Oakland Let’s start from the bedrock notion that no one is in love with taxes. The month is almost always longer than the money, and another dollar here and there sometimes can make a difference.
But, a citizen’s duty also includes support of the community, and like it or not, that means paying the bills there as well. To improve public services, schools, and safety that support is tendered by taxes imposed — when we are lucky or vigilant — in some equitable fashion on ourselves and our neighbors for the support of the common good.
Mesa, Arizona is a sprouting city in the sprawl of Maricopa County outside of Phoenix that has grown from a sapling to a sequoia in such a short span that many living there can still remember well when there was nothing but desert here and tumbleweed there. Growth means more pressure on services and safety as the pure volume of the citizenry grows past the boundaries of plans and proposals. Sometimes communities can grow faster than the emerging needs for a while and allow the increases in sales tax or this and that to finance the debts as they come due. Eventually, a time comes to pay the piper, and that means doing something about taxes.
ACORN, among others, supported and helped put a property tax measure on the ballot in Mesa to answer just such a call for more revenue to provide more services. The election is before the voters in the middle of May. This is really pretty straightforward. Vote “yes” for the tax. Vote “no” against the tax. From now until then argue about the different points of view.
Not in Mesa though! A website pops up yesterday called www.yesformesa.us. This is a classic example of the kinds of scurrilous, “attack” sites that one reads about. If you support the tax measure, you would be drawn to the site thinking it is an opportunity to steel yourself to the opposition and bone up on your own arguments. No way! What you find is a fabrication of misdirection, allegation, slander, twisted right wing rant the likes of which are rarely demonstrated this side of the swift boat gang.
Vote yes or vote no, but for god sakes, think twice before you fall for this wing-nut screed whose only purpose is to obfuscate anything within a mile of the real issues about either taxes or Mesa!
Below is their attack — and, hey, thanks for keeping my mother out of this!
Exposing ACORN, Tax Proponents
ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, openly admits responsibility for pressuring the City Council to put a tax increase on the Ballot in Mesa, Arizona, to be voted on May 16th, 2006. ACORN went further saying, “now that Mesa ACORN has won a victory in placing the issue on the ballot, they are moving to the next phase, a grassroots political campaign to gather support for property tax.” What the citizens of Mesa Arizona should be aware of, is that when people think of ACORN, they should be thinking of radical socialist activism, socialist Labor Unions, Jesse Jackson, illegal immigrant amnesty, and most concerning, MoveOn.org and communist front-group ANSWER Coalition (see videos). What’s the connection? Read on. You can research and verify any of these facts. This author recommends using a simple search engine as well as wikipedia, the online encyclopedia. The organizations own websites themselves, however, are perhaps the most revealing and incriminating sources of all. Links are provided below.
Wade Rathke founded ACORN in 1970. Rathke currently sits on the Board of Directors at the Tides Foundation. The umbrella organization known as Tides may ring bells, recalling the recent controversy in the 04 Presidential Election regarding Theresa Hienes Kerry’s contributions to Tides over the years to the sum of over $4 million. Tides has reportedly distributed more than $300 million to radical leftist causes, including “rabid antiwar demonstrators, anti-trade demonstrators, domestic Islamist organizations, pro-terrorists legal groups, environmentalists, abortion partisans, extremist homosexual activists and open borders advocates.” Tides’ so called “Iraqi Peace Fund” is an Anti-War Activist fund, believed to fuel organizations such as MoveOn.org, and others. Richard Berman of the Center for Consumer Freedom, testified before Congress that “The Tides Foundation distributes other foundations’ money, while shielding the identity of the actual donors”. All of this and more has gone on at Tides while ACORN’s founder sits on its board of directors.
Beyond the red flags raised by ACORN’s founder, and his director seat on board of directors at Tides, is his work for the AFL-CIO, his own magazine Social Policy, his own Labor Union SEIU (the fastest growing union in the nation), and the fact that ACORN has a documented history of public support for Jesse Jackson, supporting amnesty for Illegal Immigrants, support for left-wing “living wages”, and as enumerated at wikipedia, some history of electoral fraud in several cities. By the way, Rathke is the Chief Organizer of HOTROC (a multi-union organizing project) which is supported by the AFL-CIO, who’s President is John Sweeny, open socialist and member of the Democratic Socialists of America. The socialist connection is even more startling in light of the fact that Tides’ has funded grants to the leftist IGC, which provided web links to Ramsey Clark’s International Action Center (IAC). The IAC, along with the communist Worker’s World Party founded the anti-american communist front-group ANSWER. Ramsey Clark has actually joined Saddam Hussein’s defense team(Al Jazeera). This is not a resume of connections to blink at. This is the network of the man known at ACORN as founder and “Chief Organizer“.
This information, taken in light of ACORN’s claim of responsibility for getting the Taxes on the Mesa Arizona Ballot, and recognizing that virtually every issue supported by ACORN requires a bigger more expansive government, more taxes, and greater regulation of free-enterprise, should cause voters to take a very careful look at just what agenda is truly being promoted in the questions on Mesa taxes.
More Resources:
* Rathke’personal website
* ACORN’s official site
* Rathke’s write up at Discover The Networks
* ACORN’s write up at Discover The Networks
* ACORN’s sister organization Project Vote
* ACORN’s radical anti-corporate/anti-free-market ties
* ACORN’s alliance against walmarts
* Rathke’s connections with his mentor, 60s Militant George Wiley founder of NWRO
April 28, 2006
