Mechanics

Gloria Steinem Visits Columbia College

2012-02-10T06:00:01Z

By Joycelene Fernandez

On Tuesday, Columbia College welcomed Gloria Steinem as the second guest in their "Conversations in the Arts" program. Steinem, a seasoned journalist, speaker, and feminist activist, started off the night with a light joke that the auditorium was in fact the "smallest biggest place on a campus" that she had ever lectured within. But regardless of how big or small the space, Steinem found herself facing a completely full house — just another aspect that sets Steinem apart from the average septuagenarian.

Not that Steinem is your "average" anything. A co-founder of Ms. magazine, a bestselling author and founder of several women's rights organizations, Steinem's long career has not only been prolific, but pivotal in the fight for human rights. For over half a century, she has contributed years of work in helping change the world, and all for the better.

But when talking to Steinem, this legacy of life-changing activism would not necessarily be immediately apparent. Steinem herself was more modest than even her streamlined biography found in the event's program. While it could have easily been an evening spent discussing Steinem's career highlights or groundbreaking journalistic endeavors, Steinem instead turned to what she does best: reporting on current human rights injustices, fleshing them out, and connecting the dots and the seeming spaces between them.

Naturally, the recent news of Planned Parenthood's defunding (and its reversal) and the overturning of California's Proposition 8 were hot topics, but Steinem brought plenty of additional news and information to the discussion. From the issue of rising student debt, a suggestion of googling "sex trafficking Chicago" and the underlying privilege found in language ("The dominant group gets the noun, and everyone else requires an adjective"), Steinem's objective was readily clear: "It helps us to see the world whole, instead of partially."

After a brief Q&A session, moderator Kathy Brock of ABC 7 News drew the lecture to a close. Her final question was deceptively simple: what did Steinem want her audience to take away that evening?

Steinem offered some advice. "Look around you, and see if you see two, three, four people you don't know. Introduce yourselves; say who you are, what you're doing," she suggested. "It's about us, you know? It's about change that's built from the bottom up, like a house."

Eye on #OCHI: Aldermanic Puppets and Protests

2012-02-09T22:13:56Z

By Joe Macaré

There are a lot of fascinating sights to be seen at Occupy Chicago's new indoor space at 500 W. Cermak Ave., but perhaps the most striking is the painting of "King Rahm" and the Aldermanic puppet figures who hang from his fingers.

Four members of the City Council have been singled out for this dubious honor: Carrie Austin (Ward 34), Walter Burnett, Jr. (27), Joe Moore (49), and Joe Moreno (1).

Moreno's relationship with Occupy Chicago is complicated. Always active on Twitter, he expressed support there early on and has retweeted calls to donate coffee to Occupiers at LaSalle and Jackson — and in an email conversation, he told me he is still "absolutely sympathetic to Occupy."

Easy to say, but when I asked Moreno what the issues are on which he and the movement agree, he laid out a pretty spot-on diagnosis of the malaise to which Occupy is a response:

The priorities of our nation have been upside down for the last 30 years. Since Ronald Reagan, it seems we have somehow legitimized greed; somehow made this most negative of things seem patriotic.

Thankfully, since Occupy began, people have started to question these assumptions. The 2008 economic crisis was a much-needed slap in the face to our citizenry.

The people who caused this near-Depression are today back to doing the same things, which caused it. Occupy helps (and sometimes forces) people to recognize the economic injustice, which is now so metastasized within our system that no one seems to know how to kill it.

Moreno's proposed solution would be public financing of elections, "which is the only real way to stop what we have today." So far, so good.

But after voting for both Mayor Rahm Emanuel's 2012 budget in November and the new parade and protest ordinance in January, Moreno has become a subject of bitter disappointment for many members of Occupy Chicago. Maybe it's because he and Joe Moore are seen as two of the most progressive members of the City Council. (Moreno has spoken in favor of marijuana legalizaton, was involved in the anti-death penalty movement, protested the Iraq War and was arrested as recently as February 2010 while protesting what he calls "our insane anti-immigrant laws.") Or maybe it's because he's written explicit defenses of both decisions for the Huffington Post.

Another Slap in the Face

Either way, Occupiers are furious. It's ironic that Moreno used the term "slap in the face," because that's what Occupy Chicago's Brit Schulte told me the new ordinance represents: "yet another slap in the face to working class and poor people looking to participate in the democratic process." Fellow Occupier Natalie Wahlberg agreed when I asked if that's how she'd term it and whether it stings more coming from self-identified progressives:

Absolutely a slap in the face of everyone, not just Occupy Chicago. For anyone, especially Moore and Moreno, to support Mayor 1%'s Sit Down and Shut Up ordinances is an attack against free speech. For them to support Rahm's budget is ridiculous and only demonstrates how removed they are from the 99%'s needs. They do not represent us, only themselves and the broken system.

It's not just Occupiers who've been vitriolic towards Moreno of late. Veteran Chicago watchdog reporter Ben Joravsky recently described him (and Burnett) as "generally voting however Mayor Emanuel instructs, even if that means jacking up water-sewer taxes, closing mental health clinics, setting aside tens of millions of dollars for the G-8/NATO summit spectacle or cutting hours, staff, and service at our public libraries." And Joravsky went even further in an interview with Chicago Now's Eye on Chi (no relation), skewering how well the Alderman's combination of music taste and affability plays with some of his constituents:

I think voters in the 1st Ward would vote for Joe Moreno forever, simply because he goes to Pitchfork.... You don't know anything about his stands on taxes, schools, charters, TIFs, the CME budget balance... He voted for the budget. He's voted for every single TIF that's ever come down the way. So if you're against TIFs, why would you be for him? If you think that the TIF is an inefficient, unfair, inequitable way to divvy up the pie, if you think that it leads to corruption and waste, why would you vote for an alderman who continually votes for TIF deals? Because he likes to go to Pitchfork!

That may be less fair to Moreno than it is to some of the residents of the 1st Ward, which is something I feel I can say since I'm one of them. (Or at least, I will be until 2015: The remap has moved me into the much-derided 2nd Ward, the shape of which can not be described, only seen.)

That's partly why I felt invested enough to write a rebuttal of Moreno's own denunciation of an Occupy Chicago mic check on Joe Moore. Not many people would retweet an article as critical of them as the one I wrote, but Moreno did. Which seems proof that he means it when he says he thinks "debate is always good and especially interesting when it's lively," and that his commitment to engaging in dialogue is more than just good PR.

But if Moreno believes in debate, he also believes in diplomacy. In his blog post about voting for the NATO/G8 ordinance he wrote: "Almost everyone agrees that having these two summits in our city is a great opportunity to solidify our rightful place as a world city." That could have come from the Chicago G8 NATO Host Committee.

When I asked Moreno if he acknowledges that there are grounds for progressives to be critical of the two organization's military and economic policies, he replied "Absolutely—that's why I said 'almost.'" But he didn't volunteer specifics.

Equally, he declined to name names when I asked to whom he was referring when he wrote that the parade and protest ordinance "is not as extreme as many, with their own agendas, have made it seem." All he'll say is that "The newspapers want to make money. The politicians want to reassure everyone that everything 'is under control.' And the activists want to get attention and bring people to their cause... it made for an explosive mix of misinformation and was ultimately detrimental for the discussion of the actual specifics of the ordinance."

"Rahm Emanuel is no Scott Walker"

Occupy Chicago has forged strong alliances with labor organizations that feel as embattled as they do in their relationship with Mayor Emanuel. I asked Moreno whether the city's unions are right to feel attacked by the mayor, given his comments about teachers and librarians unions in recent press conferences and town halls. He replied:

I don't speak for the Mayor. I wouldn't do a lot of what he's done. But, I do believe that he believes that what he's done is for the good of our city.

Don't the groups you mention always feel embattled? I don't think conflict between such organizations and the political establishment has to be a negative... But, please let's remember that Rahm Emanuel is no John Kasich/Scott Walker.

This, then, may be the final point on which Moreno and the Occupy movement—to say nothing of many others on the left—are never going to agree. It seems clear that it would be political suicide for an alderman to go beyond "I wouldn't do a lot of what he's done" when talking about Rahm Emanuel, who it seems clear will tolerate very little dissent. But to say Emanuel believes he's doing it for the good of Chicago isn't saying much: A lot of damage has been done in a great many places by leaders who believed the same thing.

And there's a case to be made that the biggest difference between Chicago's AFSCME and CTU-bashing mayor and the union-busting state governors Moreno invokes is their party: The difference that most Occupiers, especially in this one-party town, have been saying isn't much of a difference at all. After all, Emanuel may not be Scott Walker, but he's made time to sit down with at least one of Walker's donors. He's not Andrew Breitbart either, but he's willing to appear in a union-bashing video for an organization led by one of Breitbart's cronies.

Wahlberg's view seems symptomatic of the hostility with which Occupy Chicago will always view the mayor: "Rahm has never listened to us at Occupy or to his constituency. He only listens to money." And by extension, that hostility extends to the City Council too.

Moreno says that "without reservation... this council is much less deferential to our current Mayor" than they were to Mayor Daley. But that's not Occupy Chicago's perception of, at the very least, the 41 members who voted for the parade and protest ordinance, about whom Schulte is scathing:

"I want to thank them for giving us all a common enemy. By showing how absolutely committed they are to suppressing our voices, they have united the city of Chicago. I also think the aldermen who are hiding behind the 'revisions' of the ordinance as an answer to why they voted for it, are some of the finest examples of cowardice I've seen in a long while. They are so committed to the Chicago political machine that these pretend progressives sold us out, for cheap, to get deep into the pockets of Rahm Emanuel."

Joe Macaré is Development and Communications Associate at Truthout and a contributor to the Occupied Chicago Tribune. He has appeared on WBEZ radio and Chicago Newsroom to discuss the Occupy Chicago movement.

Deeper Questions on the City Sticker Controversy

2012-02-09T21:15:03Z

by Bob Quellos

City Clerk Susana Mendoza withdrew 15-year-old Herbie Pulgar's entry into the annual contest to design Chicago's city sticker yesterday after fears that the sticker design contained gang affiliated symbols and threats to the Chicago Police Department. This action and the controversy surrounding Pulgar's design leaves me with some questions and thoughts:

First, Jody Weis is still in Chicago? After a not so glamorous stint as head of the CPD, it seemed like Jody Weis had finally been run out of town. Apparently not. Perhaps Weis put himself forward as head interpreter of the city sticker as a way of letting us know he's still in Chicago where he's been working hard to put together a coloring book about Chicagoland gangs for the Chicago Crime Commission.

How many paranoid conspiracy theorists reside in Chicago's government? Let us pretend for a minute that the winning entry actually has subliminal gang messaging. The string of events that would have occurred to pull this stunt off would look something like this:

Some gang leaders come up with a plan to use one of the gang's members to enter a piece of artwork with subliminal messaging directed at the CPD into the city sticker contest. The artwork on the submission would then be crafted so meticulously that the piece of art actually looks like a 15-year-old who was once saved by a firefighter created it. And the subliminal messaging directed at the CPD would be so well hidden that it doesn't draw anyone's attention. So well hidden in fact that it would require gang experts to decipher the hidden message. The artwork would then be selected as a finalist from 300 total entries. And then finally, the artwork would take first place in a public vote that included over 18,000 participants.

Convinced? Or does that seem like one too many hoops to jump through just to send the CPD a message?

So if the CPD and those at the City Clerk's office are this paranoid about possible gang ties on a city sticker, how does this paranoia translate elsewhere? In other words, if the CPD sees a city sticker as a threat, how does that same police force see the average black or Latino teenage walking in a neighborhood?

Didn't this all start on a blog run by a Chicago cop? It seems to. But you're not going to hear that mentioned by the City Clerk's office because the blog this story originated on is called "Detective Shaved Longcock." Some other blog entries at DSL include "Mayor Emanuel now 'IFFY' about South Side Irish Parade... But Rahm wouldn't have the balls to cancel the Bud Biliken or Gay Fruitcake Parade" and, "Can Chicago ever get a police superintendent that doesn't kiss the asses of inner city blacks?" Why is the City Clerk's office taking their lead from this blog?

Second City Cop (another Chicago police blog) has posted screen captures of 15-year-old Herbie Pulgar's Facebook chats. A quote on this matter from Second City Cop states, "Tell us this kid isn't banging and we'll tell you you're delusional." That's right, the CPD may be deciding which teenagers they believe are guilty of gang activity by perusing their Facebook pages and then rendering their decision via a blog. Does this trouble anyone else?

And lastly. Do Susana Mendoza and Jody Weis also believe that Claddagh rings are gang affiliated? If we use the City Clerk's criteria they seem suspicious. Perhaps this requires an investigation. Jody?

The Golden Toilet Strikes Back!

2012-02-08T17:35:03Z

Protesters brought out the golden toilet once again in a rally aimed at Mayor Rahm Emanuel, demanding that he designate TIF funds towards jobs at schools, libraries and clinics.

The gilded john was marched to City Hall, where protesters associated with the Grassroots Collaborative were told it needed to stay outside.

The golden toilet was first seen at the Board of Trade on Tuesday, Jan. 24. The toilet is a reference to $15 million in TIF money that was to be used to renovate bathrooms for the CME Group. In exchange for this money, CME agreed to create hundreds of jobs and keep it's headquarters in Chicago.

CME has since returned the money to the City, but about 50 protesters marched the toilet from the Board of Trade to City Hall to ask the mayor to use the money to create public sector jobs.

"We are ready to get that money for jobs for our people," said Charles Brown, a board member of Action Now. "No more TIF money for millionaires."

Upon arrival at City Hall, the protesters were informed by police officers that golden toilets, as well as the giant check and signs they carried, are not allowed inside City Hall. The Grassroots Collaborative brought with them a letter for the mayor, which was received by a member of his staff.

One protester joked that the mayor was probably busy on his golden toilet, "making a deposit."

ICE Building a "Detention Facility" Just for Undocumented Persons

2012-02-08T14:49:44Z

Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, has announced the construction of a facility in Crete, Illinois, about 35 miles outside the city, to detain about 750 people pending deportation. The Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights has spoken out against the facility, which is another indicator of the federal government's continued deportation-heavy immigration policy. The facility will be run by Corrections Corporation of America, a private prison operator with over a billion dollars in revenue. Phil Kadner of the Southtown details the local opposition (and support) for the facility. The United Neighborhoods Organization (UNO), who've come in for some criticism in this space in the past, also released a statement against the building of this facility. All indicators are that it will be built, though, increasing ICE's local infrastructure, perhaps easing conflicts they've had with local law enforcement.

CTA Holds Open Houses on Red and Purple Line Modernization

2012-02-08T00:15:21Z

Meetings were held in Chicago and Evanston this week to update the public on the process of renovating a portion of the Red and Purple train lines. This process has been titled the RPM project - Red and Purple Modernization.

This would only affect the section of trains between Belmont and Linden.

There are four proposals being discussed. One plan is to simply rehabilitate the train traces and stops. Another plan is to modernize the system and consolidate some of the stops, bringing the total count of stops on this stretch from 21 to 17. Stations that would be consolidated into others are Jarvis, Thorndale and Lawrence on the Red Line; Foster and South Boulevard on the Purple Line.

"When you talk about consolidation, it doesn't mean losing access," said Rebekah Scheinfeld, from the CTA. "There will be a reconfiguration of exit and entry point."

Another plan is to modernize without removing stations, which would include widening platforms and replacing aging track supports.

The final option is to take no action at all.

Already in progress is a plan to create a Red to Purple Line transfer at the Wilson stop. The CTA also has plans to extend the south end of the Red Line to 130th Street.

The process is still in an early phase. The final Environmental Impact Statement for the RPM project is set to be released in late 2013.

The Colbert Report Gets Interrupted

2012-02-02T23:57:02Z

Ameena Matthews, one of the "violence interrupters" featured in the documentary The Interrupters, was on "The Colbert Report" Wednesday night. No matter what you thought of the film or the effectiveness of CeaseFire's mission, it's clear that Matthews is a force to be reckoned with. The Interrupters will be broadcast on PBS's "Frontline" on Feb. 14.

Are Rahm's Proposed TIF Reforms Enough?

2012-02-01T17:41:21Z

by Celeste Meiffren

This week, Mayor Rahm Emanuel announced that he will be immediately implementing some of the reforms proposed by his Tax Increment Financing (TIF) Reform Panel five months ago. All of the proposed reforms are necessary to fix TIF and need to become law before more of our tax dollars are wasted.

Every year, $500 million worth of property tax revenue collected from Chicago taxpayers flows into a funding pool that, up until very recently, has been completely off the books--allowing for an out-of-control spending spree to well-connected developers and other special interests.

For example, in 2009, Chicago taxpayers unknowingly shelled out $31 million to United Airlines -- just to help it move its corporate headquarters to the Willis Tower! Even more infuriating is that this money came from a program that is supposed to revitalize struggling areas of the city. Have you been to the Willis Tower lately? I would hardly say helping a large corporation move in there meets that requirement.

The United Airlines giveaway is only one of countless stories about the recent track record of Chicago's TIF program.

Concerns about waste and abuse in Chicago's TIF program came under increased scrutiny during last year's Mayor's race. Once in office, Mayor Emanuel vowed to reform Chicago's TIF process and created a panel of experts to review the city's policies and historical use of this program. In August, the panel proposed meaningful reforms that would move the city in the right direction, and at the time, the Mayor called for their immediate implementation.

The Panel's recommendations include integrating TIF into the overall city budget, which would place TIF spending under more democratic control, without the power over TIF spending being concentrated in the Mayor's office. They include measuring the performance of TIF districts and projects and propose measures to hold developers accountable for delivering on their goals. And, overall, these proposals will make it easier for the public to know where our money is being spent and if it is being spent appropriately.

Coincidentally, after the Mayor's press conference yesterday calling for partial TIF reform, it was announced that three companies would be returning a total of $34 million to the City of Chicago. Two of these companies are refunding TIF money because they did not deliver on their goals to create jobs. It's a good step, but without a law on the books, there's no money back guarantee for taxpayers that would discourage money from being wasted in the first place. Promises from politicians and pledges from companies to return the money aren't enough to protect taxpayers.

Not to mention, taxpayers have already waited five months and the City has already approved spending $26 million in TIF money since the first time the Mayor called for the implementation of his Reform Panel's recommendations back in August. If the Mayor and the City Council admit that TIF is broken, why would they continue to use the program before it gets fixed?

With so many more TIF proposals in the queue and with millions in public money at stake, the City should not wait any longer to act. Until we see the needed reforms passed into law, the City should put a moratorium on all new TIF spending, so no more of our tax dollars are wasted.

To find out more, read Illinois PIRG's new report out this week, "Cleaning Up Tax Increment Financing: Rethinking Chicago's Troubled Redevelopment Program."

Malaise in the Neoliberal City

2012-02-01T17:37:47Z

Why bother?

I vaguely remember being pugnacious about the direction our leadership was taking the city in, of having some degree of passion about what was wrong and what was right--or at least, what was wrong and what was potentially better. I filled notebooks--I'm flipping through one now--with ideas for articles and research projects that could contribute, in some way, to avoiding calamity, to exposing the material reality under the political rhetoric. Flipping through these notebooks now, scrolling through the myriad unpublished drafts, nothing stirs me. What I feel is more akin to a sad curiosity, how it must feel to look at optimistic battle plans scrawled on maps for some war that was lost long ago.

Our biggest enemy, I realized, is a lack of ideas for how to improve the human family. A complete lack of ambition to create a better world from yet another generation. Chicago, the laboratory neoliberal city, doesn't belong to us anymore. It's a "global" city belonging to people who don't even live here, and we have no ideas how to take it, or any other city, back from them.

When Rahm Emanuel announced his candidacy for the Mayor's office, it was taken as assumed that he'd win. The media never treated any of his opponents seriously--and perhaps they should not have. Though it is a bit of an observer interference problem; the media treatment of candidacy certainly has an impact on their chances of success. Emanuel won the neoliberal's way: he tapped his connections to international business, and particular finance, and drown his opponents in cash. A quirky twitter account got more coverage than his opponents. That was that.

He has since pursued a "business-friendly," or actually working class-hostile, agenda. Nevertheless, people who consider themselves "liberals" and "progressives" support those policies for the same reason they support Barack Obama's neoliberal policies: out of deference to party labels, personal careerism, and forest-for-trees interest in technocratic solutions that nibble at problems.

Politics in Chicago are wholly uninteresting. We've been reduced to sadly cheerleading the release of data as progressive victories for "the people." What else is there to cheerlead? In the neoliberal city, we have to pretend there's been a regime change--we have to play the pretend game Emanuel represents a substantive break from the Daley administration--he does not.

The only difference between Rahm Emanuel and Richard M. Daley is that Emanuel is going to do what Daley wanted to do much, much more efficiently. He will chase out the poor and call it attacking crime; he will privatize the school system and call it No Excuses Reform; he will create a Surveillance State and say it is for the children. What is progressive about any of this? How is any of this giving people the power to govern themselves?

What Daley started, Emanuel is pursuing indefatigably (as the fawning puff pieces never fail to remind us); the working class was hounded out of the city through gentrification and the liquidation of affordable housing, Chicago remains appallingly segregated, dependence on "corporate partnerships" has bifurcated the city between the affluent and the poor. There is a class of well-off and their servant class. The time-tested avenue to the middle class for the working class--i.e., organized labor--is the Mayor's biggest enemy. Woe!

You know you're in trouble when Tom Friedman, potentially the biggest nitwit to put pen to paper on politics, is praising a "Progressive in the Age of Austerity."

He's not The Beast, don't get me wrong (Emanuel, not Friedman. Friedman may be). Mayor Emanuel is creative, energetic, and certainly well intentioned. He's doing precisely what you'd expect from the man who was integral to Mayor Daley's fundraising, engineered passage of NAFTA, torpedoed public health care and comprehensive immigration reform, and made millions on Wall Street. He's approaching governing our city like he's approached his entire career: show the rich guys you'll be obedient, and they'll keep the spigots on, and you get to act tough. Like the little guy who hangs out with the jocks so he can be a bully, too.

In other words, Emanuel isn't powerful, not really. Nor are the many functionaries and consultants who work for him. They think they're powerful and influential, but they're not. They're actually remarkably weak. They're constrained in what they can accomplish by what interstate and in fact international forces would consent to. And it isn't just Chicago. It's everywhere. Even if some big progressive groundswell retook the city, it'd be smothered to death quickly.

This week, the Civic Federation put out a report on the state of Illinois' deteriorating debt problem. The only real solution to Illinois problem would need to be a national fix to Medicaid. Illinois simply cannot continue to serve this many working class people who need health care without adequate federal funding for Medicaid in a way that doesn't burden states. But of course, the entire reason Medicaid is structured the way it is is so that it will crumble.

In a society where economic democracy is anathema and "entrepreneurs" are exalted as secular saints, any solution to social ills that can in any way be interpreted as "hostile" to "free enterprise"--in other words, that demands some responsibility from the powerful--is smothered in the crib.

States are forced into a race to the bottom so that they can never raise taxes or make demands of employers. We throw tax money at them and never get any solid promises in return. The same way that nations are forced to compete for capital's favor by driving down their own standards of living. Progressive groups flog the same demands for higher taxes on "the rich," and support politicians whose entire approach to political organizing is, essentially, organizing the rich in order to temporarily convince just enough working class people that they're the lesser evil.

We're hopelessly fucked, in other words, unless we can start to think big, really big, about how to reorder a society that has no meaningful avenues for self government. I'm not nearly smart enough to come up with those ideas, and so I've lost my taste for nibbling at the margins of this or that petty fight we're bound to lose in the long run.

Our schools will be privatized and begin to churn out standardized students with little critical thinking skills, and that'll be hailed as brave reform by six-figure liberals at think tanks and foundations. Our city will become geographically divided between those who will live in carefully guarded sparkling communities and service-sector debt peons in dilapidation. Labor will continue to be immiserated by politicians on the grounds that only immiseration can prove to all mighty entrepreneurs that we're worthy of employment.

I expect the powerful to cop these attitudes, but what is disgusting and unforgivable is the supposed progressives who have convinced themselves, more likely than not because it's good for their careers, that spontaneous order and entrepreneurial ability will somehow end the debt peonage the working class is drowning in, and the prison-industrial complex that has chipped away at whatever gains the civil rights movement made, and de facto segregation, and malaise, malaise, malaise, of any and all of us not born into privilege--while at the same time, it just so happens, not causing them any discomfort whatsoever. What a convenient worldview.

Generations from now, when our grandchildren are forced to actually deal with the fallout of so many years of small thinking and neglect, they'll look at the liberals and progressives of this time as particularly pernicious, as much objects of pity for their weakness as objects of scorn for their dishonor.

You'll forgive me in the meantime if I don't think your campaign for state senate is particularly compelling.

Chicago Taxpayer Won't Pay for NATO/G8

2012-02-01T16:40:05Z

The White House has announced it will cover the cost of security for the G8 and NATO summits to be held in Chicago in May, as reported by Crain's.

It is likely that this will come in the form of federal grants after the summits are done and paid for, according to comments made by Office of Emergency Management and Communications Director Gary Schenkel at a City Council hearing a few weeks ago. So the city will be initially footing the bill, only to later get reimbursed by the federal government.

Eye On #OCHI: AdBusters and the Locals

2012-01-31T17:20:40Z

by Joe Macaré

Adbusters jumped onboard the NATO/G8 protest bandwagon last week, and in the process pushed Occupy Chicago further into the national (and international) spotlight.

Unfortunately, they did this without contacting Occupy Chicago beforehand, and in a manner that invoked the police violence of the 1968 Democratic Convention protests.

That Adbusters were acting unilaterally is evident from reading their January 25 announcement with even a vague working knowledge of Occupy Chicago and the existing plans for protest around the NATO/G8 summits -- the kind of knowledge you could get easily from the mainstream media. Aside from the incendiary rhetoric and imagery, and the fact that it doesn't once mention the existing Occupy movement in Chicago or link to their site, "Tactical Briefing #25" also includes a list of demands that were neither drafted nor endorsed by any Occupy movement.

There's no doubt that the Adbusters announcement got a lot of people excited: Mostly those from outside of Chicago who relished the chance to grab a tent and head on down for May 1 (a date that itself is problematic, given how far ahead of the summits it is and the fact that Chicago activism's own May Day traditions tend to focus on labor and immigration). On local Twitter accounts and the OccupyChi.org forums, however, the excitement was tempered with confusion that rapidly turned into annoyance and even anger as it became clear that AdBusters had done this on their own.

Prior to a non-voting General Assembly that took place on Thursday, Jan. 26 to discuss this issue specifically, Occupy Chicago's only official comment stated:

We are publicizing this call as part of our #ChicagoSpring campaign, which includes a kickoff on April 7, a People's Summit on May 12 and protesting NATO and the G8 ... We are still in the planning stages for all of our spring actions. But we welcome all who want to speak out against the famine and war forced on the world by the G8 and NATO to join us in the streets of Chicago.

In other words: We welcome the assistance and the attention, but let's not forget who was Occupying Chicago first. Occupy Chicago members recognize the PR boost they've been given, the fruitful possibility of collaboration with Adbusters and the resources potentially on offer, and the fact that the genie cannot be put back into the proverbial bottle at this point.

But individual participants have been willing to express their concerns. These include Serena Himmelfarb, who was quoted in a piece that ran on In These Times' Uprising blog entitled "Adbusters' Call for Chicago Occupation Rankles Some in Movement" (the title and focus of this piece no doubt also rankled some in the movement).

"Speaking only for myself: I am excited that Adbusters continues to support OWS, but they acted irresponsibly," Himmelfarb told me.

They acted alone, without regard to what's already being planned here for the summer. We would have been so excited to collaborate with them in promoting the movement. Just as important is the tone of their call. They chose a violent image to accompany their call to flood our city with activists. In my opinion, there's NO WAY our GA would have approved Adbusters' message and image. We don't want to continue the tradition of '68, we're making our own.

The protests of '68 are an incredible charged and thorny issue for Chicago activists and progressives. Debate still rages as to whether what took place was a brutal crushing of peaceful dissent by a thuggish Democrat mayor, or an ill-advised, aggressive sideshow by radical leftists that provoked a conservative backlash that swept Richard Nixon to power.

Either way, many Chicagoans feel that the event and its iconography are not to be breezily invoked from Vancouver. An Egyptian-American anthropologist and law student who participates in Occupy Chicago and goes by the Twitter handle @ThatEgyGuy summarized objections to Adbusters' imagery on his blog: "You may as well be asking upfront for it ... If you want to pick a fight with CPD, you should consult those whose name you are using."

It's worth noting that the image Adbusters used does show a cop hitting a protester, and that's what happened across the country to Occupy movements too. The violence isn't started by the protesters. But as the weekend's events in Oakland showed, that doesn't stop mainstream media and liberal pundits alike from condemning the people on the receiving end.

You could argue that Occupy Chicago's dilemma boils down to which risk of distortion is greater: Making this a story about a split within a movement, or making this a story about activists inciting a "showdown" with the police. The mainstream media loves to do both when it comes to protests, after all.

Hopefully there isn't a split here, more a new alliance forming after getting off to a rocky start. "Communication is key," says Himmelfarb. "We all just want to be on the same page, and have been working towards that really successfully. Bottom line is, [Adbusters] made a mistake. Hopefully communication from here on in will be better."

But despite the fact that Adbusters and Occupy Chicago members have now been in communication, on Jan. 27 the Adbusters blog once again made reference to "[setting] the stage for #Occupy Chicago," as if Occupy Chicago was an event in May rather than a movement that is ongoing.

The extent to which Adbusters were responsible for the initial occupation of Wall Street is itself disputed. Journalist Jesse Myerson, who wrote the piece for In These Times, was involved with Occupy Wall Street from its early planning stages, and is writing a book about 2011 as a year of protest. He says about Adbusters' role:

Adbusters was good publicity [for OWS], as it will be for Chicago, but it did not generate the idea for what is really a global phenomenon. Cities in dozens of countries have been shut down by citizens fed up with being victimized by the institutions who claim to act on their behalf. The American component was inevitable.

The publicity -- and more importantly, the numbers it will generate -- is a key factor, and it's the most obvious reason why Occupy Chicago might refrain from rebuking Adbusters too harshly. I've been at numerous #OChi actions that, however creative and committed and effective, would have benefited from greater numbers. Most significantly, it had been hoped that enough supporters would show up at the second attempt to camp out at "the Horse" in Grant Park on October 22 in order to make arrests and a shutdown of the camp impossible -- which obviously didn't happen.

But Occupy Chicago had already begun plans for a mass action that would enable them to establish a new camp site: It's called Chicago Spring, the date set is April 7, and its timing a month before NATO/G8 was a deliberate attempt to have something in place on which to build before the summits.

At a press conference on Friday, Occupy Chicago emphasized their plan for spring and summer: One that involves not just protest actions, but connecting communities and neighborhoods in what is all too often a divided city.

These plans, and the April 7 event, could use publicity and numbers: It's hard to imagine that the NATO/G8 summits, on the other hand, need Adbusters' help to pull in more protesters. Rahm Emanuel and Gerry McCarthy certainly don't seem to think so.

Note: Adbusters did not respond to a request for comment before this post was published.

Joe Macaré is a writer and development and communications professional, originally hailing from the UK and now residing in Chicago. He is a contributor to the Occupied Chicago Tribune and has also written for TruthOut, In These Times and Global Comment. He has appeared on WBEZ radio and Chicago Newsroom to discuss the Occupy Chicago movement.

Adjunxploitation in Chicago and Beyond

2012-01-30T16:00:01Z

[This article has been taken down for review.]

Digital Divides and the Future of the Chicago Public Library

2012-01-27T19:59:09Z

Wednesday it was announced that Chicago Public Library (CPL) commissioner Mary Dempsey is resigning.

Dempsey was appointed by then-Mayor Richard M. Daley and served for 18 years. Under Dempsey, the CPL built 44 new libraries and created programs such as One Book, One Chicago. Her resignation comes after a contentious situation this month due to the branches closing on Mondays due to budget and staff cuts.

Brian Bannon, chief information officer for the San Francisco Public Library, has been named as Dempsey's successor.

The biggest question is what will happen with the CPL without Dempsey at the helm. Under her leadership, the CPL became what it is today and, barring the reduction of hours, is available to the residents of most Chicago neighborhoods.

The potentially troubling aspect of the new appointment is that Bannon is a technology-oriented person. According to the Tribune, "Bannon, 37, spearheads initiatives and other computer-based learning programs in the San Francisco system." This raises the question as to whether or not the CPL might focus more on digital materials with Bannon at the helm. Some may think that e-Readers and e-Books are the wave of the future and no one will want to read paper, but a potential push towards digital technology could be problematic.

The very idea of wanting to focus on digital technology as a way of improving literacy or education is not a good idea. A key issue with technology is the accessibility individuals have. For example, a person with a low-income may only have access to technology through the CPL due to the cost of a computer as well as internet access. If a government institution pushes digital technology as a method of learning it is likely an even deeper class divide in literacy and education could occur because of a lack of technological access to educational resources and materials.

But a class divide is not the only issue with pushing digital materials at a library. Not everyone in Chicago owns an e-reader. Some people simply can't afford an e-reader and others prefer print. Furthermore, according to testimony Dempsey gave during the 2011 budget hearings, downloadable media accounted for less than 1 percent of the CPL's circulation. (Link opens a PDF file) For those who own an e-reader, there are few incentives to want to get an e-book from the CPL.

If someone owns a Kindle or a Nook e-reader, there is technology built into the system that allows users of those e-readers to lend books to their friends. A difference is that for Nook the LendMe technology is free but a Kindle user has to have an Amazon Prime account, which costs money, in order to be lend and borrow books.

Another problem is that the CPL's selection of e-books isn't that great. For example, if you want to read the a fairly new book it is not available from the CPL to be downloaded as an e-book. Meanwhile the new book can be downloaded from an e-book store for reading and the book will cost less than buying the print edition. However, a delayed availability for a new e-book from the library is just like waiting for the print copy of the book.

The legacy of Dempsey is likely to be that she helped improve the massive system of information that circulated 9,764,381 items in 2011. Yes, the system faced struggles--the Sun-Times has a very gossipy article about alleged problems between her and Mayor Emanuel--but if anyone can find a part of the Chicago government that hasn't faced struggles in the course of even ten years, please share it in the comments.

It would be nice if Bannon would improve the libraries and possibly expand services to people who need books. A focus on expanding e-books or other digital materials for Chicagoans could be a bad idea at this point in time. Ultimately, whether or not the new CPL commissioner can carry on Dempsey's legacy and if the libraries will be less resistant to cuts is what Chicagoans will wait to see.

Ward Remap, Round Two

2012-01-27T18:19:07Z

City Council may have voted in favor of a new ward map, but the highly political battle over ward boundaries may not be over.

Alderman Bob Fioretti (2nd Ward), one of eight alderman to vote no on the map, stated in his email newsletter on Thursday that he has no intentions of dropping the issue.

"I believe that new map breaks up communities of interest and includes deviations in population from ward to ward, which may subject it to future legal challenge. Therefore, it remains to be seen whether it will ever go into effect."

The new ward map won't go into effect until the 2015 city elections. Fioretti wrote in the newsletter that he has begun a "listening tour" on the issue.

Other alderman who voted no on the map are Roderick Sawyer, Michael Zalewski, Michael Chandler, Scott Waguespack, Nick Sposato, Rey Colon and John Arena.

Serving the Golden Toilet to the Merc

2012-01-26T07:38:12Z

Stand Up Chicago held an interesting protest at the Merc on Tuesday: