Category: Columns
Amazing Grace for 500,000 Covid dead
by Wade Rathke February 23, 2021 Atlanta I was driving in what I hoped was post-rush hour traffic in Atlanta after 6pm. I had the local public radio station on, which was interrupted by an…
One Hundred Years
by Wade Rathke February 22, 2021 Atlanta In my family we always knew when George Washington’s birthday hit the calendar. It would be February 22nd. Before Abraham Lincoln on February 12th and Washington on the…
Stop Manchin and Sinema from imitating Jim Crow Dixiecrats and letting the filibuster block Civil Rights and Voting Rights
Sinema’s and Manchin’s decisions may well determine whether America remains a democracy or whether it’s indefinitely distorted by minority rule. by Miles Mogulescu Friday, February 20, 2021 “You want to honor John [Lewis]? Let’s honor him…
Father Vincent O’ Connell deserves better than a smear
by Wade Rathke Thursday, February 18, 2021 New Orleans This was random. A friend and comrade got it in her mind to memorialize Father Vinnie O’Connell, one of the rare and now vanished labor priests,…
Reclaiming our common home: expand the commons to include everything we need
Ecological civilization is based on the consciousness that we are part of the Earth, not her masters, conquerors, or owners. by Vandana Shiva Thursday, February 18, 2021 The path to an ecological civilization is paved by…
Climate, obits, and frozen pipes
by Wade Rathke February 17, 2021 New Orleans I called a friend in Houston to see how bad the snow and ice had hit them. He said they were among the lucky ones and didn’t…
Inciting to riot
by Wade Rathke February 15, 2021 Pearl River Predictably, former President Trump was acquitted in his latest impeachment trial. It has always been important to him to set records, and he notched a couple of…
No veritas in O’Keefe’s Project Veritas
New Orleans The scurrilous, criminal provocateur, James O’Keefe, and his have finally been reined in after a dozen years of mayhem and damage. Ironically, they are being hobbled by a new sheriff in the public…
Income Ceiling on Benefits for the Rich
by Wade Rathke February 10, 2021 New Orleans For the record, I’m clear that the government needs to give more lower income families cash, and they need to do it pretty darned quick. At the…
More cash transfers, please and pronto
by Wade Rathke February 9, 2021 New Orleans Way back when the pandemic was over there, and then over here, and the shutdown of peoples’ lives and work began, can you remember in the first…
Anne Fenney
by Wade Rathke February 8, 2021 Pearl River I didn’t know Anne Fenney, but I stayed in her house. I’m not sure how that counts in degrees of separation, but I would mark it as pretty…
Little “d” democracy in action
by Wade Rathke February 7, 2021 Pearl River There’s no question democracy is under attack all around the world, and, sadly, we are all engaged in a battle to protect the semblance of it that’s…
Planet Plastic
The vast tonnage of this trash increases every minute, with an afterlife lasting centuries. by Jim Hightower, Other Words January 27, 2021 What do your toothbrush and your running shoes have in common? Plastic. We now…
Organizing in the Year of the Plague
by Wade Rathke January 28, 2021 New Orleans The Year End / Year Begin meeting is a tradition and vital piece of planning, reflection, and celebration with our ACORN family of organizations. This one was…
Are We Living in a Failed State?
by Wade Rathke January 27, 2021 New Orleans The inauguration was hardly a week ago, and the honeymoon is already over. Ok, you’re right. There was absolutely no honeymoon ever! Who is surprised? Probably no…
Recruiting techniques for extremists and supremacists
by Wade Rathke January 26, 2021 New Orleans In the wake of the January 6th days of rage at the US Capitol there’s a lot of buzz about the rise of rightwing extremists. The head…
The roots of “Stop the Steal” in the attack on ACORN
by Wade Rathke Sunday, January 24, 2021 New Orleans The arc of justice is long, but when people see it coming, they don’t stay silent. First, a text from the most devoted Times’ reader and…
The other Capitol mob
Much to the embarrassment of major corporations, their political donations were traced to the mayhem of January 6. By Jim Hightower January 20, 2021 You can’t poke into any issue in Congress without stumbling over sacks…
Replacing lead service lines – perfect infrastructure project
by Wade Rathke January 22, 2021 New Orleans Recently, Social Policy was lucky enough to have fifty contributors offer ideas suggesting priorities for the new Biden administration. There were some amazing recommendations, and we’ll dig…
Boebert’s Colorado 3rd District isn’t that Safe
by Wade Rathke January 22, 2021 Pearl River ewly-minted Congresswoman Boebert sees herself as the right’s answer to Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez and the so-called Squad of progressive women in Congress. She unseated five-term Republican representative Scott Tipton…
In like a lion, out like a lamb
by Wade Rathke January 21, 2021 New Orleans It’s January, not March, but watching the Trump exit from Washington still summons the old “in like a lion, out like a lamb.” He said he would…
Let’s prepare a Texas welcome for the NRA
by Wade Rathke New Orleans I realize that talking about guns and their giant conservative enabler, the National Rifle Association, will have many of you thinking that we’re talking about the siege at the US Capitol…
Crowd chaos underlines differences in Instigators versus Organizers
by Wade Rathke January 19, 2021 Pearl River The post-mortem on the Capitol mob scene has been bizarrely interesting from an organizing perspective. A lot of it has been more about name-calling than analysis. This…
Mr. Transactional, Mitch McConnell
by Wade Rathke January 15, 2021 Little Rock To follow politics in Washington these days, we don’t need a telescope, we need a Geiger counter. Some of the mischief is crystal clear, but way too…
