Another year, another rendition of The Red Flag. The events that it describes took place in Chicago.
So, in December, when President Obama switches on the lights of those fifty Christmas trees around the White House, and that strangely familiar tune strikes up, I think we all know what he and those around him should start singing.
Indeed, as many people as possible, not least from Chicago, should surround the White House itself for that very purpose.
Chicago will be getting a new mayor soon. I am hoping for a Reverend James Meeks victory. Daley the Younger wasn't that great of a mayor. He was a serial privatizer and his policies were largely built around turning the City into a tourist attraction for out-of-towners while trying to turn over as much City infrastructure as possible to crony capitalists in shady backroom deals.
ReplyDeleteSuburbanites loved him because he made Chicago beautiful (well, at least Downtown and the gentrified areas) but actual long-time City residents had to pay for his friend’s overpriced flower pots and other boondoggles that helped connected contractors while getting ripped off by the privatized parking meters, to just give one example.
I am highly suspicious of Rahm Emanuel as he is a Clintonite Democrat insider who might be even worse than the old mayor.
Hopefully white Chicagoans, especially municipal workers, can get over their inveterate racism and see that a socially conservative, New Deal Democrat is better for regular Chicagoans than neoliberal Democrats who gain most of their support in the City from the Downtown and gentrified neighborhood set (yuppies, students, gays, etc.) that tends to be very socially liberal but are rather anti-worker, especially anti-municipal worker.
The Chicago mayoral race will likely showcase the deep tensions that have been troubling the Democratic Party and the American Left since the collapse of the New Deal coalition. Self-proclaimed progressives will have to choose between social liberalism or social democracy. It is really questionable whether you can really have both.