All I know about Wade Rathke is from reputation and having been in the same meeting once a few years ago. The meeting was called by Bill Fletcher and I can’t remember what it was for. I do remember Rathke saying, “The reality is…” a lot.
I think it’s important Rathke faces what he’s done. The essay below is a paternalistic, white supremacist smear campaign. Ahmad Chalabi is a CIA hack, a tool of fascism. When Rathke compares Curtis Muhammad to Chalabi he’s making the allegation that Muhammad is a tool of fascism. Just because Rathke throw’s in “God love him” a couple of times doesn’t excuse the accusation. Why would Rathke make such a serious allegation? Apparently because people are talking about Communiy Labor United instead of ACORN. Rathke’s attack is disgusting and he must be held accountable for it. If ACORN won’t clearly disassociate itself from such smear campaigns, it should be held accountable too.
Below, in order, is Rathke’s attack, Curtis Muhammad’s response, and an open letter in support of Muhammad.
Chalabi and Katrina
Kuala Lumpur 41 days of exile
Wade Rathke
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld had a candidate to front for the Iraqi people – Dr. Ahmad Chalabi. He had been running the Iraqi National Congress for many years from the United Kingdom. He had a degree from the University of Chicago. He was connected. Former Secretary of State Colin Powell was not as certain and neither was the Army. Each in turn had their own ex-pat Iraqi leaders who they hoped would get traction once repatriated to home soil.
Make no mistake though. When they were not in Iraqi, but working the world promoting schemes for liberation armies or business ventures or this or that, they had friends and sponsors based on the value that these men and their political formations served to their sponsors, not for the Iraqi people. They were tools in the hands of others.
Watching the embarrassment of the Bush Administration when it was trying harder to install provisional and puppet fronts for the invading force, I would have thought we might have all learned lessons about making sure as an a priori in these matters that one should be very, very careful not to anoint someone from afar, who can not operate on the ground. Now in the middle of the post-Katrina shakeout, I can see that this is not the case. Progressives seem not to want to learn what the conservatives have taught us. We want to make sure we learn the lessons the hard way with our own embarrassment.
In the wake of Katrina everyone and their brother seems to suddenly be interested in New Orleans and trying to figure out a way to insert themselves and their issues into the muck that remains of the city. Some of this is a good thing.
Where it gets hairy is when people try to create representatives for the people for the purposes of the sponsors and the donor community, just like we have seen in Iraq.
New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin tried this strategy slightly with his recent appointments of a commission, but was simply the usual home cooking from the Poydras Street business crowd with their favorite front people and the usual gang of suspects, just a few bigger names.
The most bizarre, and in some ways insulting, question I have been asked in the wake of Katrina is to identify groups to act as sponsor go betweens, just as if New Orleans was another foreign country like Iraq. It is insulting because whether we are talking about almost 10000 family members of ACORN in New Orleans or a couple of thousand members of Local 100 from the city – we have a base, it just doesn't happen to be in New Orleans, since it is caught in the diaspora now.
A good example is something called Community Labor United (CLU). This is a little bitty thing of maybe a dozen or two activists that has convened meetings off and on for years mostly on Saturdays for a while at Dillard and last I heard at the Treme Community Center. Mainly it is not labor but it has a couple of well intentioned AFT teachers that are personally involved and Curtis Muhammad, who ran a small local union for UNITE for a couple of years before he retired, was often in attendance. Mostly I didn't recognize the few other folks there, but some may have been students or whatever. Curtis is a good guy, but good love him, he wouldn't be able to really move any thing in New Orleans, because he doesn't have the base, the weight, the contacts, or the history god love him. To the best of my knowledge CLU was semi-defunct in recent years and certainly never had a paid staff or any capacity. Back 5-6 years ago when it was trying to first get started, we used to send folks to some of the Saturday meetings because they wanted to support our work and act as a bridge to other communities, but over the last couple of years that has also petered out. But now a wave of water moves through New Orleans and I actually get inquires about whether or not CLU can help in some way.
Huh? What? They are nice people and we count them as friends and allies, but are we talking about something real there? Of course not! Could they handle money? No reason to believe that. Do they have a base in New Orleans? No not whatsoever. Heck, I don't know if they could organize a two car funeral if they were driving both cars. They have only convened forums in the past to talk about stuff. If that was needed, they could do that I suppose, but there are a lot of folks who can do that.
How do Calabi's happen? Just this way! CLU was somehow mentioned by Naomi Klein in a piece in the Nation. I have no idea what she knows about New Orleans, but I imagine she was grabbing something out of the hat. The article gets reprinted some places, and all of a sudden Chalabi is out and about in New Orleans.
Habitat and Enterprise have had very small, precious operations around housing in New Orleans which are producing very, very few houses annually. Best believe they are everywhere now as if they could really do something in New Orleans. This is a President Bush prop up.
But, a prop up is a prop up, and there will be a day of reckoning. People will move back to New Orleans. There will be a battle for the future of the city and people will not be able to be ignored or merely represented from afar. Their opinions will matter more than the opinion pages.
Hopefully progressives will not be caught with Chalabi on their hands and learn one lesson from Rumsfeld about this phenomena.
October 1, 2005
MY RESPONSE: (already sent to Wade Rathke and Andy Stern):
Curtis Muhammad
I read with great anger, the public statements made by Wade Rathke, a Vice President of SEIU, about me, Curtis Muhammad, and my work. I waited almost a week before sitting down to write this note. I waited to see if the largest labor union in the United States whose membership is more than fifty percent black and other people of color, would chastise this man for publishing statements which have the effect of a bombing of a church or a civil rights meeting, or the shooting of a civil rights worker during the heyday of the civil rights movement of the 1960s. I asked myself would SEIU and ACORN want to align itself with the sentiments and actions of a new Klu Klux Klan.
I waited to see if a progressive organization or labor union or a civil rights organization or individual leaders would demand that this man be fired or held to account for such racist and slanderous statements. Does Wade Rathke believe that he has the right to appoint and anoint the leadership of black led organizations and coalitions the way that ACORN and SEIU choose their own leadership? While noting no response, I wondered what would have happened if he had made such derogatory and inflammatory remarks and comparisons about a Jewish or other white person or labor leader or Black person, who had won favor from the white liberal establishment of America.
The truth is I have organized poor black folk for 45 years and I have always known that it was okay to do to, and say or say anything about poor blacks in the U.S, including murder them, and not expect to be punished or reprimanded especially if you are a white male. In fact, the leaders of this country have just tried to murder 150,000 poor back folk and succeeded with the death of about 2,000. Because Community Labor United was quickly able to bring together a broad coalition of grass roots organizations and get some national recognition and support for our work, Wade Rathke, ACORN, and SEIU attacked our character and belittled our work and compared me personally to Ahmad Chalabi, the Iraqi who provided the lies and misinformation about non-existent weapons of mass destruction that gave Bush the cover to invade Iraq.
When one successfully attacks another’s character, that act is the equivalent to murder. What we have here is an arrogant white racist Vice President of SEIU, founder and leader of ACORN, to slander a Black man for his participation in trying to help organize the same poor black people who Bush, Blanco, Nagin and seemingly the whole leadership of the U.S. government left to die just because they are black and poor. These statements and actions are intended to dismantle the legitimate leadership of this new movement for self determination, but they will do the opposite. They will strengthen CLU and the Peoples Hurricane Relief Fund because the people who've been abandoned, neglected, left to die... way before Katrina... are determined to lead in the struggle for their future and will NEVER again be compromised, stepped on or stepped over. Statements such as Wade Rathke's only diminish him and his organization because they are unprincipled and reflect character decay.
Mind you, this attack comes while SEIU and the other Change To Win unions are deciding whether to donate funds and organizers to support our work. Further, Andy Stern has allocated millions of dollars to fund a campaign to unionize the workers at Wal-Mart stores under the leadership of this very same racist arrogant white boy who spent millions of SEIU members’ dues money trying to organize hotel workers in New Orleans and never organized a single hotel!
I’ll close with a little story: many people think the Klan stopped shooting us, burning our churches, bombing our offices and freedom houses because the government made them stop. The truth is the movement stopped the Klan, led by poor, black communities of people.
Wade, Andy, ACORN and SEIU we invite you to a face to face meeting. We were taught to try and negotiate with the white power structure before we attacked.
Please see chronology of work below.
It ain’t personal; it’s business,
Curtis Muhammad
People’s Hurricane Relief Fund & Oversight Coalition (PHRF)
Timeline: (August 20 ~ October 16, 2005)
-Saturday, August 20, 2005: Community Labor United (CLU) has monthly breakfast forum at the Treme Community Center in New Orleans; ACORN presents current Living Wage Campaign
-Monday, August 29, 2005: Hurricane Katrina occurs
-CLU reaches out via phone calls and email to reach CLU activists
-Conference call of available CLU activists
-Thursday, September 1, 2005: CLU sends out Action Alert widely via email
-Vanguard Public Foundation agrees to host PHRF account
-Tuesday, September 8, 2005: Press Conference held in Houston, TX outside of Astrodome
-Speaking engagements
-Conference call of CLU activists- invitation extended widely
-Website www.communitylaborunited.net established
-Jackson, MS, Communication Center established
-Tour of shelters along I-10 (from Jackson to Houston)
-Saturday, September 10, 2005: Meeting held in Baton Rouge of CLU activists and supporting organizations- decision to become the PHRF and to establish workgroups
-Legal, Education, Finance, Health Care, Media, Internal Organizing workgroups begin to meet via conference call
-September 30 ~ October 2, 2005: PHRF retreat held at Penn Center in South Carolina- Interim Coordinating Committee established, more workgroups formed (Economic Justice, Reconstruction, Safety and Accountability, etc)
-New Orleans, LA, Communication Center established, plans for reconstruction in New Orleans
-Education Work Group Summit to take place
-Begin to canvass major southern cities with large numbers of evacuees
-1-800 number to be established
An Open Letter to the Labor Movement regarding Katrina
Brothers and Sisters,
The crisis for the working class (whether employed or not, waged or not) continues to grow. Even as the nation, and especially the poor and Black working class of the Gulf states and New Orleans in particular, tries to pick up the pieces after Katrina's (and Rita's) devastation, the assault by capital and their partners in the government grows more intense -- the suspension of Davis Bacon and OHSA safeguards, plans to defund the safety net to finance business interests in the reconstruction of the region, little thought to how those left behind will find a home in the reconstruction process and its outcome. The Democrats have failed to articulate a credible alternative to this plan or address this crisis in any significant way.
It is also true that the flip side of disaster is opportunity. For the trade unions the moment presents a unique opportunity, not open since the sit-downs of the 1930s, to bring dignity, voice, a living wage and benefits in the form of unions to the masses left behind in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast, particularly the poor and African Americans. It is a well-established fact That Blacks are the most pro-union force in the U.S. They have proven time and time again to be this country's most dedicated fighters of oppression. But the trade union movement may not be able to take advantage of this opportunity unless it addresses issues not yet confronted in any meaningful way by the debate and programs of the two new federations.
Now these issues have surfaced in the wake of Katrina, specifically in a piece by ACORN and SEIU leader Wade Rathke entitled "Chalabi and Katrina" (www.ChiefOrganizer.org, 3 October 2005) that disparages an organization, Community Labor United, and one of its principal organizers, Curtis Muhammad, with deep roots in the voter registration drives in Mississippi, the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, and for the last 20 years a part of the New Orleans community.
Days after the hurricane and while struggling with their own displacement, CLU folks began to pull together what has become the People's Hurricane and Relief Fund. Since then they have held two national meetings, the first on September 10th with participation from 49 different organizations, and the second, September 30th-October 1st, with more than 100 participants from prisoners' and women's rights groups, predominantly black cultural, faith-based, and educational groups, non-union worker organizations, community groups, legal scholars, and the ACLU. A Coordinating Committee, representing the breadth and community organizations throughout the Gulf Region as well as CLU's own base, was chosen by the survivors, and working subcommittees and 6 regional communications centers (organizing offices) have been established. There has been widespread support for the PHRF both nationally and internationally. (For more, see the PHRF website: www.communitylaborunited.net.)
With this background we want to examine the issues raised by "Chalabi and Katrina":
Confront racism within our movement. White leaders, even those whose membership base is predominantly Black and Latino, should be careful about making pronouncements about who is genuine and who has the requisite skills. Confronting racism means understanding that our culture and economic and political system is build on racialized capital and we operate within that context. Diversity should not be confused with power. If we are serious about bringing unions to the south (all those red states and their right-to-work laws), then we need to cede power to those very folks we seek to organize. The job of unions is to help give these forces additional information and resources they might not currently have so that they can chart their own future.
This movement must be built democratically from the bottom up, engaging the base to develop tactics and strategies that speak to their constituencies' own needs, culture, and history. The grassroots must control their own organization and movement. Remarks that belittle the work of grassroots activists of many years standing, organizing on a model based on experience among working-class and poor Blacks of the south that does not fit the union template, have no place in the labor movement. We have too much to learn from each other.
Fund and collaborate, and be prepared to take leadership from indigenous Black (and Latino, Asian, and Native American) forces on the ground. Many of these forces prior to the hurricane were not organized in ways that the unions are. They do not have a large paid staff, or offices with all the trappings. But that does not mean that organizations like CLU are "little bitty" or insignificant or cannot "handle money" or could not "organize a two car funeral" (as Rathke puts it in "Chalabi and Katrina"). This disrespect fails to acknowledge, on one hand, that the base of the labor movement (and with it dues dollars) and that of the CLU are the same, and on the other hand, the severe obstacles, principally racism and the legacy of slavery, that on-the-ground folks face in the south. Networking and informal ties have protected and nourished their organizing long after efforts like Operation Dixie or the Civil Rights Movement have moved on or declared victory. Organizations like CLU demand our respect and support.
Build a united front against the enemies of working people, employed or the unemployed poor. Our task is so huge that we can not afford to undercut each other with name-calling, patronizing statements, and inappropriate remarks. We must air differences in a principled way. Many of us work with ACORN in our cities and are on good terms with many organizers from that group. We cannot believe that such a provocative and destructive letter was circulated by Rathke to other ACORN leaders or reflects their views. We hope that people of good will in ACORN will give some signals to disassociate themselves from this divisive and chauvinist tactic. None of us has discovered the sure-fire way to organize or build a movement. Let's not give our enemies more fire power than they already possess. The Cold War era purges of the labor movement should have taught us that.
We exist at what one might describe as a "Katrina moment." It is a moment of both reflection and action. It is a moment to better understand and unpack the issues of race and class that have become so obvious through this disaster. It is also a moment to challenge the prevailing neo-liberal economic theories that were partially to blame for the scope of the disaster and seem to be central to the discussion of the nature of reconstruction. It is also a moment for a mass response to the disaster, which means that this is not the time for any one organization to hold itself up as the central core or the provider of franchises. To put it in other terms, this may be a moment to lay the foundations for a rebirth of a labor movement that is in synch with other social forces that share our opposition to the steady slide toward barbarism.
In solidarity,
(In alphabetical order)
Ajamu Baraka, Executive Director, US Human Rights Network
Gene Bruskin, co-convener of USLAW*
Kathy Engel, founding Executive Director MADRE, cultural and communications worker
Ray Eurquhart, retired UE 150 volunteer organizer
Bill Fletcher, Jr., President, TransAfrica Forum
Badili Jones, member, SEIU Local 1985
Elly Leary, Vice President and Chief Negotiator, UAW 2324 (retired)
Eric Mann, veteran of CORE, SDS, and UAW
Marsha Steinberg, Field Representative/Organizer SEIU Local 660
Makani Themba-Nixon, Executive Director, The Praxis Project
Jerry Tucker, former member, International Executive Board, UAW
Steve Williams, Executive Director, People Organized to Win Employment Rights (POWER)
* for identification purposes only
And What We Can Do About It
Why was Wal-Mart merchandise more important than saving people’s lives?
Why was every foul rumor about Black people killing, raping, and destroying reported as fact? Why has the fact that New Orleans police were killing, raping, and destroying not been widely reported?
Why was the first institution immediately rebuilt in the aftermath of Katrina not a hospital, school, or information center but a jail?
I don’t think these questions can be adequately answered by saying George Bush doesn’t like Black people, although he sure doesn’t. Or by saying FEMA, Michael Nagin, Kathleen Blanco, and a host of others are incompetent, although they sure are. The answer to these questions is bigger than one person or institution. The answer is corporate globalization, more specifically neoliberalism.
For the last 30 years there has been a struggle to determine what the future of the world economy will look like. The last time such an event occurred was in the waning years of World War II. In 1944 the political leaders of the US and Europe met to lay down the expansion plan for the world economy. This meeting was officially known as the International Monetary and Financial Conference of the United & Associated Nations, but anti-globalization activists call it simply Bretton Woods since it was held in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire. The general feeling at the time was capitalism could get ugly and a social safety net was needed. In this climate the forces of social democracy basically won. Harry Dexter White’s plan, written for the US treasury in 1934, formed the basis of the agreement at Bretton Woods. The countries agreed to form the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, and create the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT).
Now don’t think it was all over. While White was writing the plan for Roosevelt and the social democrats, another was working out the philosophy we live under today. Friedrich von Hayek at the University of Chicago was and is a hero of neoliberalism. Mentor to Milton Friedman, von Hayek laid the foundation for the philosophy that is kicking the ass of workers and poor people around the world. In the 1970s when the economy was in deep recession, neoliberalism really took off. In the wake of mass movements making significant gains, including the racial integration of the social safety net, the elite hit upon a “brilliant” idea; destroy the safety net. The recession allowed the elite to restructure the economy and promote a neoliberal agenda. We’ve been living with the consequences ever since.
Neoliberalism is a philosophy, a vision of what the world should look like. It’s main points are rule of the “free” market, limited (if any) social spending, deregulation, privatization, and increased political and military dominance. For the last 30 years or so all plans put out by the US political and economic elite have followed those principles. What passes for policy debate in most elections is little more than editing of a pre-approved plan. That’s what hit New Orleans, and it hit long before August 29. Hurricane Katrina didn’t cause the devastation, it revealed it. The devastation happened when funds that could have been used to support the levies were diverted to military spending; when a 6,000+ bed prison was operating in the middle of the city; when public transportation for tourists instead of poor people was a priority; when FEMA was slashed with the assumption the Red Cross and other charities would pick up the slack; and countless other times.
To win the battle over the rebuilding of New Orleans, we can’t just focus on the rebuilding of New Orleans. We have to develop and push for our own vision of what the world should look like. This development can’t just happen in New Orleans, and it sure can’t happen by joining Food Not Bombs for a week. We have to fight the battle over what our own communities should look like. Yes another world is possible, but what does it look like? We can’t just imagine a world where the beer is free and the boss has to get a job. We also have to have a plan for how the buses are going to run.
There are no short cuts and no easy answers. Our task ahead is to build community controlled organizations that, regardless of the issues being worked on, express an open opposition to neoliberalism. This opposition isn’t just no to neoliberalism, it’s about articulating and building on common collective values. Based on these values we build strategies that insure the marginalized have power in our own lives. Notice I said strategies. A march is not a strategy, it’s a tactic. Explaining how a march builds power and uses that power is a strategy. It’s long past time the US left learned the difference.
In fact most of the US left is struggling with what the hell we’re suppose to do come Monday morning. No matter what the strategy or strategies for struggle, I think there are two principles that are central.
· Organize where the relationships are
Bring the Ruckus has been working closely with FFLIC (Families & Friends of Louisiana’s Incarcerated Children) since almost immediately after Katrina. Although a small organization, our impact on this work has been great because we’ve focused on relationships we built long before Katrina. Through personal relationships built through common work we were able to quickly provide organizing help. Almost all of our members were able to provide support by working where they live because a strategy was built based on existing relationships. This proved to be extremely effective. More than 75 volunteers in more than 20 cities distributed thousands of flyers and conducted scores of interviews in only a couple of weeks. The volunteers used the relationships they already had, all we did was link this network of relationships. I firmly believe this is the most effective way to truly build a mass base capable of defeating neoliberalism.
· Create a space where democracy can happen
From now on most of the Katrina organizing should probably focus on helping displaced people create their own structures. The experience of an institution run and controlled by “the common folk” is not widespread in this country. People who’ve had direct experience in making decisions about their own future are better organizers, regardless of the outcome. I think we should be focusing on helping build these structures and learning the lessons from them.
Remember Hurricane Ivan in 2004? There are still people living in shelters. While it’s possible privatization efforts will close the shelters permanently this time around, the struggle of displaced people is just beginning. This fight is going to go on for a while and we have to be strong in every round.
