Real Power Has No Public Face , Nor Wants One. Chicago Magazine Notwithstanding - These Eight Determine the State

Judge Richard Posner is easily my pick as the most powerful person . . .anywhere around here. Numero Uno! El Jefe!

"Power is a measurement of an entity's ability to control its environment, including the behavior of other entities."

"Power is not alluring to pure minds."
Thomas Jefferson

"All things are subject to interpretation whichever interpretation prevails at a given time is a function of power and not truth."
Friedrich Nietzsche

"If any place breeds power, it’s Chicago. “Clout” and the city have gone together since the early 1900s, when our Irish Catholic forefathers clapped a stranglehold on the levers of authority that they have been loath to relinquish in modern times." -Chicago Magazine

Christ have mercy! Who wrote this? Ald. Dick Simpson? Well, he says the same thing in his latest prouncement on Corruption . . .Bad.
Chicago Magazine listed series of people believed be the most powerful in Chicago and the Illinois hinterlands. It is a vanity piece.

Only one face of the 100 persons in the article is what I would call powerful and that is # 67 Federal Judge Richard Posner. He should be # 1. - the most powerful single individual in the Federal Northern District. Judge Posner is the force in business, moral and legal policy. Everyone else is a piker.

Judge Posner scares the breakfast, lunch, snacks and dinner out of every Black Robe, and I don't mean Jesuit, within a tankful of Premium of Lake Michigan.

Judge Posner overturns any other judge's ruling ( the sentencing of Eddie Vrdolyak e.g.) with a call to the editorial boards of our great metropolitan newspapers.

Absent as well are the Progressive Political Machine* that have so thoroughly dismantled the Democratic Political Machine that most people think snitching nickels is corruption. Policy, Law and of Course Wealth is power.

Along with Judge Richard Posner at # 1,


These folks should be in the magazine's top ten and are my Huge Hickey Eight.

2. Terry Cosgrove - The President of Personal PAC commands the political muscle and money of Planned Parenthood, LGBTQ Activists and owns Governor Quinn.



3. Dr. Quentin Young - Progressive leader of Hyde Park and Health Policy foundation architect of Obama Care



4. Arthur Loevy - Leftist Labor and the architect of Police Abuse Lawsuit Policy - Loevey made the marriage of left-wing public labor and politics a reality


5. G. Flint Taylor- Peoples Law Office - From Fred Hampton to tommorrow's Burge Headline this lawsuit lootery lawyer has helped bankrupt Cook County and Chicago, but has undermined any and all public faith in law enforcement and law itself.




6. Abner Mikva - The Progressive King of Policy and Progressive Government - if Mikva gives no imprimatur it does not happen - Abner Mikva is Michael Shakman's Chinaman - Now THAT is clout. No one in Cook County can ever say, " I'll call my guy!" " My Guy, or any Guy" is now an exhibit at the Field Museum.



7. Dawn Clark Netsch -from the ERA to Personal PAC every piece of legislation that has been an unfunded mandate on education, health and labor begins and ends with DCN>



8. Tie Fred Eychaner
and John Rogers -
Money Talks and now owns the TelaPrompter - Ariel Capital Management and Fred Eychnaer created Congressman Mike Quigley, CTA's Forrest Claypool, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and President Obama, as well as powerful GLBTQ political operatives - Debs Mell & Shore and Greg Harris, yet only Rogers' Ex gets the props in Chicago Magazine? Desiree , for real?

Whether it is the fees we pay, how safe we are from thugs, what our kids learn and not learn in public schools, our ability to petition for redress of grievances from government, who gets elected and our very freedom to worship is determined, not by Irish Catholic whitemen, or Swedes.

The Democratic Party exists in name only. Illinois, Cook County and Chicago are corrupt, or really wonderful places to live, because of eight powerful people

"Arriving at one goal is the starting point to another." John Dewey

They have the power.



Read more: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/j/john_dewey.html#ixzz1mSMSjv1I
*Throughout the twentieth century, middle-class progressives embraced visions of democracy rooted in their relatively privileged life experiences. Progressive educators developed pedagogies designed to nurture the individual voice within egalitarian classrooms, assuming that collective action in the public realm could be modeled on the relatively safe small-group interactions they were familiar with in their families, schools, and associations. Partly as a result, they remained blind to (and often denigrated) the democratic aspects of working-class organizations, such as unions and community action groups, which found strength in solidarity. In this article Aaron Schutz argues that progressives must integrate into their models the often brutal lessons about power learned by those with less privilege. Until they do so, their approaches to democratic education will continue to have limited capacity to support social transformation and empowerment in the world as it is.
from POWER AND TRUST IN THE PUBLIC REALM: JOHN DEWEY, SAUL ALINSKY, AND THE LIMITS OF PROGRESSIVE DEMOCRATIC EDUCATION
Aaron Schutz*