara Ehrenreich, in which he says she does

a devastating job of looking at the fact that we’re still criminalizing poor people, requiring fingerprints in states like Florida and Texas and California. For even simple welfare applications and food stamp applications, we are going out of our way, and she quotes chapters and verse from various professors, to make it almost easier to do anything in the world other than get benefits that people are legally entitled to.

Incidentally, ACORN knows all about food stamps. Even though people on welfare shouldn’t be trying to buy homes, ACORN cajoled banks into accepting food stamps as income on mortgage applications and then bragged about it.

Returning to the interview, soon Rathke’s comments bring to mind the Will Rogers quip, “Be thankful we’re not getting all the government we’re paying for.” Laying out a strategy for orchestrated crisis for the Information Age, Rathke says:

Page: 1 2  

topics:
ACORN, Voter Fraud, Welfare

About the Author

Matthew Vadum is an award-winning investigative journalist at a conservative watchdog group in Washington, D.C. Vadum is also author of Subversion Inc: How Obama’s ACORN Red Shirts are Still Terrorizing and Ripping Off American Taxpayers.

Letter to the Editor View all comments (72) |

Big J| 7.16.09 @ 8:02AM

Stay tuned: Rathke is soon to be named welfare czar.

Bud| 7.16.09 @ 8:43AM

I recommend taking a close look at the strategy Rathke and cohorts are employing to overload existing systems. If Obama and the democrat party has its way with us for much longer, we may find it necessary to act accordingly.

owyheewine| 7.16.09 @ 9:52AM

(With tongue in cheek)
Maybe there are some recently displaced CIA undercover operatives that can be called into action.

zopilote| 7.16.09 @ 10:26AM

Rathke wants us to be just like Cuba, where
"equality" means everyone makes 50 bucks
a month and every neighborhood has its
informer.

stephanie | 7.16.09 @ 1:25PM

Hey Bud,
When will you know when we have had enough?
Will it be after this monsterosity entitlement program called "healthcare reform" is enacted? Will it be after we have to "refit" our house before selling to meet the f __king "green standards"? Cap and Trade? When have we had enough?
On another note,
TERM LIMITS!!!! Get these leaches who have been in office for more that 2 terms OUT!
NO more using the system as a career. Go home and get a real job senator/congressman. A prime example:
How long has Ted Kennedy been in office?

sandyinohio| 7.16.09 @ 1:52PM

YAY STEPHANIE! You are right. I've seen a lot of people of both parties saying this is the problem; career politicians. IF we could all vote incumbents out (at once would be nest) what a difference it could make.

Bill| 7.16.09 @ 2:12PM

And We the People pay this socialist shiester $8 billion dollars of stimulus money!
And you notice he does not work for free, in fact was is not him and his brother, whi were indicted for embezzlement of funds?
Now, he is going global.
GREAT!

Marc Jeric| 7.16.09 @ 2:46PM

Abu Hussein's sole "working" experince was as community organizer and their lawyer. The principal inventor of communist revolution was Lenin with his soviets - translated this means community organization. All clear?

Pingback| 7.16.09 @ 3:15PM

Barack’s Power Lunch | Chicago Daily Observer links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:

…represent those of the Chicago Daily Observer.] ACORN founder Wade Rathke has written a book. (Will he use the proceeds to pay back the funds his brother embezzled?) He wants to use the internet to overthrow the capitalist system. We can all be on welfare now. Yes we can. Apparently Wade didn't get the latest memo from our President Barack Obama who has majestically pronounced there's no such thing as a…

Sue| 7.16.09 @ 10:36PM

My sister-in-law teaches in a public school. When trying to teach early teenagers the lesson on personal responsibility and knowledge needed to get a job or career for self-sufficiency, she was told by one 14 year old that all she needed to know was how to sign up for her "rightful" check. She didn't need to learn anything else.

True, sad, and reflective of the "welfare" state. The next generation is on the "dole" already.

I wonder why they bother teaching birth control? One way to get the "rightful" check early is have a baby. Of course, we no longer call them "unwed" mothers, we call them "single" mothers. To me, they are "rightful-check welfare" mooochers.

Tootsie| 7.17.09 @ 1:15AM

What is it with these bone ugly leftists? Rathke is as stupefyingly homely as Henry Waxman! My eyes hurt.

jordan 6 rings | 7.17.09 @ 4:44AM

Maybe there are some recently displaced CIA undercover operatives that can be called into action.

Pingback| 7.17.09 @ 8:04AM

Ms Placed Democrat » Anita MonCrief Is Not A Whistleblower! links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:

…and more inefficient and corrupt government. Removing Hurd who sits on the Board of ACORN International would significantly change ACORN. It would be a very important and necessary start. It would hamper Wade Rathke, who is still influencing the domestic branch of ACORN. Who are the real whistleblowers by definition? The members of the ACORN-8. Remember MonCrief was fired for procuring a credit card in the name of…

Richard Baker| 7.17.09 @ 3:55PM

Rathke and his ilk are going to discover that mobs against Americans will be like bringing a knife to a gunfight. Stay tuned, sportsfans.

Marx| 7.17.09 @ 11:06PM

Haha, Richard Baker!. The only mobs against America will be spoilsports like you. The transition will be bloodless and peaceful. Socialism awaits you, with a kiss.

Tootsie| 7.18.09 @ 2:21AM

Don't bet on it, Marx. But go ahead, bring your butter knife to the fight--we'll be waiting for you, moron.

pjean| 7.18.09 @ 12:28PM

We have to back up our talk with real action. Marching on Washington in September, blocking intersections and entrances into government buildings. Most of us have become too comfortable with simply complaining. We must be about something more. Our detractors count on us being complacent and unlikely to cause a fuss or participate in civil disobedience. Perhaps this is the only way we change up this game.

GENE HAUBER| 7.19.09 @ 6:26PM

SERIOUSLY FOLKS,

CONSIDERING WHERE WE ARE, UNDER ATTACK BY EVERY LEFT-WING, UN-AMERICAN GROUP IN THIS COUNTRY...............WOULD IT BE UNKIND TO THINK OF MR. WADE RATHKE AS THE SUBJECT OF TERMINATION WITH EXTREME PREJUDICE?
only in his small mind does he think of himself as an american........i think most americans that work and pay taxes see him as a menace to their way of life and so do i
GO TO CUBA, RUSSIA, CHINA OR ANY OTHER WELFARE SHITHOLE IN THE WORLD....THEY'LL LOVE YOU THERE

Richard Baker| 7.22.09 @ 4:53PM

Tootsie:
Don't you love it? Americans wanting to be Free are spoilsports. Marx will probably bring his butter knife to the fight. I can hardly wait, how about you? Only in America do free people dream of tyranny and subjugation. Talk about an alternate reality.

Pingback| 7.29.09 @ 7:49PM

Capital Research Center: links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:

…Citizen Wealth: Winning the Campaign to Save Working Families, in which Rathke serves up some community organizing war stories, and offers his thoughts on the future of organizing. As I wrote in the American Spectator , Rathke is a pioneer of the so-called welfare rights movement that aims to get Americans on welfare. He devotes an entire chapter of his book to what he calls “The ‘Maximum Eligible…

Pingback| 7.30.09 @ 8:03AM

FOX: ACORN Founder Wade Rathke Lusts to Overthrow the Capitalist System « NewsReal Bl links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:

…is  Citizen Wealth: Winning the Campaign to Save Working Families, in which Rathke serves up some community-organizing war stories, and offers his thoughts on the future of organizing. As noted in the American Spectator , Rathke is a pioneer of the so-called welfare rights movement that aims to get as many Americans as possible onto the welfare rolls. He devotes an entire chapter of his book to what he calls…

Pingback| 7.30.09 @ 10:30AM

ACORN Founder Wade Rathke Plots Downfall of Capitalism « NObama Blog links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:

…Citizen Wealth: Winning the Campaign to Save Working Families, in which Rathke serves up some community organizing war stories, and offers his thoughts on the future of organizing. As I wrote in the American Spectator ,, Rathke is a pioneer of the so-called welfare rights movement that aims to get Americans on welfare. He devotes an entire chapter of his book to what he calls “The ‘Maximum Eligible Participation’…

Pingback| 7.31.09 @ 2:04AM

Capital Research Center: links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:

…centrally-planned, organized massive mobilization to reorder society and take control of energy and their various other objectives. They admire that and they want it like a moon shot. Beck asked if Wade Rathke, the disgraced founder of ACORN who was expelled by the radical left-wing group last year for covering up his brother’s embezzlement of nearly $1 million in ACORN funds, had been a member of the…

Pingback| 8.27.09 @ 4:14PM

ACORN in Retreat « Right Sided American Kafir links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:

…suggested Inman, a lawyer by training. That’s because Schur has intimate knowledge of how ACORN operates and was one member of a group within ACORN including then-chief organizer and founder Wade Rathke that covered up a nearly $1 million embezzlement by Rathke’s brother, Inman said. Wade Rathke was fired by the board last summer and ordered to sever all ties with ACORN. He has failed to do so. He…

Pingback| 9.14.09 @ 12:06PM

Big Government » Blog Archive » ACORN’s Lawless Ways links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:

…suggested Inman, a lawyer by training. That’s because Schur has intimate knowledge of how ACORN operates and was one member of a group within ACORN including then-chief organizer and founder Wade Rathke that covered up a nearly $1 million embezzlement by Rathke’s brother, Inman said. Wade Rathke was fired by the board last summer and ordered to sever all ties with ACORN. He has failed to do so. He…

Pingback| 9.16.09 @ 3:40AM

Wade Rathke Defends ACORN – Blasts Conservatives And Fox News « A Conservative Wander links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:

…Rathke is in no position to speak of “integrity” and “social justice” [Article - 1. ACORN Founder Wade Rathke Wanted Terrorist Attack on Republican Convention to Succeed | 2. Wrathful Wade Rathke | 3. ACORN's board sues over records in funds theft | 4. Ousted ACORN members seek federal criminal investigation | 5. ACORN dissidents sued for embezzlement documents | 6. The Truth About ACORN ].…

Pingback| 9.17.09 @ 5:42PM

Big Government » Blog Archive » Once Upon an ACORN: Why ACORN’s Internal Audit is a S links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:

…one of the management people who helped out. Others helped their boss too. When Dale’s embezzlement was discovered last year, Wade was forced out of ACORN by ACORN’s national board. It told Wade to stop affiliating himself with ACORN but he didn’t listen. He’s still chief organizer of ACORN affiliate SEIU Local 100 in New Orleans and he’s still trying to bring community organizing to far away places like India…

Pingback| 9.21.09 @ 2:02PM

ACORN’S Useful Idiots | America Watches Obama links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:

…as income on mortgage applications. The Cloward-Piven Strategy remains relevant today especially because — in a move that just about nobody noticed – the spectacularly successful Clinton era welfare reforms were erased in language buried deep within the February stimulus package signed into law by President Obama. As Robert Rector of the Heritage Foundation has documented, federal law has been changed to…

Pingback| 9.29.09 @ 10:46AM

Big Government » Blog Archive » ACORN Saga: Founder Wade Rathke Wants YOU — To Go on links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:

…with ACORN or its affiliated organizations or corporations.” Alinsky, who taught the importance of flexibility, would be proud. (This article is an updated version of an article that ran in the American Spectator in July of this year.) Email this to a friend | Print | Share on Facebook | Tweet this | Tags: ACORN, ACORN International, American Spectator, Barbara Ehrenreich, Citizen Wealth, Cloward-Piven…

Pingback| 9.29.09 @ 10:03PM

Prayer, News and Action » Uncategorized » ACORN Saga: Founder Wade Rathke Wants YOU — links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:

…roles with ACORN or its affiliated organizations or corporations.” Alinsky, who taught the importance of flexibility, would be proud. (This article is an updated version of an article that ran in the American Spectator in July of this year.) View article… Enclosures:   071209_Wade_Rathke_Interview.mp3 (26 MB) http://cdn4.libsyn.com/intrepidliberaljournal/071209_Wade_Rathke_Interview.mp3?nvb=20090714034020&…

Pingback| 10.29.09 @ 1:24AM

Obama’s Orchestrated Crisis « NewsReal Blog links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:

…Wade Rathke, is a big believer in the Cloward-Piven Strategy but he’s given it a new name for a new millenium. He calls it the Maximum Eligible Participation Strategy and has said he wants to use the Internet to swamp America’s social welfare system. Although the Cloward-Piven Strategy pertains specifically to welfare benefits, the basic idea is that any massively unsustainable financial demands on the…

Pingback| 10.29.09 @ 8:14AM

The Greenroom » Forum Archive » Obama’s Orchestrated Crisis links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:

…Wade Rathke, is a big believer in the Cloward-Piven Strategy but he’s given it a new name for a new millenium. He calls it the Maximum Eligible Participation Strategy and has said he wants  to use the Internet to swamp America’s social welfare system. Although the Cloward-Piven Strategy pertains specifically to welfare benefits, the basic idea is that any massively unsustainable financial demands on the…

Pingback| 10.29.09 @ 12:01PM

PoliGazette » Obama’s Orchestrated Crisis links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:

…Wade Rathke, is a big believer in the Cloward-Piven Strategy but he’s given it a new name for a new millenium. He calls it the Maximum Eligible Participation Strategy and has said he wants to use the Internet to swamp America’s social welfare system. Although the Cloward-Piven Strategy pertains specifically to welfare benefits, the basic idea is that any massively unsustainable financial demands on the…

Pingback| 11.2.09 @ 1:47PM

Capital Research Center: links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:

…organization was created to address still remain.” ACORN was created in order to fulfill the Cloward-Piven Strategy of orchestrated crisis. It was not created to help people. It was created to get people on welfare and make people dependent on government. It was created to expand the size and scope of government. It was created to wage war on the capitalist system. If Brackett meant to say Republicans should…

Pingback| 11.3.09 @ 7:21PM

Obama’s Orchestrated Crisis | Hot News Around The World links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:

…Wade Rathke , is a big believer in the Cloward-Piven Strategy but he’s given it a new name for a new millennium. He calls it the Maximum Eligible Participation Strategy and has said he wants to use the Internet to swamp America’s social welfare system. Although the Cloward-Piven Strategy pertains specifically to welfare benefits, the basic idea is that any massively unsustainable financial demands on the…

Pingback| 1.21.10 @ 4:08PM

OBAMA & REID’S ACORN, MILKING MONEY OUT OF CALIFORNIA AS ACCE: ALLIANCE of CALIFORNIA links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:

…ACCE?” she said. Reid, who with other ACORN whistleblowers formed a group called  ACORN 8, was expelled from ACORN in 2008 when she tried to investigate a nearly $1 million embezzlement by founder  Wade Rathke ’s brother. According to the ACORN 8, Schur participated in an eight-year long cover-up of the theft whose exposure in 2008 led to Rathke’s ouster. ACORN insiders say  Schur has intimate…

Pingback| 1.26.10 @ 10:30PM

The American Spectator : ACORN's California Makeover links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:

…formed a group called ACORN 8, was expelled from ACORN in 2008 when she tried to investigate a nearly $1 million embezzlement by founder Wade Rathke ’s brother. According to the ACORN 8, Schur participated in an eight-year long cover-up of the theft whose exposure in 2008 led to…

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