The American Spectator : Wrathful Wade Rathke

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Wrathful Wade Rathke

By Matthew Vadum on 7.16.09 @ 6:07AM

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

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"If we just did the job that we needed to do to make sure everything that's legally entitled to people actually finally gets to people we would make a huge difference in creating citizen wealth and family security. And there's no reason not to do this. This is a highly technical age. Why we're forcing everybody to fill out a million forms, come up with a million different pieces of paper when we could do almost all of it through computers, do it quickly, verify it, keep the records, you know, in PDFs or scanned documents or whatever. There's a lot of people who know how to do this more than you and I, but this could be a huge breakthrough in eligibility."

Rathke asks, "Why not have computers in grocery stores and community centers -- and they are in many libraries now -- and in churches and synagogues so that people in working communities have easy access to the software to apply for these benefits."

What Rathke doesn't explain is that President Obama and the Democratic-controlled Congress made it much easier a few months ago for those like him who want to overload the system in order to bring about its demise.

That's because the spectacularly successful Clinton era welfare reforms that helped millions of Americans break free from crippling dependency on the public fisc were summarily executed in February. Provisions buried deep in the stimulus package signed by President Obama, who used to work for ACORN, offer new financial incentives to states to increase their welfare caseloads.

ACORN, whose national board fired Rathke a year ago for gross misconduct, won't have any difficulty causing the next welfare crisis without him, assuming it isn't shut down by authorities for racketeering or election fraud.

Meanwhile, Rathke isn't content merely to screw up America.

Like a modern-day Karl Marx in exile, he is doing his best to spread the wealth all around the globe, spreading social justice and shakedown techniques.

After the humiliation of being fired for an eight-year cover-up of his brother Dale's nearly $1 million embezzlement of ACORN funds, Rathke remains deeply involved with at least three of ACORN's more than 100 affiliated nonprofits.

He recently changed the name of ACORN's international consultancy, ACORN International, to Community Organizations International. Rathke also remains chief organizer, or CEO, of the New Orleans-based Local 100 of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), another ACORN affiliate he founded. He does not appear to have stepped down as president and director of Affiliated Media Foundation Movement (AM/FM), an ACORN affiliate that produces news segments for eight alternative radio stations.

Although Rathke has long drawn inspiration from Saul Alinsky's legendary political strategy book, Rules for Radicals, he only believes in rules if they benefit him.

To this day he continues to defy the resolution approved on a vote of 29 to 14 by ACORN's national board on June 20, 2008. It declared that Rathke "be terminated from all employment with ACORN and its affiliated organizations or corporations" and that he "be removed from all boards & any leadership roles with ACORN or its affiliated organizations or corporations."

Alinsky, who taught the importance of flexibility, would be proud.

Page: < 12

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 (21) | Leave a comment

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?

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.

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.

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