"The vast expanse of economic decline in the midst of unprecedented, but very narrow urban luxury has been characterized as “liberal apartheid. ” The well-heeled, largely white and Asian coastal denizens live in an economically inaccessible bubble insulated from the largely poor, working-class, heavily Latino communities in the eastern interior of the state. "- Joel KotkinMy old Pappy used to say, " When some goof says he's a Reformer, put your hands on your wallet." Dad knew what he was talking about in most cases with the only possible exception of the value and quality of Carnation Instant Powdered Milk. That stuff would gag a maggot.
He walked picket lines up to and including the Chicago Printers strike and a few hotels hiring scabs and strike breakers. He had no use for the folding chair labor commandoes who went to strike site armed with only collers full snacks and beers, who sit on their asses and shout out at passersby threats and maledictions.
"If you are on a picket, get off your asses and walkI" He never accepted the notion of an evolved working man. Times change to be sure, but virtue should not.
We have evolved. Me, not so much. I admire the virtues that created the dying American Standard of Living. I still try as best I can manage to give my employer a 'straight eight, or better,' Corner cutting reforms to the work ethic are just excuses for laziness, or beating The Man . . .whoever she is.
Politicians define everything from virtues to doctrine. Class envy is all the rage. The defenders of the working man are not working persons themselves, but job hopping grifters with more political clout than any Machine Boss could envy. The idiotic and oily Shakman Drecreesdestroyed jobs in Cook County, because it took hiring preferences out of the hands of department heads and into the hands of Progressive commissars armed to the teeth with policy.
The result is the vanished craftsmanship of competent workers in the public sector work force in favor of massive placement of the unskilled, the unqualified and unconcerned in key positions over the skilled, the qualified and concerned. That does not do much for worker morale.
When was the last time, you have heard about life-long railroad man, engineer, electrician or structual engineer heading up the CTA, or the RTA? (cricket chirps)
Instead, the great cops, the great teachers, the great mechanics put in their time and the papers for retirement ASAP. They sell their bungalows in Edison Park, or Marquette Park, or Washington Park and beat it out of the State with the shreds left of their looted pensions.
SEIU steps in where the motivated and the qualified once roamed to fill the ranks of the old political get-out the vote armies. Low-wages for life, with time out at election time for a boost to the minimum wage scam or a millionaire tax.
Fronting this 'right side of history, are politically persistent pests like Pat Quinn who has managed to evolve from the Sunday Gadfly Harangue and Harrumph with Pat to signing legislation redefining what marriage has meant for millenia on Lincoln's desk at Uof I Pavilion. Everday People.
My Dad was everyday people, he was a great stationary engineer who showed to work up at Illinois Med Center during Great Blizzard of '67 and all through the West Side Riots of '68. He did not need to be the boss, because he already knew what the boss needed to know about the physical plant operations. So did his six brothers.
I went to the U of I Pavilion on Saturday and took in the Windy City Rollers - Chicago's great women's roller derby athletes. What put that bug in my labyrinthine bonnet, was meeting the two of the WC Rollers at the downtown St. Patrick's Day Parade on March 15th. They chatted with our Leo students, marching in the Big Shoulders Fund contingent. They were smart, funny, lovely and athletic. I recalled watching Women's Roller Derby on black and white TVs with coat hanger antennae broadcast from the same oddball UHF stations that feature Ben's Auto Sales Wrestling. The gigantic Joan Weston of New England Bombers was the ferocious foe and fiend who would toss the tiny Filipina with raven tresses knotted in a ponytail deep into the cheap seats. My brows can go as low as any man's.
Everyday people enjoy roller derby, as they do minor league baseball, because they can afford to take the kids. Everyday people can not afford the Bulls, the White Sox, The Bears, or The Cubs, unless they take out a loan from Red China and go into debt like the Obama White House.
I went to the U of I Pavilion on Saturday March 22 and watched the skating Amazons get the two thousand or so fans up out of their chairs through every Jam. Alisin Chains, Chokehold Chanel, Beth Amphetamine, Sargentina and the tall goddess # 81 Ruth Anasia streaked, bumped and blocked up a storm.
I noticed that the crowd was demographically diverse (Breeders and non-Euclidian, Asians, Latinos, Crackers and African Americans), but obviously totally 99%ers. No camel hair top coats, no furs, no Hickey-Freeman brogues, or Jimmy Chew go-to-Hell stiletto heels to be seen any where within my 20/20 field of vision. I had on my neatly pressed Dad 'n Lads strides, my Marshall's oxford cloth buttoned down shirt and sweater from the sale hopper at Sears and shod in my Thom McCann old guy shoes.
No Pat Quinn anywhere! Everyday people, every where to be seen and huckstered with Class envy encomiums and liberal apartheid sloganeering. " Rauner has nine mansions! He Has Nine Mansions!" All Pat Quinn owns is the condition of the State of Illinois and a disgraceful place in history - Pat Quinn knows not what do, but he will do it anyway.
Liberal apartheid is the result of good people having anything to do with a Progressive. The Middle Class is screwed and will disappear altogether thanks to the Pat Quinn's of American.
Pat Quinn really believes in Progressive Doctrine. He can not help it. He serves the rich and anonymous Progressive overlords like Dr. Quentin Young, Abner Mikva and their money changers.
