Saturday, July 28, 2012

It is only dreams I get tonight.


Well I want to be something to her,
But it is hard to feel something
When you are treated like nothing.
What I want don’t count,
Only what she wants.
Well I would rather have none of it,
If all I can have is a little if it.
All I have is me to trade,
My time for her's.
But she has more time for others
Then she has for me,
So I would rather
Share no time
Until
I can have the Lion’s share.
What is the Lion’s share you ask?
Anything he wants is his share,
And that is the share of me
That I would give her.
Alas, it seems
She wants nothing from me
That she is willing to give
What I want.
So, all or nothing
Leaves me with nothing.
I have no power to coerce,
I only have hope that she
Will come to want me
As I want her.
Dream as I will
Dream as I might
It is only dreams I get tonight.
Why nothing as opposed to
Something, you ask?
It is just that having
Just a little
Leave a great hunger
For more.
While doing without
Keeps the hunger at bay.
So better nothing at all
Then to accept her crumbs.

©
Rexx

Friday, July 27, 2012

The old mare and the new horse.




The old mare, Taz as her rider called her, looked out over her herd; it had been her herd for as long as she could remember. Sometimes it was larger than now, other times smaller, but always hers. New horses to be set straight about who was boss, and the constant reminders she had to keep giving the others kept her firmly in her job. While she could not count she knew exactly how many horses were in her herd, and just where they were most of the time.

The perks of being boss were few in a pasture, she got to eat from the hay feeder when she wished, drink when she wished, making anyone who might wish her spot to wait for her to vacate it. When she felt mean she could pick on anyone she wished, and woe to anyone who thought picking a fight with her was a good idea. She could, and did, have a buddy that she spent most of her pasture time with. Right how it was the Big Red, a large Sorrel gelding.

Then her rider returned with the trailer he had left with early that morning, and her attention left the herd completely and rested solely upon what was in the trailer. In the trailer was the new horse that had been living in her pasture for the last month. The rider had kept it separated from the rest of the horses, including herself, and they had only been able to become acquainted from across the driveway that separated the south pasture from the east dry lot.

Taz, along with all the other horses in her herd, ran to the fence and followed the taller as her rider pulled into the driveway. They nickered their salutations as the trailer stopped and the rider took the horse out and put it into the dry lot. After the rider had moved the trailer to in normal spot the herd ran up and down the fence line as the new horse did the same in the dry lot. She could tell there was something not the same with the new horse, it smelled different, and somehow it acted different. It did not make any differences in any case since he was over there and she was over here. What she did not know was that the new horse had left a stallion and came home a gelding.

She and the herd fell back into their normal routine, which was mostly eating. They would go out into the pasture and separate into singles and pairs to graze the grass, then go up to the shed with the round bail feeder in it where the rider always kept hay in it, no sooner would it be eaten up when he would put a new bail in the feeder. They would take their water from a large troth that the rider seldom lets go dry, even in the hottest weather, and never let freeze in the coldest of weather.

At times they would break into a wild run up and down the pasture and around the fence line. Knowing no bound in their limitations, running to the end of their desire only to rest and run again. As wild as any wild horse hey roam their pasture, fill their stomachs, fight their fights, and sleep as they will.

Running is a game they just loved to play before a thunder storm sets its wind and rain loose upon the pasture. And though they had shelter they were free to take, more often than not they would bunch up and stand in the rain with their backs to the wind. If you were to turn them loose upon a hundred thousand acres they would not live much different than how they live on their five, except for paying the rent.

Every now and then, sometimes more now than then, others times more then than now, the rider would come into the pasture and take some of them out of the pasture. Sometime they would stay near their pasture, others they would be loaded on the trailer and taken away. When this happens they never knew their fate, for each had taken one or more trailer rides that they did not end up where they had left, and had been introduced into a new herd.

They had all learned to become a different animal when they were put under tack. They all had learned their job, some better than others, but none as good as the old mare had. She and the old gray gelding, Gal, had been with him the longest. When she had come to live with him there was only this gilding to share his attention with.

They, together, had watched their rider clear, fence, and sow the pasture with grass. They has watched the shelters go up one by one, sometimes he would send more time working on his place then he did with them, but they knew that he would come back to them, and he would never let them go hungry or thirsty. And just what was that stuff he kept forcing them to swallow the short tubes he stunk into their mouths?

One by one her herd had grown, from the two that she was one of in, this last horse, making six, oh, and let her not forget the mule. When he had come to her pasture he had been kept separated from the rest of the herd too. She and the other four horses would, at times, run up and down the fence line across the driveway as the mule ran up and down his fence across the way. He did not keep by himself like this new horse was, her oldest pasture mate, the gray, had been put with him and they had budded up.

The mare did know how the gray and the mule had first been introduced but as it turned out the gray was just used as a device for the rider to catch the mule. The mule, Jim Bo as the rider called him, had been in her world for two years before he came to live with her. His scent would drift down to her every time the wind blew from the southeast. He had been born in a pasture less than half a mile away two years before he had come to be in her herd.

As soon as the mule had been weaned his owner sold his mother and kept him alone in his ten acre pasture. He had never had a halter on, never been taught any human relational skills, not that he would call them that, and had a great averse to being caught. After two days of the rider trying to get close enough to throw a rope on the wiry little mule he gave up and took the gray up to the pasture where the mule had lived all of its life, and mostly by itself.

The mule had only known one horse in its life, and that was its mother. Oh the great pleasure the mule remember from the time it had spent with its mother, running by her side, sleeping next to her, and, let him not forget, the milk she would let him suck from her tits. So it was quite natural that the mule though that Gal was his mother returned to him when the rider turned the gray loose in his pasture. Jim Bo ran to Gal’s side and imminently dropped his head down to avail himself of the milk that he just knew would be waiting for him just for the sucking.

Gal, the old gray had absolutely no idea what the hell was wrong with this horse that was not a horse, but he was going to have nothing to do with letting him, or any other animal, to try and suck on him. So with a quick side kick Gal took off around the pasture with the mule in hot pursuit. Every time he coughs up with Gal he would drop his head down and stick it under Jim Bo trying for the milk that was not there. Gal would stop, spin, and let go with a double barrel kick. Then run off as fast as he could. Jim Bo has been just as fast at Gal in the short range, but Gal was an Arabian and his ability to keep running finally wore the mule down.

After about two hours Jim Bo was resigned to the fact that he was not going to get any milk from Gal, and had even come to realize that Gal was not his mother. Still he found great pleasure in being by Gal’s side, and where ever Gal went the mule went too. This was just what the rider had known would happen.

The rider had left the two alone for three days then he went back to Jim Bo’s pasture and called Gal over, and Gal being not only the rider’s horse, but had a great regards for the rider (besides he just might have a treat), Gal walked up to the rider, and the rider slipped a halter over his head. Which he did not mind at all, maybe he would get to take his rider for a ride, Gal had taught his rider just about everything he knew about riding, and they rode hundreds of miles together in the eight years they had been together. Though how he rode the Mare much more than he did him, they still would go for long rides together.

But a ride was not in the cards today, instead the rider just led Gal (that is short for Gallivant, incase you are wondering) down to the barn and into a large stall. Jim Bo would not leave his new friend’s side so he walked right into the trap. As soon as the rider, Gal, and Jim Bo were in the stall Jim Bo’s owner, who was not a rider, closed the stall gate on them. In no time at all Jim Bo found himself with a halted on his head, and a lead rope attached to that.

The gate was open and Jim Bo walked for the first time in his life with a rope on him to hinder his chosen direction and to force him in the direction the rider wanted him to go, and he did not like it at all! And as soon as he cleared the stall he took off, jerking the rider off his feet and dragging him up the pasture. Had it not been for the Jim Bo’s owner, a big man, being able to catch up with the runaway mule and dragging rider he might still be running around that pasture for the rider was not about to let go of the rope that had taken so long for him to get on the mule. Well make that long story short Jim Bo came to accept the rope and let the rider lead him to Taz’s pasture.

About two weeks after the rider had brought the new horse, a Dun he calls Doc, back and putting him in the dry lot he took Doc from the dry lot and turned him loose in the main pasture with Taz’s herd.

Monday, July 23, 2012

Everything is One!




Time, both master and servant,
Making all events possible,
But insisting all events must end.
Giving by the one hand, taking with the other
All opportunities to act comes with a deadline.
~
Before the completion of an event
Its duration cannot be known.
What, you ask, of the ticking of the clock.
Will not each tick be the same as the tock?
And each of a second duration?
~
Well yes
If the tick or tock
Is allowed to be completed
And if the clock’s gears maintain
A constant speed.
~
Each event in the clock’s works
Is much like every event in the clock’s work,
That is to say,
Each tick is like each tock
More or less.
~
Thus durations measured by
The creation and counting of events
The slipping of a cog on a gear,
Unwinding of a spring.
Close, but not close enough
~
Event more near were found
In counting the oscillation
Of a crystal
Even closer in the atomic resonance frequency
Of the Atomic Clock
~
But seconds and multiples thereof
Are one thing, days are another.
Calendars mark these rotation events
The earth spins on its axes
And flies around the sun.
~
A day 86,400 seconds almost
Leap seconds make up the difference.
To coordinate the events of the clock
To the event of the day,
But then the year.
~
A Julian year, 365.25 days,
A leap year every four years
To match the event of a year
To the event of a day
To the event of the clock.
~
Time, the distant between events.
Space, the distance between things.
No things, no space.
No events, no time.
To move through space creates time.
~
To move things apart creates space.
If there is only one thing
There is no space
Divide it in two and move it apart
And space is created.
~
Distance is space, distance is time
Space is in three dimensions:
Height, width, and depth.
Time is in three dimensions:
Past, present, and future.
~
Events requite objects
Objects create space
Movement creates time
Objects are mass
Mass and movement create energy (E=MC sq.)
~
Mass and movement equal events
Events require time
Time is created by events
Space is created by mass
Mass requires space.
~
Everything is one!
And we all live in a Yellow Submarine.
~
~
~
©
Rexx

Sunday, July 15, 2012

Desire


Rot slow, or burn fast
In the end it all
Belongs to the worm.
~
To dream is to strive
To strive is to cling
To cling to the purpose, or goal.
~
Which may be no more
Then taking
The next breath.
~
Into a great caldron
We are born
Knowing nothing
~
But the dream of being
And the rhythm of a heartbeat
Joined by a desire for breath
~
We gulp our first taste of life
From shearing pain
Into blinding light.
~
Complete confusion
With a reoccurring hunger
First in our belly, then our mind
~
Giving birth to desire
First for food, then to know
For the material and then the sublime.
~
Moving into a world of me and mine,
Feed me, hold me, clean me
We shout to the world,
~
And our world responds
Our needs are met
And our desires grow.
~
To stand on our own feet
To take our first step
Becomes our burning desire.
~
This leads to the disappointment
Of our first fall
And the pain of out first failures.
~
But soon to be overcome
By the magnitude of our successes
As we move from walking to running.
~
Now as we achieved this goal
A new ambition to express ourselves
Leads us to babble
~
Then to form words, to express desires.
While screams and tears
Worked well to show disappointment.
~
And laughter and gurgling
Could show contentment
We wanted so badly
~
To express the entire range
Of what made us happy or sad,
And strived to gain the words to do so.
~
Mommy, Daddy, look at me
Mine, no, give me,
Our own desires were our only concern.
~
Still we scream and cry
And learned to sulk
And to manipulate.
~
To lie and deceive,
“I didn’t do it!”
We would scream.
~
Because we had learned
Our decision had consequences
That we sometimes wished to avoid.
~
“That is mine” we would lie
For we had learned
Deception could gain our desires.
~
“I won't ever do it again”
We meant it when we said it,
“I am so sorry”
~
We learned that contrition
Could bring forgiveness
And abate the punishment.
~
We learned our parent’s beliefs.
We learned our community’s values.
We agreed or disagreed,
~
And learned to walk our own paths
As our desires dictated,
Some into salvation, others into perdition.
~
Each clinging to our beliefs
Walk in the caldron of beliefs
Being buffeted by the actions of others.
~
They lied to us.
They betrayed our trust.
They stole from us.
~
As we went forth looking for love.
We heard the word
From our cradle.
~
And as a child thought it was one-way,
We did not have to love
Like we were loved.
~
Then our heart was broken,
Our dreams were shattered
By the actions of one we loved.
~
Our happiness we had put
Into their hands.
They had to conform to our plan.
~
And when they did not
Our heart was broken
As our desire died.
~
And came to the conclusion
That life is naught
But the Devil’s Dream.
~
Not seeing the Potter’s Hands
As He shaped us
As He would have us
~
By other’s action,
And our reaction to others
What we have become is formed.
~
We go out and act
Each act has a reaction
Which limits our range to act.
~
But we each walked the path
That was ours to walk.
Everything was for a reason,
~
And that reason goes on
Through the pages of History,
His Story.
~
Until we find ourselves
Right here in front of these words
Wondering where our world has gone.
~
The grave beckons
And the worm awaits us
In the dust from which we came.
~
Every head will bow
Every mouth will confess
And we will all be blessed.
~
Until then we must live
And live the best we can
For we are driven by desire.
~
Everything comes to go,
It is in attachment that pain of the heart lives.
If it is born it will die.
~
Every desire comes to life,
And will die in fulfillment
Or be lost in disappointment.
~
Every sadness come to life,
And will stay alive
Until devoured by time.
~
Each happiness is as fleeting
As the rising sun
And as morning goes, so will it.
~
Be in the world, but not of it
Our Lord advised us.
Easier said than done.
~
Life is all about learning to live,
And His Rod and Staff comfort us.
The Lord chastens the ones He loves.
~
And He will leave all He loves
To save His one lost one.
It is in our blindness that we see.
~
A world so hostile and mean,
Whose god is the Devil,
And evil is its way.
~
But when we lied we were lied to.
When we stole we were stolen from.
As we sowed so we reaped.
~
But we do good things
That was mixed with our bad,
Like the wheat and the tarts.
~
The Lord forbade His servants
From ripping our bad intention
From our hearts.
~
Least it harms our good intentions.
But let them grow together,
Let the heart find its way.
~
Rather He said that in the end
Our goodness would be separated
From our badness.
~
To let us learn to forgive
Those who harmed us and
To let us treat others as we would be treated.
~
To help the stranger
Forget the wrong
And remember the good.
~
Though broad and easy
The way to damnation
His Rod constricts, and his Staff controls
~
Till we find our world so strait and narrow
With no way to go,
But the way before us.
~
So let us rejoice in this
A day the Load has made,
And trust in His way.
~
~
~
©
Rexx

Thursday, July 12, 2012

Was the Vietnam War was wrongly fought?




The above is a link to Martin Luther King’s speech condemning the Vietnam War, you can link on it and listen as you read if you like.


So what is your contention?  That the Vietnam War was wrongly fought?  That we should have never intervened?   Or was MLK was made a tool of the North Viennese’s strategy, a strategy not of defeating our forces on the battlfield, rather a strategy killing the will of the American People to support the war.

Do you have a clue as to why we got involved in the Vietnam conflict to start with?  Vietnam was a hot flash in the cold war we were having with the Communists governments of the world most notable the USSR.  After WWII Vietnam, which had been a French Colony before the war and occupied by the Japanese during the war, had become a front in the war to stop or extend communism as the controlling force of the world.  When Japanese forces surrendered in Vietnam, they allowed the Viet Minh and other nationalist groups to take over public buildings without resistance,  They also kept Vichy French officials and military officers imprisoned for a month after the surrender.

The French gave up certain rights in China, the Viet Minh agreed to the return of the French in exchange for promises of independence within the French Union, and the Chinese agreed to leave. Negotiations between the French and Viet Minh broke down quickly.  After the French took control of Vietnam the Viet Minh launched a rebellion against the French authority governing the colonies of French Indochina. This was called the First Indochina War and was fought December 19, 1946, until August 1, 1954.  The Viet Minh was supplied by the Soviet Union and the French by the USA.  The newly Communist People’s Republic of China gave the Viet Minh both sheltered bases and heavy weapons with which to fight the French. China became Communist in 1949 after USSR backed Maoist forces defeated the US backed Nationalist regime of Chaing Kai Shek. The humiliation of that event added fuel to the US cause of containing communism.

This was a very unpopular war in France and the lack of support from the French people led to the French capitulation after their defeat at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu.  The French began negotiations to leave Vietnam. As a result of peace accords worked out at the Geneva Conference Vietnam was divided into North and South at the 17th Parallel as a temporary measure until unifying election would take place in 1956. Transfer of civil control of North Vietnam to the Việt Minh was given on October 11, 1954. Ho Chí Minh was appointed Prime Minster North Vietnam, which would be run as a socialist state. Ngo Dinh Diem, who was previously appointed Prime Minister of South Vietnam by Emperor  Bảo Đại eventually assumed control of South Vietnam.

In the words of U.S. President Eisenhower: “It was generally conceded that had an election been held, Hồ Chí Minh would have been elected Premier. Unhappily, the situation was exacerbated by the almost total lack of leadership displayed by the Vietnamese Chief of State, Bảo Đại, who, while nominally the head of that nation, chose to spend the bulk of his time in the spas of Europe rather than in his own land leading his armies against those of Communism.”

South Vietnam and its chief supporter, the United States, were not signatories to the 1954 agreement but did agree to respect its conditions. However, South Vietnam, with the backing of the United States, refused to hold unifying elections, claiming that Hồ Chí Minh could not be trusted due to his affiliation with Communism. 

The Eisenhower administration, which started the policy of containment, had recognized that the popularity of the Diem regime could not stand up to the popularity of the Viet Minh and their leader Ho Chi Minh. Eisenhower had feared that Ho Chi Minh would win as much as 80 percent of the vote. This was one of those elections that communists could have won, and people in Washington were not about to surrender to exceptions.  The Cold War was still on. People in the U.S. believed that Communist aggression had to be deterred and contained.

Even following the retreat of the French from Vietnam, the United States had not sent any combat troops to Vietnam. For the Communist North Korea had invaded South Korea bringing about the onset of the Korean’s War.  The aggressions of Chinese backed North Korea to unite the Korean peninsula under communism was viewed as proof to the domino theory, and thus set the context of valid USA concerns in Vietnam. This theory influenced virtually all of the Cold War, starting with the Truman Doctrine. This document casts the Soviets into an expansionist light, and promoted a strategy of containment. However, Reagan, who strove to dissolve USSR, rather than contain them, vaporized this containment strategy. An example of the domino theory is the Eastern Bloc. After the Soviets obtained tight control over East Germany, they then mentored the rapid rise to power of totalitarian Communist regimes in Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and Yugoslavia. A totalitarian Communist regime also arose in Albania under Envar Hoxha, but without explicit Soviet aid.

Only after the National Liberation Front, also known as the Viet Cong, began a guerilla war with South Vietnam did the United States begin to send personnel to Vietnam. Under the period of escalation, U.S. began with the deployment of non-combatant military advisors to the South Vietnamese army, to use of special forces for commando-style operations, to introduction of regular troops whose purpose was to be defensive only, to using regular troops in offensive combat.

President Kennedy pledges to “pay any price, bear any Burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, to insure the survival and the success of liberty.” begun sending more advisers to Vietnam to help the Diem regime, increasing their number to 800 in 1961. Kennedy allowed U.S. pilots to fly combat missions while pretending to be instructors, and he supported counter-insurgency to overthrow the communists in the North.  Now remember that The Cuban Missile Crisis occurred about now and provided another context to the situation inVietnam. The USSR sends nuclear weapons to a missile base in Cuba further proved the aggressive nature of Communism.

After JFK was assassinated, Lyndon B. Johnson took office. One week after he was inaugurated, he reached a “fork in the road.” In a memo to the President, Defense Secretary McNamara stated that the US was not making any progress in Vietnam, and that we must either withdraw or escalate. After sending 44 battalions (125,000 men), Johnson began Operation Rolling Thunder in 1965. This operation consisted of the Navy and Air Force running a frequently interrupted bombing campaign designed to show Ho Chi Minh the power of the US. Johnson and his advisors thought that this would warn Minh that if he did not stop trying to conquer South Vietnam, the violence would escalate.

http://www.hyperhistory.net/apwh/essays/cot/t3w30vietnamwar.htm

As this was building up the Communism from Soviet Union and Red China (you never hear the term Red China anymore, but it still is) was working in the US on a conspiracy to undermine public support behind the Vietnam War.  In 1945 the International Labor Defense and the National Federation for Constitutional Liberties merged with the Marxist inspired National Negro Congress to form the Civil Rights Congress (CRC). The CRC was led by an open black Communist lawyer by the name of William L. Patterson who defended minority hoodlums and left wing radicals.  They spawned such groups as the Young Communist League, Weather Underground, Students for a Democratic Society, and the Yippies (Youth Internationalist).  These groups and others were going about the land originating demonstrate and protest against the uss involvement in Vietnam.  They organized draft card burnings, and supported any draft dodger that refused to be called up.

Martin Luther King was also under this influence as  U.S. Attorney General Bobby Kennedy on Oct. 10, 1963 had King‘s office and hotel rooms bugged. Evidence obtained in this surveillance proved that King was under the direct orders of Soviet spies and financed by the Communist Party.  A number of communists who left the party have reported they were ordered to do all within their power to support King's activities. A black woman, Julia Brown, was a Communist in Cleveland for nine years. She said:

"We were told to promote King, to unite Negroes and Whites behind him, and to turn him into a sort of national hero. We were to look to King as the leader in this struggle, the Communists said, because he was on our side. While in the party I learned that King attended a communist training school, that several of his aides were communists and that he received funds from Communists and took directions from them. He was one of their biggest heroes."

The U. S. Congressional Record of March 30, 1965 quotes Karl Prussian, an FBI counterspy inside the Communist Party as swearing: "At all of these (Communist Party) meetings Rev. Martin Luther King was always set forth as the individual to whom Communists should rally around... King has either been a member of, or willingly accepted support from over 60 Communist fronts... King accepted support from communist fronts, individuals and organizations which espouse communist causes."

This attack on the support of the American People’s support for the Vietnam War was the main front in the war.  The Communist knew that they could not stand up to the might of the American Armed Forces, and only had to hold out long enough for the front in America to do its job.

Then came the Tet Offensive!  The Americans were taken by surprise.  General Westmorland had been deceived into thinking that Ho Chí Minh’s forces were on their last leg.  The Vietnamese had failed to win a single major engagement and told President Lyndon Johnson that the end of the war was in sight.  He was wrong.  He had fallen into exactly what the Viet Cong wanted him to do.  In late 1967, Viet Cong forced to begin striking US bases across the country. Responding in force, Westmoreland won a series of fights, but in engaging the Viet Cong in the battles that they had picked he drew his forces from the south to the north, setting the stage for the Tet Offensive in late January 1968. Striking all across the country, the Viet Cong, with support from the North Vietnamese army, launched major attacks on South Vietnamese cities.

Because of what Westmorland told Johnson and the complete surprise and early successes of the Tet Offensive the antiwar press in the US, all the Television News Services painted the US as losing a hopeless fight.  A fight that we should not be in at all, after all it was only a civil war between the North and South Vietnam.  When should we spend blood and treasure on such a trivial matter?

The truth of what happen in the Tet Offensive was never presented to the American public.  The truth was that the Viet Cong was completely destroyed as a fighting force, not decimated but destroyed.  Decimated means that you have lost 1/10 of your forces, this comes from the Roman’s believe that any army that had lost 1/10 of its personnel had also lost its ability to campaign effectively.  The Viet Cong did not lose a tenth, they lost over 90 percent of their force. 

Their role was ending in the Vietnam War, but the show they had put on, that's all it was, a show, fueled the likes of Peter Jennings and other fellow travelers to whip up the antiwar sentiments in the US and leading to our withdrawal from Vietnam.  This withdrawal was not without consequences.  All of our supporters in South Vietnam that were not imminently put to death were put in force labor camps.

Cambodia fell to the Communist under the Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge forcing city dwellers to relocate to the countryside to work in collective farms and forced labor projects, toward a goal of "restarting civilization" in a “Year Zero“. The combined effects of slave labor, malnutrition, poor medical care, and executions resulted in the deaths of an estimated 1.7 to 2.5 million people, approximately 21% of the Cambodian population.

Our conflicts with the Communist are not over, regardless of what you may believe.  They still want to control the world, and are working hard at it.  And if your stat looks something like this it will look like this:

A Single Seed Grows Many Branches: ACORN’s Web of Connections in North Carolina

Francis De Luca | January 7, 2010
A Single Seed Grows Many Branches: ACORN’s Web of Connections in North Carolina

The Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now (ACORN) has woven itself into the fabric of the left in North Carolina. Listed below are short explanations of the ties between the groups illustrated on the above chart. For more detailed information on ACORN NC see Capitol-Monitor.org.

Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now (ACORN)
ACORN NC – ACORN’s North Carolina arm – has offices in Raleigh, Durham and Charlotte. ACORN NC is a member of Blueprint NCand partners with NC Housing Coalition, NC Policy Watch and the NC Justice Center, among others.


Blueprint North Carolina
Blueprint NC was organized and funded by the Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation. It is a partnership of over 40 progressive (liberal) state-level nonprofits housed at the NC Justice Center. Blueprint NC’s partner organizations are:


·       Phillip Randolph Institute
·       Action for Children
·       American Civil Liberties Union of North Carolina (ACLU)
·       Carolina Justice Policy Center
·       Center for Community Self-Help/Center for Responsible Lending
·       Center for Death Penalty Litigation
·       Common Cause
·       Community Reinvestment Association of NC- CRANC
·       Conservation Council of NC Foundation
·       Conservation Trust of NC
·       Covenant with North Carolina’s Children, Inc.
·       Democracy NC
·       Disability Rights NC
·       El Pueblo
·       Environment NC
·       Equality NC
·       Fair Trial Initiative
·       Institute for Southern Studies
·       Ipas
·       League of Women Voters - Charlotte
·       Murder Victims’ Families for Reconciliation
·       NARAL Pro-Choice NC
·       NC ACORN
·       NC Against Gun Violence
·       NC Alliance of Black Elected Officials
·       NC Association of CDCs
·       NC Center for Voter Education
·       NC Coalition Against Domestic Violence
·       NC Coalition Against Domestic Violence
·       NC Coalition Against Sexual Assault
·       NC Coalition to End Homelessness
·       NC Community Development Initiative
·       NC Conservation Network
·       NC Environmental Defense
·       NC Fair Share
·       NC Housing Coalition, Inc.
·       NC Institute of Minority Economic Development
·       NC John Muir Foundation (Sierra Club)
·       NC Justice Center
·       NC Latino Coalition, Inc.
·       NC Minority Support Center
·       NC NAACP
·       NC Policy Watch
·       People of Faith Against the Death Penalty
·       Planned Parenthood Health Systems
·       Planned Parenthood of Central NC
·       Southern Alliance for Clean Energy
·       Southern Coalition of Social Justice
·       Traction
·       Working Families Win
Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation

The Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation funds progressive groups. Among them are El Pueblo Inc.North Carolina Housing Coalition, NC Justice Center and Project Vote.
NC Housing Coalition

The Campaign for Housing Carolina is a collaborative effort led by the NC Housing Coalition joined by NC Justice CenterA.J. Fletcher Foundation and ACORN NC.
Project Vote

Project Vote is ACORN’s voter mobilization arm and has provided legal support, including supporting litigation, for ACORN in a number of states. Project Vote registered more than 1.3 million individuals to vote; many of who were deceased, under the voting age or were fabricated registrants.
A.J. Fletcher Foundation

The A.J. Fletcher Foundationwhose mission is to support progressive nonprofits, gave $205,000 to the NC Justice Center and over $66,000 to the NC Housing Coalition in 2007.


Tides Foundation
Tides Foundation received a $25,000 grant from the Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation, part of which was used to create gettraction.org. The Tides Foundation has given grants to the Center for Community Change as well as over $1 million to Project Vote.
Center for Community Change

The Center for Community Change received money from the Tides Foundation and is partners with the NC Justice Center.
Traction

Traction and their blog, gettraction.org, define themselves as the “future of the progressive movement.” Traction was created through the Tides Foundation from a Z. Smith Reynolds grant.
NC Policy Watch

NC Policy Watch is a project of the Justice Center and located there. NC Policy Watch affiliates with El Pueblo Inc, works with ACORN NC on projects and is a member of Blueprint NC.
El Pueblo Inc.

El Pueblo, an advocacy organization for the Latino community, is a member of Blueprint NC and affiliates with NC Policy Watch. They also received a $107,500 grant from the Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation.


AFL-CIO
The American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations is a federation of 57 international labor unions. In North Carolina, AFL-CIO shares a building with ACORN NC and is on the North Carolina chapter of Health Care for America Now.


Bank of America
Bank of America has donated millions of dollars to ACORN for “neighborhood preservation.” They also financially support the Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America (NACA).
North Carolina Coalition of Health Care for America Now
NC HCAN is the North Carolina arm of a grassroots organization that pushed for passage of the national health-care bill. NC HCAN has a 16-member steering committee, whose organizations include ACORN NCAFL-CIO and SEIUSEANC is one of NC HCAN’s coalition partners.


State Employees Association – North Carolina
SEANC is the largest state employees’ association in the South with over 55,000 members. SEANC became legally affiliated with SEIU in 2008 and is now SEIU Local 2008
Service Employees International Union
SEIU has donated over $3.6 million to ACORN over the last six years. SEIU Local 100 was co-founded by ACORN founder Wade Rathke. In 2008, SEIU gave $1.1 million to the NC Democratic Party.


Wade Rathke
Wade Rathke is co-founder of ACORN as well as SEIU Local 100. He served as ACORN’s chief organizer until stepping down in 2008 after his brother Dale Rathke’s embezzled over $1 million dollars from ACORN and it became public. Wade Rathke is also the former director of the Tides Foundation.


State of North Carolina
Over $640,000 of North Carolina taxpayer money wasawarded to the NC Justice Center in 2006. Continuing payments have likely exceeded $1 million. The state also granted $1 million to NACA.