Posted on 06/02/2010 5:44:00 AM PDT by markomalley
An interesting thing about Barack Obama is that he chose, on two occasions, to live in Chicago -- even though he didn't grow up there, had no family ties there, never went to school there.
It was a curious choice. Chicago has a civic culture all its own and one that is particularly insular. Family ties and personal connections are hugely important. Professionals who have lived and worked there for a quarter-century are brusquely reminded, "You're not from here."
Nonetheless Obama moved upward in the Chicago civic firmament with apparent ease. The community organizer joined the Rev. Jeremiah Wright's church in search of street credibility in the heavily black South Side. The adjunct law teacher made friends around the University of Chicago from libertarian academics to radical organizer William Ayers. The young state senator designed a new district that included the Loop and the rich folk on the Near North Side.
Obama could not have risen so far so fast without a profound understanding of the Chicago Way. And he has brought the Chicago Way to the White House.
One prime assumption of the Chicago Way is that there will always be a bounteous private sector that politicians can plunder endlessly. Chicago was America's boom town from 1860 to 1900, growing from nothing to the center of the nation's railroad network, the key nexus between farm and factory, the headquarters of great retailers and national trade associations.
The Mayors Daley have maintained Chicago's centrality in commerce by building and expanding O'Hare International Airport and by fostering a culture of crony capitalism with the city's big employers and labor unions. Chicago survived the Depression and recessions to thrive once again. Sure, small businesses and some outfits lacking political connections fell by the wayside. But the system seems to go on forever.
So it's natural for a Chicago Way president to assume that higher taxes and a hugely expensive health care regime will not make a perceptible dent in the nation's private sector economy. There will always be plenty to plunder.
Crony capitalism also comes naturally to a Chicago Way president. Use some sweeteners to get the drug companies and the doctors to sign on to the health care plan. If the health insurers start bellyaching, whack them a few times in public to make them go along. Design a financial reform that Goldman Sachs and JPMorganChase can live with even while you assail "Wall Street fat cats."
The big guys will understand that you have to provide the voters with some political theater while you give them what they want. As for the little guys, well, hey, in Chicago we don't back no losers.
If in the process you've written legislation full of glitches and boondoggles, well, they can be fixed later. The typical vote in the Chicago City Council is 50-0. Republicans don't count for nothing. Down in Springfield they're outnumbered 37-22 and 70-48.
Anyone who has spent much time in Chicago knows the city has impressive civic and business leaders, talented and cultured people who creatively support charities and the arts. But they also play team ball.
One measure of that is the $25.6 million that the 2008 Obama campaign raised from metro Chicago. An even more meaningful measure is the $5 million that Hillary Clinton's campaign raised there -- a virtual shutout in a city where the Clintons once raised huge sums. The word obviously went out: You back Barack and you don't back Hillary.
Now the Clintons are part of the Chicago Way team. As witnessed by Bill Clinton's willingness to dangle some sort of job to Joe Sestak to get him out of the Pennsylvania Senate race.
To some it may seem anomalous that Obama, who began his Chicago career as a Saul Alinsky-type community organizer, should have taken to the Chicago Way. But Alinsky's brand of community organizing is very Chicagocentric.
It assumes that there will always be a Machine that you can complain about and that if you make a big enough fuss it will have to respond. And that the Machine can always get more plunder from the private sector.
The problem with Obama's Chicago Way is that Chicago isn't America. The Chicago Way works locally because there is an America out there that ultimately pays for it. But who will pay for an America run the Chicago Way?
Wasn’t Frank Marshall Davis from there? Some people believe he was Obama’s biological father.
Not really when you realize that Chicago was and is the hot bed and mother of Communism in the USA.
Dunham was mentored by commie frank marshall davis who had the connections to chicago commies. Dunham arrived in chicago and said...frankie sent me. It wasn’t that hard to figure out.
Crony capitalism is right. Thats all democrats know. Klinton did the same when he was in office, but Barack makes him look like a small time theif in comparison.
Obama’s ‘Chicago Way’ plunders the private sector
Gee... ya’ think.
Bump
The Chicago Way works locally because there is an America out there that ultimately pays for it.
Correction: The Chicago Way works locally because there is an ILLINOIS out there that ultimately pays for it.
When the fall of Russia in 1992 began, the fleeing “refugees” came to America and found a home in the democratic party. They took over and now you have what we have here. A communist run party with a jack@ss as a symbol and leader, sympathic to the cause of communism and damn the American constitution. We will stop this in November, God willing!
It's probably on the long form birth certificate, which is the real reason why we'll never see that document.
The godfather and patron saint of the radical activists is Saul Alinsky. A famous story about Alinsky has him asking a group of students why they wanted to be community activists. When they offered platitudes about helping others he quickly stopped them with a raised hand. “You want to organize for power!” he screamed at them.
Power, by definition, is the ability to
LIMIT THE CHOICES OF OTHERS.
Barking Obama figured Chicago is the most tolerant of thug politics and a place ripe with community illiterates who are easy to herd by an average affie seeking to make an impact. Chicago would never question his background or his intellect.
Barone is the master at making connections and seeing patterns.
Illinois is only the first ring which pays for it. The fallout ultimately spreads to the whole nation. The proof is sitting in the white house.
As Abner Mikva, former federal judge and White House Counsel discovered about the Chicago Way a long time ago:
Mikva's introduction to government, Chicago style, was a curt message that it could survive without him. It's a story that has become part of the city's political lore.He was a U of C law student when he stopped in the 8th Ward Regular Democratic headquarters, looking to volunteer for duty. This was suspect behavior.
"Who sent you?" the ward committeeman asked him.
"Nobody," Mikva answered.
"We don't want nobody nobody sent. We ain't got no jobs," the committeeman told him.
Mikva told him he wasn't looking for a job. This was even more suspect.
"We don't want nobody that don't want a job. Where are you from, anyway?"
"The University of Chicago," Mikva told him.
"We don't want nobody from the University of Chicago in this organization."
Thus ended Mikva's career as a cog in the Democratic machine.
"Dissenting Opinion"
Cordially,
Should the answer be in English, Cantonese or Mandarin?
Arabic
I think that is indeed a likely scenario. Pretty ironic in a way, because it removes the question of Obama’s birth as a natural born citizen, but would still make him a grandiose liar.
It’s all speculation, but speculate is all we can do without the records.
How should we define the term “crony capitalism”? How would that definition compare to some of the definitions of fascism like this one: “A social and political ideology with the primary guiding principle that the state or nation is the highest priority, rather than personal or individual freedoms.”
ref: www.chgs.umn.edu/educational/witnesslegacyteacher/glossary.html
or this one:
“a political theory advocating an authoritarian hierarchical government (as opposed to democracy or liberalism)”
ref: wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn
or this one:
“a political ideology that seeks to combine radical and authoritarian nationalism with a corporatist economic system, and which is usually considered to be on the far right of the traditional left-right political spectrum.”
ref: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascism
[A review of the man definitions are clouded to a major extent by how many include “right” or “far right”. The operative economic effect is that government seeks to control the private sector by regulation and sending signals rather than outright ownership. This gives the political class the advantage of having legions of dependent business executives and investors who know that should they ever displease those in power, their “franchise” would quickly come to an end. It also enables a revolving door between top exectives and government positions. Like, um the well worn path between Goldman Sachs and the Treasury Department?
In the same spirity, I would like to extend it to academia. Here is a new form of fascism: academics get to remain in control of their research and the topics they teach as long as they continue to please those who give students loans and who fund grants. The revolving door between likeminded politicians and likeminded pols looking to staff government positions has become a tradition in our country.
This is the incidious and pervasive fascism of our modern time.]
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