This 4th of July, I'd Like to Add Chicago Friends of the Parks To Veterans and All 1st Responders as Heroes of Liberty!

       Recognize anyone from your neighborhood here?  Me neither. Grassroots, me broad manly arse.


This Fourth of July, I feel especially patriotic, because my faith in American values of commitment, courage and faith were strengthened by the victory of Friends of the Parks over oligarchs, bullies, grifters and smugly powerful people who have gotten their way, over and on everyone else,  for the last eight years.

Money, media control and mass messaging have made our city, county, state and nation too much of a banana republic.  Corporations count more than parishes and neighborhoods.

Have you noticed that in the past twenty years, the use of the word neighborhood has been almost entirely replaced by the preferred  Progressive term" community?"

Neighbors know one another and interact; communities coalesce.  Under the camouflage of the word 'diversity'  people become a a congealed mass of votes, nor a threatening mobs for a cause.

Diversity ( not real, actual diversity) is a template for the boilerplate leftist playbook, which keeps people busy shouting, threatening and hating one another, while a small group of sanctioned snobs amass unlimited power and unimaginable wealth.

This past week was very satisfying.  Neighbors won and the elites lost in the epic battle between Friends of the Parks and Mellody and George Lucas, Rahm Emanuel, Sanctioned real estate, bankers, construction, engineering, vendors and public relations players lost.

Neighbors raise families, work, pay taxes, watch out for one another, disagree on religion, politics, sports, lawn care methods, street lights time and alley bean bag.  Neighbors go to wakes, benefits for sick kids, buy raffle tickets, drive and run errands for older neighbors, bitch about property taxes, garbage grid, recycling mandates and Chicago's parking desert landscape filled with massive and unused bike lanes.

Neighbors are busy.  Some neighbors are financially better off than most of us and use their time, talents and treasure to make things better for their neighbors.

Friends of Parks were called gangsters by Chicago's most celebrated and unchallenged race baiting preachers, because some might live in Grant Park high rises.  Shucks, I know a widow woman who lives at 300 E, Randolph in a big old high rise and she drops $25,000 minimum to help young black men at Leo High School, just down east of St, Sabina, every year with out fail.  Community attached 501(c) 3 foundations like Woods Fund refused to toss us a nickle and that was when a young ambitious kid named Barack Obama was dining out on Check Please and wowing the tight-knit IVI Community.  That widow and many others were better neighbors, than any community activist and more black males became successful men because of neighbors.


Friends of Parks are neighbors and they went to bat for all of us, who have limited time, use or talents to put bread on the tables and watch our treasures disappear with increased utility bills, water, property, parking, consumer taxes levied upon us by Community People.

The Lucas Museum was supposed to be some kind of Narrative Arts Cornucopia - really a big ass digital junk closet for all of Star Wars cast-off stuff, like unused scripts, or snappy PC characters of the future.  The power couple with pals on the fifth floor of City Hall and the White House demanded that this site be stuck on the lakefront - imagine if George and Mellody were forced to allow me to store all of my old gym shoes, Leo High School sports wear, fishing gear, grade books going back to 1975, articles on Thackeray, James Shields Charles Chinquy , Bishop Shiel, and Packey McFarland, baseball caps from Bishop McNamara, La Lumiere School and Leo High School on their front lawn as a tribute to high school teachers.  The old gym shoes might give one a huge pause once the scent hit the old smeller.

Friends of Parks gave this gaggle of spoiled geese ( anyone like geese?  Biggest pains in the ass of all feathered friends and no friends of any park, or parking lot) a huge 'time out!'

Friends of the Park became Community Enemy Number One, after that cops, firemen and skilled tradesmen. The two minutes hate was extended.

Irizarry and Moltz, as they said repeatedly during the nearly two-year debate over the museum's location, reiterated the group was never opposed to Lucas' idea of a housing a collection of his digital and traditional art in Chicago. The issue, they said, was that the "Star Wars" creator insisted on selecting sites along the lakefront, public trust land they argued should be open and clear space.
"We feel it's really unfortunate," Moltz said. "Our issue was just that he wanted to put it on the lakefront. We're sorry he made the decision to leave rather than look at any of the other viable sites that would have been a win-win for the city."
So how will the Lucas Museum fight shape Friends' fortunes going forward? 

I hope Friend of the Parks signal victory over the oligarchs willget neighbors to appreciate one another and return to calling neighborhoods by the correct name. Neighbors live in high rises too.

Friends of the Park reminded me that Liberty is more than just a compelling narrative, a Sun Times hate campaign and boondoggle for grifters.

Happy Fourth of July! Thank you, Friends of the Park!  I mean neighbors!

Thank You Friends of the Park for Saving our Lakefront and Outing Chicago's Bullies

The Friends of Park have saved Chicago's lakefront, for now.  This is Chicago, neighbors, and you can set your watch by the next public looting boondoggle.

I wonder how Rahm's profanity crusade is going.  Of course NBC Chicago forgives Rahm everything as does WTTW. I Imagine the Rahm swear jar is topped off and ready for a trip to the cash changer at any of Chicago's fine Fifth Third Banks.

That is a Progressive Thinking and Acting Bank

The Progressives ( former Liberals, Goo-goos and Hand-wringers) are in control of every branch of Government - yep, I include Governor Rauner who is merely buying time for his Corporatist Progressive Pals and Oligarchs.

From the White House to Hyde Park, the New Machine controls Chicago and Cook County. The New Machine is not about building legions of Democratic Party workers ready, willing and able to get out the vote as a way of saying 'Thank You" for a job on the trucks, a seat in a Patrol car, a place in an Emergency van, a pick and shovel filling pot holes and reconfiguring curbs.  No this new machine is a faceless blob of bank accounts, 501(c)3 foundations, blue-stocking law firms, real estate monte grifters, Commnity Activists and the News Media.  The poor get a taste of quick cash and lunch boxes and T-shirts, the Armani clad pink cheeks who write small checks not exceeding the the Federal Election Law limits reap huge returns and the middle class, once served so well by the Democrat Party of Cook County pay the bills and get contempt from both the poor and the oligarchs.

This week was a Wow!  The middle guys, who really are the little guys, won one here in Chicago.  The middle/little guys in the UK won the same.

The same ugly and unfair narratives heaped upon Brexit backers, were meted out to the Friends of the Park here in Chicago.

Friends of the Park were villified by every Friend of Rahm/I'm With Her/Hope and Change voice in Cook County.  These forces were marshalled on a huge scale that reminded me of Rahm Emanuel, Forrest Claypool and Pastor Pfleger's smear campaign against the President of Amalgamated Transit Workers Local 308 all through 2013-2014. This was the age of the CTA scandals regarding the Bombardier Rail Car boondoggles and the Ventra Card foul-ups.

Like President Robert Kelly, Friends of the Parks were treated to the attentions of the starving hounds in Rahm Emanuel's kennels.  Pastor Pfleger calls Friends of the Parks Gangsters - you know like the GDs. The Rev says, "Tell me the difference between Friends of the Parks and the Gangster Disciples?"

Well, the GDs shot at me, killed a good number of students that I love, shake down local business people, terrorize everyone, Vote Straight Party on Demand ( call on Elder Hal Baskin GD Emeritus) , launder drug money, sling drugs, possess firearms of every variety and caliber, sport snappy gray, blue and black attire on more formal occasions, can not seem to paly well with the Stones and say 7-4 Til the World Blow and Trust by the old six-pointed star . . .yep, just like Friends of the Park.

• Pastor Pfleger the political preacher who is probably With Her in 2016   
• Newton Minnow - The Man who Discovered Barack Obama and Called Television A Vast Waste Land predicted that Rahm would prevail in this dual to death and warned the helots who still read Chicago Editorials without wetting their britches that Friend sof the Park were 'small group setting an agenda' and the might be setting a 'dangerous precedent' - like keeping the public trust. Shucks, can't have that around this burg, Newton.
• The Sun Times Editorial Board always on the right side of fixed polls and fixed pols
• The Chicago Reader, the script for the hip, chimed in with the Friends of the Parking Lot Meme - the hip don't tailgate, unless it is for an ironic goof on the squares

The Chicago Tribune Editorial Board surprised me on this one.  They did not swallow the Rahm Bait and to this I attribute the sound voices of John Kass and Kristen McQueary.

The people who really do not like people in the neighborhoods are the people who really hate Friends of Parks.

Friends of Parks, like the Sons of Liberty long ago and forgotten in public education, could be the spark for  Cook County Revolution!  Friends of the Parks proved to be friends of Chicago's Neighborhoods. 

I am making a modest gift to Friends of the Park . today.  

Sun Times, Yet Again, Sides With Corporatist Mayor Rahm Disney Star Wars

If your heart is in your dream
No request is too extreme
When you wish upon a star
As dreamers do

Jiminy Cricket chirps them sentiments.  Chicago is populated with Jiminy Crickets - goofs and goo-goos who not only go along with the destruction of neighborhoods, but see the rainbow and a crock of gold.  Jiminy Cricket got Rahm re-elected, put Toni Preckwinkle in her President's chair, backed every single digit I.Q. in Springfield and will do it all over again.

Every Jiminy Cricket Chicagoan (Ready for Hillary/Thinks the BGA Works for People Other Than the People Screwing Our Lives/Still Read The Trib and Sun Times Without Laughing, or Tossing The Old Cookies/Votes Straight Ticket Like It Was 1963) will be only too delighted to know the Narrative Created for the Lucas Museum of Narrative Arts Continues.

The Friends have abandoned their loftiest argument, that a 1973 ordinance and the spirit of a “free and open” lakefront prohibit further private development east of Lake Shore Drive. Now they’re just trying to cut a deal on the particulars of the museum, like everybody else.

You mean like Becky and Stan across the street who can be sure to profit handsomely by Rahm's Public Land Yard Sale to the wee Lad with bags of gold doubloons and happens to be married to a Hyde Park Mafia Princess? Chomsky, Please! Those two are  'real' players and Becky and Stan are, like every non-in-the-mix Chicago citizen, abstractions - votes.

The Compelling narrative voices of the Sun Times Editorial Board, like the castrati on the Chicago Tribune's, are in full harmony here -

But in giving up the high ground of pure principle, the Friends have lost much of their authority in this debate. Why should anybody listen to them? They are a respected and valued group, undoubtedly, but elected by nobody. If it is not a violation of fundamental civic values to grant the Lucas Museum a lakefront location, as the Friends appear to have conceded, then they should step aside. They should drop their law suit and leave it to those who actually were elected by somebody — the mayor and the City Council — to cut the best deal for our city.
Maybe then this negotiation can move into the real world.

Really? Gee. So, the unelected must shut up?  Brave New World; Well, compel my britches!

• The BGA has a niche right smack dab in the middle of the Sun Times Thought Cathedral seven days a week.  No one elected Andy Shaw and the laid off former Sun Times and Tribune ink-slingers who support the Rahm Disney Star Wars Magic Kingdom . . .I mean Chicago.
• Jesse L. Jackson, Ist of His Name, and one of most practiced and accomplished stick up artist in Social Justice Mythology continues to prop up the power on Chicago's leading tabloid. - No One Elected the King of Beers
• Madeleine Dubeck, came to the Sun Times at the Birth of ReBoot Illinois and no one elected this former editor of the Daily Herald to ReBoot the old Illinois Hard Drive, but she slings ink now and then for the Sun Times, whenever the billionaires ( Crown/Griffin et al) need to gin up some grassroots horseshit for some more Green.

The Sun Times sanctions columns for "advocates and activists" who help draw up compelling narratives to change the social, moral, culture and political landscape of America and heap profits upon the chosen few in league with the Progressive Corporatist Power at City Hall, in Cook County and even out in Springfield.

Jiminy Crickets! When I wish upon a star, I sure don't expect to see Forrest Claypool, Pat Quinn, Toni Preckwinkle, Bruce Rauner, Rahm Emanuel, or Valerie Jarrett to get sprinkled with Hollywood Star Wars Dust and an Obama Museum.  Jiminy Crickets all over Chicago do and the Sun Times is always there to make their Dreams Come True.

Next Mayoral Election - I'm Voting Straight Friends of the Park.