It’s titled Springfield Story: Do We Learn from Disasters? In it this terrorism-loving agitator bemoans the foreclosure rate in Springfield, Mass., and praises the man who helped to cause it, Congressman Barney Frank (D-Mass.), calling the corrupt lawmaker –incredibly enough– a “banking expert and one-man accountability squad.”

Rathke was arrested after he led an invasion of the Springfield welfare office with 250 or more women and students armed with signs reading “More for the poor, less for the war.” After the welfare director refused to give in to the crowd’s demands for winter clothing benefits they were not entitled to, Rathke’s members rioted. Millions of dollars’ worth of property was destroyed over two days of unrest.

The Soviet government used Rathke’s riot as anti-American propaganda, publishing an article about it in Pravda. Rathke’s experiences “reinforced his belief that one important resource for poor people was their ability to disrupt.” He realized that despite the failure of the action to achieve its objective, his followers felt empowered by violence directed against the system. This empowerment by rioting became a staple of ACORN’s playbook.