WADE RATHKE is the founder of ACORN, Chief Organizer at ACORN International, and Author of "Nuts & Bolts", "Citizen Wealth", "Global Grassroots", and "The Battle for the 9th Ward".
New Orleans From a distance, Spain seems like just another big European country with a history and language of its own, but still one that fits as a piece in the rest of the puzzle. On the ground in Barcelona and Bilbao, the whole notion of autonomous regions seems almost a marvel that …
Mondragon The Organizers’ Forum delegation took the 915 bus from the center of Bilbao to Mondragon riding through an intermittent rain and mist draping the mountains. Upon arriving, we were shuttled in cabs to the top of the mountain where the Mondragon cooperatives maintained their training center in a remodeled house in a beautiful …
Bilbao Originally, the Organizers’ Forum delegation was scheduled to travel to Bayonne to visit Alda, a sister organizing project in the northern Basque country concentrated in the three provinces of France. Our French affiliate, JusticeEnsemble, had trained and supported the growth of the organization. We really wanted to visit. Then reality sat in. …