Author: Wade Rathke Meteor Columnist
New economics for the people
by Wade Rathke March 2, 2022 Pearl River Traditional economics is under assault from all corners. The pandemic has forced some reevaluations of neoliberal scripture on everything from climate change to just-in-time supply chains to…
Ottawans weren’t passive pushing back on the blockade
by Wade Rathke February 23, 2022 Marble Falls When you read the New York Times about the Ottawa blockade you have to distill quite a lot of high-powered spin to search for the truth….
Apps for the poor
by Wade Rathke February 3, 2022 New Orleans Decades ago, ACORN embarked on a pilot to increase the enrollment for families in San Antonio, New Orleans, and Miami in the Earned Tax Credit and Child…
Lessons in Starbucks rising
by Wade Rathke January 14, 2022 Marble Falls You have to keep these things in perspective of course. Winning union elections in two of Starbucks 9000 stores is not exactly an example of…
Is the military the last stronghold of US institutional values?
by Wade Rathke January 02, 2022 New Orleans We have an extended family WhatsApp group, as many families have. These things are a hodgepodge of advice and, usually, good will, attempts at humor, sports talk,…
Could direct action stop climate change?
by Wade Rathke December 20, 2021 Little Rock Sometimes you stumble over something so obvious, you shake your head wondering why your thinking was so patterned that it was in danger of becoming more habitual…
All-cash companies. Too good to be true?
Even if these companies are not intrinsically predatory, their play for the most part seems to be using their databases to get around the exorbitant real estate agent, appraisal, and closing fees, and I suspect collect…
The pro-choice paths not taken
by Wade Rathke December 6, 2021 New Orleans There was a depressing op-ed in the New York Times entitled “Losing the Fight Over Abortion” by Amy Littlefield, a correspondent for The Nation. Sadly, this may…
All politics are local. All issues are national?
by Wade Rathke December 4, 2021 Little Rock Tip O’Neil, the iconic old Boston pol, and former Speaker of the US House of Representatives, once famously expressed the dicta, “all politics are local.” Even as…
All Americans need to worry about the Roe vs. Wade case
by Wade Rathke December 3, 2021 Little Rock All of the pundits and the smart money are saying that the Supreme Court, in arguments made currently on the Mississippi challenge to the 50-year-old decision, are…
Suspicious of fixes for affordable housing and health care
by Wade Rathke November 19, 2021 New Orleans A headline that promises to offer a “fix” for those of us who want affordable housing and healthcare has to rate as a “must read” in my…
Generation What?
by Wade Rathke October 28, 2021 New Orleans Guilty as charged! I have found myself whining from time to time recently about the circuitous path that young people in the so-called Generation Z were taking…
Emergency broadband now
by Wade Rathke October 23, 2021 New Orleans One of the pandemic programs that may be cruising below the radar, but which could be a critical step on lowering the digital divide, is the FCC’s…
Turnabout and fair play on Project Veritas
by Wade Rathke October 8, 2021 New Orleans, What’s the old saying? An enemy of my enemy is my friend. Something like that, I think. All of which made reading some parts of a…
Progressives made a power play
by Wade Rathke October 5, 2021 New Orleans It may be high-low bargaining, but at least progressives played their hands powerfully in order to get to try to get to the maximum number on Biden’s…
Homeownership gap widens
by Wade Rathke September 28, 2021 New Orleans When I wrote Citizen Wealth, published in 2009, I proudly recorded the role that ACORN played in increasing the homeownership rate of Black and Hispanic Americans…
Environmental money scams
by Wade Rathke September 27, 2021 Pearl River No question. Climate change is a big deal. For every hurricane alert, storm warning, and sudden street flooding, environmental consciousness is rising as quickly as the wind…
The fight for rent control is global
by Wade Rathke September 25, 2021 Pearl River Talking to Sydnee Blum, ACORN’s head organizer in eastern Canada on Wade’s World, she told a shocking story of a member in one of the neighborhoods who…
Talk radio needs you!
by Wade Rathke, August 22, 2021 Pearl River In the coming days I’ll be driving from Louisiana through Mississippi, then Alabama and Georgia before I get to Atlanta. Once there, I’ll do my…
Decolonizing Wealth
by Wade Rathke August 21, 2021 Pearl River When we last spoke to Edgar Villanueva a couple of years ago when the first edition of his book, Decolonizing Wealth: Indigenous Wisdom to Heal Divides and Restore…
MASK REVOLT – really?!?
by Wade Rathke August 18, 2021 New Orleans f all of the revolts we might imagine in the fever dreams of our lives, the anti-mask rebellion has to be one for the comic books. Much of…
Are unemployed workers striking?
by Wade Rathke May 12, 2021 A small group of state governors have announced that their states may abandon the supplemental unemployment program way before its September expiration. The number of Republican governors making the announcement…
Highlander and Horton
by Wade Rathke May 8, 2021 New Orleans It was fun talking to Stephen Preskill about his new book, Education in Black and White: Myles Horton and the Highlander Center’s Vision for Social Justice, on…
Violent overthrow of government – DÉJÀ VU
by Wade Rathke May 11, 2021 New Orleans There are some in America who live in denial about our history, despite the fact it is riddled with violence and contemptuous of democracy. For them the…
